1. Romanticism 1798-1837 (mostly 1800s)
It’s not love & roses…

2. Literary Movement Began in 18th Century Western Europe
Grew during Industrial Revolution: reaction against cold & harsh industrial world (reliance on machines) & revolt against an overly rational & scientific society (in an attempt to stave off the loss of humanity and remain in touch with the sense of humanity)
Movement in art, literature, and music

3. Romanticism in the U.S. Spread to America in the late 1700s
Migration from farm life to urban settings
Population growth, urban sprawl, & industrialization
Rejected Rationalism and religious intellect
Refreshing concept
Spontaneity
Ready for change: independence from Britain led to optimism about forging a new national identity

4. Characteristics/Values
Emphasis on intuition, imagination (leading to fiction and poetry), & feeling
Celebration of emotions rather than rejection of them (like Rationalism)
Passion, pathos, & personal feelings
Nature!
Sheer power and beauty of nature
Vast descriptions of the natural world, especially the untamed & disorderly
City = corruption (rejects industrialization)
To “romanticize” is to idealize
On a “quest for beauty”--even found examining darkness
The idealized past
Youth & Beauty

5. Values, continued
Celebration/valuing of the common person & the marginalized
Including women & children
Underserved society members
EVERYBODY has a story to tell
Perfectibility of humankind
All equal at birth, regardless of gender or race
Totally unprecedented
Individuality & self-reliance
Form that identity (just as America was doing for herself after the Revolutionary War)!
Personal expression vs. group expression

6. Writing Conventions/Style
Extremely ornate & even flowery language
Figurative language
Elevated Language
Lengthy description
Language itself as a form of expression and beauty.
Example:
Extremely long sentences with complex syntax and high level language

7. Three Main Branches Idyllic Gothic/Dark Transcendental
- There will be an additional PowerPoint on this branch, as it is sometimes seen as a separate movement.

8. Idyllic Romanticism
Idyllic: serenely beautiful, untroubled, & happy, especially with a rural charm
Idyll: short poem or piece of prose describing a scene like the one described above (a simple, peaceful, and/or rural scene)
Major Idyllic Romantic Writers
Lyric poetry: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant
Fireside poets: John Greenleaf Whittier
- “Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll” (poem)
Washington Irving: “Rip Van Winkle” (short story)
James Fenimore Cooper: The Deerslayer (novel)
William Cullen Bryant: “Thanatopsis” (poem)

9. Gothic: “Dark Romanticism”
Dark side of human existence & human nature (unlike the optimism of the Idyllics and Transcendentalists), but like the other Romantics, value intuition and mysticism (melancholy & mysticism from the Puritans) & see signs and symbols in human events
Fiction & poetry characterized by gloomy, sinister, & remote settings
Setting extremely important
Wild, primitive nature
Explores the conflict between good and evil & reveals darker aspects of the human mind/humanity, such as the psychological effects of guilt, sin, pain, & madness/derangement in the human psyche
Emergence of psychology as a science
Deeply psychological: dark journey of the mind
Grotesque or even filled with horror
Use of the odd or unusual
Often include monsters or demons as symbolic explorations of the human mind or emotions
Suspend disbelief (example: Frankenstein’s monster)
Dark Romanticism isn’t all love and roses, unless the roses come alive and choke you to death!

10. Gothic, Continued: The Dark Romantics
Edgar Allan Poe: “The Raven” (poem), “The Fall of the House of Usher,” (short story), “The Tell Tale Heart,” (short story), “The Cask of Amantillado” (short story)
Nathaniel Hawthorne: “Young Goodman Brown” (short story), The Scarlet Letter (novel)
Herman Melville: Moby Dick (novel)
Washington Irving: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (short story)
“headless horseman”

11. Transcendentalism
Value nature, autonomy/individualism/self-reliance, & intuition/emotion
Typically more political than the other branches
Optimistic
Based on ideas from Europe and Asia
Rooted in Puritanism (mysticism & symbolism), the German philosophy of Immanuel Kant (one must transcend, or go beyond, everyday human experience in the physical world to determine the ultimate reality of God, the universe, and the self), the Idealism (true reality involves ideas rather than the physical world as perceived through the five senses) of Greek philosopher Plato
Spiritual philosophy about how people derive truth
- In ourselves (using intuition) & through communion with nature (the physical facts of the natural world are a doorway to the spiritual/ideal world)
- All people are part of the grand cycle of nature; nature is God (we can find God in nature or ourselves using our intuition), and God is & is revealed through nature (and God is good)
- we can be good/perfect, or we can be evil if we are separated from a direct, intuitive knowledge of God
- Everything in the world, including human beings, are part and a reflection of the Divine Soul, the source of all good
- death is a part of life

12. Transcendentalism Continued…
Major Transcendentalist writers
- Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Self-Reliance” & “Nature” (essays); leader of the utopian group called the “Transcendental Club” who inspired many reform movements
- Henry David Thoreau: “Resistance to Civil Government” (essay), Walden (novel)
- Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass (poems)

13. Context: The American Renaissance
Renaissance = “rebirth”
Based on the European Renaissance of the 14th-16th centuries
American Renaissance in mid 19th century America
Mostly Gothic Romantics & Transcendentalists
Nathaniel Hawthorne & Herman Melville insisted that America would produce great writing
Americans found their place in literature distinct from European models (explosion of American literary genius) by producing a remarkable body of work (a national literature/national masterpieces)

14. Context: New England’s Social & Intellectual Life
Intellectual & social ferment in northeast America
Lyceum movement = organizations with goals to improve American society through reform
Social causes, i.e. improving public education, improving living conditions for the mentally ill, ending slavery, increasing women’s rights, etc.
Utopia = perfect society (goal)

15. Romanticism rules! The end