1. What will you need to know?
Be able to answer:
What is romanticism and what is not?
How did the previous time periods affect/help create the Romantic movement in America?
Why was the American Romantic movement an absolute necessity?
How does an individual resolve the need to be himself with the requirements/ demands of society?
Be able to answer:
Why do artistic/cultural/ literary movements tend to push against each other rather than cooperate/build off of each other?
Be able to define and identify:
Elements of A.R.
Techniques used by A.R. authors/poets
The Fireside Poets

2. Past Literary Periods
Early America-

3. Past Literary Periods
Puritan Era-

4. Past Literary Periods
Age of Reason-

5. American Romanticism
1800s to the 1850s

6. Definitions: romance –
a novel or other narrative depicting heroic or marvelous deeds, pageantry, romantic exploits, etc., usually in a historical or imaginary setting.
the colorful world, life, or conditions depicted in such tales.
a medieval narrative, originally one in verse and in some Romance dialect, treating of heroic, fantastic, or supernatural events, often in the form of allegory.
a baseless, made-up story, usually full of exaggeration or fanciful invention.

7. ROMANTIC?
EXAGGERATED?

8. What Romanticism IS NOT!

9. What Romanticism IS! Romanticism – Country was now established
name for the literary period that followed the Age of Reason
Country was now established
Writers moved away from political matters and revolutionary ideas
Began to focus on emotions, possibilities, imagination!

10. FICTION Types of Literature NONFICTION Romanticism- Puritans-
Short stories
Romances –
book length stories that differ slightly from novels
Poetry
Essays
Puritans-
Historical narratives
Sermons
Plaine style
Age of Reason-
Pamphlets
Self-help
Speeches
Political documents
FICTION
NONFICTION

11. Connected to the Movement
Escapism
Gothic literature
Novel (new form)
Intuition
Imagination
Nature’s: beauty, mystery, symbolism

12. Growth of industrialization
Experimentation
Frontier
Mingling of races
Influences
What Caused the Movement to Occur
Optimism
Growth of industrialization

13. Influences on Romanticism
Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations.

14. Influences on Romanticism
Optimism: greater than in Europe because of the presence of frontier.

15. Influences on Romanticism
Experimentation: defying conventions/norms in science, in institutions.

16. Influences on Romanticism
Mingling of races: immigrants in large numbers arrive

17. Influences on Romanticism
Growth of industrialization: polarization of North and South; North becomes industrialized, South remains agricultural.

18. Interest in external nature
Escapism
Interest in external nature
THE ELEMENTS
What Romantic Wrote About
Quest for beauty
the far-away and non-normal

19. Romantic Subject Matter
The quest for beauty:
non-didactic (not meant to teach), develop concept of "pure beauty."

20. Romantic Subject Matter
The use of the far-away and non-normal:
antique and fanciful:
a characterization and mood: grotesque, Gothicism,
sense of terror, fear; use of the odd and strange.

21. Romantic Subject Matter
Escapism:
from American problems; occasionally delusional

22. Romantic Subject Matter
Interest in external nature:
Nature as knowledge of the primitive.
Nature as refuge.
Nature as revelation of God.

23. With Your Compatriots: (2 minutes)
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING:
1.) What kind of beauty did the Romantics seek to understand and portray?
2.) What is the most important Romantic attitude?

24. Inadequate characterization.
Improbable plots.
subjectivity
Inadequate characterization.
Techniques
Themes and Motifs They Used
Remoteness of settings
a world of "lies"
“it just happens”

25. 1. Remoteness of settings in time and space.
Romantic Techniques
1. Remoteness of settings in time and space.

26. Romantic Techniques
2. Improbable plots.

27. 3. Inadequate or unlikely characterization.
Romantic Techniques
3. Inadequate or unlikely characterization.

28. 4. Authorial subjectivity; the way “I see it.”
Romantic Techniques
4. Authorial subjectivity; the way “I see it.”

29. 5. Socially "harmful morality;" a world of "lies."
Romantic Techniques
5. Socially "harmful morality;" a world of "lies."

30. Romantic Techniques
6. Informality: the “organic principle,” form rises out of content; “it just happens.”

31. Representative Writers
Romantics:
William Cullen Bryant
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
DARK/Gothic Romantics:
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Edgar Allan Poe
George W. Irving

32. Representative Works:
Hawthorne:
The Scarlet Letter
“Young Goodman Brown”
“The Minister’s Black Veil.”
Melville:
Moby Dick
“Billy Budd.”
Irving:
“The Devil and Tom Walker”
“Rip Van Winkle
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
Poe:
“The Pit and the Pendulum”
MANY others
Bryant:
“Thanatopsis”
Longfellow:
“Song of Life”

33. BIG PICTURE
Focus on the individual and his inner world (imagination and emotions).

34. BIG PICTURE
Nature is beautiful, mysterious, and symbolic. God can be seen in nature.

35. BIG PICTURE
Intuition (inner voice or gut feeling) and imagination guides each individual to understanding.

36. Ticket OUT the Door Name three Romantic writers.
Explain which influence you believe would most alter the writing/art of the American Romantics.
Discuss which subject matter item would make the writing of the Romantics most appealing.
Which technique would you say is most often used in our modern media?