1. American Romanticism Industrialization War of 1812
California Gold Rush
American Romanticism

2. War of 1812 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Kbn8hFT1Q
Fill out notes sheet while you watch!

3. Rationalists vs. Romantics View of Society

4. City = Place of prosperity and self-realization
Rationalists
City = Place of prosperity and self-realization
New York City

5. City = Cesspool of moral decay, crime, and corruptions
Romantics
City = Cesspool of moral decay, crime, and corruptions

6. Nature = Independence, Moral Clarity, and Healthy Living
Romantics and Nature
Nature = Independence, Moral Clarity, and Healthy Living

7. Influences on Literature
Interest in the past
Interest in remote places
Mystery and the unknown
Individualism becomes a major concern --- America lacks confidence in the shadow of long-established European cultures

8. “Re-examine all that you have been told at school or church or in any books, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes in in every motion and joint of your body.”
---Walt Whitman

9. The American People
Protestant Christianity sill dominates philosophical/theological outlook
Fear and prejudice against Catholicism comes with influx of immigrants
American no longer a
homogeneous land

10. Odds and Ends of Romanticism
Placed faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination
Shunned the artificiality of civilization and seek unspoiled nature as a path to spirituality.
Saw poetry as the highest expression of the imagination
Dark Romantics: Used dark and supernatural themes/settings (Gothic style)

11. Romantics Would Have Loved SpongeBob

12. Romantic Writers
American writers were flourishing, but it was still a rather small profession
Most notable writers were from the Boston-New York-Philadelphia area
The society of writers was rather tight
Still difficult to make a good living writing
Writers and thinkers begin to address unique American writing not based on European models

13. Famous Romantic Writers
Washington Irving (“Rip Van Winkle”)
Emily Dickinson (poetry)
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
Edgar Allan Poe (“The Raven”)
Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter)

14. Walt Whitman American poet, essayist and journalist
A humanist --- he was a part of the transition between romanticism, transcendentalism and realism

15. Walt Whitman
Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon
Often called the father of free verse
His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality

16. Washington Irving
American author, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century
Best known for his short stories:
 "Rip Van Winkle" (1819)
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820) 

17. Edgar Allen Poe Dark Romantics Writer/ Wrote in Gothic Style
He used dark and supernatural themes/settings
Author of “The Black Cat” and “The Raven”
He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career

18. FILL IN YOUR NOTES AS YOU WATCH THE CLIP BELOW
Emily Dickenson
FILL IN YOUR NOTES AS YOU WATCH THE CLIP BELOW
Famous for her poetry she published in the Romantic Period
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”

19. Nathanael Hawthorne American novelist and short-story writer
One of the great masters of American fiction

20. Nathanael Hawthorne
His novels and tales are powerful explorations of moral and spiritual conflicts
Most famous for The Scarlet Letter
He was born in Salem Massachusetts

21. American Romanticism Review
Value intuition over reason
Youthful innocence is better than
educated sophistication
Society = Corruption
Nature = Beauty, Truth, and Freedom
Supernatural tales and myths