1. American Romanticism

2. Romanticism
Idea that God is actively involved in Creation - Universe is evolving
Rejection of Industrialism and large cities - celebration of pastoral setting
Value feeling and intuition over reason - a rejection of classicism and rationalism and deism
Imagination, dream/fantasy world
Reflect on the natural world until dull reality falls away to reveal underlying beauties and truths
Romantics find a less clearly defined divinity in nature, not necessarily the God of Christianity or a God only of science and reason

3. Six I’s of Romanticism: Intuition, Imagination, Innocence, Inspiration (from Nature), Inner experience, Individualism
To the Rationalist the city is the place to find success, wealth and self-discovery
To the Romantics it is a place of immorality, pollution, over-crowdedness, corruption and death
You cannot be an individual in the city – you conform and lose your innocence and spirituality

4. Plato

5. Plato - famous Greek Philosopher
Plato held that reality is an imperfect reflection of an ideal, permanent realm.
Divided Line: On the surface are pure forms, behind these pure forms are universals - what lies behind reality. Making up the pure forms are the particulars of the physical universe, that which we see around us in the physical world
General Concepts relate to specific objects. For example, he wondered what enables human beings to refer to thousands of different objects - say, trees - by using a single word, tree. Plato concluded that all trees share something in common; this is the form or idea of a tree

6. Divided Line Pure Forms – Objects we see in Nature _____________________________________ Universals – The spiritual truth that lies beyond the surface

7. Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Famous Essayist, Poet, Philosopher and Minister. Studied Plato and all of the Romantic writers coming out of England extensively
He called for a national Epic - superior civilizations have superior art forms - can’t be just imitation

9. Divine Soul or Oversoul
Transcendentalism
To Transcend means to “rise above”
In determining the ultimate reality of God, the Universe, the self one must go beyond everyday human experiences - Based in Idealism
Believed in human perfectibility
Divine Soul or Oversoul
Everything in the world is a reflection of this
The physical facts of the natural world are a doorway to the spiritual or ideal world
God is found in intuition, feeling, and nature

11. Intense Optimism Children to a Romantic
Death is simply part of the cycle of life. Evil occurs because we separate from a direct, intuitive knowledge of God - have to reaffirm our connection to the Divine Soul
Organic Forms - Things that are natural and evolve and change
Children to a Romantic
Children are more “in tune” with the spiritual realm because they have just come from there
Children retain the wonder of immortality and then they gradually lose it as they get older and live life
Childhood innocence is characterized by a wonder for nature

12. Emerson’s Contributions
In his essays he tries to produce an artistic tradition. He lays the ground work for posterity
He feels the Puritans have had a negative influence on the U.S.
He sees life as a search for truth, but not grim - joyful and exciting
He influenced architecture and music and other art forms at the time
He calls God the Oversoul; he takes the theistic conception out of a purely Christian context and places it in the context of nature
He feels that nature is the mediator between these 2 realms
He reduces the importance of reason; he asserts that mankind cannot understand the universe through reason alone.
Art is the way of living creatively – people shape their perception to gain a better insight into the Universal Truths

13. Emerson’s Contributions
He embraces change – he sees the Universe as being in the process of becoming something - creation is still going on, still being molded by the Oversoul.
Poetry is the highest of callings
Poet is involved in the creation of God’s Will
He calls poets “liberating gods”- they look for truth and help others search for truth; they help others live a more elevated existence
He embraces American ideals of freedom and democracy
God is the supreme artist - all creation is a work of art
Restore a balance where art is at the center of things - create room for art in civilization
Emerson was a great optimist and idealist but he was accused of having little understanding of evil – ultimately Romanticism’s downfall.

14. From “Nature” A simple glimpse of the Divine -the night sky
If the stars only came out once every 1,000 years people would be amazed and filled with faith and love and they would remember it
The “eye” - can integrate the parts of nature into a landscape

15. From “Nature”
Lovers of nature are young at heart and feels the necessity to commune with nature regularly
Emerson is obsessed with the ocular - the “eye” - also the “I” of the individual. The focus on the self disappears, becomes transparent and sees everything.
The “eye” is able to see the beauty in Nature - the artist
Light is the artist in nature because we need light to see
“nature always wears the colors of the spirit” meaning that our emotions are reflected in nature

16. From “Self Reliance”
Americans have the indomitable will to be successful and to work hard
Different people, facts and places strike each of us as “right” or familiar when we first encounter them, almost as if we had already known them.
These “preestablished” differences hint at our unique purpose in life and at an overall design or harmony
Overall sense that people have a goodness about them
People should trust in themselves and beware of society - remain a nonconformist

17. American Frontier
Louisiana Purchase of 1803 more than doubles the size of the nation
The Frontier, the myth of the WEST continues to expand
Journey Motif - People pursue dreams of land, $, and prosperity
Frontier movement helped break the country away from the Puritan grip, to move away from the East
Sense that America doesn’t have the history and developments that Europe has
Explorers are Adam, landscape is Eden, a pre-fallen realm
Paradox of how we looked at the landscape - saw it as a special/holy place to be preserved and admired as God’s creation but also as a place to be controlled, utilized for value, produce natural resources
First great American literature was about the frontier

18. Louisiana Purchase

19. The Leatherstocking Tales
James Fenimore Cooper writes 5 novels (The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder, and The Deerslayer) about different adventures of a wilderness man
His name – Nathaniel (people call him Natty) Bumpo (he is renamed as Hawkeye, Deerslayer, The Trapper, Pathfinder and Leatherstocking)
He is constantly moving and changing his identity - important motif in American Literature
The Pioneers Natty Bumppo is in his 70s
The Last of the Mohicans Hawkeye is in his 20s. Most famous and popular of the 5 texts. It is about the French and Indian War.
The Prairie The Trapper is in his 80s
The Pathfinder The Pathfinder is in his 30s

20. James Fenimore Cooper

21. The Pioneers - 1st book written, 2nd to last book chronologically

22. The Last of the Mohicans was made into a popular film in 1992 starring Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye

23. The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper - Last book chronologically, 3rd book written

24. The Leatherstocking Tales
The Deerslayer The Deerslayer, or Hawkeye, is 18
He gets his names and identities through experiences with nature outside the community setting, not with people
Juxtaposed with real frontiersmen, some are criminals, some destroy the environment
Cooper looked at life on the early Frontier
Natty Bumpo is the first great American literary figure
A Romantic Hero, rugged, handsome, loved nature while distrusting town life
American Romantic Hero was innocent, intuitive, youthful and close to nature
Stories also question what America is to do with the American Indian
In the texts the bad Indians get killed and the good Indians fade away

25. The Leatherstocking Tales
Cooper suggested that the U.S. government allow the Indians to move west of the Mississippi because Westward expansion hadn’t gotten that far yet
Cooper gave Europeans what they wanted to hear - myth, not history
The first couple of novels are fairly realistic but the latter novels become more and more mythologized
Bumpo recognizes nature as a place for spiritual rejuvenation
Cooper intermingles history with myth - first novel is more history, last novel is all myth
Bumpo - a country bumpkin or hick
His search for identity representative of a country in search of identity
He moves constantly West, looking for a newer Eden

26. The Leatherstocking Tales
Natty Bumpo has a Native American traveling by his side in most of the stories - the traveling minority companion became another American literary motif
Cooper had not direct knowledge of Native Americans so he latched on to two stereotypes
Native Americans are either vicious villains or the noble savage who has a great sense of connection to the land, very spiritual, idealized
Ignored the real human character in between