1. The Romantics

2. American Romanticism can be described as a journey away from the corruption of civilization and the limits of rational thought and toward the integrity of nature and the freedom of the imagination
Typical journey is to the countryside; although, Gothic-influenced journeys are to the country of the imagination

3. Escapism Is a Major Influence
Searched for exotic settings in the more “natural” past or in a world far removed from the grimy and noisy industrial age.
Also utilized the supernatural realm, or old legends and folklore
Tried to contemplate (reflect upon) the natural world until dull reality fell away to reveal underlying beauty and truth

4. Characteristics of American Romanticism
Values feeling and intuition over reason
Places faith in inner experience and power of the imagination
Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature
Prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication
Champions individual freedom and the worth of the individual
Contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development

5. Characteristics of American Romanticism
Looks backward to the wisdom of the past and distrusts progress
Finds beauty and truth in exotic locales, the supernatural realm, and the inner world of the imagination
Sees poetry as the highest expression of the imagination
Finds inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture

6. Development of the novel
What differentiated American writers from their European counterparts? The idealization of frontier life
This idealization is reinforced by westward expansion, growth of nationalism, and rapid spread of cities
James Fenimore Cooper changed image of American as unsophisticated and uncivilized

7. James Fenimore Cooper
Cooper broke free of European constraints placed on novels.
He explored uniquely American settings and characters: frontier communities, American Indians, backwoodsmen, and the wilderness of the west
Most of all, he created the first American heroic figure: Natty Bumppo (also known as Hawkeye, Deerslayer, and Leatherstocking)

8. American novelists looked to westward expansion and the development of the frontier for inspiration, creating subject matter that broke with European tradition. They created the American Romantic Hero, whose qualities of youthfulness, innocence, intuitiveness, and closeness to the natural world set him solidly apart from the hero of the Age of Reason.

9. Natty Bumppo & the American Hero
Young, or possess youthful qualities
Innocent and pure of purpose
Sense of honor not based on society’s rules, but on higher principles
Knowledge of people and life based on deep, intuitive understanding, not from formal learning
Loves nature and avoids town life
Quests for higher truth in the natural world
Handsome and brave

10. Fireside Poets
“We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom; While radiant with a mimic flame Outside the sparkling drift became, And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.”
from Snow-bound, John Greenleaf Whittier

11. What and Who Were the Fireside Poets?
First group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country.
Notable for their scholarship and the resilience of their lines and themes.
Preferred conventional forms over experimentation.
Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
John Greenleaf Whittier James Russell Lowell
William Cullen Bryant Oliver Wendell Holmes

12. Lasting Influence of Fireside Poets
Longfellow remained the most popular American poet for decades. When Poe criticized him, he was all but ostracized. Longfellow remains the only American poet to be immortalized by a bust in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner
They took on causes in their poetry, such as the abolition of slavery, which brought the issues to the forefront in a palatable way.
Through their scholarship and editorial efforts, they paved the way for later Romantic writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.

13. The Dark Romantics…
These writers include Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe
They didn’t disagree with the Transcendentalists (although they were sometimes called the “Anti-Transcendentalists”) ~ they agreed that spiritual facts or ideas lie behind the appearance of nature
BUT they were not optimistic by nature ~ they didn’t think the spiritual facts were necessarily good or harmless

14. They explored the conflicts between good & evil; the psychological effects of guilt & sin…and madness in the human psyche
They saw the horror of evil that can hide behind the mask of social respectability