1. ROMANTICISM PERIOD

2. Historical Context
ish = time of growth and expansion westward
New technologies = growth & expansion
Railroads
Factories and advanced farming equipment
Telegraph and Morse code
Louisiana Purchase doubled the nation’s size
Troublesome changes:
Growth, expansion & technology resulted in unsafe working conditions
Women’s rights gaining a voice
Opposition to slavery began to grow and gain a voice in abolitionists

3. What is Romanticism?
A literary and artistic movement that placed an emphasis on imagination (over reason), emotion (over fact), individuality (defining this for Americans), and nature (above all)

4. Who are the Romantics?
Before 1800 American writers were not widely read – Romantics changed this
These writers define the American voice – personal and bold
These writers defined one of the primary themes of American writing: the quest of the individual to define himself
Bright vs. Dark Romantics

5. Who are the Bright Romantics?
The Bright Romantics looked at the OPTIMISTIC aspects of Romanticism
William C. Bryant
Henry W. Longfellow
Oliver W. Holmes
James R. Lowell
John G. Whittier
“Fireside Poets”

6. WHAT IS DARK-ROMANTICISM?
Same attributes of Romanticism but tends to accent the fantastic/negative aspects of human experience more (PESSIMISTIC)
Some works characterized as part of the literary genre known as: gothic

7. Gothic Style Characteristics
Setting is in bleak or remote places
Plot involves morbid or violent incidents
Characters are in psychological and/or physical torment
A supernatural or otherworldly element is often present

8. Who are the Dark Romantics?
Edgar Allan Poe
Wrote “The Raven”
Known as an eccentric writer – his dark and dismal life probably had something to do with it
Washington Irving
Most famous stories:
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
“Rip Van Winkle”
Herman Melville
Wrote Moby-Dick which is widely regarded as one of the finest novels in all of American Literature
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Believed evil was a dominant force in the world
Wrote The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil”

9. What is Transcendentalism?
Philosophical movement of the 1830s-1840s
Centered in Concord, Massachusetts
Believed the the individual was the most important force in the universe
Highly valued nature
Believed in the idea of an “Over-Soul” – a universal spirit to which all beings are a part of

10. Who are the Transcendentalists?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
started the movement due to a crisis of confidence in his faith and fear of industry
Henry David Thoreau
protégé of Emerson
Put the beliefs into action

11. Transcendentalism Legacy
Influenced practice of nonviolent civil disobedience
Influenced Mahatma Gandhi & Martin Luther king, Jr.
First to suggest setting aside land to be preserved in its natural state

12. American Literature Realism

13. Realism
WHAT:
literary movement that stressed the actual (reality) as opposed to the imagined or fanciful
WHY:
A reaction against Romanticism
The harsh reality of frontier life and the Civil War shattered the nation’s idealism

14. Realism - Characteristics
Objective writing about ordinary characters in ordinary situations; “real life”
Character is more important than action and plot
The common man = the hero
Diction is natural vernacular - Dialect and informal language
Local Color
Humor
Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament and motive; they are in reasonable relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past Basically, it makes sense

15. Who are the Realists? Mark Twain Ambrose Bierce Kate Chopin
Paul Laurence Dunbar

16. Historical Context Civil War Homestead Act moved people to the West
Industrial Revolution (Age of Electricity)
Social & Cultural Issues Grew
The “Gilded Age” (class issues)
Abolishment of slavery
Women’s Rights Movement Growing

17. Romanticism vs. Realism
Aspired to the ideal
Thought to be more refined since it did not show the vulgar details of life
Realism
Thought to be more democratic
Critics stressed the potential for vulgarity and its emphasis on the commonplace
Potential “poison” for the pure of mind
A common complaint is that realistic works forced readers into proximity with people whom they would never invite for dinner.

18. How did this literary movement prevail?
The Industrial Revolution
economic, social, and political changes that took place in post-war life allowed American Realism to succeed
Gilded Age
Rights of the oppressed (women, immigrants, African Americans)
Labor Disputes

19. Naturalism An extension of Realism
Like realism, but strongly believed that forces larger than the individual – nature, fate, heredity – shaped individual destiny

20. Naturalism - Characteristics
Characters:
usually ill-educated or lower-class
lives governed by those “bigger” forces (heredity, instinct, passion, or the environment)
Often represented as the criminal, the fallen, the down-and-out
Themes
Survival (man against nature, man against himself, man against uncontrollable & indifferent forces)

21. “A Man Said to the Universe” by Stephen Crane
A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "That fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." What is Crane’s message in this poem? How does it reflect the beliefs of Naturalist writers?