1. The American Renaissance (1800 – 1870)

2. European Renaissance (rebirth of arts and learning): 14th, 15th,and 16th century
American Renaissance (not a “rebirth” but a first flowering): first half of 19th century)
Two major events:
1. capital moved to Washington, D.C.
2. foundation of the Library of Congress (first cultural institution in the capital)

3. Events…
Thomas Jefferson – Louisiana Purchase of 1803 (doubled the territory of the US)
Improved transportation: canals, turnpikes, railroads, steamboats
California became US territory (1848)
Gold Rush of 1849
New industries, new kinds of jobs (more productive farming)
Telegraph – improved communication across the US

4. Politics 1828 – Andrew Jackson - “The People’s President”
The “era of the common man” – no more property requirement for voting
Only white males allowed to vote
Little attention paid to women
African-Americans still enslaved
Native Americans – tribal lands confiscated; forced to move to the West
Texas becomes territory of the US (1845)
Conflict over slavery leads to civil war

5. What is the relationship between place (property) and literature?
Vast land: open prairies in the Midwest
deserts in the SE
immense forests in the NW
great canyons and mountains in the W
Oceans on both sides
Countless natural resources

6. (Cont.) Literature: Spirit of acquisition, pride of ownership
Exploration led to exploitation
Limitless possibilities
Literature:
Explorers recorded facts of their expeditions in colorful words and drawings
Fiction writers (Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper) - created an American mythology by setting stories in forests and towns of the American landscape
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – narrative poems : colonial Americans, Native Americans, and Revolutionary War heroes within the American wilderness

7. The American Masters Transcendentalists:
Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville – dark side of wilderness
Transcendentalists:
Ralph Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau – emphasized nature’s sublimity

8. How does literature shape or reflect society?
Harriet Beecher Stowe - antislavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (national and international phenomenon)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – best-selling poet in the English language

9. What did the American writers want to achieve
What did the American writers want to achieve? (What is their purpose for writing?)
The social vision:
Lectures, essays, speeches, debates, pamphlets, editorials, songs – women’s rights, slavery, treatment of the Native Americans, land use, immigration, trade, taxes
Americans to define their own self

10. (cont.) The Romantic vision: Directly in contrast to the Age of Reason
While rationalists saw the move to the big city a move toward success, romantics saw it as a place of moral decay, corruption, and death
Individual freedom
Individual quest for self-discovery
Nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development
Journey led to the countryside
Youthful innocence vs. sophisticated education

11. I’s of Romanticism
intuition
imagination
innocence
inspiration from supernatural and from nature
inner experience

12. A Transcendental Vision:
Thoreau and Emerson ’s and 1840’s
Individual - center of the universe, more powerful than any political or religious institution
Thoreau’s Walden