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Published byEvelyn Lamb Modified over 9 years ago
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AMERICAN ROMANTICISM Enter Imagination
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A PERIOD OF GREAT CULTURAL CHANGE Romanticism focused on emotions and the individual Writers in this time period (roughly 1830-1870) emphasized… Intuition Imagination Human potential for social progress and spiritual growth Romanticism spawned in reaction to Classicism Classicism = Belief that reason dominates nature
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ROMANTICNON- ROMANTIC/CLASSICAL Emotional Reasonable and Practical Individualistic Public Responsibility Revolutionary Conservative Loves Solitude & Nature Loves Public, Urban Life Fantasy/Introspection External Reality The Particular The Universal Satisfaction of Desire Repressed Desire Organic Mechanical
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Well-known Romanticists Nathaniel Hawthorne Walt Whitman Herman Melville Washington Irving Emily Dickinson James Fenimore Cooper Harriet Beecher Stowe Edgar Allan Poe
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CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE Nature: Beauty, strangeness, and the mystery of nature Washington Irving’s use of the forest as a place of savagery, mystery and evil in “The Devil and Tom Walker” The Past: Rise in nationalism = Interest in American past Nathaniel Hawthorne’s depiction of the Puritan age in The Scarlet Letter Inner World of Human Nature: Emotion, intuition, individual, and exploration of the private inner being Edgar Allan Poe’s characterization of Roderick Usher’s mental illness in “Fall of the House of Usher”
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Washington Irving (1783-1859) Considered the first internationally best-selling American novelist Advocated for writing as a profession Argued for stronger laws to protect writers from copyright infringement Considered the first American author to place his stories firmly in the United States Promoter of Nationalism Outspoken against slavery Best known works: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”
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