1. American Romanticism rooted in European literature, music, and art during the second half of the 18 th century; continued into the 19 th came late to America in general Romanticism is the name given to philosophy that reason and logic is inferior to feelings/emotions the imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings, and nature are of greater value than reason, logic, and planning

2. developed as a reaction against rationalism poetry was the highest work of the imagination romantics sought higher truth by exploring worlds removed from the noisy city and by contemplating the natural world in order to have revelations and epiphanies

3. The Romantic Hero possess some or all of the following characteristics: 1.youth or childlike qualities; innocence 2.a love of nature and a distrust of town/city life 3.an uneasiness with women 4.the need to engage in a quest for higher truth in the natural world Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”

4. Fireside Poets wanted to prove that Americans were not unsophisticated hicks, but were as knowledgeable and polished as Europeans borrowed English themes, meter, and imagery to construct a poem but used American settings Henry W. Longfellow Oliver Wendell Holmes James Russell Lowell John Greenleaf Whittier They were called “Fireside Poets” because their poems were read aloud at the fireside as family entertainment Their work appealed to the ordinary, literate man and woman wrote about love, patriotism, nature, family, God and religion