American Literature - The Romantic Period (1820-1860).pptx

1. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
1820-1860

2. The Romantic Movement
 originated in Germany but quickly spread to England, France, and beyond
 reached America around 1820
 Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national expansion and the
discovery of a distinctive American voice.
 Romantic ideas centred around art as inspiration, the spiritual and aesthetic dimension
of nature. Art, rather than science, Romantics argued, could best express universal
truth.

3. ROMANTICISM,
PURITANISM &
AGE OF REASON
 The Romantic movement was a reaction to both the strict
beliefs of the Puritans and the rationalism of the 18th-
century Age of Reason.
 The authors of the new Romantic movement rejected the
ordered rationality of the writings of the Puritans and writers
during the American Revolution.
 Romantics were less concerned with social or political
reform than with the expression of their own intuitive
experience.

4. Characteristics of American Romanticism
 The importance of nature (nature – a source of beauty and truth)
 Emphasis on the individual or the self (“self-realization,” “self-
expression,” “self-reliance”, “self-awareness”)
 The primacy of intuition, imagination, and emotion, which are the keys
to a deeper understanding of the world
 Escapism (to a more “natural” past or in faraway lands)

5. Romanticism was
affirmative and appropriate for
most American poets and
creative essayists. America’s
landscape embodied the
sublime. The Romantic spirit
seemed particularly suited to
American democracy: It
stressed individualism and
affirmed the value of the
common person.

6. TRANSCENDENTALISM
 reaction against 18th-century rationalism;
 manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th-century thought;
 belief in the unity of the world and God;
 truth can be found through feeling and intuition rather than through logic;
 religion seen as “negative, cold, lifeless”;
 man is inherently good; therefore, people become truly wise when they are self-reliant
rather than dependent on institutions such as the government or the church.

7. Concord – small village near Boston
 the hub of American Transcendentalism
 the first rural artists’ colony
 spiritual and cultural alternative to
American materialism

8. 1836 - Ralph Waldo Emerson founded the “Transcendental
Club”.
1840 – The first issue of the Transcendentalist magazine
The Dial, published in Boston.
1841 - the Brook Farm Institute was established.

9. TRANSCENDENTALISTS
 never issued a manifesto;
 insisted on individual differences;
 saw themselves as lonely explorers outside society and convention;
 literary and social conventions were considered dangerous.