1.Features of American Romanticism. The differences between American and European Romanticism.

Romanticism is "a journey away from the corruption of civilization and thelimits of rational thought and toward the integrity of
nature and the freedom of the imagination."
The Romantic Sensibility:
Romanticism is the valuing of feelings and intuition over reason.
Began in Germany in the late 1700s, were it heavily influenced the arts until the nineteenth century
began in part as a reaction against rationalism, which tried to reason away the problems in society
Life in the City:
in permanent tenements, building might house four hundred families
city streets were littered with horse droppings--even with the carcasses of deceased animals
disease was so common place, in 1832, a cholera epidemic killed as many as 100 people per day in Manhattan
there were 20,000 homeless children on the streets of New York, most of whom died before they were twenty
crime and violence were a part of life
the Romantic mind saw poetry as the highest and most sublime embodiment of the imagination--in America, this took the form
of finding an experience in nature, away from the horrors of the industrialized world

Characteristics of American Romanticism

values feeling and intuition over reason
places faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination
despises the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature
prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication
champions individual freedom and the worth of the individual
contemplates nature's beaurt as a path to spiritual and moral
development
looks backward to the wisdom of the past and distrusts progress
finds beauty and truth in exotic locales, the supernatural realm,
and the inner world of the imagination
sees poetry as the highest expression of the imagination
finds inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture

Differences between American & European romanticism
In the US, romanticism developed at a later date than in Europe, and was less well defined, exhibiting modifications from the
peculiar nature of American culture of the time with a strong emphasis on humanitarianism and reform. Foreign influences
were chiefly German idealism, Rousseauistic nature worship, the Gothic novel, and the historical romance and pseudo-popular
ballad of Scott. Among American romantic writers were Charles Brockden Brown, Cooper, Irving, Simms, Bryant, Poe,
Emerson, Thoreau, Very, Hawthorne, Melville, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, and Whitman. Transcendentalism (c 1830-1861) is
regarded as the clearest example of romanticism in the US.

The romantic movement was arrested in its development in England after 1832, with only a brief revival under the pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood, and in the US it was rapidly absorbed by native tendencies and other influences.

3. American Transcendentalism: its rise and features.
Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalism is not a religion (in the traditional sense of the word); it is a pragmatic
philosophy, a state of mind, and a form of spirituality. It is not a religion because it does not adhere to the three concepts
common in major religions: a. a belief in a God; b. a belief in an afterlife (dualism); and c. a belief that this life has
consequences on the next (if you're good in this life, you go to heaven in the next, etc.). Transcendentalism is monist; it does
not reject an afterlife, but its emphasis is on this life.

Representatives: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller.

The Transcendentalists, in keeping with the individualistic nature of this philosophy, disagreed readily with each other. Here
are four points of general agreement:
Basic Assumption:
The intuitive faculty, instead of the rational or sensical, became the means for a conscious union of the individual psyche
(known in Sanskrit as Atman) with the world psyche also known as the Oversoul, life-force, prime mover and God (known in
Sanskrit as Brahma).
Basic Premises:
1. An individual is the spiritual center of the universe - and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and,
ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an individual and the
world in terms of an individual.
2. The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self - all knowledge, therefore, begins with
self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."
3. Transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is symbolic.
4. The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization - this depends upon the reconciliation of two
universal psychological tendencies:
a. the expansive or self-transcending tendency - a desire to embrace the whole world - to know and become one with the
world.
b. the contracting or self-asserting tendency - the desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate - an egotistical existence.
This dualism assumes our two psychological needs; the contracting: being unique, different, special, having a racial
identity,ego-centered, selfish, and so on; the expansive: being the same as others, altruistic, be one of the human race, and so
on.
The transcendentalist expectation is to move from the contracting to the expansive.
Correspondence
It is a concept which suggests that the external is united with the internal. Physical or material nature is neutral or indifferent
or objective; it is neither helpful nor hurtful; it is neither beautiful nor ugly. What makes one give such attributes to nature is
that individual's imposition of her/his temperament or mood or psyche. If I'm feeling lousy, I may dismiss a gorgeous day; if I'm
feeling bright and cheerful then the most dreary of days becomes tolerable. And so, the Transcendentalists believed that
"knowing yourself" and "studying nature" is the same activity. Nature mirrors our psyche. If I cannot understand myself, may
be understanding nature will help. Here is Darrel Abel's "take" on this concept:
"Since one divine character was immanent everywhere in nature and in man, man's reason could discern the spiritual ideas in
nature and his senses could register impressions of the material forms of nature. To man the subject, nature the object, which
shared the same divine constitution as himself, presented external images to the innate ideas in his soul.
Reasons for the Rise of American Transcendentalism
There was no one precise "cause" for the beginning of Transcendentalism. According to Paul Boller, chance, coincidence and
several independent events, thoughts and tendencies seemed to have converged in the 1830s in New England. Some of these
were:
1. The steady erosion of Calvinism.
2. The progressive secularization of modern thought under the impact of science and technology.
3. The emergence of a Unitarian intelligentsia with the means, leisure, and training to pursue literature and scholarship.
4. The increasing insipidity and irrelevance of liberal religion to questing young minds - lack of involvement in women's rights
and abolitionism.
5. The intrusion of the machine into the New England garden and the disruption of the old order by the burgeoning
industrialism.
6. The impact of European ideas on Americans traveling abroad.
7. The appearance of talented and energetic young people like Emerson, Fuller, and Thoreau on the scene.
8. The imperatives of logic itself for those who take ideas seriously - the impossibility, for instance, of accepting modern
science without revising traditional religious views.

Basic Tenets of American Transcendentalism
1. Transcendentalism, essentially, is a form of idealism.
2. The transcendentalist "transcends" or rises above the lower animalistic impulses of life (animal drives) and moves from the
rational to a spiritual realm.
3. The human soul is part of the Oversoul or universal spirit (or "float" for Whitman) to which it and other souls return at
death.
4. Therefore, every individual is to be respected because everyone has a portion of that Oversoul (God).
5. This Oversoul or Life Force or God can be found everywhere - travel to holy places is, therefore, not necessary.
6. God can be found in both nature and human nature (Nature, Emerson stated, has spiritual manifestations).
7. Jesus also had part of God in himself - he was divine as everyone is divine - except in that he lived an exemplary and
transcendental life and made the best use of that Power which is within each one.
8. "Miracle is monster." The miracles of the Bible are not to be regarded as important as they were to the people of the past.
Miracles are all about us - the whole world is a miracle and the smallest creature is one. "A mouse is a miracle enough to
stagger quintillions of infidels." - Whitman
9. More important than a concern about the afterlife, should be a concern for this life - "the one thing in the world of value is
the active soul." - Emerson
10. Death is never to be feared, for at death the soul merely passes to the oversoul.
11. Emphasis should be placed on the here and now. "Give me one world at a time." - Thoreau
12. Evil is a negative - merely an absence of good. Light is more powerful than darkness because one ray of light penetrates the
dark. In other words, there is no belief in the existence of Satan as an active entity forcing humans to commit immorality.
Humans are good and if they do immoral acts they do so out of ignorance and by not thinking.
13. Power is to be obtained by defying fate or predestination, which seem to work against humans, by exercising one's own
spiritual and moral strength. Emphasis on self-reliance.
14. Hence, the emphasis is placed on a human thinking.
15. The transcendentalists see the necessity of examples of great leaders, writers, philosophers, and others, to show what an
individual can become through thinking and action.
16. It is foolish to worry about consistency, because what an intelligent person believes tomorrow, if he/she trusts oneself,
tomorrow may be completely different from what that person thinks and believes today. "A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds." - Emerson
17. The unity of life and universe must be realized. There is a relationship between all things.
18. One must have faith in intuition, for no church or creed can communicate truth.
19. Reform must not be emphasized - true reform comes from within.

5. The idea of simplification, spiritual growth and well-being in Henry David Thoreaus book Walden, or, Life in the Woods.
Thoreaus Life in the Woods (1854) is about self discovery. The classics of American literature. It is the result of 2 days, 2
months and 2 years.1845-1847 he lived in the cabin, in order to prove how little a human being needs to survive.He followed
his own principles, managed to survive by very little money. Economy- basic principle of the people life.The books consists of
such chapters: Economy, Reading, Sounds, Visitors, Higher Laws, The laws of nature and etc.At the end we read about
meditation. The book about self-discovery. The method- constructation, meditation. The book is bound on 2 facts:
a) he wanted to prove how little a human being needs to survive
b) some critics believe that it is a long philosophical essay
In this book, we get to know with the seasons as they are. A book can be called a classical idea for a good life. It is a very
meditative book; the author was very much influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism. It has an immense influence on other
writers. In the book there are transcendental ideas:
a) Ecological consciousness;
b) Autoritarism;
c) Political theory of civil-disobedience, passive resistance;
d) Encouragement to practice simplicity is all spheres of life.

7. Features of literary Modernism. T.S.Eliots essay Tradition and Individual Talent as the manifesto of Modernist poetry.

Some Characteristics of Modernism in Literature
Modernist writers proclaimed a new "subject matter" for literature and they felt that their new way of looking at life required
a new form, a new way of writing. Writers of this period tend to pursue more experimental and usually more highly
individualistic forms of writing. The sense of a changing world was stimulated by radical new developments, such as:
new insights from the emerging fields of psychology and sociology
anthropological studies of comparative religion
new theories of electromagnetism and quantum physics
a growing critique of British imperialism and the ideology of empire
the growing force of doctrines of racial superiority in Germany
the escalation of warfare to a global level
shifting power structures, particularly as women enter the work force
the emergence of a new "city consciousness"
new information technologies such as radio and cinema
the advent of mass democracy and the rise of mass communication
fin-de-sicle ["end-of-the-century"] consciousness
Some of the features of the new sense of reality:
- the replacement of a belief in absolute, knowable truth with a sense of relative, provisional truths (Einstein's first book on
relativity 1905);an awareness of "reality" as a constructed fiction
- a focus on the unconscious as an important source of motivation (Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams 1900)
- a turning away from teleological ways of thinking about time to a sense of time as discontinuous, overlapping, non-
chronological in the way we experience it; a shift from linear time to "moment time"
- less emphasis on art's reflection of external reality and a greater emphasis on art's reflection of the perceiving mind;
[compare developments in painting: moving from "representational" Victorian painting (painting that represents identifiable,
often narrative, scenes in external reality) through Impressionism (e.g. Whistler; the attempt to paint the quality of the
sensations stimulated by the external scene) to Post-Impressionism (e.g. Matisse; painting the "painterly" scene, the pure
elements of colour and form--perhaps as a way of painting the perceiving mind, the aesthetic consciousness]
- a focus on epistemological concerns (how do we know what we know?) and linguistic concerns (how is the way we think
inseparable from the forms in which we think?); a sense of the break-down of a shared linguistic community; a reaction
against the dominance of rational, logical, "patriarchal" discourse and its monopoly of power
Some manifestations of new approaches in modernist writing:
character: a disappearance of character summary, of discrete well-demarcated characters as in Dickens; the representation of
the self as diverse, contradictory, ambiguous, multiple plot: scepticism about linear plots with sudden climactic turning
points and clear resolutions; the use instead of discontinuous fragments, "moment time," a-chronological leaps in time,
contrapuntal multiple plots, open unresolved endings style: "stream of consciousness"--tracing non-linear thought
processes, moving by the "logic of association" or the "logic of the unconscious"; imagistic rather than logical
connections point of view (or focalization): a rejection of the single, authoritative, omniscient point of view for a narrative
focalized instead through the consciousness of one character whose point of view is limited--or through several characters
who establish relative, multiple points of view--or through several simultaneously-held positions maintained by the one
character

T.S.Eliots essay Tradition and Individual Talent as the manifesto of Modernist poetry.
In 1917, the literary journal Egoist (where Eliot served as an assistant editor) published an essay of his entitled "Tradition and
the Individual Talent." Eliot's manifesto railed against the modern tendency to praise a poet's attempts to be different for the
sake of being different. Only by recognizing the poetic traditions he drew upon and suppressing his personal desires, Eliot
argued, could a poet truly achieve greatness. (And, yes, Eliot assumed that any great poet would be male.)
Eliot's essay was interesting for two reasons in particular. First, Eliot was coming into his own as a poet at the same time
that an Austrian psychiatrist named Sigmund Freud introduced the idea that there was something to be gained by plunging
deep into the inner sanctums of the self. Eliot's essay disputed Freud's argument, valuing the collective unconscious over the
individual subconscious. Though the two men held completely separate viewpoints, both of their ideas came to dominate their
age. "In [Freud's] opinion there must be sought a collective and individual balance, which should constantly take into account
man's primitive instincts," a member of the Swedish Academy said when Eliot received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948.
The second reason we find Eliot's emphasis on tradition interesting is that he was about to write one of the most unique,
unprecedented poems in the history of the English language The Waste Land.

9. The definition of imagism. Ezra Pounds poetry.
The Imagist movement included English and American poets in the early twentieth century who wrote free verse and were
devoted to clarity of expression through the use of precise visual images. A strand of modernism, Imagism was officially
launched in 1912 when Ezra Pound read and marked up a poem by Hilda Doolittle, signed it H. D. Imagiste," and sent it to
Harriet Monroe at Poetry magazine.
The movement sprang from ideas developed by T. E. Hulme, whoas early as 1908was proposing to the Poets Club in
London a poetry based on absolutely accurate presentation of its subject with no excess verbiage. The first tenet of the Imagist
manifesto was To use the language of common speech, but to employ always the exact word, not the nearly-exact, nor the
merely decorative word.
Imagism was a reaction against the flabby abstract language and careless thinking of Georgian Romanticism. Imagist poetry
aimed to replace muddy abstractions with exactness of observed detail, apt metaphors, and economy of language. For
example, Pounds "In a Station of the Metro" started from a glimpse of beautiful faces in a dark subway and elevated that
perception into a crisp vision by finding an intensified equivalent image. The metaphor provokes a sharp, intuitive discovery in
order to get at the essence of life.
Pounds definition of the image was that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. Pound
defined the tenets of Imagist poetry as:
I. Direct treatment of the thing," whether subjective or objective.
II. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
III. As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of the metronome.
An Imagist anthology was published in 1914 that collected work by William Carlos Williams, Richard Aldington, and James
Joyce, as well as H. D. and Pound. Other Imagists included F. S. Flint, D. H. Lawrence, and John Gould Fletcher. By the time the
anthology appeared, Amy Lowell had effectively appropriated Imagism and was seen as the movements leader. Three years
later, even Amy Lowell thought the movement had run its course. Pound by then was claiming that he invented Imagism to
launch H. D.s career. Though Imagism as a movement was over by 1917, the ideas about poetry embedded in the Imagist
doctrine profoundly influenced free verse poets throughout the twentieth century.

11. Postmodernism: its meanings. Features of literary postmodernism.
Definition of Postmodernism
Postmodern literature is a form of literature which is marked, both stylistically and ideologically, by a reliance on such
literary conventions as fragmentation, paradox, unreliable narrators, often unrealistic and downright impossible plots,
games, parody, paranoia, dark humor and authorial self-reference. Postmodern authors tend to reject outright meaning in
their novels, stories and poems, and instead highlight and celebrate the possibility of multiple meanings, or a compl ete lack
of meaning, within a single literary work. Postmodern literature also often rejects the boundaries between 'high' and 'low'
forms of art and literature, as well as the distinctions between different genres and forms of writing and storytelling.
Here are some examples of stylistic techniques that are often used in Postmodern literature:
Pastiche: The taking of various ideas from previous writings and literary styles and pasting them together to make new
styles.
Intertextuality : The acknowledgment of previous literary works within another literary work.
Metafiction: The act of writing about writing or making readers aware of the fictionality of the very fiction their
reading.
Temporal Distortion: The use of non-linear timelines and narrative techniques in a story
Minimalism: The use of characters and events which are decidedly common and non-exceptional characters.
Maximalism: Disorganized, lengthy, highly detailed and writing.
Magical Realism: The introduction of impossible or unrealistic events into a narrative that is otherwise realistic.
Faction: The mixing of actual historical events with fictional events without clearly defining what is factual and what is
fictional.
Reader Involvement: Often through direct address to the reader and the open acknowledgment of the fictional nature of the
events being described.
Many critics and scholars find it best to define Postmodern literature against the popular literary style that came before it:
Modernism. In many ways, Postmodern literary styles and ideas serve to dispute, reverse, mock and reject the principles of
Modernist literature. For example, instead of following the standard Modernist literary quest for meaning in a chaotic world,
Postmodern literature tends to eschew, often playfully, the very possibility of meaning. The Postmodern novel, story or poem
is often presented as a parody of the Modernist literary quest for meaning. Thomas Pynchon's Postmodern novel The Crying of
Lot 49 is a perfect example of this. In this novel, the protagonist's 'quest' for knowledge and understanding results ultimately
in confusion and the lack of any sort of clear understanding of the events that transpired.

Postmodern literature serves as a reaction to the supposed stylistic and ideological limitations of Modernist literature and
the radical changes the world underwent after the end of World War II. While Modernist literary writers often depicted the
world as fragmented, troubled and on the edge of disaster - which is best displayed in the stories and novels of such
Modernist authors as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Albert Camus, Virginia Woolf, and Thomas
Mann - Postmodern authors tend to depict the world as having already undergone countless disasters and being beyond
redemption or understanding.
For many Postmodern writers, the various disasters that occurred in the last half of the 20th century left a number of
writers with a profound sense of paranoia. They also gave them an awareness of the possibility of utter disaster and
apocalypse on the horizon. The notion of locating precise meanings and reasons behind any event became seen as
impossible.
Postmodern literary writers have also been greatly influenced by various movements and ideas taken from postmodern
philosophy. Postmodern philosophy tends to conceptualize the world as being impossible to strictly define or understand.
Postmodern philosophy argues that knowledge and facts are always relative to particular situations and that it's both futile
and impossible to attempt to locate any precise meaning to any idea, concept or event. Postmodern philosophy tends to
renounce the possibility of 'grand narratives' and, instead, argues that all belief systems and ideologies are developed for
the express purpose of controlling others and maintaining particular political and social systems. The Postmodern
philosophical perspective is pretty cynical and takes nothing that is presented at face value or as being legitimate.
Similarly, at the core of many Postmodern literary writer's imaginations is a belief that the world has already fallen apart and
that actual, singular meaning is impossible to locate (if it can be said to exist at all), and that literature, instead, should serve to
reveal the world's absurdities, countless paradoxes and ironies.

Some literary critics and scholars have complained that postmodern literature, as a genre of writing, is male-dominated. Critics
and scholars tend to recognize very few female writers as 'postmodernists.' Furthermore, some critics and scholars argue that
postmodern literary styles - as divergent and unique as they may be - are showy, overly complicated, lacking in any firm moral
vision, too self-conscious and lacking in seriousness. In fact, many writers - some of whom are considered to be postmodern -
reject the very concept of postmodern writing or at least the label of 'postmodern.' After all, if postmodern writing and
philosophy ultimately rejects the idea of absolute meaning, how can such a concept have an absolute definition or name
associated with it?

Why Is This Important?
The styles and ideologies of postmodern literature have had a tremendous influence on contemporary literature, visual art,
film, science, history and journalism. The styles and techniques of Postmodern authors has had a tremendous influence on
popular culture all over the world. All of these storytelling devices were first used by postmodern literary writers and were
adopted by film and television makers.
Postmodern literature has also radically challenged the ways in which 'literature' is understood. Postmodern literature has
altered the ways in which we classify what is and is not 'literature.' Before the rise of postmodernism in literature, literature
was defined by most critics and scholars as high-brow, serious writing. Postmodern literature, though, has rejected the notion
that literature has to be serious and high-brow in order to be 'literary.' Today, many critics and scholars accept artistic works
which were once considered to be low-brow or merely 'entertaining' as legitimate works art and literature, such as popular
music, comic books and television.