AMERICAN ROMANTICISM ~ 18001860

We will walk on our own feet; We will work with our own hands; We will speak our own minds.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

THINK ABOUT

At the start of the 1800s, Americans had not created their own cultural identity.

These writers helped shape how we view ourselves today. They were the hippies of the 1800s.

COMMON THEMES

The idea or image of the journey is very important. Its usually a quest for selfknowledge or self-fulfillment. For Romantics, this journey is away from the corruption and pollution of the city. Writings moved away from the rhetoric of salvation, guilt, and providential visions of Puritanism. The American brand of romanticism developed its own character, especially as these writers tried selfconsciously to be new and

THE JOURNEY (CONTINUED)

The characteristic Romantic journey is to the countryside, which Romantics associated with independence, moral clarity, and healthful living. It is a flight both TO something and FROM something.

CELEBRATING IMAGINATION

Romanticism a school of thought that values feeling and intuition over reason. The Romantics believed that the imagination was able to discover truths that the rational mind could not reach.

THE CITY, GRIM AND GRAY

Tenements: buildings where a bathtub might be shared by four hundred people and eight or more people might live in a single room without furniture. Soundtrack: the bloodcurdling screeches of chickens being slaughtered.

Streets: filled with horse droppings and collapsed horses left to die on the curbside.

THE CITY (CONTINUED)

There were 20,000 homeless children on the streets of New York. There were waterfront gangs who would kill indiscriminately.

ROMANTIC ESCAPISM

The Romantics wanted to rise above dull realities to a realm of higher truth.

They achieved this in TWO WAYS: 1st: search for the exotic in a world from the past, or in a world far from the grimy city. Look to the supernatural or at old legends and folklore.

2ND WAY:

Reflect on the natural world until dull reality falls away and reveals underlying beauty and truth. This can be seen in lyric poems where a flower brings a deeper insight.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM
Values feelings over reason Places faith in the power of the imagination Shuns civilization and seeks nature Prefers youthful innocence to sophistic. Champions individual freedom

VISUALIZING AMERICAN ROMANTICISM: THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL

THOMAS COLE (1801-1848) ASHER B. DURAND (1796-1886) (1826-1900) ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902) FREDERICK CHURCH

Thomas

Cole: The Falls of Kaaterskil l (1826)

THOMAS COLE, THE OXBOW (VIEW FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE, NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS, AFTER A THUNDERSTORM, 1836)

Asher

Durand , Kindre d Spirits (1848)

Frederic

Edwin Church, The Natural Bridge (1852)

Bierstadt, Emigrants Crossing the Plains (1867)

Alfred

ALFRED BIERSTADT, LOOKING UP THE YOSEMITE VALLEY (CA. 186567)

VISUALIZING AMERICAN ROMANTICISM: THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL

From Kindred Spirits notice: In the foreground stands one of the school's famous symbols--a broken tree stump-- what Cole called a memento mori I.E. a reminder that life is fragile and impermanent; only Nature and the Divine within the Human Soul are eternal. Tiny as the human beings are in this composition, they are nevertheless elevated by the grandeur of the landscape in which they are in As Thomas Cole maintained, if nature were untouched by the hand of man--as was much of the primeval American landscape in the early 19th century--then man could become more easily acquainted with the hand of God

CHARACTERISTICS (CONT.)

Reflects on natures beauty as path to morality Looks back to wisdom of the past Finds truth in the exotic, supernatural, or natural realm Poetry is the highest form of imagination Finds inspiration in myth, legend, and folklore.

THE AMERICAN NOVEL

Becomes the experience of the wilderness. Writing about the frontier and westward expansion. A new kind of hero emerges.

A NEW KIND OF HERO

In American Romantic Fiction, the hero is youthful, innocent, and close to nature. Also, hes hopelessly uneasy with women since they represent civilization and the need to domesticate

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMER. ROM. HERO

Is young or youthful Is innocent and pure Sense of honor based on a higher principle Knows people based on intuition not formal learning Loves nature, and avoids the town Quests for some higher truth. (makes a journey)

POETRY: READ AT EVERY FIRESIDE

American poets use typically English themes, meter, and imagery.

The Fireside Poets: Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell were read aloud at the fireside as entertainment.

Also called Schoolroom poets.

THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS

Refers to the idea that to truly understand God, life, the universe, one must GO BEYOND (transcend) the everyday human experience/world. Led by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

They believed in human perfectibility.

TRANSCENDENTAL VIEW OF THE WORLD

Everything is a reflection of the divine soul Physical facts are a doorway to the spiritual world People can use intuition to behold Gods spirit Self-reliance must outweigh compliance to authority Spontaneous feelings are superior to

THE DARK ROMANTICS

Explore the conflict between good and evil, the effects of guilt and sin, and the destructive underside of appearances. Also called Gothic literature.

DARK ROMANTICS (CONT)

They saw the horror of evil. They still believe in intuition, and signs, but they do not believe that spiritual facts are necessarily good or harmless.

SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN ROMANTICS

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emily Dickinson

Henry Thoreau

Walt Whitman

Nathaniel Emily Hawthorne

Dickinson