American Romanticism

1. American Romanticism The American Romantic Era 1800 — 1850

2. X A Fine American Romance

3. “Romance” • First used in the 14th century • Medieval story emphasizing chivalrous or idealistic love • Opposite of “concupiscence” • Tale composed in French, a Romance language (i.e., developed from Latin) • Related terms: • Roman à clef (historical novel) • Bildungsroman (coming-of-age story) • By 1750, “romantic” is used to describe the settings associated with the ideal of love: beautiful vistas; lovers’ moon; sunsets; etc. • 1790, the term “romantic” is used to distinguish poetry that is not “classical,” but rather contains a spirit of idealism and love, harkening back to the age of chivalry • The rise of the “novel” and “novella” as a European genre, in 1790s, reinforced the use of “roman” or “romance” • By 1820, the “Romanticism” was fully recognized as a literary and artistic movement.

4. “Romantic” • Travel Literature: the story of a journey into nature, or a work inspired by such a journey • Contains references and elements • Eschewed dependency on reason; favored the exploration of one’s emotions • Expresses an passionate idealism about emotional themes: love, nature, darkness, beauty

5. Romantic Principles • Humanistic philosophy • Feeling-fulmeditation about important human problems • Humanistic meditation stimulated by a contemplation of nature; more than mere description of nature (i.e., nature poets): a spiritual tie to nature was morally and mentally healthy • Romantic poetry represents the poet's self, either directly or in altered form: a solitary figure engaged in a long quest; a social nonconformist or outcast. • Humankind viewed as beings of limitless aspiration toward the infinite good envisioned by the poet’s faculty of imagination; an artist's failure attested to the grandeur of his or her aim.

6. Applying the “Romantic” • Literary work begins with a kind of manifesto of poetical aims: a declaration of one’s idealism and individualism • Favoring of innovation instead of traditionalism (rejection of the neoClassical) • Innovation in materials, forms and style of literature, without regard to classical precedent • Use of more common language and subjects • Objects are charged with a meaning or importance beyond their mere physical qualities: • symbolic • spiritual, • “meta”physical

7. The Romantic Process • Spontaneity: an all-at-once-ness of composition, in effect if not in actual process • Self-Exploration: the artist searches for the self and its true nature; a solitary quest or journey (a romance), usually into nature • Reflection: A deeply reflective and contemplative process; the poet's own feeling as an essential element • Organic Form: “laws of imagination” are free-flowing and organic, • discovering their own inherent order and beauty • each poetic work, like a growing plant, • evolving according to its inherent principles into its final form

8. The Romantic Cause As a response • The French Revolution • The Industrial Revolution • Rationalism • The rise of urban centers As an expression • Individualism and heroism • Celebration of humanism • Exaltation of feeling and intuition • A retreat into nature and rural communities

9. Romanticism: Social and Political • As an inspiration • The protection of indigenous Americans • The rise of environmentalism • Abolitionism • Secular humanism • Suffrage Movement and women’s rights • the homoerotic aesthetic (ideal male romantic love) • The celebration of the Sublime • The rise of Nationalism • The establishing of the natural sciences • The beginnings of the science of Psychology

10. Romantic Literary Movement1800 – 1850 (approx.) AMERICAN William Cullen Bryant James Fennimore Cooper Emily Dickinson Frederick Douglass Ralph Waldo Emerson Margaret Fuller Nathaniel Hawthorne Washington Irving Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Herman Melville Edgar Allen Poe Henry David Thoreau Walt Whitman BRITISH William Blake Lord Byron Thomas Carlyle Samuel Taylor Coleridge Percy Bysshe Shelley William Wordsworth John Keats OTHERS Mme. de Staël Honoré de Balzac Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

11. James Fennimore Cooper native and common subjects and characters; anti-heroes solitary, romantic figures caught in epic journeys Crevecoeur's "Letters From An American Farmer": the frontiersman portrayed by C. becomes the refined protagonists of Cooper's novels. Rowlandson: The prurient interest of European readers in Colonial perils and journeys becomes the epic romances of Cooper's stories. travel narratives and social commentary detailed, emotional contemplations of landscapes that seem to digress from the story;   Bread and Cheese Club Hudson River School painters and writers, includes William Cullen Bryant Cooper's father: a federalist politician, inspires Cooper to become one of the most important social critics of his age.

12. Major Themes in Cooper's Writing The Pathfinder, 1840. The Pioneers, 1841. Precaution, 1820. The Spy, 1821 The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea, 1824. Lionel Lincoln, 1825. The Last of the Mohicans, 1826. The Prairie: A Tale, 1826. The Red Rover: A Tale, 1827. The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, 1829. The Water-Witch, 1830. Bravo, 1831. The Headsman, 1833. Homeward Bound, 1838. Home as Found, 1838. The Deer slayer, 1841. The Two Admirals, 1842. The Wing-and-Wing, 1842. The Redskins, 1846. Crater, 1847. Jack Tier, 1848. The Sea Lions, 1849. The Ways of the Hour, 1850. Wyandonte, 1843. Afloat and Ashore, 1844 The Leatherstocking Tales, 1841 (Comprised in two Volumes). The American Society The American History The Backwoods - Frontier The Sea The nature of Democracy The operation of law The extent of American experience and its relation to the hopes of the Revolution • The first successful American historical romance in the vein of Sir Walter Scott (The Spy, 1821). • The first sea novel (The Pilot, 1824). • The first attempt at a fully researched historical novel (Lionel Lincoln, 1825). • The first full-scale History of the Navy of the United States of America (1839). • The first American international novel of manners (Homeward Bound and Home as Found, 1838). • The first trilogy in American fiction (Satanstoe, 1845; The Chainbearer, 1845; and The Redskins, 1846). • The first and only five-volume epic romance to carry its mythic hero - Natty Bumppo - from youth to old age.