The Dream of American Romanticism The Romantic Movement seized America from 1800 to 1860. A romantic is the name given to those who value feeling and intuition over reason (Arpin 162). During this time period, Americans were migrating westward to explore the land of America. Moving towards the countryside, they pursued beauty and tried evading their daily troubles. Romantics argued that art rather than science could best express universal truth (The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets). The romantics took a less rational approach with their beliefs. Rationalists and romantics had a very different look on cities. Rationalists looked at them as a place for success. Romantics ran from these cities viewing them as a place of poverty and death. During this time Americans felt a sense of freedom from English rule. Frontier promised opportunity for expansion, growth, freedom; Europe lacked this element (American Romanticism Overview). Americans felt the need to explore science and the land of North America. This movement brought literature of fireside poetry to the American Hero. Over the course of the American Romantic Period, focusing on emotions, changed the way Americans comprehended upward mobility in the American dream, which in turn changed the way authors wrote and lived their lives. The numerous characteristics of the romantic period helped shape the era. Romantics obsessed over the idea of individuality. They felt the need to have self-expression. They felt that they could do anything with self-reliance. “One could live without fear not because it was possible to control events but because it was possible to achieve self-control” (Cullen 71). Henry David Thoreau expressed himself by getting away from everybody and ...
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...numerous ways. Over the course of the American Romantic Period, focusing on emotions, changed the way Americans comprehended upward mobility in the American dream, which in turn changed the way authors wrote and lived their lives. The American Romantic movement created various new characteristics of the ideas, values, and writing styles of Americans. Literature staring seeing optimism in life and wrote about nature and created the American Hero. Many manifestations started concentrating on more on self-reliance. The Louisiana Purchase allowed for Americans to explore new opportunities. Slaves also had their dream to become free during this time period. The American Romantic period had a vast role in the way authors wrote literature. The American movement caused separation of the English, and helped Americans express themselves in their desire for the American Dream.
To start with, Romanticism was the first writing movement of the nineteenth century. It originated at the close of the eighteenth century in Europe, but was popular from the 1800s to 1850s. This movement was a revolt against the political and social standards of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction to the reasoning of nature through science. Romanticism’s characteristics came from philosophical sources and, because it is a reaction against reasoning, it focuses on intuition, nature, and human emotions. The philosophical background of this movement came from an author named Jean-Jacques Rousseau who emphasized the individual and the power of inspiration. Romanticism later then broke off into another two movements called Parnassian and Realism.
The Romantic period in American Literature dates from 1800-1860. It was a time where people were trying to find a distinctive voice. The Romantic period included letters, poems, essays, books, and art. Most of the authors focused on feelings, which is why it's called the “Romantic” period. The authors can be put into four different groups, The fire side poets, The Transcendentalist, American Gothic, and The Early Romantics.
Just as the European romantics cared about emotions, nature, imagination, meditation, humanity and freedom, the American first "group of great imaginative writers -Irving, Bryant and Poe" (readers Note p 57) -cared about the them too . In their writings, these writers were taken by the romantic ideals empathizing on nature, creating their own world, borrowing sets from the past or from legends, meditating their life, and finding their own explanations to its processes . With such attitudes, these writers made their way into literature as romantics . " The Devil And Tom Walker","Hop Frog", " To a Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis" serve as good examples for American Romanticism .
Rather than using reasoning and knowledge for guidance, the people of the Romantic period focused largely on the idea of using feelings and intuition to make decisions. The main foundation of the Romantic era was a reaction against rationalism and reasoning. Upward mobility and success through intellect was a major concept of the Rationalist period. “In an important respect, however, the Dream of Upward Mobility, particularly in the South, was actually too successful…” (Cullen 61). Unfortunately, during the rationalist movement, large cities and higher standards of living led to problems for Americans. Morality declined as Americans strove for money, power, and overall success. Poverty along with death rates increased as the small population of wealthy became wealthier as the poor became poorer. “The...
In the 1800’s the period of the Dark Romantics was focused on the dark side of the human mind. This started because of the Transcendentalist. These Transcendentalists were people who believed that religious and political parties corrupt people’s purity. They also believed that people were better of being independent and this would form the best community. In American women started to notice the unfair treatment of men and women when people lived in cities and worked in the factories and this started the Suffrage movement. There was also another movement during the nineteenth century and this was the Lyceum movement. This movement was about how important American education is. Both of these movements caused America some problems but also slavery was another issue that was going on because pilgrims were coming to America for freedom. They wanted freedom of religion and freedom of land and they were called Puritans. Religion became first to them in all aspects and came before the law. Two popular writers in this time period were Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville and the greatly influenced this era. Many of their pieces reflected nature such as the ocean overpowering man. In many of their journeys the sea was powerful and destructive which was something that man could not defeat.
The American Romantic movement was a diverse literary movement with a range of authors, including Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, and Hawthorne. Writers of this period of time were witness to great growth. The stories of these writers show an enormous shift in the attitude of many Americans. American romanticism writers were fairly outspoken in their support of human rights. Romantics focused on themes of individualism and nature in their writings.
The American Romantic period was essentially a Renaissance of American literature. “It was a Renaissance in the sense of a flowering, excitement over human possibilities, and a high regard for individual ego” (English). American romantics were influenced by the literary eras that came before them, and their writings were a distinct reaction against the ideology of these previous eras. In this sense, American Romanticism grew from “. . . the rhetoric of salvation, guilt, and providential visions of Puritanism, the wilderness reaches of this continent, and the fiery rhetoric of freedom and equality . . .” as they eagerly developed their own unique style of writing (English). American romantic authors had a strong sense of national identity and
History is the story and knowledge of the past. There are individuals that are interested by history and wish to study it by learning more. It is very informative to know what has happened in the past for self-knowledge. An individual cannot be naïve to the past including but not limited to how literature came to. One can understand literature more when they understand the time period the author wrote during and the way they wrote. There are several time periods different authors have been through with each period having specific beliefs. Romanticism is the time period that interests me the most; it was a time during the eighteenth century and focused on nature along with the individual’s expression of imagination and emotion.
Romanticism, rationalism, and realism all have one thing in common; they are each time periods that influenced change in American Literature. The three main components of each time period that differed were style, theme, and literary devices used in the writings.
The time period of 1800-1850 was a time of imposed conservatism and revolutionary action as a result of liberalism and nationalism becoming widely spread. As a response romantic artists, musicians, and writers conveyed their feelings and opinions on the conditions through their work. The romantic movement was one of a heightened interest in nature, individualism, emotion, and usually went against established rules. Among these romantic artists were Eugene Delacroix, Caspar David Friedrich, and Theodore Gericault.
To understand how Romanticism changed the way society thought, you must first understand the meanings and reason behind the movement. The Romantic Movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was described as a movement in the history of culture, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind. (Fiero) Romanticism provided expression of their thoughts and ideas toward their own societies, which was in effect predominantly in Europe and in the United States. The movement was a reaction to the Enlightenment which provided strict ideology and rationalism. The Church had much to do with the Enlightenment seeing as if religion and the importance of God were incorporated into most aspects of their culture. Thus, Romanticism was a response to the Enlightenment Movement and their religious ideology.
Romanticism itself actually originated from Europe in Germany by the publication of Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther. It then moved to England; not until 1830, Romanticism appeared in America. “American Romanticism was a movement that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and politics” (Scheidenhelm). It was an age of westward expansion, and a rebellion against the Age of Reason. It was the return to classics. Historically, this period of tensions resulted in the Civil War. Romantic Literature was personal, intense, and showe...
Despite its name, the Romantic literary period has little to nothing to do with love and romance that often comes with love; instead it focuses on the expression of feelings and imagination. Romanticism originally started in Europe, first seen in Germany in the eighteenth century, and began influencing American writers in the 1800s. The movement lasts for sixty years and is a rejection of a rationalist period of logic and reason. Gary Arpin, author of multiple selections in Elements of Literature: Fifth Course, Literature of The United States, presents the idea that, “To the Romantic sensibility, the imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings and wild nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning and cultivation” (143). The Romantic author rejects logic and writes wild, spontaneous stories and poems inspired by myths, folk tales, and even the supernatural. Not only do the Romantics reject logic and reasoning, they praise innocence, youthfulness and creativity as well as the beauty and refuge that they so often find in nature.
By the end of the eighteenth century, thought gradually moved towards a new trend called Romanticism. If the Age of Enlightenment was a period of reasoning, rational thinking and a study of the material world where natural laws were realized then Romanticism is its opposite. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental (Forsyth, Romanticism). It began in Germany and England in the eighteenth century and by the late 1820s swept through Europe and then swiftly made its way to the Western world. The romantics overthrew the philosophical ways of thinking during the Enlightenment, they felt that reason and rationality were too harsh and instead focused on the imagination. Romantics believed in freedom and spontaneous creativity rather than order and imitation, they believed people should think for themselves instead of being bound to the fixed set of beliefs of the Enlightenment.
Have you ever wondered how Edgar Allen Poe had an effect on us? Several poets had a great impact including Edgar Allen Poe. One in particular wrote about escapism and Imagination. Giving people the ability to escape their situation. “Romantics and transcendentalist, created a new kind of literature that emphasized imagination, feeling, individualism, and enthusiasm” (American Romanticism) The Romantics were from 1830- 1870. The characteristics in literature during the Romantics there were individualism, imagination and escapism, nature as a source of spirituality, common man as a her, and looking to the past for wisdom.