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Essay on Romanticism in American literature conclusion
Essay on 20th century american literature
Romanticism as a literary concept within the purview of American literature
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ROMANTICISM
In the nineteenth century, the foundation of American literature had a profound change. This was called from Reason to Romance or Romanticism. With many contributions of famous writers such as Irving, Cooper, Bryant, and Poe composed the stories and poems which all of them had a great value in the American literature. What is the Romanticism and how dies it effect to the American literature? By taking some compositions from these writers, there will be good answers for those questions.
According to some information in English books, the critics said the name Romantic can be misleading because the Romantics do not necessarily write about the love. The Romanticism can be viewed as an artistic movement, or state of mind, or both. This movement seemed to be reaction against the dominant attitudes and approaches of the eighteenth century. Unlike the eighteenth century, writers who interest in reaction, logic, and scientific observation, the Romantics stressed the examination of inner feelings, emotions and the use of imagination. This seemed to be the first element in Romanticism. It appeals to emotion rather than reason. Also, the Romanticism explores the mysteries of nature and supernatural. It reflects interesting in nature because the Romantics describe their story and poem about America wilderness or countryside or they depicted nature. This element that the reader can recognize clearly in the compositi...
Romanticism is a revolt against rationalism. The poets and authors of this time wrote about God, religion, and Beauty in nature. The romantics held a conviction that imagination and emotion are superior to reason. One such author is William Cullen Bryant, he wrote the poem Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. This poem uses many literary devices, and has a strong message to portray to the reader.
Romanticism first came about in the 18th century and it was mostly used for art and literature. The actual word “romanticism” was created in Britain in the 1840s. People like Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, and Percy Bysshe Shelley had big impacts on this style of art. Romanticism is an art in which people express their emotion. Whatever they believed is put into a picture, painting, poem, or book. Romanticism goes deep into a mind. It is very deep thinking and it’s expressing yourself through that deep thinking. Romanticism is the reaction to the Enlightenment and the enlightenment aka the “Age of Reason” took place during the 1700s to 1800s. The enlightenment emphasized being rational and using your mind; on the other hand, romanticism focuses on emotion and imagination. It says don’t just focus on rationality and reason.
The Romantic Movement, or period, was from the year 1828 to about 1865. The main feature of the American Romantic period was the celebration and praise of individualism. This time is also considered to be the first period of genuine American creativity. Emotion, instead of reason, became the largest source of inspiration and creativity during this period. All of this was a reaction to all of the constraints that were forced on people during the era of Realism. At this time in history, America was in a great period of expansion, the writers of the American Romantic period were discovering that could create a new and vastly different voice for this new era in time.
The Romanticism period started in 1789 and lasted till 1830. This time period was a major international movement, shaping modern views of art, literature, music, and other aspects in life. Romanticism was the “reaction against artistic styles of classical antiquity, which was neoclassicism.” Neoclassicists focused on the power of reasoning to discover the truth while Romantics focused on the hope to transform the world through the power of imagination. They had a deep love for nature (Furst 302). The aspects of romanticism are important; they are the beliefs of this period. The first aspect includes nature, which allows them to be free from the artificial aspects of civilization; they were with man’s true setting. Nature was there to reveal and heal individuals. An example of the love for nature in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poetry ‘Frost at Midnight’ is he is describing how happy he is that his baby will be able to see nature instead of living in the city like he did, “But thou, my babe! shalt wander like ...
Robinson, David M. "Romanticism." American History Through Literature 1820-1870. Ed. Janet Gabler-Hover and Robert Sattelmeyer. Vol. 3. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 1000-1007. Student Resources in Context. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
When many hear “Romanticism” they think of love, but Romanticism isn’t mainly about love. Yes, it may have some love, but it’s also about reasoning, nature, imaginations, and individualism. Like American Romanticism, that occurred from 1830 – 1865. It was actually caused by Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. For Americans, “it was a time of excitement over human possibilities, and of individual ego. American writers didn’t know what “America” could possibly mean in terms of literature, which was American and not British. It questioned their identity and place in society, creatively” (Woodlief). It was characterized by an interest in nature, and the significance of the individual’s expression on emotion and imagination; good literature should have heart, not rules. Some of the most famous authors who wrote during American Romanticism were Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. American Romanticism is important because it was the “historical period of literature in which modern readers most began to see their selves and their own conflicts and desires”. Romanticism was a literary revolution.
In the late eighteenth century the French Revolution had begun and England was finishing up its quest to build a world empire. England had captured many countries during the seven year war including Canada and India, but had lost its colonies in the War of Independence in America. Life was changing rapidly by the end of the eighteenth century with the beginning of industrialization. Out of the ashes of all the war and turmoil throughout the world at that time, an art form we now refer to as Romantic Poetry was born. Young writers were trying to escape from life that in their mind did not make any sense. They had enough of scientific knowledge, factual data, and intellectual reasoning. Their focus and interests were on people's feelings, their emotions, and a love for nature. This was also a close connection to the French Revolution and the reasoning behind the war, to place the focus on the people. Their written words were simplistic and easy to understand by most. You could compare the Romantics to the hippie movement of the sixties; the romantic writers wanted a change of pace from the thinkers and scientists from the Age of Enlightenment.
Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment as a cultural movement, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind (210). Culturally, Romanticism freed people from the limitations and rules of the Enlightenment. The music of the Enlightenment was orderly and restrained, while the music of the Romantic period was emotional. As an aesthetic style, Romanticism was very imaginative while the art of the Enlightenment was realistic and ornate. The Romanticism as an attitude of mind was characterized by transcendental idealism, where experience was obtained through the gathering and processing of information. The idealism of the Enlightenment defined experience as something that was just gathered.
American romanticism, originating in the 1800’s, still interests the minds of a twenty-first century reader! Romanticism is the movement of art and thought, but it started off in Europe and then made its way to the United States. Romanticism is divided into two types: dark and light. Writers focused on topics like imagination, intellect, and reason. Authors like Melville and Hawthorne, who wrote dark romantic tales, focused on the destructive aspects of nature. Other authors like Thoreau and Emerson focussed on something completely different in light romanticism. While dark romanticism focussed on the negativity in nature and the world, light romanticism valued nature and moral and spiritual guide to
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 ...
The romantic era was a time in literature where nature was seen as beauty and a refuge. We saw a shift within the arts from being more impersonal to have a warmer and friendlier aura. The romanticism movement was one that made everything beautiful and glorious. Writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Cullen Bryant are well known for the romantic themes in their works such as thanatopsis from Bryant and Nature from Emerson. However, this wasn’t always a good shift as seen in the romanticism in Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Longsworth.
Even today, man finds himself asking, "What is beautiful?" Many would point to nature when prompted with such a question; however, few realize that a similar question was posed and a similar answer given back in Romantic Great Britain, but to a whole new degree. British Romanticism was a reaction against technology as well as a cry to turn back to the beauty of nature, and its advocating troops held no more than a pen and paper in hand (Lorcher). Authors of the Romantic era used literature to open the eyes of a society bogged down by the chaos and clutter of everyday life, and the ideas that they promoted still affect man to this very day.
The Romantic movement of poets in the nineteenth century marked a movement from the earlier thinking of the poets and writers of the Enlightenment. Enlightenment writers saw nature as a prime example of scientific principals, and as an orderly representation of the universe. In contrast, Romantic writers viewed nature as the representation of God’s power and God’s presence in the living and natural universe a source of both inspiration and emotion and that it resembled the most perfect state man could be in also known as the Sublime. The Romantic views on nature can be best demonstrated in my opinion the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley.
The Romantics era lasted from the year 1798 to the year 1834 and is an era full of changes. In this era the artists had freedom to express what they felt through their arts of work. Therefore, the works of art and the music during this period are truly expressive. Nationalism is also widely expressed by many artists during this era. This era is mostly shaped by many talented artists that became recognized nationally and worldwide. The classical rules were broken in this era and no more political oppression subsided in the streets of England. The air smells like freedom to the people living there, and new boundaries were open to those who decided to pursue their dreams. The artists give life to their imagination in their published works of art. “In various forms, Romances shared a feature that Victorians would take as exemplary of the literary (if not the polemical) imagination of the age: a turn even an escape form the tumultuous and confusing here-and-now” (The Romantics and Their Contemporaries 11). The Romantic era gave the world the supernatural and the mysterious side of art. Creativity also is a word that defines the Romantic era because it gave life to its lit...