The Romantic Period and Realism Period

Romanticism

a movement across the arts that lasted roughly from the 1780s to 1830s in Europe and the Americas

Romantics focused on

emotions, feelings, and intuition

Characteristics of Romanticism in Literature

represents a dramatic shift from the Enlightenment

Imagination was emphasized

Narrative of the self

Less concern for the stability of the community and more the fulfillment and rights of the individual

A turn to subjectivity: emotions, dreams, and fantasies

suspicion of social institutions and of society 

Nationalism or ethnic pride over humankind

Romantic subject matter

Escapism

A sense of boundlessness and freedom

Nature

In the Romantic period nature was often used as

a source for knowledge

a source of refuge

a revelation of God to the individual

Romantic Techniques

remoteness of settings in time and space

improbable plots

inadequate or unlikely characterization

authorial subjectivity

Organic principle in writing: form rises out of content, non-formal

Mechanisms for escape of slavery

escape

A writ of Manulition

abolition

What does Douglass conclude is needed for an individual to escape

education

purposes of slave narratives

arouse sympathy of the readers to promote humanitarianism

emphasized traditional Christian religious ideas

emphasized the cruelty of individual slave owners

Slave narrative plot

• loss of innocence

  • The protagonists develop an awareness of what it means to be a slave; their eyes are opened.

• realization of alternatives to bondage and the formulation of a resolve to be free

• Escape

• Freedom gained

Douglass’ Narrative may be read as

• an autobiography

• a bildungsroman

• an abolitionist text

• a commentary/ critique of the social and religious climate of the time

• a personal declaration of independence.

What is freedom according to Douglass

Manhood defines it

The right to knowledge

The ability to be self-reliant

The right to evolve beyond one’s present condition

It is not absolute and not absent from accountability

How does Douglass present himself?

He is a hero rather than a victim

He is a unique individual

His plight is other bondsmen’s plight

He is advocate against slavery

How did Douglass use traditional notions of what it means to be an American in order to build a characterization of himself

To be an American means to have freedom and to have liberty. One of the greatest weapons against slavery was ignorance and bliss.

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are rights that all individuals should be granted. You should be able to pursue property and what you desire.

We should have the right to question authority.

Lyric

a poem that displays a process of expression

Characteristics of Lyrics

• often written in first person

• vary, broadly defined that it has very few strict definitive rules

• Any structure is allowed, the structure is a display of freedom

• Resisted traditional expectations

Emily Dickinson

• saw physical, everyday things as symbols of spiritual things

• rebelled against poetic conventions of rhythm and rhyme of her time

• possessing a “sense of limitations”

• saw life as difficult, painful, and filled with losses or gains that were temporary and costly

• reflects a Calvinistic sense of evil and the inevitability of spiritual struggle

Motifs in Dickinson’s poetry

• a sense of loss

• the idea of nature as both a threat and source of joy and comfort

• the ecstasy and the danger of love

• the tension between faith and doubt

• a fascination with death

“Holy Thursday”

• by William Blake

• covers the concept of poor children going into St. Paul’s Cathedral on an Ascension Day.

• uses verbal ironies to dissuade the picturesque scene of “obedient” children going to church

“London”

• by William Blake

• is a critique against aspects of society that need improvement

• the streets, the churches, the individuals, the soldiers, and the families are critique.

“Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey…”

• by William Wordsworth

• covers the problem of discovering and sustaining faith

• has a preoccupation with loss and with the saving power of memory

• insists that nature offers the possibility of wisdom to combat the pain inherent in human growth

• Memory and connection are how we sustain our faith

• a call to be alive to the natural world so you can experience God’s sustaining glory

“The World is Too Much with Us”

by William Wordsworth

a Petrarchan sonnet

we waste our efforts, our gifts, focused on material and meaningless things.

we pay no attention to the natural world that God has given us

“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”

by Emily Dickenson

covers the idea of the world moving forward without you after death

nature continues its course despite the lack of the dead

“I dwell in Possibility”

by Emily Dickenson

discusses the boundless nature of the creative mind

calls Possibility a better house than prose

“Because I could not stop for Death”

by Emily Dickinson

death is personified as a gentleman caller

covers a journey from life to eternity

“The Cane”

• by Joaquim Mara Machado

• urban settings: contemporary Brazil

• self-conscious narrators

• satire of the bourgeoise

• a commentary against patriarchy and slavery

• follows a boy who does not want to be a priest and how he tries to get out of that role

Machado De Assis

• considered as Brazil’s greatest writer

• established himself as an editor, translator, poet, and writer of criticism and drama at an early age

• worked in various bureaucratic posts in the Brazilian government

• became the first president of Brazil’s academy of letters

“The Cane” summary

Domiao runs away from the seminary and seeks refuge with Sinha Rita who summons the boy’s godfather, Carneiro, to speak sense into the boy.

While waiting, Rita threatens to beat Lucrecia with a cane for laughing and neglecting her work.

Damiao’s father reacts violently to the news that his son lief the seminary, news the son learns through a letter

at the end, Rita decided Lucrecia must be punished and tells Damiao to get the cane. He does so and ends the story complicit in the beating of another child so he can save his own life by avoiding the seminary.

Damiao

a boy who runs away from seminary and is selfish and complicit in the beating of child so that he can get out of seminary.

Sinha Rita

Damiao’s godfather’s mistress who teaches girl stitchwork and attempts to get Carneiro to convince Damiao’s father to be merciful.

Joao Carneiro

Damiao’s godfather who is scared of Damiao’s father but loves Sinha Rita.

Lucrecia

a slave of Sinha Rita who laughed at Damiao’s joke and was beat by a cane for not finishing her work

Realism values

• middle class

• objective observations and details concerning the habits of middle-class life in normal middle-class settings, pragmatic

• the present moment in its common, surface details, everyday life

• the illusion of reality

• questions beliefs and organized religions

Romanticism values

• the exceptional, the uncommon, the genius, the individual

• imaginative writing the moment and ability to transcend the present world through the present moment

• the emotional, the intuitive, and the feelings and insight of the innocent child.

• nature as a way of seeing God and man

Realism emphasizes

an objective observation of everyday life

Romanticism emphasizes

the voices and contributions of the poet, the writer, the genius, and the use of exotic and distant settings.

Captain Anthony

• Douglass’s first master, who is likely his father.

• He is a cruel overseer who inflicts violence on his slaves, including his Aunt Hester

• a clerk for Colonel Edward Lloyd

• His treatment of slaves exemplifies the brutality of slavery

Colonel Edward Lloyd

• over Captain Anthon

• an extremely wealthy man who owns all of the enslaved people and lands where Douglass grew up.

• He insisted on extreme subservience from enslaved people and arbitrarily punishes them

Hugh Auld

• Thomas Auld’s brother and Douglass’ occasional master

• Lived in Baltimore with Sophia, his wife

• Hugh is aware that whites maintain power over Black people by depriving them of education and he enlightens Douglass on this matter unintentionally.

• Hugh was not as harsh as Thomas but became harsher due to drinking habits. 

Edward Covey

a notorious slave “breaker” who was Douglass’ keeper for one year. Slave owners send unruly enslaved people to him who works and punishes them to return them trained and docile. He was cruel and sneaky. He created an atmosphere of constant surveillance and fear.

Sophia Auld

Hugh Auld’s wife who was a working woman before marrying Hugh that never had “owned” enslaved people. The corruption of owning a slave transformed Sophia from a sympathetic, kind woman into a vengeful monster.

William Blake

he hated authority of all kinds

he paved his own pathway

He created his own unorthodox vision of who God was

He would write when commanded by the spirits

He also was a painter

he created a technique called “illuminated printing”

Rabindranath Tagore

the first Asian to receive the Nobel Prize and did so for literature.

he was a musician, painter, performer, educator, and political thinker

he wrote a variety of works: poems, plays, music, short stories, etc

he established the modern genre in India