American Romanticism

When did it occur

1820-1865

What marked the end of this era? What did it shift to?

the end of the civil war. realism

sectionalism

economic security and expansion of slavery

Provincialism

(literature focus) American work struggled to be equal with European counterparts.

- Resulted in 2 schools of thought: themes should be universal or themes should be VERY American

What were the four cornerstones? explain

Individualism

- Man alone is better than a man in the masses

- Man's abilities can lead to triumph over difficulties

- Man was not a fall creature (remove corrupting influences, you make man better)

Imagination

- The imagination is of primary importance in literature

- Emotion replaces reason

Nature

- Nature is what reveals truth

- God reveals HImself only through nature

The distant

- Wrote about distant lands

- Wrote about distant times

Who brought vivid characters to the short story genre?

Washington Irving

Who helped form the shape of short stories?

Edgar Allan Poe

Who made novels focused on larger-than-life America heroes, especially ________________?

James Fenimore Cooper; frontiersmen

Who developed the novel to its full potential?

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville

Knickerbockers

authors in New York City

New England school

authors in Boston; also known as the "Schoolroom Poets"

Transcendental Optimists vs. Transcendental Pessimists

Transcendental Optimists- supported ideas of Transcendentalism

Transcendental Pessimists- rejected ideas of Transcendentalism

What were the three parts of religion?

Orthodoxy

Darwinism

Transcendentalism

Orthodoxy

Rejection of traditional teachings and replaced with emotion and imagination

Revival- camp meetings (mostly in the North)

Darwinism

Charles Darwin- the theory of evolution

who wrote Origin of Species and Descent of Man

Charles Darwin

Transcendentalism

KNOWLEDGE can be known only through the five senses

God was an Over-Soul who permeates everything

Man is naturally GOOD; society corrupts

Who were knickerbockers

Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant

who was the first American author to achieve international fame

Washington Irving

Created the short story

Washington Irving

wrote A History of New York; "Rip Van Winkle"; "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Washington Irving

The first successful novelist in america

James Fenimore Cooper

He created the mythological American hero-the frontiersman

James Fenimore Cooper

The Leatherstocking Tales (which includes The Last of the Mohicans) and The Deerslayer

James Fenimore Cooper

Shaped the critical standards of american poetry

William Cullen Bryant

Reflected both puritan and deistic traditions in his poetry

William Cullen Bryant

Works: "To a Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis"

William Cullen Bryant

First influential professor poet

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

First american to have bust in poets corner of westminster abbey

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Works: The Song of Hiawatha and The Courtship of Miles Standish

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Foremost voice in literary war against slavery

John Greenleaf Whittier

Work: snowbound

John Greenleaf Whittier

Wrote more than 30 volumes

John Greenleaf Whittier

A literary critic

James Russell Lowell

Work: A Fable for Critics

James Russell Lowell

Sought to destroy the conservative religion of his fathers

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Wrote for the Atlantic Monthly

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Work: "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered Nautilus"

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Most powerful literary spokesman for Transcendentalism; he is the pivotal figure in American literature

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Works: Nature, "Self-Reliance" and The Dial (the 1st publication for Transcendentalism)

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who was apart of the New England school?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes

Transcendental Optimists

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman

Rejected conformity

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau led...

two movements of 1) Living a primitive life and 2) Passively resisting civil authority

Lived at Walden Pond trying to be self-reliant

Works: Walden and "Civil Disobedience"

Henry David Thoreau

"National Poet of the United States" was his self-acclaimed title

Walt Whitman

Encouraged poetry to be without restriction on subject matter or form

Walt Whitman

Works: Leaves of Grass, Drum-Taps, and "O Captain, My Captain."

Walt Whitman

Who was "O Captain, My Captain" about?

Whitman wrote it about Lincoln's assassination

Developed the genre of the short story

Edgar Allan Poe

Life filled with tragedy

Edgar Allan Poe

Works: "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Masque of the Red Death

Edgar Allan Poe

Transcendental pessimists

Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne

Infused novels with American history

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Works: The Scarlet Letter, "The Minister's Black Veil," and The House of Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne