American Romanticism“Whoso would be a man

must be a nonconformist.”-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Romanticism was marked by an emphasis on originality and individuality, personal emotional expression, and freedom & experimentation of form.“ -- Britannica Online

American Romanticism (1800 – 1860)• Romanticism was a reaction against the Age of Reason.• The movement emphasized feeling and intuition over

reason.• The Romantics viewed life as they would like it to be

rather than how it actually was.• Writers during this time broke away from the European

tradition and discovered uniquely American topics and settings.

The Eleven Characteristics of American Romanticism

1) Belief in the Natural Goodness of Man – Man is born “good” and society makes him “bad.”

2) Emotion as Marker of Truth – Your emotions are always your guide.

3) Self-Analysis

4) Nature as Inspiration

5) Pure Democracy – Everybody has a voice

6) Carpe Diem

7) Transcending the Mundane – Doing that which is against the grain; being a non-conformist.

8) Value of the Grotesque

9) Interest in the Antique

10) Belief in the Perfectibility of Man

11) Organicism, not Neoclassicism – Getting away from structure and back to natural flow

The Fireside PoetsHenry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier• So-called because school children would memorize

their poetry and recite it around the fire at night.• These poets were the first American celebrities.• They wrote about topics and settings that were

distinctly American.

Read Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” and “The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls.” • Identify the important examples of Figurative Language

in each.• Identify each poem’s tone and theme.• Identify how the differ in tone and theme.

Transcendentalism (1830 – 1850)

• Transcend: to rise above or go beyond; overpass; exceed

• - ism: a distinctive doctrine, theory, system, or practice

The belief that the fundamental truths of existence lay outside the reach of the five senses & can be grasped only though intuition (the direct perception of truth, independent of any reasoning process).

The Romantics were Transcendentalists, but the

Transcendentalists were not necessarily Romantics.

The basic characteristics of Transcendentalism are:• praise for individual worth over society

• contempt for attachment to social customs and habits • church• government

• belief in living in harmony with nature

• dignity in manual labor

• relationship with God should be personal • one didn’t need a congregation or book

• revolutionary thoughts and ideas• abolitionists• feminists• vegetarians

• the belief in the Over-Soul

GOD

MAN NATURE

THE OVER-SOUL

“…That great nature in which we rest ... that Unity within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other.“ – R.W. Emerson

The belief that all forms of being are united through one shared, universal soul.

Any Questions?

And now, a little bit about THE American Romantic…

Walt Whitman (1819-1891)

•Born on Long Island, NY•At 12 he started to learn the printer’s trade.•He read voraciously and became acquainted with Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare early in life.•He knew the Bible thoroughly and as a “God-intoxicated poet,” desired to inaugurate a religion uniting all of humanity in bonds of friendship.

•In 1848, while editing a newspaper in New Orleans, Whitman experienced firsthand the viciousness of the slave market.

o This was an epiphany – opening his eyes to the cruelty of human beings•In 1855 Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was first published.•He was the self professed “poet of the people,” dressing in workman’s clothes, stressing contemporary events and everyday happenings, and drew his vocabulary from commerce and industry.•He called himself both “non-literary” and “non-decorous”.•Leaves of Grass was praised by many as a masterpiece of poetry but criticized by more and tagged as vulgar and obscene. It was banned in many cities.

Whitman believed in the absolute equality of everyone.•He had absolute faith in the powers of Man.•To develop his creative inclinations, man needs “freedom; freedom open to all, built on equality, tolerance, and self-respect.”

Whitman believed man is the source of all potential goodness, beauty, and truth; “indeed, he (Man) and God partake of the same nature.”

This idea is called Pantheism (The belief that God is everything and everything is God…the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of God’s nature.)

Whitman’s Poetic Style

•Free Verse – no set rhyme or rhythm•Written in strophes - (in modern poetry) any separate section or extended movement in a poem, distinguished from a stanza in that it does not follow a regularly repeated pattern.

•Listing technique•Extremely metaphorical•Written for “every man”

Any Questions?