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Historical Influences Prior to the Enlightenment

Enlightenment--

demanded people be Well read/Educated--exposed to many different kinds

of literature and up on the time

City Dweller--city as a place of opportunity

Sophisticated--marked by wide-ranging knowledge and appreciation of
many parts of the world arising from urban life and wide travel

Smallpox outbreak made the cities unsafe; people went from living in tenant
buildings shared by 400 families to trying to expand west.

Industrial Revolution brought hope and despair at the same time.

Mechanization/factories dehumanized the people. Helped spur the escapist
attitude, since people needed to feel again.

Louisiana Purchase/Lewis and Clark Expedition provided Americas with an

unexplored frontier to flee to escape smallpox, established culture, and escape
corruption found in cities.

Immigration provides a larger workforce, helping fuel industrialization and an

economic boom. More racial diversity means more diverse literature in the long run

Monroe Doctrine(1823) Europe would not colonize or interfere with American

Affairs

American Romantic Literature

The American Romantic period, which lasted from about 1830-1870, was a time
of rapid expansion and growth in the United States that fueled intuition,
imagination, and individualism in literature. When you think about stories that are
labeled 'romantic,' you probably think of a romance novel, where some
half-dressed woman has some Fabio-esque guy hanging all over her. That is
NOT what we're talking about in the American Romantic period. Don't get me
wrong: like those stories, Romantic literature is both adventuresome and
improbable, but it's a lot more than just a randy love story.
In 1830, just fifty years after the Revolutionary War, America was still really
young, but its citizens were anxious to create their own identity that was uniquely
American and not so reliant on European values. Therefore, the American
Romantic movement challenged the very rational thinking that we saw in the Age
of Reason during the Revolutionary War. This period produced fewer
instructional texts and more stories, novels, and poetry.
Within these stories, novels, and poems, there are five characteristics that we
can use to identify American Romantic literature. These are:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Imagination
Individuality
Nature as a source of spirituality
Looking to the past for wisdom

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5.

Seeing the common man as a hero

Common Themes: Imagination

The first of these characteristics is imagination. This falls in line with the Industrial
Revolution, which was a great time of progress. In many cases, when there is
progress, there is also great optimism. People start to imagine what could
happen next, and progress continues. On the flip-side of that, with that much
progress, a lot of people began migrating to big cities that were becoming
overpopulated. The cities became dirty and disease-ridden, so it's no surprise
that many people wanted to escape that. Therefore, the American Romantic
writers embrace that notion through escapism.
Escapism is where the mind allows you to escape harsh conditions by taking
you to a place that is purely beautiful. Characters in Romantic literature are often
journeying away from the city and into the countryside to a place that's not totally
realistic, a place that has improbable and even supernatural qualities. The
authors develop these places with i magery to make the reader experience the
locale as if it were real. Washington Irving, who's known as the father of
American literature, wrote a story called 'Rip Van Winkle,' which is about a man
who wanders out into the woods to escape some chores his wife is asking him to
do. After falling asleep for twenty years in the woods, he not only escapes his
chores but his wife as well because she's dead. This fanciful escape is typical
during this time, but it's something we still see in movies today. Think about the
movie Avatar. Jake Sully is able to escape by assuming a new identity in a
beautiful new world. Even the audience, as they watch, is able to escape reality
as they experience the fantastical world of Pandora. So, we see escapism
continues today.
Escapism is the Romantic need for a retreat from the unpleasant realities of city
life and industrialization. This could be mental escape through literature, a
physical escape to nature/the country, or both.

Common Themes: Individuality

The second characteristic used to identify American Romanticism is individuality.
As people are moving into the frontier, they are establishing new areas in ways
that best suit their needs. Not only are people moving across the country but into
the country.Immigration begins creating what we now call the 'melting pot' in
America. As a result, you see, not only people creating an identity for
themselves, but the country creating its own identity as people with different
social pasts come together to create something new.
Americans also wanted to distance themselves from Europe and become
intellectually independent. This shows up in literature with characters who live on
the outskirts of society. Kind of like that old-school cowboy, they aren't going to
follow the norms that have come over from Europe; they're going to follow their

intuition and their feeling, and they're going to embrace this newly found freedom
and become individuals.
The individual is more important than society. This is different from the
Enlightenment view, where the individual serves society

Common Themes: Nature as a Source of Spirituality

Third, we have nature as a source of spirituality. Remember, initially, the
Puritans were coming to the Colonies to escape religious persecution in
England. Those Puritans' ideas did not disappear when the country was
established. During this time, the Romantics wanted to embrace that spiritual root
that was planted by the Puritans. To do that, they're taking what was established
in that spiritual realm, but then taking it into nature. Where the Puritans saw
nature as savage, with the Devil hiding behind every tree, the Romantics really
are finding God in nature. They believed that they could achieve high levels of
insight and information about the world around them just by going to nature.
William Cullen Bryant was a poet during this time, and he wrote a poem called
'Thanatopsis.' It's a prime example of looking into nature for spiritual insight. He
explores death through the life cycles that we see in nature. He finds comfort
both for the living and for the dying. In his point of view, death is just a chance to
go back to nature.
Natures beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development were contemplating
the natural world until dull realities fell away to reveal underlying beauty and truth

Wisdom from the past

The fourth characteristic is the idea that wisdom can be gained from the past.
Writers, like Washington Irving, used old legends to create new stories. And
whereas the novelists and short story writers tried to distance themselves from
European tradition in writing, the poets stuck to that tradition. Their form is the
same. Their techniques are the same. However, they are truly unique in their
content in that they are looking at the pure nature America has to offer and are
using that for their inspiration. This encourages a group called the Fireside Poets,
who are known because people sat by the fire and read their poems in the
evenings, kind of like how we sit and watch our favorite TV shows at night. It was
a form of entertainment and a popular form at that time. There are four
Fireside Poets that you should know. All of them have really long names.
We have Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier (how about that
for a fantastic name?), Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell.These
four guys were well-known in their time, and even though their style was not
unique, the Fireside Romantic poets are still recognized as some of America's
greatest poets ever.
Nostalgia: a longing for the past. Can be seen in Romantics writing about frontier
life or simpler things rather than industrialized society.

Common Man as a Hero

As our final characteristic, we have the common man as our hero. Prior to this
time the European hero had been established as sophisticated and educated.
Ben Franklin fits into this mold. He was educated. He was an inventor. He
helped establish the country. This is a man who was looked up to as a
hero. The American Romantics turned away from that. James Fenimore
Cooper is known for writing the first Ameri-can novel, starring the character
Natty Bumppo. That name does not sound very heroic, does it? But Bumppo
becomes the first American hero. He's young, he's innocent and awkward with
the ladies, but he has a solid moral code, even if he doesn't always follow
society's rules. He has intuition about people, he loves nature, and he's questing
for a higher truth. He's a character like Luke Skywalker - one day he's out
shooting womp rats and the next he's flying an X-Wing. Indiana Jones is also a
good example of the American hero. He doesn't change as he tackles his
adventures, but we know that his heart is always in the right place.
American Romantic Hero
Romantic hero are usually identified by exhibiting these traits
1. Young
2. Pure of heart
3. Morality beyond society and religion
4. Knowledge based off of intuitive understanding not formal learning
(Intuition-our capacity to know things spontaneously and immediately through our
emotions rather than through our reasoning abilities )
5. Avoids town life
6. Quests for some higher truth in the natural world

Arpin, Gary, American Romanticism. Elements of Literature. Ed. Kathleen Daniel. Atlanta: Halt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1997. 138.
Carroll, Heather. "The Romantic Period in American Literature and Art." English 102: American
Literature. Study.com, 22 Feb. 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2016.
Celebrations of the Self: Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Language of Literature.Ed.
Applebee, Arthur N. Boston; McDougal Litell, 2002. 340.
The Dark Side of Individualism. Language of Literature. Ed. Applebee, Arthur N. Boston;
McDougal Litell, 2002. 447.
Yarborough, Wynn. On William Cullen Bryant. Ann Matthews Woodlief. Virginia Commonwealth
University. 1994. Web. 5 Mar. 2013.

Lesson Summary
In summary, you can identify American Romantic literature by the five characteristics that
make it unique.
1. Imagination and Escapism: Characters taking a journey from the dirty city into
the supernatural countryside.
2. Individuality: Individuals embracing freedom by following intuition and going
exploring.
3. Finding spirituality in nature: Reflections on nature and how it can bring people
closer to God.
4. Looking to the past for wisdom: Settings that reflect times past and plots that
show how legends fit in today.
5. Finding a hero in the common man: Characters who are flawed but whose
innocence and strong morals give them goo12d hearts.
And that summarizes American literature during the Romantic period