(1820 1860)

The movement reached America around 1820 Fresh new visions electrified artistic & intellectual circles in America Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national expansion & the discovery of distinct American voice The solidification of national identity, surging idealism & passion of romanticism nurtured American literature of the times

 Romantic ideas centered around art as inspiration, the spiritual & aesthetic dimension of nature, & metaphors of organic growth Art rather than science became a tool to express universal truth Romantics understood the importance of expressive art for individual & society The development of self through self awareness became a major theme

 Self awareness was a mode of knowledge opening up the universe It gave a sense of moral duty to reform social inequalities & relieve human suffering Psychology played an important role Artistic effects & techniques were developed to evoke psychological states Romanticism was affirmative for most American authors

 The spirit seemed particularly suited to American democracy: it stressed individualism, affirmed the value of the common person & looked to imagination for aesthetic & ethical values It fell into fertile soil in New England

Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism was the distinctly American strain of English Romanticism A reaction against 18th c. rationalism & a manifestation of general humanitarian trend of 19th c. thought Based on the fundamental belief in the unity of the world & God The individual soul was a microcosm of the world itself Self-reliance & individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God

Song of Myself
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
(Walt Whitman)

 The Transcendental Club was loosely organised in 1836 This club never issued a manifesto but insisted on individual differences They often saw themselves as lonely explorers outside society & convention The American hero typically faced risk or even destruction in the pursuit of selfdiscovery

Important Literary Figures

Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Margaret Fuller Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Brahmin Poets

Harvard educated class of poets came to be called the Boston Brahmins They were the most respected 7 cultivated literary authors of the US Their writings fused American & European traditions & sought to create a shared Atlantic experience They attempted to educate & elevate the general populace by introducing a European dimension to American literature

 But their overall impact was conservative Due to their insistence on European things & forms, they retarded the growth of a distinctive American consciousness Partly because of their influence, it was almost a century before the distinctive American genius of Whitman, Herman Melville, Thoreau & Poe was recognised in the U.S

Romantic Fiction
Romantic vision tended to express itself in the form of Romance: a heightened, emotional & symbolic form of novel Romances were serious novels that used special techniques to communicate complex & subtle meanings Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville & Edgar Allen Poe shaped heroic figures larger than life, burning with mystic significance.

 The typical protagonists are haunted, alienated individuals They are lonely people pitted against unknowable, dark fates that grow out of their deepest unconscious selves The symbolic plots reveal hidden actions of the anguished spirit One reason for this exploration of the hidden self is the absence of settled, traditional community

 American novels frequently depict a revolutionary absence of tradition Virtually al American protagonists were loners which was the result of American society populated by immigrants speaking foreign language & following strange ways Instead of borrowing tested literary methods, Americans tend to invent new creative techniques, hence the sprawling shape of Moby Dick & the dreamlike narrative of Poes novels

 The tragic note becomes dominant in American novels even before the Civil War manifested the greater social tragedy Hawthorne treated issues that were usually suppressed such as the impact of the democratic experience on individual behaviour, especially on sexual & religious freedom The most striking element in Hawthornes fiction is the absence of functional families

 The Puritanism may have weakened the family system by preaching that the individuals first responsibility is to save his/her own soul Deep anxiety & psychic insecurity occurred earlier in America than in Europe who had a firm complex social structure that gave them security Poe accurately described the underside of the American dream of the self-made man & showed the price of materialism & competition i.e. loneliness, alienation & images of dearth in life

Women Writers & Reformers

American women suffered many inequalities in the 19th c. They were denied vote, barred from professional schools & higher education, forbidden to speak in or attend public conventions, & unable to own property Despite these obstacle a strong womens network operated in those days

 Through personal letters, newspapers & books, women advocated & furthered social change They demanded fundamental reforms such as the abolition of slavery & womens suffrage Their sentimental novels were utterly popular They include Sojourner Truth, Lydia Child, Cady Stanton & Harriet Beecher Stowe

Slave Narrative
It was the first black literary genre in the U.S. extending back to the colonial times It helped establish the an African-American identity in white America It was abolitionist in nature & influenced the black fictional techniques & themes throughout 20th c. Often dictated by illiterate blacks to white abolitionists & used as propaganda, these narratives were well known in the pre-Civil war America