Download Romantic Attitudes

ROMANTICISM
Notes
Romantic Attitudes
 Early American writing
o Dominated by Age of Reason
 Philosophy = Classicism
 Characterized by reason, clarity, balance, and
order
 Romanticism was a reaction to Classicism
o The decay and corruption found in Urban cities
 Retained ideals
o Equality, Freedom, and Individualism
 Valued Emotion/Feelings rather than Reason
 A “willing suspension of disbelief”
o Romantics
vs.
Rationalists
(Age of Reason)
 Imagination reached truths
vs.
Reason
 Emotion & natural beauty
vs.
Logic
 Individual feeling
vs.
Planning
 Nature
vs.
Cultivation
Romantic Techniques
 Society = A world of “lies”; “harmful morality”
 Cultivation of the Individualized
o Authorial subjectivity
 Truly heard author’s bias about the subject
 Organic principle in writing
o Form rises out of content (informal)
o Experimentation in new forms
 Using obsolete patterns
 Remoteness of settings in time and space
 Improbable plots
 Inadequate / unlikely characterization
ROMANTICISM
Notes
Elements of Romanticism
 Frontier
o Vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations
o American Novel & Wilderness
 Westward Expansion & Wilderness
 Growth of Nationalist spirit
 American hero was unsophisticated and
uncivilized
o Quest for beauty
 Involves a journey
 to the countryside or to the imagination
o Celebration of beauty and mystery of Nature
 For itself and beauty
 Source for the Knowledge of the primitive
 Refuge
 Revelation of God to the individual
 Themes
 Countryside, Independence/Moral Clarity,
Healthful Living
 Optimism
o Greater than in Europe because of the frontier
o Sense of Idealism
 Portraying National life, Character, Common Man
o Fireside Poets
 Read by fireside
 Family Entertainment
 Memorized in classrooms
 Wanted to prove Americans weren’t “hicks”
 Used British themes and style
ROMANTICISM
Notes
 Experimentation
o In Science and Institutions
o Interest in the Exotic (Far Eastern ideas)
o Fascination with supernatural and gothic
o Emphasis on Imagination
 Key to revealing the innermost depths of human spirit
o Poetry
 Contrasted with science
 Contemplate natural world until reality collapsed and
beauty and truth revealed
 The highest essence of imagination
 Lyric Poems
 Discussed a commonplace object/event with deep
insight
 Mingling of Races
o Large scale Immigration
 Growth of Industrialization
o North becomes industrial, South remains agricultural
o Escapism from American problems
 Involves a flight from something to something
o The use of the far-away and non-normal
 Historical Perspective
 A great interest in picturesque / exotic aspects of
the Past
 Characterization and Mood:
 Grotesque, Gothicism = sense of terror / fear