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Unit 2
Unit 2
KEY IDEA During the romantic period, America seemed limitless –
new frontiers were being explored every day, and inventions
advanced both farming and industry. Yet to many people, life felt
frantic and soulless. Is progress always worth its price?
Unit 2
KEY IDEA Democracy was flourishing in the early 19th century and citizens
felt optimistic about their country. Yet the problems of the age–slavery,
women’s disenfranchisement, the mistreatment of workers–were severe,
and protestors agitated for change. What role do you think activism plays
in a democracy? Under what circumstances, if any, should citizens lose
their right to protest?
Unit 2
Unit 2
KEY IDEA Although most romantic writers reflected the optimism
of their times, some pondered the darker side of human nature.
Edgar Allan Poe, for example, conjectured that in extreme
situations people would reveal their true, evil natures. Do you think
everyone has a dark side? What might make the dark side prevail?
Unit 2
Unit 2
KEY IDEA To escape the materialism and hectic pace of
industrialization, many writers of the age turned to nature and to
the self for simplicity, truth, and beauty. In earlier centuries,
people had looked to reason or to God for answers. Where do
you think people turn to make sense of their lives today?
Early Romanticism
1800-1855
• The Early Romantics
• The Fireside Poets
• The Transcendentalists
• American Gothic
Early Romanticism
• Romanticism had first
emerged in Europe in the
th
late 18 century, in reaction
to the neoclassicism of the
period that had proceeded it.
Early Romanticism
• Where neoclassical writers
admired and imitated classical
forms, the romantics looked to
nature for inspiration.
• Where neoclassicists valued
reason, the romantics celebrated
emotions and the imagination.
Early Romanticism
• Early romanticism was a
reaction to the Age of
Reason and the strict
doctrines of Puritanism.
Early Romanticism
• Early romantics saw the limits of reason
and instead celebrated the glories of the
individual spirit, the emotions, and the
imagination of basic elements of human
nature. The splendors of nature inspired
the romantics more than the fear of
God, and some of them felt a
fascination with the supernatural.
The Romantic Hero
• The romantic writers’ focus on the
individual led to the creation of a
different kind of hero: unique, bold,
sometimes brooding or eccentric.
• Romantic heroes were often larger than
life, and always unforgettable.
Focus Questions
• What are the benefits of
following passion over reason?
• What are the disadvantages of
following passion over reason?
• What is the significance of
youth over sophistication?
The Fireside Poets
• Other writers influential in forging an
American literature were the Fireside
Poets, a group of New England poets
whose work was morally uplifting and
romantically engaging.
• The group’s name came from the family
custom of reading poetry aloud besides
a fire, a common form of entertainment
in the 19th century.
The Fireside Poets
• With the Fireside Poets, the poetry of
American writers was, for the first time,
on equal footing with that of their British
counterparts.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the bestknown member of the group stressed
individualism and an appreciation of
nature in his work.
The Fireside Poets
• Other fireside poets were
strongly using poetry to bring
about social reform. They were
interested in such issues as
abolition, women’s rights,
improvement of factory
conditions, and temperance.
The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens towards the town,
And the tide rises, and the tide falls
Darkness settles on roofs and
walls,
But the sea, the sea in the
darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft,
white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds
in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler
calls;
The day returns but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Notice that this poem has a
meditative effect and
reinforces the theme of
nature’s repeated cycle.
The Transcendentalists
• A philosophical and literary movement
that emphasized living a simple life and
celebrating the truth found in nature and
in personal emotion and imagination.
• The term transcendentalism came from
Immanuel Kent, who wrote of
“transcendent forms” of knowledge that
exist beyond reason and experience.
The Transcendentalists
• True reality is spiritual
• They believe in human perfectibility, and
they worked to achieve this goal.
• Based partly on the philosophy of
Idealism.
• Key figures: Ralph Waldo Emerson, and
Henry David Thoreau
The Life Worth Living
I find I live quite happily without those things I
think necessary in winter in the North. And as
I write these words, I remember, with some
shock at the disparity in our lives, a similar
statement made by a friend of mine in France
who spent three years in a German prison
camp. Of course, he said, qualifying his
remark, they did not get enough to eat, they
were sometimes atrociously treated, they had
little physical freedom. And yet, prison life
taught him how little one can get along with,
and what extraordinary spiritual freedom and
peace such simplification can bring. I remember
again, ironically, that today more of us in
America than anywhere else in the world have
the luxury of choice between simplicity and
complication of life. And for the most part, we,
who could choose simplicity, choose
complication. War, prison, survival periods,
enforce a form of simplicity on man. The monk
and the nun choose it of their own free will. But
if one accidentally finds it, as I have for a few
days, one finds also the serenity it brings.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh from Gift from the Sea
Focus Questions
• Why do you think most people
choose complication instead of
simplicity?
• What does Lindbergh think
makes life worth living?
from Nature
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To go into solitude, a man needs to
retire as much from his chamber as
from society. I am not solitary while I
read and write, though nobody is with
me. But if a man would be alone, let him
look at the stars. The rays that come
from those heavenly worlds, will
separate between him and vulgar
things. “
Focus Questions
• How can you be alone and not solitary?
• Why might adults not be able to see
nature as well as children?
• Explain the meaning of “Nature always
wears the colors of the spirit.”
American Gothic:
The Brooding: Romantics
Not all American Romantics were
optimistic or had faith in the innate
goodness of humankind. Three other
giants from this period, Edgar Allan Poe,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman
Melville are what have been call
“brooding” romantics or “antitranscendentalists.”
American Gothic:
The “Brooding: Romantics
• Theirs is a complex philosophy, filled with
dark currents and a deep awareness of the
human capacity for evil.
• Their stories are characterized by a probing
of the inner life of their characters, and
examination of the complex and often
mysterious forces that motivate human
behavior.
• They are romantics, however, in their
emphasis on emotion, nature, the individual,
and the unusual.