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American Romanticism
1800-1855
Celebrating the Individual
The Early Romantics
The Fireside Poets
The Transcendentalists
American Gothic
Romanticism: Historical Context
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The Spirit of Exploration
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Writers saw that America was growing, but
Native Americans were being pushed from
their homes
“manifest destiny”: “the idea that it was the
destiny of the United States to expand to the
Pacific Ocean and into Mexican territory.”
Mexican-American War. Many Americans found
the war to be immoral.
Growth of Industry
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Writings reflect the shift in attitudes and working
habits.
Industrial Revolution began, changing the
country from an agrarian (one that is based on
agriculture as its prime means for support) to an
industrial powerhouse.
Americans’ lives were changed- they left their
farms for the cities, working long hours in harsh
conditions for low pay.
Writers of this period reacted to the negative
effects of industrialization- the hectic pace,
commercialism, and lack of conscience (slavery)
by turning to nature and to the self for simplicity,
truth, and beauty.
Cultural Influences
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From 1793 to 1860, cotton production rose
greatly.
Plantation owners felt that slavery had become
necessary for increasing profit.
For slaves, life was brutal
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Tension over slavery increased between the
North and the South.
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They rose before dawn and worked in the fields until
bedtime.
Many were beaten or otherwise abused.
Family members were sold away from one another.
Escapes were rarely successful.
Many poets wrote antislavery poems.
“Perhaps the greatest social achievement of the
romantics was to create awareness of slavery’s
cruelty.”
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By the mid 1800’s, many Americans joined
together to fight slavery.
At first, the slavery abolition movement began by
advocating the resettlement of blacks in Africa;
most blacks were born in America and resented
the idea of being forced to leave.
Abolitionists worked together to work for
emancipation. They formed societies, spoke at
conventions, published newspapers, and
swamped Congress with petitions to end slavery.
Workers began to protest the low wages and
deteriorating working conditions. Many workers
went on strike, but immigrants were always
available to take their places, so nothing
changed.
Workers began to join unions, and slowly
conditions improved.
Women began to protest in the 1800’s.
 They could not vote or sit on juries.
 Their education rarely extended beyond
elementary school.
 When they were married, their property
and money became their husband’s.
 Many women lacked guardianship rights
over their children.
 Women worked for change and met in
1848 at Seneca Falls, New York, to
continue their long fight for women’s
rights. First Women’s Rights Convention.
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Ideas of the Age
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Nationalism vs. Sectionalism
Nationalism= belief that national interests should
be placed ahead of regional concerns or the
interest of other countries.
Writers of this age reflected the national pride
and optimism of the American people and created
a literature entirely the nation’s own.
Writers listened to their own voices and wrote
with a distinctly American accent instead of
imitating European writings.
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Nationalism was challenged by the idea of
slavery.
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Nationalism was challenged by economic
interests.
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Until 1818, the U.S. consisted of 10 free states
and 10 slave states. As new territories tried to
enter the Union, the North and South wrestled
over the balance of power between free and
slave states
Tariffs on British imports forced Southerners to
buy expensive Northern-made goods. From
the South’s P.O.V., the North was getting rich
at the South’s expense.
Sectionalism- or the placing of the
interests of one’s own region ahead of the
nation as a whole- began to take hold.
Romantic
Literature
The Early Romantics
Romanticism first emerged in Europe in
the late 1700’s in reaction to
neoclassicism of the period that proceeded
it.
 Neoclassical writers admired and imitated
classical forms and valued reason.
 Romantics looked to nature for inspiration
and celebrated emotions of the
imagination.
 American Romanic writers were reacting
to Puritanism and the Age of Reason.
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As the U.S. population increased, writers
aimed to capture the energy and character
of their growing country. They saw the
limits of reason and instead celebrated the
glories of the individual spirit, the
emotions, and the imagination as basic
elements of human nature.
 Beauty of nature inspired the romantics
more than the fear of God.
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William Cullen Bryant’s 1817 poem
“Thanatopsis” helped establish
romanticism as the major force in the
literature of mid 19th century America.
 He often celebrated nature in his works.
 Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, and
James Fenimore Cooper were also
romantic writers.
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Fireside Poets
A group of New England poets whose work
was morally uplifting and romantically
engaging.
 Group’s name came from the family
custom of sitting beside a fire and reading
aloud.
 For the first time, the poetry of American
writers was equal to that of British writers.
 Interested in issues such as abolition,
women’s rights, improvement of factory
conditions, temperance, and championing
the common person.
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Transcendentalist Poets
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By the mid 1800’s, Americans were taking new
pride in their emerging culture.
Transcendentalism: philosophical and literary
movement that emphasized living a simple life
and celebrating the truth found in nature and in
personal emotion and imagination.
Believed people were inherently good and should
follow their own beliefs, even if those beliefs went
against the norm.
Stressed optimism, freedom, self-reliance, and
spiritual well-being in their works.
American Gothic: The “Brooding”
Romantics
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“Anti-transcendentalism”
Not all American romantics were optimistic or had
faith in the innate goodness of humankind.
Once the romantics freed the imagination from
the restrictions of reason, they could follow it
wherever it might go.
American Gothics were filled with dark currents
and a deep awareness of the human capacity for
evil.
They are romantic in their emphasis on emotion,
nature, the individual, and the unusual.
Use gothic elements such as grotesque
characters, bizarre situations, and violent
events in their fiction.
 Edgar Allan Poe was the master of the
gothic form in the United States. He
explored human psychology from the
inside. His plots involved extreme
situations- murder, live burials, physical
and mental torture, and retribution from
beyond the grave.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne agreed with the
romantic emphasis on emotion and the
individual. He examined the darker facets
of the human soul.
 Herman Melville explores madness and the
conflict of good and evil.
 These three writers- Poe, Hawthorne, and
Melville- profoundly affected the
development of the American literary
voice throughout the remainder of the 19th
century.
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