american romanticism enter imagination. a period of great cultural change romanticism focused on...
TRANSCRIPT
A PERIOD OF GREAT CULTURAL CHANGE
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omanticism focused on emotions and the individual
W
riters in this time period (roughly 1830-1870) emphasized… • Intuition• Imagination• Human potential for social progress and spiritual
growth
R
omanticism spawned in reaction to Classicism• Classicism = Belief that reason dominates nature
ROMANTIC NON-ROMANTIC/CLASSICAL
Emotional
Reasonable and Practical
Individualistic Public Responsibility
Revolutionary Conservative
Loves Solitude & Nature
Loves Public, Urban Life
Fantasy/Introspection External Reality
The Particular The Universal
Satisfaction of Desire Repressed Desire
Organic Mechanical
Well-known RomanticistsN
athaniel Hawthorne
W
alt Whitman
H
erman Melville
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ashington Irving
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mily Dickinson
J
ames Fenimore Cooper
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arriet Beecher Stowe
E
dgar Allan Poe
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE
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ature: Beauty, strangeness, and the mystery of nature• Washington Irving’s use of the forest as a place of savagery, mystery and
evil in “The Devil and Tom Walker”
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he Past: Rise in nationalism = Interest in American past• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s depiction of the Puritan age in The Scarlet Letter
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nner World of Human Nature: Emotion, intuition, individual, and exploration of
the private inner being• Edgar Allan Poe’s characterization of Roderick Usher’s mental illness in
“Fall of the House of Usher”
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
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onsidered the first internationally best-selling
American novelist• Advocated for writing as a profession• Argued for stronger laws to protect writers from
copyright infringement
C
onsidered the first American author to place his
stories firmly in the United States• Promoter of Nationalism• Outspoken against slavery
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est known works:• “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”