Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism

American Literary History: Romanticism, Realism and Naturalism

Romanticism |Realism | Naturalism | Definitions | Works Cited

Romanticism (European) Romanticism 1820-1865: A European artistic and intellectual movement of the early 19th century, characterized by an emphasis on individual freedom from social conventions or political restraints, on human imagination, and on nature in a typically idealized form. Romantic literature rebelled against the formalism of 18th century reason. Many Romantic writers had an interest in the culture of the Middle Ages, an age noted for its faith, which stood in contrast to the age of the Enlightenment and pure logic.

Romanticism differs significantly from Classicism, the period Romanticism rejected. Romanticism is more concerned with emotion than rationality. It values the individual over society, nature over city. It questions or attacks rules, conventions and social protocol. It sees humanity living IN nature as morally superior to civilized humanity: glorification of the "noble savage." It conceives of children, essentially innocent by nature, as being corrupted by their surroundings. Many works emphasize the emotional aspects excessively, moving the piece toward Dark Romanticism and the Gothic. Romantic literature places an emphasis on the individual and on the expression of personal emotions. Literary Romanticism should not be confused with romance literature.

Romanticism was evident not only in literature, but also in art, music and architecture.

The American Period of Romanticism (1830-1865) was "an age of great westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the slavery questions, of an intensification of the spirit of embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North" (Harman 454). It has many of the same characteristics as European Romanticism but had several uniquely American aspects.

Conditions that influenced American Romanticism:

Frontier promised opportunity for expansion, growth, freedom; Europe lacked this element.Spirit of optimism invoked by the promise of an uncharted frontier. Immigration brought new cultures and perspectivesGrowth of industry in the north that further polarized the north and the agrarian south.Search for new spiritual roots.

Literary Themes:Highly imaginative and subjectiveEmotional intensityEscapismCommon man as heroNature as refuge, source of knowledge and/or spirituality

Characteristics: Characters and setting set apart from society; characters were not of our own conscious kind

Static characters--no development shown

Characterization--work proves the characters are what the narrator has stated or shown

Universe is mysterious; irrational; incomprehensible

Gaps in causality

Formal language

Good receive justice; nature can also punish or reward

Silences of the text--universals rather than learned truths

Plot arranged around crisis moments; plot is important

Plot demonstrates

romantic love

honor and integrity

idealism of self

Supernatural foreshadowing (dreams, visions)

Description provides a "feeling" of the scene

Sub Genre: Slave narrative: protest; struggle for authors self-realization/identity

Domestic (sentimental): social visits; women secondary in their circumstances to men.

Female gothic: devilish childhood; family doom; mysterious foundling; tyrannical father.

Women's fiction: anti-sentimental

heroine begins poor and helpless

heroine succeeds on her own character

husbands less important than father

Bildungsroman: initiation novel; growth from child to adult.

American Romanticists: European Romanticists:

James Fenimore Cooper Emily Dickinson Frederick DouglassRalph Waldo Emerson Margaret Fuller Nathaniel Hawthorne Washington IrvingHenry Wadsworth Longfellow Herman Melville Edgar Allen Poe Henry David Thoreau Walt WhitmanWilliam BlakeLord Byron (George Gordan)Samuel ColeridgeJohn KeatsAnn RadcliffeMary Wollstonecraft ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley

Resources on Romanticism:

American Romanticism Early Nineteenth Century: Romanticism - A Brief Introduction The Literary Link: Romanticism and the Nineteenth Century Romanticism

Created by: Carol Scheidenhelm, Ph.D.Director, Learning Technologies and AssessmentLoyola University ChicagoLast updated: August 14, 2007