AMERICAN ROMANTICISM ~ 1800-

1860
 We will walk on our
own feet;
 We will work with
our own hands;
 We will speak our
own minds.”

 Ralph Waldo
Emerson
THINK ABOUT…
 At the start of the
1800’s, Americans had
not created their own
cultural identity.

 These writers helped

shape how we view
ourselves today.

 They were the hippies

of the 1800’s.
 COMMON THEMES
 The idea or image of the
journey is very important.

 It’s usually a quest for self-

knowledge or self-fulfillment.

 For Romantics, this journey is

away from the corruption and
pollution of the city.
 Writings moved away from
the rhetoric of salvation, guilt,
and providential visions of
Puritanism. The American
brand of romanticism
developed its own character,
especially as these writers
tried self-consciously to be
new and original.
THE JOURNEY (CONTINUED)
 The characteristic
Romantic journey is
to the countryside,
which Romantics
associated with
independence, moral
clarity, and healthful
living.

 It is a flight both TO
something and FROM
something.
CELEBRATING IMAGINATION
 Romanticism – a
school of thought that
values feeling and
intuition over reason.

 The Romantics
believed that the
imagination was able
to discover truths that
the rational mind
could not reach.
THE CITY, GRIM AND GRAY
 Tenements: buildings  Streets: filled with
where a bathtub might horse droppings and
be shared by four
collapsed horses left
hundred people and
eight or more people to die on the
might live in a single curbside.
room without furniture.
 Soundtrack: the
bloodcurdling screeches
of chickens being
slaughtered.
THE CITY (CONTINUED)
 There were 20,000
homeless children
on the streets of
New York.

 There were
waterfront gangs
who would kill
indiscriminately.
ROMANTIC ESCAPISM
 The Romantics  They achieved this
wanted to rise in TWO WAYS:
above “dull  1st: search for the
realities” to a realm exotic in a world
of higher truth. from the past, or in
a world far from the
grimy city.
 Look to the
supernatural or at
old legends and
folklore.
2ND WAY:

 Reflect on the
natural world until
dull reality falls
away and reveals
underlying beauty
and truth.

 This can be seen in

lyric poems where a
flower brings a
deeper insight.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM
 Values feelings over
reason
 Places faith in the
power of the
imagination
 Shuns civilization and
seeks nature
 Prefers youthful
innocence to
sophistic.
 Champions individual
freedom
VISUALIZING AMERICAN ROMANTICISM:
THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL
THOMAS COLE (1801-1848) ASHER B. DURAND (1796-1886) FREDERICK CHURCH
(1826-1900)
ALBERT BIERSTADT (1830-1902)

 Thomas

Cole:
“The
Falls
of
Kaaterskill
”
(1826)
THOMAS COLE, THE OXBOW (VIEW
FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE,
NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS,
AFTER A THUNDERSTORM, 1836)
Asher
Durand
,
“Kindre
d
Spirits”
(1848)
Frederic
Edwin
Church,
“The
Natural
Bridge”
(1852)
  Alfred Bierstadt,
 “Emigrants Crossing the Plains”
(1867)
ALFRED BIERSTADT, “LOOKING UP
THE YOSEMITE VALLEY” (CA. 1865-
67)
 VISUALIZING AMERICAN
ROMANTICISM:
THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL
 From Kindred Spirits notice: In the foreground stands one
of the school's famous symbols--a broken tree stump--
what Cole called a “memento mori”
 I.e. a reminder that life is fragile and impermanent; only
Nature and the Divine within the Human Soul are eternal.
 Tiny as the human beings are in this composition, they
are nevertheless elevated by the grandeur of the
landscape in which they are in
 As Thomas Cole maintained, if nature were untouched by
the hand of man--as was much of the primeval American
landscape in the early 19th century--then man could
become more easily acquainted with the hand of God
CHARACTERISTICS (CONT.)
 Reflects on nature’s
beauty as path to
morality
 Looks back to wisdom of
the past
 Finds truth in the exotic,
supernatural, or natural
realm
 Poetry is the highest
form of imagination
 Finds inspiration in myth,
legend, and folklore.
THE AMERICAN NOVEL
 Becomes the
experience of the
wilderness.

 Writing about the

frontier and
westward
expansion.

 A new kind of hero

emerges.
A NEW KIND OF HERO
 In American
Romantic Fiction,
the hero is youthful,
innocent, and close
to nature.

 Also, he’s hopelessly

uneasy with women
since they represent
civilization and the
need to
“domesticate”
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AMER.
ROM. HERO
 Is young or youthful
 Is innocent and pure

 Sense of honor based

on a higher principle
 Knows people based on
intuition not formal
learning
 Loves nature, and
avoids the town
 Quests for some higher
truth. (makes a journey)
POETRY: READ AT EVERY FIRESIDE
 American poets use  The Fireside Poets:
typically English  Longfellow, Whittier,
themes, meter, and Holmes, and Lowell
imagery. were read aloud at
the fireside as
entertainment.

 Also called
Schoolroom poets.
THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
 Refers to the idea  They believed in
that to truly human perfectibility.
understand God,
life, the universe,
one must GO
BEYOND (transcend)
the everyday human
experience/world.

 Led by Ralph Waldo

Emerson.
TRANSCENDENTAL VIEW OF THE
WORLD
 Everything is a reflection of
the divine soul
 Physical facts are a
doorway to the spiritual
world
 People can use intuition to
behold God’s spirit
 Self-reliance must
outweigh compliance to
authority
 Spontaneous feelings are
superior to intellectualism
THE DARK ROMANTICS
 Explore the conflict
between good and
evil, the effects of
guilt and sin, and
the destructive
underside of
appearances.

 Also called “Gothic”

literature.
DARK ROMANTICS (CONT)
 They saw the horror
of evil.

 They still believe in

intuition, and signs,
but they do not
believe that spiritual
facts are necessarily
good or harmless.
SOME FAMOUS AMERICAN
ROMANTICS