AMERICAN

ROMANTICIS
MGROUP 10
Ngo Thi Hai Yen
Vu Khanh Linh
TABLE OF CONTENTS
American Romanticism
01 Definition 02 Movement (1800 – 1860)

Influenced Major Forms of

03 Characteristics 04 American prose

05 Representative authors and works

 01
DEFINITIO
N
 DEFINITION
 Romanticism is a style of literature, art, and music common at the end
of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries that emphasized the
importance of personal feelings and of nature.

 Represented an attitude toward the realities of man, nature, and society,

which had its source in the stirring events both in Europe and in
America; it was not an organized system.

 Romanticism was rebellious in spirit, standing in reaction against the

neoclassical spirit and then prevailing in American literary life.
 02
American Romanticism
Movement
(1800 – 1860)
 American Romanticism Movement
(1800 – 1860)
 The American Romanticism movement began in the early 1800's and produced our first great
authors, as well as great works of literature.

 It can be said that the Industrial Revolution (1820 – 1840), sectionalism, and reform
movements contributed greatly to it's beginnings, though some might argue the Romantic
cultural movement in Europe is what really sparked it all.

 It's more probable, however, that the historical, cultural, and social forces in America are what
led to the change.
 American Romanticism Movement
(1800 – 1860)

 The Industrial Revolution brought about a booming economy and newer infrastructure,
sectionalism created growing tensions between the North and the South, and the reform era
aimed to improve American society.

 All of these factors influenced American authors and therefore the American Romanticism
Movement began. 
 03
CHARACTERISTICS
 CHARACTERISTICS

01 03 05

Imagination Idealism Individuality

02 04

Intuition Inspiration
 IMAGINATION
 To the Romantics, imagination, individual feelings, and wild nature were of
greater value than reason, rationalism, and logic (which were important
during the Age of Reason in the mid to late 1700s).

 Each person’s imagination is the critical authority over all matters.

 The Romantics believed that the imagination was able to discover truths
that the rational mind could not reach.

 These truths were usually accompanied by powerful emotion and associated

with natural, unspoiled beauty.
The last of
Ripthe Mohicans
Van Winkle (1826)
by James Fenimore
(1819) Cooper
by Washington Irving
INTUITION
 Romantics placed value on “intuition.”

 Feelings and instincts are now considered superior to rationality or

reason as the mode of perceiving and experiencing reality.

 Intuition leads one to truth.

 British Romantic writer William Wordsworth described poetry as “the

spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
IDEALISM

 Idealism is the belief that we should always strive for our highest
ideals.

 This can be achieved through the human spirit and the mind.

 A person’s thoughts or ideas have a crucial role in making the

world the way it is.
INSPIRATION
 The Romantics found inspiration through the natural world.

 Estranged from traditional religious beliefs, the romantics

looked upon nature as the dwelling place of God.

 God and the natural universe were considered to be one and

the same.

 They perceived nature as a metaphor for the sublime power

and mystery of forces that inspire solace and self-discovery.
INDIVIDUALITY

 Romantics strongly believed in personal freedom,

democratic ideals, and the importance of the rights
of each individual.

 Romantic literature celebrated and explored the

inward experiences of the individual.
 04
Influenced Major Forms Of
American Prose
 TRANSCENDENTALISM
 In New England, an intellectual movement
known as transcendentalism developed as an
American version of romanticism. The
movement began among an influential set of
authors based in Concord, Massachusetts and
was led by Ralp Waldo Emerson.
 TRANSCENDENTALISM
 Like romanticism, transcendentalism ejected both 18th
century rationalism and established religion, which for the
transcendentalists meant the Puritan tradition in particular.
Instead, transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human
imagination to commune with the universe and transcend the
limitations of the material world. The transcendentalisits
found their chief source of inspiration in nature.

 The most prominent writer of this trend are Ralp Waldo

Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
 HISTORICAL FICTION
 Historical fiction was an expression of romanticism in its probings
of human nature and emotions and its romanticizing of the
American past and the American frontier.

 The first generations of Puritans in New England, the Salem

witchcraft trials, while conflicts with Native Americans, and the
American Revolution provided popolar subjects for American
historical fiction.
 HISTORICAL FICTION

 Some examples of the genre:

Samuel Woodworth, Jame
Fenimore Cooper, Lydia Maria
Child, Nathaniel Hawthorne, New
England writer.
 SENTIMENTAL FICTION
 The sentimental fiction is a major form of American
fiction that grew out of the responses of white
writers to the abuses of slavery.

 Sentimental fiction aimed to arouse pity for the

oppressed and offered a natural form for novelists
writing about the evils of slavery.
 SENTIMENTAL FICTION
 Some sentimental fiction focused on gender by
showing the dangers faced by young women, who
might be driven to compromise their morals as a
result of extreme poverty or the loss of their family
and subsequent loss of social position.

 Some examples of the genre: Harriet Beecher

Stowe, Susan Warner.
 05
Representative Authors
and Works
 Washington Irving (1783 – 1859)
 Washington Irving was an American short-story
writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and
diplomat of the early 19th century. 

 Although he became a best-selling author, he

never really fully developed as a literary talent, he
has retained his reputation as the first American
man of letters.
 Washington Irving (1783 – 1859)
 He also advocated for writing as a
legitimate career, and argued for stronger
laws to protect writers from copyright
infringement.

 Best works: The Sketch Book (1819),

which included "Rip Van Winkle" and "The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, published
under the name "Geoffrey Crayon" (1819–
1820).
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882)

 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was

an American poet and educator whose
works include "Paul Revere's Ride", “The
Song of Hiawatha”, and “Evangeline”. He
was also the first American to
translate Dante Alighieri's “The Divine
Comedy” and was one of the five Fireside
Poets.
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882)

 Longfellow wrote predominantly lyric poems, known

for their musicality and often presenting stories of
mythology and legend. He became the most popular
American poet of his day and also had success
overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating
European styles and writing specifically for the masses.
 Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)
 Walt Whitman is America’s world poet
- a latter-day successor to Homer,
Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare.

 He was not as a poet, indeed, but as a

symbol of American democracy that
he first won recognition.

 Best work: Leaves of Grass (1855).

 Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
 Dickinson's poetry was heavily influenced
by the Metaphysical poets of 17th century
England, as well as her reading of the Book
of Revelation and her upbringing in a
Puritan New England town, which
encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and
conservative approach to Christianity.
 Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
 Though she could not shine during her lifetime, her
marvelous literary pieces added a lot to the world of
literature.

 She gained immense popularity on account of pensive

ideas she inserted into her poems. Her isolated life
provided her a chance to observe things closely.

 The ideas of beauty, death, loneliness, madness, and

transience of life entered her poems.
 Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
 Best Poems: Some of the best poems she wrote
during her lifetime include “Because I Could not
Stop for Death”, “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I
Died”, “Wild Nights”, “Success is Counted
Sweetest” and “Hope is the Thing with
Feathers.”

 Letters: Although she spent most of her life

writing poetry, her occasional letters, also
became literary pieces. She wrote many letters to
her friends expressing her ideas about poetry.
 REFERENCES
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism?fbclid=IwAR2Yw4GHoDMkiFTzqIFyXCi_b70TzSJLnP3f0YpvH6UEB3elM_GsDC
VZaps#United_States

 https://sites.google.com/site/usingliteraturetodream/home/literary-periods-in-chronological-order/native-american-literature-
undetermined-1650/the-colonial-period-1650-1800/the-romantic-period-1800-1840?fbclid=IwAR0oTqv-
cs4daUFga7wB1UztY8Pxk0ZPm029uFDEw522mRc2RWQdjA5LcK0

 https://fr.scribd.com/document/38471005/American-Romanticism?fbclid=IwAR3l_avzASCRccKM7nTzEfgEPUaSQZNFGP0Oo
Hx2G69-szMiej7XdqYdBJU

 https://literarydevices.net/emily-dickinson/?fbclid=IwAR0ywdfeMmRcW7KeB3PvtCVXL_yWjiCoRsoTEvga4tbn2X_MhQe9-L
vE7gw

 https://penandthepad.com/characteristics-romanticism-english-literature-6646393.html

 http://ic-229437/?fbclid=IwAR3OFRwww.enotes.com/homework-help/what-are-the-six-main-characteristics-of-romanthHdU-
aoCxoMGzRqtbhqKlR8qqKTSTTmhqN_YZosooUidb-BCy7g78
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