AMERICAN

RENAISSANCE
American Renaissance (also known as New
English Renaissance) marked as a period from
the 1830s until the end of the American Civil
War (c. 1865), leading prominent writers in the
1830s to be active until about the end of the
Civil War. American Renaissance arose the
Romantic movement in American literature as it
marked as a national spirit.

The writings of two groups of American

humorists whose works appeared between 1830
and 1867 were considered as American
Renaissance literatures.
NEW ENGLAND
BRAHMINS
The term "Boston Brahmins" refers to a class
of wealthy, educated, elite members of Boston
society in the nineteenth century. Oliver
Wendell Holmes coined the term in a novel in
1861, calling Boston's elite families "the
Brahmin Caste of New England".

Holmes, in occasional poems and his

“Breakfast Table” series (1858–91), brought
touches of urbanity and jocosity to a perhaps
over-sober polite literature.
 THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
Transcendentalism is 19th-century
movement of writers and philosophers in
New England who were bound together by
adherence to an idealistic system of thought
based on a belief in the essential unity of all
creation, the innate goodness of humanity,
and the supremacy of insight over logic and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays (1841–
experience for the revelation of the deepest 44), Representative Men (1850), and English
truths. Traits (1856) were thoughtful and poetic explanations of
his beliefs; and his rough-hewn lyrics, packed with
thought and feeling, were as close to 17th-century
Metaphysical poems as any produced in his own time.
The Dial, which edited by Fuller, was important in the
feminist movement.
NEW ENGLAND REFORMERS AND
HISTORIANS
The "New England Reformers" was a lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson read before "The Society" in
Amory Hall, on Sunday, March 3, 1844. A worldwide movement for change that exploded in the
revolutions of 1848 naturally attracted numerous Americans. Reform was in the air, particularly in New
England.

William Lloyd Garrison, ascetic and fanatical, was a moving spirit in the fight against slavery; his weekly
newspaper, The Liberator (1831–65), despite a small circulation, was its most influential organ. A
contributor to the newspaper—probably the greatest writer associated with the movement—was John
Greenleaf Whittier.

One other group of writers—and a great novelist—contributed to the literature of New England in this
period of its greatest glory. The group consisted of several historians who combined scholarly methods
learned abroad with vivid and dramatic narration. These included George Bancroft, author of History of the
United States (completed in 12 volumes in 1882), and John Lothrop Motley, who traced the history of
the Dutch Republic and the United Netherlands in nine fascinating volumes (1856–74).