American Romanticism1800-1860

Historical Context

Industrial Revolution 1760-1840 1803 Louisiana Purchase Enlightenment 1714 - 1818 1848 Gold rush Mid 1800’s – Suffrage Movement Right around the corner - Civil

War 1861 - 1865

Romanticism Reaction to Revolutionary Period

Reaction to the Industrial Revolution

Imagination over Reason Intuition over Fact Focus on Emotions

Romanticism Transcendentalists Love of nature

Idealization of rural life

Love of beauty and nature

Sympathy and sentimentality

Dark / Gothic Romantics

Nature is alien or even frightening

Loss of place in the urban, modern world

Enthusiasm for the wild or grotesque in nature

Emotional psychology

Dark / Gothic Romantic American Literature

Dark / Gothic Romantic Literature

*Supernatural events

*Damsels in distress

*Creepy / disturbed characters

Dark / Gothic Romantic Literature

*Creepy settings

*Omens and dreams

*Highly charged emotional states

Dark / Gothic Romantic Literature

* deep awareness of the human capacity for evil

* probing of the mind, conscience, and heart

The Dark / Gothic

Romantics Three giants from this period are Washington

Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe. Hawthorne

and Poe are what have been called “brooding”

romantics or “anti-transcendentalists” while

Irving’s works are interspersed with dark

humor.

Washington Irving

“The Devil and Tom Walker”“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”“Rip Van Winkle”

Father of American Literature

1789 – 1851

Nathaniel HawthorneSin, Guilt, Pride, SelfishnessThe Scarlet Letter“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”“Rappaccini’s Daughter”“The Minister’s Black Veil”“The Birthmark”“Young Goodman Brown”

1804 - 1864

Edgar Allan PoeCreated the modern short story & the detective story“Masque of the Red Death”“The Fall of the House of Usher”“The Raven”“The Cask of Amontillado”“The Tell-Tale Heart”“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”

1809 - 1849