american romanticism enter imagination. shift from classicism to romanticism classicism = the...
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SHIFT FROM CLASSICISM TO ROMANTICISM
C
lassicism = the belief that reason dominates nature and human
nature & both are ruled by fixed and unchanging laws
T
he United States came together as a nation during this period
(Classicism = roughly 1750-1850)
W
ell known Classicists:• Thomas Paine• Ben Franklin• Patrick Henry
ROMANTIC NON-ROMANTIC/CLASSICAL
Emotional
Reasonable and Practical
Individualistic Public Responsibility
Revolutionary Conservative
Loves Solitude & Nature
Loves Public, Urban Life
Fantasy/Introspection External Reality The Particular The Universal
Subjective Perception Objective Science
Right Brain Left Brain
Satisfaction of Desire Desire Repressed
Organic Mechanical
Creative Energy/Power Form
Exotic Mundane
"Noble Savage"/Outcasts
Bourgeois Family
Idealist Philosophy Materialist/Empirical Philosophy
ROMANTIC NON-ROMANTIC/CLASSICAL
A PERIOD OF GREAT CULTURAL CHANGE
R
omanticism focused on emotions and the individual
W
riters in this time period (roughly 1830-1870) emphasized… • Intuition• Imagination• Human potential for social progress and spiritual
growth
T
he Humanitarian Reform was a mark of this time period
Well-known Romanticists
Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Walt Whitman
H
erman Melville
W
ashington Irving
H
arriet Beecher Stowe
H
enry Wadsworth Longfellow
CHARACTERISTIC SUBJECT: NATURE
N
ature: beauty, strangeness, & the mystery of nature• Washington Irving, author of “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” & “Rip Van Winkle,” explored nature through legend and folklore
• James Fennimore Cooper (1st major American novelist), author of Last of the Mohicans, explored nature on the frontier• He created the 1st national literary hero, Natty
Bumppo• Edgar Allan Poe explored nature in the depths of his
imagination
CHARACTERISTIC SUBJECT: THE PAST
T
he Past: rise in nationalism = interest in American past• Irving and Cooper deal with the past directly
• Irving uses legend and folklore as history• Cooper wrote about great historical events:
Revolution, Indian border wars, & the conquest of the wilderness
CHARACTERISTIC SUBJECT: INNER WORLD OF HUMAN
NATUREI
nner World of Human Nature: emotion, intuition,
individual, & exploration of the private inner being• William Cullen Bryant (poet) focuses in the
inward observations and psychological reactions of people to aspects of life
• Poe takes exploration of the inner self to great depths