AMERICAN ROMANTICISM 1800-1840
Dec 30, 2015
AMERICAN ROMANTICISM
1800-1840
CITY VS. COUNTRY
For Age of Reason, city was:• Independence• Adventure• Prosperity• Commerce• Sophisticated society
CITY VS. COUNTRY
For Romantics, city was:• Dangerous• Corruption• Decay and death• Evil• Morally ambiguous
CITY VS. COUNTRY
The countryside became associated with:• Independence• Good health• Straightforward moral certainty
JOURNEY MOTIF
Popular in 19th century literature
Represents the journey away from the town, into
the country
Moves toward the world of nature
Both a flight from something and
A flight to something
COMPARING TWO AGES
Age of Reason ‘character’• Do-gooder• Ambitious• Hard-working• Found energy in “town/city” life
COMPARING TWO AGES
Age of Romanticism character:• Do-nothing• No ambition• Escape responsibility• Flee to the mountains/nature• Escape the limitations of town (domestic) life• Loves nature• Distrusts civilization
THE ROMANTIC SENSIBILITY
• Intuition was favored, with and emphasis on:
• Imagination• Spontaneity• Individual feelings• nature
THE ROMANTIC SENSIBILITY
Rational thinking, was inferior:• Reason• Logic• Planning • Cultivation
THE ROMANTIC SENSIBILITY
Why?• People discovered the limits of reason• People believed you could discover truths that were
accompanied by • Powerful emotion• Associated with beauty
This thinking was essentially for the purposes of ART!
THE ROMANTIC SENSIBILITY
How did they do this?
Two Ways:
Explore settings in a more natural past• Remove thoughts from the industrial age• Remove oneself from the present; go back to a
mythical time
THE ROMANTIC SENSIBILITY
Contemplate Nature until dull reality falls away• View commonplace events • Search for deeper meaning or insight
THE AMERICAN HERO
Youth (or childlike qualities)
Innocence
A love of nature
A distrust of town life
Uneasiness with women
Need to engage in a quest for some higher truth in
the natural world
THE AMERICAN HERO
Novels tended to look at:• the Wilderness• Westward expansion• Growing Nationalist spirit• Rapid growth of cities (seen as negative)
THE AMERICAN HERO
Your quintessential frontiersman• Idealized frontier life• Virtuous• Lives a moral life (follows the code of the forest)• Highly skilled• Seeking a higher good