Romantic Period British and American 1798-1870

1. Romantic Period British and American1798-1870 Emily Chaney and Megan Ahrns

2. Romantic Values and Types of Expression • Emotional • Individualistic • Revolutionary • Loves Solitude & Nature • Fantasy/Introspection • The Particular • Subjective Perception • Right Brain • Satisfaction of Desire • Organic • Creative Energy/Power • Exotic • "Noble Savage"/Outcasts • Idealist Philosophy

3. Romantic Characteristics • Characters and setting set apart from society; characters were not of our own conscious kind • Static characters--no development shown • Characterization--work proves the characters are what the narrator has stated or shown • Universe is mysterious; irrational; incomprehensible • Gaps in causality • Formal language • Good receive justice; nature can also punish or reward • Silences of the text--universals rather than learned truths • Plot arranged around crisis moments; plot is important • Plot demonstrates • romantic love • honor and integrity • idealism of self • Supernatural foreshadowing (dreams, visions) • Description provides a "feeling" of the scene

4. Literary Themes: • Highly imaginative and subjective • Emotional intensity • Escapism • Common man as hero • Nature as refuge, source of knowledge and/or spirituality

5. Conditions that influenced American Romanticism: • Frontier promised opportunity for expansion, growth, freedom; Europe lacked this element. • Spirit of optimism invoked by the promise of an uncharted frontier. • Immigration brought new cultures and perspectives • Growth of industry in the north that further polarized the north and the agrarian south. • Search for new spiritual roots.

6. American Romanticists: • James Fenimore Cooper • Emily Dickinson • Frederick Douglass • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Margaret Fuller • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Washington Irving • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Herman Melville • Edgar Allen Poe • Henry David Thoreau • Walt Whitman

7. European Romanticists: • William Blake • Lord Byron (George Gordan) • Samuel Coleridge • John Keats • Ann Radcliffe • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley • Percy Bysshe Shelley

8. Emily Dickinson • American Romantic Writer • Her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, both common of this period. • Dickinson would often write something major after the death of a loved one and this would be portraying the love and solitude she felt due to their death. • She often put her characters on their own, isolated from society.

9. Edgar Allen Poe • American Romantic Poet • Poe contributed greatly to the genres of horror and science fiction, these were not commonly know traits until the Romantic Period and they were considered exotic and supernatural. They were also highly imaginative which is a main theme of this time period.

10. Walt Whitman • American Romantic Poet • Whitman was a humanist, he took part in the transition between transcendentalism and realism, his works incorporated both views. Whitman is among the most influential poets in America, often he is referred to as the father of free verse. • He work was rather controversial to its own time.

11. John Keats • British/English Romantic • He was one of the key figures of the second generation of the Romantic Period. • Keats is characterized by his sensual imagery in most of his poetry and romantic love is a very common plot during the Romantic period.

12. Ann Radcliffe • English Romantic Author • Her style is clearly romantic due to its vivid descriptions of landscapes, and long travel scenes. • She was very well noted for her Gothic element also, which are obvious through her use of the supernatural, very popular during the Romantic period.

13. Major Works • Moby Dick by Herman Melville • the famous seafaring tale of Captain Ahab and his obsessed search for a white whale. • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne • the tale of Hester and her daughter, Pearl. Adultery is represented by the beautifully sewn scarlet letter and by the impish Pearl. • Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe • based on a newspaper account of a shipwreck. Poe's sea novel influenced the works of Herman Melville and Jules Verne.

14. Continued… • Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe • an antislavery novel, became an instant bestseller. The novel tells about the lives of three slaves: Tom, Eliza and George. • Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge • Many scholars say that the Romantic period began with the publication of the volume which contained some of the best-known works from these two poets including Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey."

15. Alone by Edgar Allan Poe From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were; I have not seenAs others saw; I could not bringMy passions from a common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow; I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone;And all I loved, I loved alone.Then- in my childhood, in the dawnOf a most stormy life- was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent, or the fountain,From the red cliff of the mountain,From the sun that round me rolledIn its autumn tint of gold,From the lightning in the skyAs it passed me flying by,From the thunder and the storm,And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.

18. Some of our information came directly from these websites: • http://www.westga.edu/~mmcfar/AMERICAN%20ROMANTICISM%20overview.htm • http://classiclit.about.com/od/americanliteratur/tp/aatp_romam_fic.htm • http://classiclit.about.com/od/britishromantics/a/aa_britromantic.htm