3 discussions due in 4 DAYS

Lesson 2-Romanticism

1 What is Manifest Destiny, the prevailing doctrine of the 1800s?

2 The economic and cultural capital of the nation shifted from Boston and Philadelphia to what city?

3 What was the nation’s first “college level” institution for women?

4 Name four factors which raised the level of education and literacy during the early nineteenth century.

5 What was the first work by an American author to win financial success in America and England? Who was its author?

6 Name four tenets of the romantics.

7 Prior to the Romantic Age, literature had been primarily didactic in purpose. What does this mean?

8 What were the popular literary forms during this period?

9 In mid-nineteenth century (1850s), the center of literary achievement was in what region of America?

The Age of Romanticism

1800s—19th century

--by mid 1800s, settlement of the West was in full swing; West becomes a sectional power to rival the East and South (Rapid growth: 1810 – 17 states, population 7 million 1861 – 34 states, population 31 million)

--move west came about through concept of Manifest Destiny, the idea that expansion of the country was God-ordained because the new nation was spiritually supreme (to whom or what? Who was inhabiting the land west?)

--new feeling of nationalism – love of country

I. Changes

A. Positives

1. Mass production

2. Technological advances – cotton gin, sewing machines, telegraph, steam engine

3. Country becomes more urban

4. Economic and cultural capital shifts from Boston and Philadelphia to New York City

5. Dress becomes simpler (shift from British style to no-nonsense American)

6. Level of education and literacy had risen

a. Compulsory school attendance

b. Improvements in printing press (rapid production)

c. Expansion of postal service (greater accessibility; wide distribution of magazines, etc.)

d. More Americans began to read books, magazines, newspapers (greater accessibility)

e. First college for women (Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) opened

7. Age of the Common Man – a shift occurs from elitism to egalitarianism – the belief that all white men are created equally (as demonstrated below, some come to believe in total equality, including for women and blacks)

8. As an outgrowth of this belief, the 1860s was a time of humanitarianism and reform:

a. Varied denominations accepted

b. Societies to help paupers, encourage fair treatment of prisoners, abolish slavery

c. Push for women’s rights (first college for women, right to vote and own property debated, not won)

B. Negatives

1. Technological advances bring social upheaval

2. Political corruption (during Jackson’s administration, New York customs collector embezzles one million dollars – first public servant to do so)

3. Unequal distribution of wealth (early on America had been a nation of small landowners with wealth fairly evenly distributed. Now number of millionaires increases, as does number of paupers)

II. Reason versus Romanticism

Romanticism had begun in England, reached Europe, and soon began affecting American writing and thinking.

Reason Romanticism

valued rationalism (moral “cool”) valued emotionalism (moral enthusiasm)

Society Individual

(Social order is good) (Society is a source of corruption)

Reasoning Intuitive perception

Man-made concepts Natural world

Whereas Neoclassicism had stressed order and form in every area – art, architecture, literature, even gardening (patterned, geometric) – Romanticism valued the wild, the unique, the untamed (some brought in “artificial ruins,” allowing gardens to grow over them – nature triumphs over things man-made). Gothic architecture (ribbed arches, ornate, scrolled, gargoyles, etc.) replaces orderly straight column lines of neoclassic style so favored by Jefferson.

III. Literature of the Period

The first half of the 1800s, most writers were not paid, whether they wrote books, magazines, or newspaper articles. Royalties were few and meager. By 1850, Longfellow was paid $50 per poem, and he was America’s most popular and beloved author.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, few works of imaginative literature were published-mainly almanacs, textbooks, books on religion, medicine, law. Gradually, literature ceases to be didactic (intending to instruct and further religious or political ideas). A few books of poetry and a few novels start to appear. Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book becomes the first book by an American author to win acclaim and financial success in America and in England.

There is also a cultural reawakening-a New England literary renaissance. The principal literary forms of the age are novels, short stories, and poems. Their purpose was to entertain.

American authors began to celebrate American landscape and a desire to escape from society and return to nature (natural goodness, natural beauty; America was perfect for this – wild, untamed, beautiful meadows, groves, oceans, rivers, dense forests, mountains, etc.).

The Romantic movement was positive: encouraged equality, individual thinking, sensitivity, nationalism, creativity.

Washington Irving (1783-1859)

--Called “The Father of American Literature”

--Born into a wealthy New York City merchant family five months before peace was proclaimed between Great Britain and the colonies.

--The youngest of eleven children, he led a pampered childhood and was educated privately for the law starting at age 16.

--At the age of 19, he wrote a series of satires on city society (fashions, customs, the theatre, etc.) for a New York newspaper under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle, and his literary career was launched.

--Returning from his Grand Tour of Europe, he settled in to the leisurely life of a “gentleman lawyer” but continued to write.

--His first literary success came with a book called A History of New York. Supposedly written by an elderly man named Diedrich Knickerbocker, it was a comic history of New York, telling hilarious stories of the old Dutch New York families and their society and customs. The book was so unpopular that it spawned a group of satirists of social customs who came to be known as the “Knickerbocker School” of writers.

--In 1815, grieving over the death of his fiancée, Irving went to Liverpool, England, and spent two years attempting to save a branch of the family business. Failing at this, Irving stayed in England and again turned to writing.

--In England, the Romantic Movement was beginning to take hold as was evidenced by the writings of Sir Walter Scott, William Wadsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, among others. Irving met Sir Walter Scott and was influenced by him to change his style, incorporating certain tenets of Romanticism.

--The first three tenets of the American Romantic Movement, which were introduced by Irving in his new book The Sketch Book, were the following:

1. human emotion (deep feelings over any issue)

2. beauty of nature

3. love of America and her past (nationalism-love of country)

--Irving incorporated these ideas into The Sketch Book written in 1820. Unlike A History of New York, which was written in a style similar to Franklin’s (which means decidedly British), The Sketch Book had a uniquely American flavor. It was supposedly written by an American named Geoffrey Crayon, who was exploring England, but it also included short stories set in America, the most famous of which are “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

--The British, who set world standards in the area of literature, refused to believe that Americans could produce literature comparable to theirs. America was a land of uneducated barbarians, they believed. Into this atmosphere came Irving’s The Sketch Book. It was embraced not only by England but also by all the world, and it catapulted Irving to international fame.

--Irving’s accomplishments, then, were that he was the first writer to give American fiction respectability, thereby improving American/British relations; he introduced Americans to the Romantic Movement, moving literature from the rationalism of Franklin’s time to the world-wide Romantic point of view; and he introduced a new genre, the “short tale,” at which American writers were to excel.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

--called “The Great American Novelist”

--produced 33 novels and a number of books of social commentary, naval history, and travel observation

--childhood spent in a new settlement, which his father had started on the shore of Otsego Lake in New York; fine manor home on a thousand acres surrounded by wilderness

--attended Yale; hated studies; joined Navy for four years, returned home, married, and became a “gentleman farmer”

--He was past 30 when he, a man who had trouble writing a letter, decided to turn author. His first novel was Precaution, a dull book about English life, a subject he didn’t know.

--His second novel, The Spy, was about the American Revolution and became a success in America and abroad.

--In 1823, Cooper’s third novel, The Pioneers, was published. It introduced Natty Bumpo, who has been called the most memorable character in American fiction.

--This novel began Copper’s masterwork, a series of five novels about Natty called, collectively, The Leatherstocking Tales.

--immensely popular adventure stories; Copper and Natty became famous at home and abroad

Chronological order Order written

4 The Pioneers

2 The Last of the Mohicans

5 The Prairie (Natty dies)

3 The Pathfinder

1 The Deerslayer (Natty is early 20’s)

--These novels are novels of the mythic frontier and are filled with what we today call clichés but what then were new and exciting elements:

1 brave, faultless hero (“our hero”)

2 loyal Indian companion (Chingachgook)

3 physical danger as a test of prowess

4 hair-breadth rescue

--Cooper’s weaknesses as a novelist:

1 hasty and careless about details

2 stiff dialogue

3 unrealistic, one-dimensional characters

4 melodramatic plot excesses; unbelievable incidents

--Cooper’s strengths:

1 tells stories with great energy and vitality

2 unsurpassed descriptions of the sea and wilderness

3 defines what it was like to be an American in this day

4 was the first American to effectively use the novel as a vehicle of social and political criticism

5 created the most memorable character in American fiction

--Characteristics of the wilderness hero:

1 a solitary man in the presence of only nature and God

2 pure, self-reliant, has a keen sense of justice, a basic innocence

3 no family ties, no need for material goods, cannot read or write, has no use for civilized man or his laws

4 his character is formed by the wilderness

5 has a reverence for life

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

--called “The Father of American Poetry” because he was the first American to produce a body of poetry that could be matched against the English poets and which gave him worldwide fame

--Born in Massachusetts, he was schooled in strict Puritan theology and very early produced poems that were steeped in conservatism and reflected the style of Calvinism, classicism, Shakespeare, and Milton.

--began writing poetry at age 8; published his first poem at the age of fourteen, which was a political satire aimed at Thomas Jefferson, a liberal politician

--From boyhood, he had a passionate interest in nature; his father, a country doctor who used herbs for medicinal purposes, taught his son botany; he once said he could name “every tree, flower, and spire of grass.”

--In his late teens, he discovered the writings of William Wadsworth, England’s “nature poet” and a follower of the Romantic Movement. From Wordsworth, he learned that there is spirituality in nature; it has a moral meaning and can serve as our moral guide. This is the fourth tenet of the American Romantic Movement, as introduced into American literature by Bryant.

--As a result of this influence, Bryant, at the age of seventeen, produced “Thanatopsis,” a major work in establishing the new Romantic Movement in American literature.

--Bryant also incorporated two other aspects of Romanticism into his works: he was determined to picture the unique landscape, birds, and animals of America, showing the beauty of nature and his love of country. He once scolded his brother for putting a skylark in his poem, saying, “The skylark is an English bird, and an American has no right to be in raptures about it.”

--A lawyer by profession, at the age of 31, Bryant moved to New York City and became, while editor of the New York Evening Post, a national spokesman for liberal causes both old and new: abolition of slavery, freedom of speech and the press, free trade, the right of workers to form unions, the election of Abraham Lincoln.

--In these later facets of Bryant’s life can be seen the fifth tenet of the American Romantic Movement, a belief in the dignity of the common man.

--Bryant was called “the first citizen of New York,” and upon his death at the age of 84, NYC storefronts were draped in black and flags were lowered to half-mast.

“Thanatopsis”

--Greek word meaning “a view of death”

--one of the best known American poems; illustrates Romantic attitudes towards death and an interest in the past

--Romantics started with the premise that we alone among the creatures of the earth are conscious of our existence and therefore fear its end

--So, how are we to deal with the fear?

--What calms that fear of death for the Romantics is an awareness of three things:

1 That our existence and our death is a part of the process of nature (every living thing fulfills its appointed life cycle of birth, growth, decline, death, decay)

2 That we are united with all humanity through the experience of death

3 That nature provides a magnificent tomb for us

--Death is inevitable, so we look past it—view it as a “change of worlds,” not banishment to a slave’s dungeon.

--The poem encourages movement toward trust of nature and her processes and a release from fear or bitterness about death

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

HIS LIFE

--He has been called “The saddest and strangest figure in American literary history.” (Killis Campbell)

--Edgar Poe was born in Boston to traveling actors; his father abandoned the family; his mother died of tuberculosis when Edgar was two.

--Her three children were “farmed out” to various families in Richmond, Virginia; Poe was taken into the home of the family of the Allans; Mr. Allan was a wealthy tobacco merchant. Mrs. Allan doted on Poe, but he was never legally adopted and so took their last name as his middle name.

--Poe attended school in England, at Richmond Academy, and entered the University of Virginia at 17; his relations with his foster father were never good, and Poe began gambling at the university, apparently to supplement the meager allowance his father gave him.

--Allan refused to pay Poe’s debts, removing him from college; Poe ran away and joined the army. During a period of reconciliation, Mr. Allan secured Poe an appointment at West Point, but he was soon dismissed for neglect of duty.

--This dismissal and Mrs. Allan’s death led to the final break between Poe and his foster father; Allan remarried and had twin sons, assuring that Poe would not be his heir.

--At this time, Poe published his first book of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems; Poe was now alone in the world and dependent on is pen to earn a living; two other books of poetry earned him very little.

--He turned to short story writing with more success and won a $100 prize for his detective story “The Gold Bug.”

--He moved into the home of his aunt Maria Clemm in Baltimore; at the age of 27, he married Mrs. Clemm’s daughter, his cousin Virginia, who was 13.

--Although their marriage was apparently happy, Virginia was constantly ill, and Poe scrambled frantically to support her and her mother; Virginia died of tuberculosis eleven years after they married.

--Besides writing, Poe also worked as a magazine editor and became a leading literary critic of his day, known as the “tomahawk man” for the severity of his criticism. In the last years of his life, he produced his greatest work, but he could never escape poverty. “Ligeia” and “The Raven” sold for ten dollars each. “The Raven,” at least, did bring him great popular recognition.

--In the last year of his life, he was twice engaged to be married; he also attempted suicide with laudanum, a liquid form of opium.

--His death and events leading to it remain a mystery; on a business trip, he stopped off in Baltimore. Six days later, he was found in unfamiliar clothing, lying unconscious in the rain. He died four days later at the age of forty without ever fully regaining consciousness.

--He was buried in an unmarked grave for 26 years until Walt Whitman witnessed the placing of a tombstone on his grave in 1875.

HIS ASSESSMENT

--Poe’s personality has remained obscured partially because of an unflattering obituary written by the executor of his work. By a combination of half-truths and outright lies, Poe was pictured as a demonic, diabolical figure. Poe’s friends, in defense, painted a picture of a lonely, tormented man.

--The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Some established observations:

1 Poe had a problem with alcohol, perhaps an inability to handle even small amounts, and frequently appeared in public and at work in a drunken state.

2 He probably dabbled in opium use (the Romantic writers’ drug of choice), but it is clear from the brilliance of his work and his highly organized method of composition that he did not write under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

3 He was always dissatisfied with his situation in life and looking for “a world elsewhere.” He was self-destructive and self-defeating. “My life,” he said, “has been […] a scorn of all things present, in an earnest longing for the future.”

4 He was a hard worker but sporadic. He was unstable, depressed much of the time, often underfed and exhausted, spending most of his adult life in the poverty into which he had been born.

LITERARY CONTRIBUTIONS

1 Poetry—wrote 48 poems, which evoke mood rather than meaning

2 Literary criticism—wrote brilliant critiques of other writers’ works

3 Essay—wrote several essays on poetic principles (“The Philosophy of Composition” details his technique in writing “The Raven”); had a highly analytical mind

4 Short story—the area in which he excelled; he made four contributions in the area of short story writing:

a. Formulated the single effect theory

b. Revitalized the Gothic formula (ghastly settings and situations; old castles, cobwebs, ghosts, darkness, death); his interest in the metaphysical is the sixth element of Romanticism

c. Contributed several science fiction tales, which also shows his interest in the metaphysical, and which showed his great creativity and imagination, which is the seventh element of Romanticism

d. Invented the detective story (formulated the structure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle later capitalized on in the Sherlock Holmes stories);

THEMES

--the sadness of the death of a beautiful, young woman (his most common, for obvious reasons)

--man’s deepest fears (being buried alive, for instance)

--forbidden desires (revenge, lust, incest)

--supernatural experiences (dead returning from the grave, for instance)

--abnormal psychology (madness, alter egos, murder)

“Ligeia” Questions

1 What was Ligeia’s relationship to the narrator?

2 Describe Ligeia’s appearance.

3 Describe her intellectual ability.

4 Before Ligeia dies, what does she ask the narrator to do for her?

5 After Ligeia’s death, what does the narrator purchase? Where?

6 Whom does the narrator marry?

7 How does he feel about her?

8 The narrator gives an elaborate and detailed description of what setting?

9 To what is the narrator apparently addicted?

10 Describe the events of the night of Rowena’s death.

11 What is the narrator’s reaction when he realizes into whose eyes he is looking?

Study Guide-Romanticism

**The first thing to do is list all of the authors we studied in this period (there are four) first, middle, and last names and learn to spell them. Then list the works under each with which you should associate him and learn these.

1 What was the economic and cultural capital of America during this period?

2 What were the popular literary forms during this period?

3 Where was the center of literary achievement during this time?

4 What was Washington Irving called? Why?

5 What was his first literary success? Sum up its contents.

6 Who was the British writer who influenced Irving’s writings by introducing him to romanticism?

7 What was the book Irving wrote which was popular in America and abroad? In what way did this book change American and British relations?

8 What are the two most famous short stories in the book?

9 What two pen names did Irving use during his career?

10 Review your notes on “Rip Van Winkle.” What three themes are addressed in the story?

11 What are the first three elements of the romantic movement in America and how did Irving put them to use in “Rip Van Winkle”?

12 Look back at Irving’s introduction and conclusion to “Rip Van Winkle.” Why did Irving go to such lengths to try to establish the veracity (truth) of this story?

13 What is Cooper called? Why? What is his most famous novel?

14 What was Bryant called? Why?

15 Who was England’s nature poet whose writings changed Bryant’s entire philosophy of life?

16 What famous poem did Bryant write which further established the romantic movement in America? How old was he when he wrote it? What is ironic about his having written it, considering his religious background and upbringing?

17 What is element #4 that this poem adds to romanticism? How does the poem illustrate that element?

18 How did Bryant’s causes as editor of the Evening Post illustrate the fifth element of romanticism?

19 Review your notes on “Thanatopsis.” The awareness of what three life truths calmed the fear of death for the romantics?

20 What has Poe been called? What was his family background?

21 What was the relationship between him and his foster parents?

22 For what short story did Poe win $100? What was and is his most famous poem (and the one that brought his first literary success)?

23 Whom did he marry (what was her maiden name)? What was strange about their relationship?

24 What was the most common theme Poe used in his poems and stories? How was this illustrated by his life’s events?

25 What were the circumstances surrounding Poe’s death?

26 In what four areas of literature did Poe make great contributions?

27 Name four ways in which he influenced the genre of short story writing. What does the word genre mean? (Use a dictionary, if necessary.)

28 Review the poems we read by Poe. What setting does Poe use for many of his poems?

29 Review the notes you took on “Ligeia.” What are two themes we discussed? How does the Glanvill quote illustrate the first theme?

30 What are elements six and seven that Poe’s work adds to romanticism? How can these elements be seen in his poems we read, in “Ligeia,” in Poe’s young life in general?

31 You must know the seven elements of romanticism, who introduced each, and how each element can be seen in the author’s works and/or life. As Poor Richard says, “A word to the wise is enough.”