American Literature
Early American Literature
Romantic Literature
Timeline overview of American Literary
Movements Early American Literature overview and
timeline Emphasis on Romantic Era, beginning with the
historic context. Writing style, major themes, methods of
interpretation and author’s intent of Romantic works
Notable writers of the Romantic era and their works
Outcomes of the lesson
As a reactionary movement to
the Age of Reason, infer which concepts and characteristics the Romantic era of literature might emphasize over reason and logic. Explain.
Why do you think society may have desired this genre and style of literature and art in the early 19th century? Explain.
Prior Knowledge Inquiry
Romantic Literature
(1800 – c. 1860)
Evaluation Inquiry
“America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every movement seems an improvement. The idea of
novelty is there indissolubly connected with the idea of amelioration. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts
of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do.”
~ Alexis de Tocqueville
This quote from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835-1840) captures the American spirit of wonder and discovery inspiring movement westward. Judging from this quote, infer the major themes pronounced during the Romantic literary era.
1600 - 1750
1750 - 1800
1800 - 1840
1840 - 1855
1865 - 1915
1916 - 1946
1946 - Present
Literary Movements
Puritan Era
Age of Reason
Romanticism
Transcendentalism
Realism
Contemporary and Post-Modernism
Modernism
1600-1750 1750-1800 1800-1840 1840-1855
Early American Literature
Puritan Era
Age of Reason/Enlightenment
TranscendentalismRomanticis
m
Romantic Literature Timeline
1800-1810
1810-1820
1820-1830
1830-1840
1840-1850
1850-1860
1860-1870
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter (1804-1864)
Walt Whitman,Leaves of Grass (1819-1892)
Edgar Allen Poe, The House of Usher (1809-1849)
Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1819-1891)
James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans (1789-1851)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha (1807-1882)
Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hallow (1783-1859)
American Romantic Literature Era 1800-1860
American Renaissance
Dark Romantics Transcendentalists
1800
1860
1840
Subgenres:
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/president-madison-and-the-war-of-1812.html
Historic Context of the Romantic Literary Era
The War of 1812
Indian Removal Act of 1830, The Trail of Tears
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-trail-of-tears-and-jacksons-indian-removal-act-of-1830.html
Broad themes of the Romantic Era
Intuition
Imagination
Individualism
Imagination Individuality Nature as a source of inspiration Invoking the past for wisdom Seeing the common man as a
hero
Romantic Era Themes
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/th
e-romantic-period-in-american-literature-and-art.html
Romantic Era
Washington Irving
Washington Irving, 1783-1859
Born in New York to English immigrants, Washington Irvine was one of the first American authors to gain the respect of the English and European audience with his two literary classics, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hallow which both manifest a sense of individualism and escapism mastered within Romantic work.
Irving Biography: http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/washington-irving-biography-works-and-style.html
The Legend of Sleepy Hallow:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/irvings-the-legend-of-sleepy-hollow-summary-and-analysis.html
Rip Van Winkle:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/washington-irvings-rip-van-winkle-summary-and-analysis.html
The Devil and Tom Walker:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-devil-and-tom-walker-by-washington-irving-summary-and-analysis.html
Washington Irving’s Work
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
H. W. Longfellow 1807-1882
Born in Portland, Maine Longfellow matured to be a poet and professor of literature at Harvard University. In addition to his famous poem, Song of Hiawatha and, which demonstrated sympathy, respect love for the Native American way of life, Longfellow also wrote of historic figures, personal experiences of loss, academic texts (text books) and worked on classical translations, such as Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.
Longfellow’s poem analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/henry-wadsworth-longfellow-poem-analysis.html
James Fenimore Cooper
Born in Burlington, New Jersey, Cooper was a student at Yale (he was expelled), and a sailor on a merchant ship, before he settled down into his family life and writing career. He is credited with creating the first American adventure novel, in his work, The Last of the Mohicans (1826) which acknowledged the initial possession and dispossession of the American Indian’s resources and livelihood by the invading European arrivals. He also wrote sea-tales, war romances, and social works criticizing American values and morality.
Last of the Mohicans analysis:
J. F. Cooper, 1789-1851
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/james-fenimore-coopers-the-last-of-the-mohicans-themes-summary-analysis.html
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-dark-romantics-in-american-literature.html
The Dark RomanticsAmerican Gothic
Negating the reach for perfection attended to by the Transcendalists, the Dark Romantics (a subgenre of the Romantics) emphasized human frailty and fallibility, by focusing on the predisposed nature of the human mind toward mental illness, disillusionment, or delusion which was often known as sin, and materialized in literature through haunting figures and symbols. The imaginary world of the Dark Romantics was realized through stories and poetry of self-examination within the fog of the sea, and often closed with self-destruction.
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-dark-romantics-in-american-literature.html
Writers and their works:
Dark Romantic Literature
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, Tell Tale Heart
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Hester Prynne and Pearl before the stocks (1878), by A.V.S. Anthony
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864
Born in Salem, Massachusetts to a family with deep New England Puritan roots, Hawthorne’s personal history was bound to seek perfection and feel shame all at once. His great grandfather officiated the Salem Witch Trials, providing Hawthorne with a unique ethos into which to many of his works were inspired, particularly The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. After attending college at Bowdoin in Maine, Hawthorne pursued his career as a writer in a Transcendental community of artists and there he married painter Sophia Peabody, with whom he had three children. His works twisted upon the Christian virtues driven to error through arrogance, egoism and elitism. This unquestioned righteousness led to a blindness, lost of virtue and humility.
Hawthorne’s pristine marks among the Dark Romantics include the subgenre’s classic investigation of the mind – the personal psycho-analysis – in its most pure frailty, flaw and fallenness. In his creative examination of man’s relationship to the natural world he falls into unknown and disturbed waters.
Hawthorne’s Work
In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, these dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like his....pray that your griefs may slumber. “
~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Haunted Mind
Nathaniel Hawthorne
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/nathaniel-hawthorne-biography-works-and-style.html
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Biography:
The Scarlet Letter Analysis:
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-scarlet-letter-summary-and-analysis-of-an-allegory.html
Edgar Allen Poe
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe is the most renowned writer of the American Dark Romantics, both beloved and mourned for his contributions to psychological drama, horror, science fiction and poetry. Poe’s imagination was nocturnal and delicately wrought with tension. His perfected poetry holds the frailty of love and imagination as a gentle, cold and passing wind before a deathly storm. It is tense from the loss of balance, yet permanent and stone solid in the certainty of its end.
Edgar Allen Poe
1809-1849
Both parents died before he was three years old.
Struggled with relationships during adult life (his first wife died very young)
He died alone and unhappy His grave was unmarked for
26 years (Baltimore, MD) Poe’s writing placed
emphasis on “the priority of music and sound” over sense.
Edgar Allen Poe
With me, poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
~Edgar Allen Poe
Poe’s Work:
The Tell Tale HeartThe Black CatThe Fall of the
House of UsherThe RavenAnnabel Lee
The Black Cat and Tell Tale Heart
• Both stories involve men talking about why they have committed murder
• “A Poe Character is never more insane than at the moment he begins to reason with us.” ~ Larzer Ziff, American Literary Critic.
Edgar Allen Poe
Edgar Allen Poe’s Biography:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/edgar-allan-poe-biography-works-and-style.html Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado Analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/poes-the-cask-of-amontillado-summary-and-analysis.html Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher Analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/poes-the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher-summary-and-analysis.html Poe’s The Raven Analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/edgar-allen-poes-the-raven-summary-and-analysis.html
Herman Melville
Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Melville was born into an wealthy family of merchants in New York City. After receiving his college education, Melville worked on his uncle’s farm, and then as a cabin boy on a ships to Liverpool, England. This led to a job as a whaler. These experiences provided him with the content of his future novels, many of which were sea-faring adventures and life in foreign lands. He married Elizabeth Shaw in 1847, settled into family life, and began his career as a writer.
Melville’s Moby Dick
Melville reached his peak as a writer with Moby Dick which demonstrated his keen perception of human nature. His writing was steeped in metaphor, allegory and satire.
Herman Melville’s Biography:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/herman-melville-biography-works-style.html
Melville’s Moby Dick Analysis: http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/herman-melville-moby-dick-summary-and-analysis.html
Herman Melville