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American Romanticism: 1800-1860Introduction to the Literary Period
Fast Facts
Key Concept: The Nation Expands
Key Concept: New Ideas Take Root
Key Concept: Differences Threaten National Unity
Your Turn
Feature Menu
Historical Highlights
• Numerous reform movements, centered in New England, seek to improve social conditions.
• Rapid growth of industrialization, education, transportation, and cities transforms society.
• Discontent over slavery intensifies as the abolitionist movement gains momentum.
American Romanticism: 1800-1860Fast Facts
Literary Highlights
• Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first collection of essays (1841) discusses Transcendentalist thought.
• Romantic writings, such as Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book (1820), look to feeling and imagination to reveal higher truths.
• Edgar Allan Poe, an influential Gothic writer, publishes The Raven and Other Poems in 1845.
[End of Section]
American Romanticism: 1800-1860Fast Facts
History of the Times
• A new era of westward expansion began.
• In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase added significant land to the United States.
Key Concept: The Nation Expands
• This migration west intensified with the Gold Rush of 1849.
• Many were optimistic that machines would advance the nation’s progress.
• The Industrial Revolution was changing the way people worked and lived.
History of the Times
Key Concept: The Nation Expands
• However, the rise of industry led to overcrowding and disease in the cities.
• The Romantic movement helped express the discontent arising from the Industrial Revolution.
• Romantic writers viewed cities as places of immorality, corruption, and death.
Literature of the Times
Key Concept: The Nation Expands
• By contrast, they associated the countryside with independence, clarity, and healthful living.
Comprehension Check
How did the United States expand both geographically and culturally during the early nineteenth century?
Key Concept: The Nation Expands
[End of Section]
• The Lyceum movement used public lectures and discussions to institute social reforms.
• Reformers throughout New England sought various social changes.
History of the Times
• An era of reform took hold in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Key Concept: New Ideas Take Root
• Interest in social causes led to Utopian projects—plans for creating a perfect society.
• true reality is found in ideas rather than in the world as perceived by the senses
Literature of the Times
• people must go beyond everyday experiences in order to understand God, the Universe, and the self
Key Concept: New Ideas Take Root
The Transcendentalists believed
• human perfection can be achieved
• He believed that even tragic events could be explained on a spiritual level.
Literature of the Times• Ralph Waldo Emerson, the
best-known Transcendentalist, encouraged people to find God directly in nature.
Key Concept: New Ideas Take Root
• Emerson’s optimism appealed to people living in a period of strife and economic downturns.
Comprehension Check
How would reformers and writers in the Romantic Age describe an ideal society?
Key Concept: New Ideas Take Root
[End of Section]
History of the Times
• Antislavery activists in the North wanted to put an end to slavery everywhere.
• Most Northern states had abolished slavery by the early 1800s, but the number of slaves in the South was increasing.
• Southern slaveholders felt threatened, and violence against abolitionists rose.
Key Concept: Differences Threaten National Unity
History of the Times
• Seen as competition for valuable land, these Native Americans later were forcibly relocated.
• Many Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee, were forced to give up their way of life to take up farming and other livelihoods.
Key Concept: Differences Threaten National Unity
The Granger Collection, New York
Comprehension Check
What reaction did the Cherokee experience after making the transition to farming?
Key Concept: Differences Threaten National Unity
[End of Section]
• Like the Transcendentalists, the Dark Romantics valued intuition over logic and saw signs and symbols in all events.
Literature of the Times
Key Concept: Differences Threaten National Unity
• However, their works explored the conflict between good and evil and the psychological effects of guilt and sin. Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Your Turn
American Romanticism: 1800-1860
[End of Section]
As you outline the main ideas of the unit introduction and as you answer questions about the literature in the unit that follows, try to use the following Academic Vocabulary words:
factor transform
implicit principal
integral
The End