The Romantic Poets (8)
Romanticism (1800 – 1860)
Washington Irving
William Cullen Bryant
The Dark Romanics (2)
Edgar Allan Poe
– Dark Romantics –
Nathanial Hawthorne
The Fireside Poets (4)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Fireside Poets – Oliver Wendell Holmes
John Greenleaf Whittier
– Fireside Poets –
James Russell Lowell
Washington Irving – Rip Van Winkle
William Cullen Bryant – Thanatopsis
Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall of the House of Usher / The Raven
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Minister’s Black Veil
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls / The Cross of Snow
Oliver Wendell Holmes – Old Ironsides
ROMANTICISM (1800 – 1860):
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Events: Slavery; National Anthem; Cities Doubled;
Poets lived in the countryside; small towns, mountains or
farms.
Nature set the tone for their poetry.
Sought unspoiled nature.
Believed cities were of disease, death, and moral
destruction.
Nature = beauty
Nature = spirituality
Nature = life lessons
Life cycle = birth, growth, death and rebirth
Poems = positive
Poems going beyond logical
Poetry = highly valued
Preferred youth over wisdom.
WASHINGTON IRVING (1783 – 1859):
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Rip Van Winkle
Invented comical fictional narrators
Didn’t sign name until 50 years old
Pen-names: Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent., Diedrich
Knickerbocker, Geoffrey Crayon
Sarcasm: A literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of a
human weakness.
Did not want to follow the family business.
Droll: Oddly amusing and comical.
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RIP VAN WINKLE
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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794 – 1878)
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Thanatopsis
First American Romantic Poet
Believed in deism: Belief in God, but denial of
revelations).
Felt divinity (religion, spirituality) could be found in
nature.
Started writing poetry at age nine
Was going to be a lawyer, but became a poet
Thanatopsis (he was only 17) made him famous
One of the founders of the Republican Party
Father of American Poetry
Value Emotion / Intuition over Reason / Logic.
Value Imagination over Rational thinking
Placed faith on the inner experience.
Romantic Poets (8):
o Irving
o Bryant
Dark Romantics:
o Poe
o Hawthorne
Fireside Poets:
o Longfellow
o Holmes
o Whittier
o Lowell
Published in 1819
Frame: A story within a story
The Setting: Catskill Mountains, Appalachians, Hudson,
New York
Rip was a simple, good natured, obedient and
henpecked husband
Got along with everyone
Attends to everybody else’s business except his own.
Squirrel hunting is his favorite sport.
Sleeps for 20 years.
When he wakes, he notices that his gun is rusted and his
dog is gone.
Dog’s name is Wolf.
Body is stiff – hard to walk.
Doolittle’s Hotel has replaced the Village Inn
Flag pole has replaced shade tree.
Discuss Revolutionary War
Burst blood vessel killed Dame Winkle.
THANATOPSIS
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An elegy = a poem expressing sorrow for someone who
is dead.
Thanatos (death) + Opsis (seeing)
A way of looking at death & a way of thinking about it.
Pall = coffin
Sepulcher = burial place
Shroud = cloth used to wrap a dead body
Narrow House = grave
About life and death
DARK ROMANTICS (2)
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Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Still valued intuition over logic & reason
Believed in signs/lessons from nature
Also believed that if good existed, then so did EVIL
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EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809 – 1849)
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The Fall of the House of Usher
The Raven
Dark Romantic Poet
Life of tragedy
Both parents were actors (seen as a vulgar career)
All women in his life died of TB (Tuberculosis)
Never adopted by John & Frances Allan.
Attended the University of Virginia / West Point
Married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia – very happy
Master of the psychological thriller
Virginia died in 1847
Poe was found in ditch after missing for a week, dying 4
days later.
Last words were “Lord help my poor soul.”
Wrote Annabel Lee to immortalize Virginia
Used symbols & motifs in writing:
o Eyes
o Heart
o Unnamed narrator
o Dreams
Dark side of life
Believed that most people were inherently good, but
could be wicked
Works explored the conflicts between good & evil, guilt
& sin, & the madness of the human mind
Two sides of oneself / twins
Vortex
Animals
Premature death / suffocation
Time / clocks
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
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Takes place during Autumn
Narrator – friend of Roderick Usher
Symbolism – the physical house and the family of Usher
dying (“fall”)
Roderick buries sister, Madeline, alive
Ushers go mad / house swallowed up by tarn or lake
Oppressive = weighing heavily on the mind or spirits;
causing depression or discomfort
Insipid = bland
Cadaver = dead body
Stealthy = sneaky, secretive
Vivacious = lively
Sullen = sad, depressed
Poem within story = “The Haunted Palace”
THE RAVEN
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Overnight success
Poe was paid $14 for it
Narrator was student
Setting is speaker’s room / library in December at
midnight
He couldn’t sleep – reading – hears a tapping – no one is
there
Visited by a Raven, who constantly says, “Nevermore!”
Sadness, sorrow, no hope – his wife, Lenore, is dead
Raven’s “Nevermore” –
o Raven will not leave speaker
o No relief
o Will not see Lenore again
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o Rhymes with Lenore
Mood is ominous or dark, threatening
Ominous = giving the impression that something bad or
unpleasant is going to happen; threatening;
inauspicious.
Imagery = visually descriptive or figurative language
Images: “bleak December” (cold), storming, “dying
ember”
Tone is amusing at first – becomes desperate & angry at
the end
Symbolism – the raven symbolizes death, loss, or despair
/ grim reaper
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804 – 1864)
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The Minister’s Black Veil
The Scarlet Letter
Dark Romantic Poet
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Works admired today more than when it was written
Grew up Puritan = thought it equaled guilt
Partier – chewed tobacco, played cards, drank wine
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Sees black veil on everyone
Hates his reflection in veil
Becomes better / more efficient minister
Plighted wife = promised wife – arranged
THE MINISTER’S BLACK VEIL
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Hawthorne called it a Parable
Parable = A short story with a moral lesson
Minister wears a veil to show that he has sinned
Never takes it off
Fiancée, Elizabeth, leaves – comes back to be his nurse
THE FIRESIDE POETS (4)
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807 – 1882)
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The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
The Cross of Snow
Fireside Poet
Was and is still one America’s most popular poets
Wrote about things people could relate to – values,
character, & comfort
Born in Maine
Used Atlantic Coast for inspiration
Went to Bowdoin College (Hawthorne was one of his
classmates)
First wife died from a miscarriage
Professor at Harvard
Met and married another woman – had 6 children
In 1854 wrote fulltime
Second wife tragically died from a fire
Meter = pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in
poetry
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Metaphor = a figure of speech that compares two unlike
things without use of “like” or “as”
Personification = a figure of speech in which object or
animal is given human characteristics
Alliteration = repetition of initial consonant sounds
THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS
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Addresses our relationship with nature.
Nature is a series of cycles; however, human life is
limited, without repeating cycles
THE CROSS OF SNOW
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Grief is most difficult emotion for humans to express
Used nature to express emotions that were too painful
or difficult to express directly
Lost both wives tragically – shows in this poem
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809 – 1894)
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Old Ironsides
Fireside Poet
A surgeon and a poet
Felt being a surgeon taught him humanity
Coined the word anesthesia (without feeling)
Descendant of Anne Bradstreet – Puritan connection
Attended Harvard University
Law student when the US G’ment decided to destroy the
warship, the USS Constitution
Inspired to write Old Ironsides
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Poem fired up public and saved the 44-gun ship – can still
see in the Boston Harbor
One of the Founders of the Atlantic Monthly magazine
Reputation as a witty writer
OLD IRONSIDES
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Shows that the pen is mightier than the sword
Used dramatic / emotional appeal to get readers to save
the ship
Uses bold imagery to protest against its destruction
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892)
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Snowbound
Fireside Poet
Felt that people could educate themselves
“Read and study a little every day, & before thee art
twenty years of age, thee will fin that a school is not
needed.”
Whittier is the only Fireside Poet who came from a poor
environment
Started writing poetry at age fourteen
His family did not encourage his writing-they felt he
needed to do something more practical
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He became a newspaper editor
Whittier stood up against slavery (he thought slavery
was a sin against humanity).
He wrote a pamphlet about his feeling, & the people
were quite cruel: mobs threw rocks at him
Newspaper refused to print/run his articles or poems.
This did not stop him from writing
Retired eventually to Massachusetts where he wrote the
IDYLL
Idyll = a nostalgic work describing a pleasant rural scene
or homey setting
JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL (1819-1891)
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Fireside Poet
Poet, critic, diplomat
POETRY DEVICES:
A.
B.
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E.
F.
Personification
metaphor
tone
repetition
foreshadowing
setting
Comma Splices
Sentence Fragments
Fused Sentences
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
apostrophe
meter
symbolism
idyll
parable
alliteration
M.
N.
O.
P.
foot
atmosphere
mood
imagery