American Romanticism/
American Renaissance
1828-1865
Romantic Roots
• A Reaction against Neo-Classicism and
the Industrial Age.
• Emphasized the individual, subjective,
irrational, imaginative, and emotional.
• Began with Wordsworth’s declaration that
poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feeling.”
Romantic Movement In America
• Self examination
becomes a vehicle for the
study of humanity.
“Every atom of me belonging to
me as good belongs to you”
- Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
American Renaissance
• An era in which American literature became an
expression of national pride.
• Dominated by welleducated writers and
professors interested in
developing an
American tradition of
literature.
• Saw the emergence of
Transcendentalism,
a belief in the innate
goodness of mankind,
which prized insight
over logic.
Kindred
Spirits:
This 1849 painting, by
Asher Durand, depicts
William Cullen Bryant
and Thomas Cole in
Kaaterskill Clove.
To an American Painter Departing for Europe
1
2
3
4
5
6.
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
Yet, Cole! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand
A living image of thy native land,
Such as on thy own glorious canvass lies.
Lone lakes--savannahs where the bison roves-Rocks rich with summer garlands--solemn streams-Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams-Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves.
Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest--fair,
But different--every where the trace of men,
Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen
To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air.
Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,
But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.