AMERICAN
ROMANTICISM
1800-1840
CITY VS. COUNTRY
 For Age of Reason, city was:
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Independence
Adventure
Prosperity
Commerce
Sophisticated society
CITY VS. COUNTRY
 For Romantics, city was:
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Dangerous
Corruption
Decay and death
Evil
Morally ambiguous
CITY VS. COUNTRY
The countryside became associated with:
• Independence
• Good health
• Straightforward moral certainty
JOURNEY MOTIF
 Popular in 19th century literature
 Represents the journey away from the town, into the country
 Moves toward the world of nature
 Both a flight from something and
 A flight to something
COMPARING TWO AGES
 Age of Reason ‘character’
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Do-gooder
Ambitious
Hard-working
Found energy in “town/city” life
COMPARING TWO AGES
 Age of Romanticism character:
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Do-nothing
No ambition
Escape responsibility
Flee to the mountains/nature
Escape the limitations of town (domestic) life
Loves nature
Distrusts civilization
THE ROMANTIC
SENSIBILITY
• Intuition was favored, with and emphasis on:
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Imagination
Spontaneity
Individual feelings
nature
THE ROMANTIC
SENSIBILITY
 Rational thinking, was inferior:
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Reason
Logic
Planning
Cultivation
THE ROMANTIC
SENSIBILITY
 Why?
• People discovered the limits of reason
• People believed you could discover truths that were accompanied by
• Powerful emotion
• Associated with beauty
This thinking was essentially for the purposes of ART!
THE ROMANTIC
SENSIBILITY
 How did they do this?
Two Ways:
 Explore settings in a more natural past
• Remove thoughts from the industrial age
• Remove oneself from the present; go back to a mythical time
THE ROMANTIC
SENSIBILITY
 Contemplate Nature until dull reality falls away
• View commonplace events
• Search for deeper meaning or insight
THE AMERICAN HERO
 Youth (or childlike qualities)
 Innocence
 A love of nature
 A distrust of town life
 Uneasiness with women
 Need to engage in a quest for some higher truth in the natural world
THE AMERICAN HERO
 Novels tended to look at:
• the Wilderness
• Westward expansion
• Growing Nationalist spirit
• Rapid growth of cities (seen as negative)
THE AMERICAN HERO
 Your quintessential frontiersman
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Idealized frontier life
Virtuous
Lives a moral life (follows the code of the forest)
Highly skilled
Seeking a higher good