The American
Renaissance
(1800 – 1870)
• European Renaissance (rebirth of arts and
learning): 14th, 15th,and 16th century
• American Renaissance (not a “rebirth” but a
first flowering): first half of 19th century)
• Two major events:
1. capital moved to Washington, D.C.
2. foundation of the Library of Congress
(first cultural institution in the capital)
Events…
• Thomas Jefferson – Louisiana Purchase of 1803
(doubled the territory of the US)
• Improved transportation: canals, turnpikes,
railroads, steamboats
• California became US territory (1848)
• Gold Rush of 1849
• New industries, new kinds of jobs (more
productive farming)
• Telegraph – improved communication across the US
Politics
• 1828 – Andrew Jackson - “The People’s
President”
• The “era of the common man” – no more
property requirement for voting
• Only white males allowed to vote
• Little attention paid to women
• African-Americans still enslaved
• Native Americans – tribal lands confiscated;
forced to move to the West
• Texas becomes territory of the US (1845)
• Conflict over slavery leads to civil war
What is the relationship between
place (property) and literature?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Vast land: open prairies in the Midwest
deserts in the SE
immense forests in the NW
great canyons and mountains in the W
Oceans on both sides
Countless natural resources
(Cont.)
• Spirit of acquisition, pride of ownership
• Exploration led to exploitation
• Limitless possibilities
Literature:
• Explorers recorded facts of their expeditions in colorful
words and drawings
• Fiction writers (Washington Irving, James Fenimore
Cooper) - created an American mythology by setting
stories in forests and towns of the American landscape
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – narrative poems :
colonial Americans, Native Americans, and
Revolutionary War heroes within the American
wilderness
The American Masters
• Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman
Melville – dark side of wilderness
• Transcendentalists:
Ralph Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau – emphasized
nature’s sublimity
How does literature shape or reflect
society?
• Harriet Beecher Stowe - antislavery novel
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (national and
international phenomenon)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – best-selling
poet in the English language
What did the American writers want
to achieve?
(What is their purpose for writing?)
The social vision:
• Lectures, essays, speeches, debates,
pamphlets, editorials, songs – women’s
rights, slavery, treatment of the Native
Americans, land use, immigration, trade, taxes
• Americans to define their own self
(cont.)
• The Romantic vision:
Directly in contrast to the Age of Reason
• While rationalists saw the move to the big city a move
toward success, romantics saw it as a place of moral decay,
corruption, and death
• Individual freedom
• Individual quest for self-discovery
• Nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral
development
• Journey led to the countryside
• Youthful innocence vs. sophisticated education
I’s of Romanticism
• intuition
• imagination
• innocence
• inspiration from supernatural and from
nature
• inner experience
• A Transcendental Vision:
• Thoreau and Emerson - 1830’s and 1840’s
• Individual - center of the universe, more
powerful than any political or religious
institution
• Thoreau’s Walden