Romanticism Era
(1800-1860)
Hailey Daker
Jackie Castro
Daniel Flores
Chris Kim
Naja Brown
Colleen Blanco
Historical Context
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1803: Louisiana Purchase
1804: Lewis and Clark Expedition
1823: Monroe Doctrine Created
1830: The first steam powered train
1838: Trail of Tears to Oklahoma
1844: Samuel Morse invents the first telegraph line.
1845: The Annexation of Texas
1849: California Gold Rush
1854: Matthew Perry opens two Japanese ports to US
trade.
Historical Context (cont.)
• The Second Great Awakening
– New branches of Christianity
– New ways of thinking
• Industrial Revolution
– Factories and busy cities
– “age of Revolutions”
• Manifest Destiny
• Scientific Achievements
Values and Beliefs
• There is goodness in man, but civilization hinders
him.
• They were influenced by strangeness and
disorder.
• Democracy and individualism was important at
this time.
– Egalitarism- equality, democratic ideas
– Capitalism- a competitive individualistic environment
• They were interested in religion but did not
necessarily believe in it.
Genre and Style
• They mainly wrote poems, novels, and essays.
– Creative and informal writing
• Celebrated strong emotions such as love, fear, horror,
and sadness.
• Focuses:
– Nature and the natural world’s ability to reveal beauty and
truth in the dull world.
– Preferred situations of naturalism over the industrial, noisy
age.
• Wrote about larger than life heroes and haunted,
alienated individuals.
• Symbolic plots with an absence of tradition.
Romantic Characteristic
Description of Characteristic
Interest in the common man and
childhood
They believed that the savage is noble,
childhood is good and the emotions
inspired by both beliefs causes the heart
to soar.
Strong senses, emotions, and feelings
Romantics believed that knowledge is
gained though intuition rather that
dedication.
Awe of nature
Romantics emphasized the awe of nature
in art and language and the experience of
sublimity through a connection with
nature. Romantics rejected the
rationalization of nature by the previous
thinkers of the Enlightenment period.
Celebration of the individual
Romantics often elevated the
achievements of the misunderstood,
heroic individual outcast.
Importance of Imagination
Romantics legitimized the individual
imagination as a critical authority.
The Dark side of
Romanticism
• There was a focus on the supernatural.
• Initiated the development of horror stories.
• Medieval style of writings was big during this
era.
• They wrote about the spiritual world.
• Symbolism was used a lot in their writings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)
• Writings:
– “Nature”
– “Self-Reliance”
• He believed “The less government we have, the
better- the fewer laws, and the less confided
power.”
• He wrote about humanity through his inspiration
of nature.
• After the death of his wife he wrote more
religious pieces.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804- 1864)
• Works:
– “The Scarlet Letter”
– “The House of the Seven Gables”
• He was influenced and wrote about guilt,
isolation, and past sins.
• His works were gloomy.
• He participated in Brooks Farm, which was a
utopian society at the time.
• Works:
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
(1807-1882)
– “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”
– “The Cross of Snow”
• The death of his wife led to his writing of more
religious works.
• Most of his works were poems.
• He assured his audience that their beloved
values would prevail over this new industrial
age.
Herman Melville
(1819-1891)
• Writings:
– “Moby Dick”
• He was in the navy and was a whaler for some
time which influenced his semi biographical
writings.
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809- 1849)
• Writings:
– “The Raven”
– “The Pit and the Pendulum”
– “The Fall of the House of Usher”
• Poe mainly wrote poems and short stories about
mystery and suspense.
– Psychological thrillers
– Human mind
– Irrationality
• He was an orphan and was given no real affection
which influenced his writings.
Other Romanticism Writers
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Emily Dickenson
Washington Irving
William Cullen Bryant
Henry David Thoreau
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Objective
• To understand how rhetorical devices affect
the mood in Romantic writing.
“The Tide Rises, The Tide
Falls”
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on the roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Analysis of
“The Tide Rises, The Tide
Falls”
• Rhyming pattern: unstressed stressed pattern
which makes the poem flow.
• Personification: “The little waves with their
soft white hands, efface the footprints in the
sands”
– Emphasizes the waves of the tide
The Raven
By: Edgar Allan Poe
• Literature Book page 360-363
• Interactive Reader page 103-108
Analysis
“And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;”
• Word Choice
– “sad”
– “uncertain”
• Imagery
• Personification
Guided Practice
• The raven in Poe’s poem is used as a symbol of
bad news. In old times raven feathers were
seen as a sign of ill omen or bad luck. The fact
that the raven can talk adds a supernatural
element. Altogether the raven is meant to
inspire mystery and fear. This relates back to
Romantic authors who liked to explore
abstract emotions like terror.
Guided Practice
• Poe refers to the night as the Plutonian shore.
In Greek mythology Pluto is known as Hades.
He is the ruler of the underworld which is the
place of the dead. This allusion connects to
the theme of the poem which is about the
death of his love, Lenore. This refers back to
the Romantic authors who wanted to explore
the darker emotions in humans such as
sadness.
Independent Practice
• Identify three rhetorical devices (such as
symbolism, allusions, rhythm, alliteration,
repetition, etc.) and explain how it affects the
mood of “The Raven”. Explain how the mood
embodies romanticism.
-OR• Create a poem using similar rhetorical devices
and a similar style that was used in the
Romantic Era.