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Monday, April 4
 Welcome
back! Hope everyone had a nice spring
break 
 Grab
handouts
 Today: American
Romanticism in literature and the
visual arts
 Homework: Read
Emerson’s “American Scholar”
essay and complete Transcendentalism Thought
Chart.
 Tomorrow: Transcendentalism
discussion
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American Romanticism 1830-1865
 The
American Renaissance – in the sense of a
flowering excitement over human possibilities,
and a high regard for individual ego.
 Why
was the time ripe for such a literary
explosion?
 Culture
 Politics
 Economy
 Religion
+ American Romanticism
 Shares
many
characteristics with British
Romanticism.
 Specifically
American
components:
 Awe of wild aspects of
nature
 Recapturing ecstasy of
exploration and
discovery
 Confronting American
pressures for conformity
 Independence
+ Edgar Allen Poe 1809-1849
 First
well-known author to try and
earn a living through writing alone.
 One
of earliest American short story
writers and considered the inventor
of the detective-fiction genre.
 Best
know for his Gothic fiction works
and tales of mystery.
 His
most recurring themes deal with
questions of death.
 “The
Raven”, “Annabelle Lee”, “The
Telltale Heart”
+ Emily Dickinson 1830-1886
 Lived
a mostly introverted and
reclusive life.
 Poems
were in letters to her friends.
Published after her death and
heavily edited.
 Themes
of death and immortality.
 Slant
rhyme, unconventional
capitalization and punctuation.
 Ballad
stanzas, which were four line
stanzas alternating in iambic
tetrameter and trimeter.
1 of 2 known photographs
+ Walt Whitman 1819-1892
 Among
the most influential poets in
the American canon, often called the
father of free verse.
 America's
 Deeply
first "poet of democracy”
influenced by Deism.
 His
work was very controversial in its
time, particularly his poetry collection
Leaves of Grass, which was described
as obscene for its overt sexuality.
 Unique
structure – there was no set
length for his poems, stanzas, or even
lines.
Steel engraving of Walt Whitman.
Published in 1855 edition of en:Leaves
of Grass
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“I Sing the Body Electric”
 One
of the 12 poems from the first edition of
Leaves of Grass (1855)
 Praise
of the wonders of the sensual body and a
response to those who doubt the body.
 “Electric” wasn’t
a commonly used word during
this time.
 Form
 Free
verse
 Poem of lists gives structure
 Stanzas used as organization
+ “I Sing the Body Electric”
 What
aspects of Romanticism are most prevalent
in the poem?
 How
does the poem reflect American
Romanticism specifically? Look for commentary
on:
 Identity
 Freedom
 Religion
 Politics
 Read
Stanza 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (skip 3 and 9)
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 Homework:
 Read
Emerson’s “American Scholar” essay
 Complete Transcendentalism Thought Chart
 Tomorrow: Transcendentalism
discussion