American Romanticism

A New Philosophy
• Romanticism: school of thought that valued feeling and intuition over reason and logic
• Began in Germany in the 1750s
• Strong influence on literature, music and art
• Developed as a reaction to
Rationalism/Deism
• Romantics believed that there were limits to reason and logic and that imagination was more powerful than both

A New School of
Thought
•
•
• Some even believed it was the only place where man could truly connect with God

Characteristics of
Romanticism
• Values feeling and intuition over reason
• Places faith in experience and imagination
• Rejects civilization in favor of nature
• Prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication
• Champions individual freedom
• Looks to the wisdom of the past
• Finds beauty and inspiration in myth and the supernatural

Type I: Gothic Romantics
• Romantics wanted to rise above
“dull realities” to a realm of higher truth
• Sought to understand the psychological aspects of the human mind, especially how we deal with guilt and loss
• Known for stories with
• Exotic settings
• Supernatural elements
• Folktales and legends
Examples of this type of Romanticism?
Gothic Romantics—Poe, Hawthorne, Irving,
Melville

Type II: Natural Romantics
• Consisted of Romantic Poets, James
Fenimore Cooper and Transcendentalists
• Typical romantic poem: speaker focuses on some object in nature which brings about some insight for the speaker
• Cooper introduces the American Romantic Hero
• Transcendentalists were philosophers who believed Nature was the doorway to the spiritual world

Invented American persona/hero for the world
• Europeans saw Americans as boorish and unsophisticated
• Cooper embraced this concept but turned it on its head—saw the virtue in American innocence
• Wrote five novels chronicling the adventures of Nathaniel “Natty” Bumppo
− Child of white parents, raised by Native
Americans
− Most famous books in the series: The
Deerslayer (book 1) and Last of the Mohicans
(book 2)

Cooper’s impact on
Romanticism
• Characteristics of American
Romantic Hero
• Young, or possesses youthful qualities
• Innocent and pure of purpose
• Sense of honor based on his own code of moral conduct
• Intuitive knowledge of people and life, not based on formal learning
• Loves nature and avoids civilization
• Quests for some higher truth in the natural world

Washington Irving
• Wrote under several pseudonyms
• Diedrich Knickerbocker
• Geoffrey Crayon
• First found success as a satirist
• A History of New York: funny, fake history that ridiculed America’s past
• Influenced by British Romantic, Sir Walter
Scott
• Encouraged Irving to read German folklore and legend for inspiration
• Began writing folktales based on German tales with American twist

The Devil and Tom
Walker
•
• Man sells his soul to devil for personal gain during his life on earth
• Each retelling puts its own spin on the ending

The Devil and Tom
Walker
• Symbolism
• Trees in swamp: symbolize the men whose names they bear
• Look healthy and prosperous, but are rotten inside
• Ax: woodsman (old scratch) is instrumental in the downfall of the “trees”. Their deaths are fuel to him, like logs on a fire
• Cautionary Tale—What is Irving satirizing in this story?
• False piety/hypocritical religious beliefs
• Excessive greed

“The Devil and Tom
Walker”
• Table work
• Analyzing imagery
• Identify the imagery in the following passages
• Explain how imagery supports 1 of the following
− Characterization
− Plot
− Theme
• Description of the marked trees (p.353)
• Description of Tom’s search for his wife (355-356)
• Description of Tom’s house, horses, and carriage
(p357-358)
• Description of Tom carried off by Devil (p 359)

Edgar Allan Poe
• Father deserted family when Poe was 3
• Mother, Eliza, well known actress who contracted TB and died soon after Poe’s father left
• Placed in foster care with Frances and John Allan
(childless couple); separated from siblings; brother eventually dies of TB as well
• Foster mother, Frances, contracted TB when Poe was in college
• John Allan carried on numerous affairs during his wife’s illness, fathered several illegitimate children, and eventually disinherited
Edgar
• After leaving UVA (debt) and West Point (gambling and debt), he found a home with his aunt, Maria Clemm and cousin Virginia
• Married Virginia when she was 13 and he was 26
• She too, contracted TB and died soon after…she was the inspiration for some of Poe’s greatest poetry ( The Raven and
Annabelle Lee)

Edgar Allan Poe
• Supported family as literary editor for various magazines
• Wrote his own novels, poems, and short stories without the backing of a publisher
• Created the “detective story” genre with character of sleuth C. Auguste Dupin
• Explored the criminal mind and the psychology of a killer with stories like “Tell Tale Heart” and
“Hop-Frog”
• As a writer, he was the master of the psychological thriller—wanted to discover the unsettling truth in the dark, irrational depths of the mind

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Masque of the Red Death”
•
• Allegory: a story in which the people, objects and events symbolize abstract qualities
• Abstract qualities?
− Freedom, selfishness, curiosity, innocence, desire, loneliness
• The story is an allegory for TB
(Red Death) and the devastating effects of TB on a community

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Masque of the Red Death”
• Allegory analysis
• Prince
• Fallibility of leaders
− “Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious.”
− Attempts to protect his chosen ppl but ultimately cannot
• Selfishness:
− “The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime, it was folly to grieve, or to think.
− wants to party while the rest of his ppl die outside the abbey
• Moral lesson(s):
• Leaders cannot always protect you
• Those with resources should use them to help others

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Masque of the Red Death”
•
• Protection, safety, security
• “A strong, lofty wall girded it in. This wall had gates of iron…The abbey was amply provisioned.”
• Moral Lesson
• No matter how protected you feel, you cannot avoid the fate we all share: death.

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Masque of the Red Death”
•
• The life cycle
• “…the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue….but in the western or black chamber…”
− Each of the seven rooms colors represent the movement of the sun across the sky, from sunrise to sunset.
• Moral Lesson: The life cycle of anything doesn’t stop until death.

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Masque of the Red Death”
•
• The passage of time in one’s life
• “while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest turned pale…”
• Moral Lesson
• Time waits for no one. You never know when your time will be up.

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Masque of the Red Death”
•
• The “red death”—TB
• “His vesture was dabbed in blood…”
• Moral Lesson:
• Death will always find you.

Edgar Allan Poe
“The Raven”
• Background on Poem
• Wrote poem while wife, Virginia, was dying of TB
• Imagined the desperation and loneliness he might feel after her death
• Speaker questions the existence of the afterlife 
• Wonders if he and Lenore will ever be reunited
• Style and Structure
• Wanted to create a poem with a deliberate dark mood
• Considered using an owl or a parrot in place of a raven
• Uses dashes or other interrupters in sentences to suggest hurried/excited speech

• Fall of the House of Usher
• House of Usher: sounds like
European aristocracy…why?
• Satire of European Aristocracy?
− Both Madeline and Roderick suffer from genetic diseases


Edgar Allan Poe
Fall of the House of Usher
• Basic Plot
• Exposition: Narrator comes to visit old friend,
Roderick.
• Rising Action:
• Roderick explains his illness to narrator and the illness of his sister, Madeline, who is close to death.
• Roderick and Narrator spend time together reading, playing music, and painting
• Usher announces Madeline is dead and must be buried immediately
• After a week, on a stormy night, Roderick is acting strange; narrator reads him a story.
• Climax: Madeline enters the chamber and she and
Roderick die in each other’s arms
• Resolution: the narrator escapes as the house collapses on itself.

Edgar Allan Poe
Fall of the House of Usher
• Group Activity
• Each table group will analyze and discuss a specific part of the story and present their analysis to the class. Make sure your group finds specific examples from the text (in the form of quotations) to support your opinions

Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864)
• Descendent of Judge Hathorne
(Salem Witch Trials)
• Heavily influenced by his Puritan ancestry—felt so guilty about family involvement in SWT that he changed the spelling of his name
• Short stories and novels deal with sin and redemption
• First success was a collection of short stories— Twice Told Tales 1837
• Achieved literary popularity with The
Scarlet Letter in 1850

Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Moral lesson: humans display no ability to benefit from mistakes of the past
• Heidegger as protagonist
• He motivates the action of the story—offers the water but has no intention of drinking
• Is a scientific observer who sits in moral judgment upon vain and sinful people
• Romantic Elements
• Allegory: each of the characters in this story are symbols for some negative human character trait
• Description of the study—book of magic
• Elements of fantasy—Fountain of Youth
• Gothic element: moral dilemma—can we ever learn from the mistakes of our past?

Nathaniel Hawthorne
• “The Minister’s Black Veil”
• Parable: short stories often from religious scripture that teach a moral lesson—the meaning is often ambiguous
• Hawthorne calls this a parable to make it clear that this is NOT realism—this is a story with a moral lesson
• Symbol: a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and also stands for something more than itself

Nathaniel Hawthorne
•
• Symbolism—THE VEIL
• Hooper explains that it is a symbol of
“universal secret sin”
− Why black?—inspires dread in his congregation
− Why wear it?—Hooper declares his kinship with all people as a secret sinner
– Makes congregation uncomfortable because it reminds them of their own secret sins

Fireside Poets
• Wanted to prove that American poets were not unsophisticated hicks
• Proved this by copying European literary traditions
• Used English themes, meter and imagery
Who were the Fireside Poets?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf
Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James
Russell Lowell

Fireside Poets
• Most popular poets in American
History
• Traditionalists who relied on past literary forms
• Subject Matter of Poetry?
• Love, patriotism, nature, family, religion, and freedom (ALL THE FIRESIDE POETS
WERE ABOLITIONISTS)
• Why called Fireside Poets?
• Poems were read aloud at the fireside for family entertainment

• Most popular American Poet of the
1800s
• Aware of opposites in life
• Something beautiful is created only at the expense of great pain and suffering
• “Sunshine and Shadow”
− “Sunshine” represented positive feelings and experiences that cannot exist without
“shadow”—the inevitable negative experiences of human life

Longfellow
“Psalm of Life”
• Celebrates an optimistic view of life
• Reflects American sentiment in a time of prosperity and peace
• Table Work: analyze the following elements of the poem
• Rhyme scheme
• Meter
• What effect does the stanza length, rhyme scheme, and meter have on the tone of the poem?
• Metaphor—identify the metaphor in lines 17-18 and explain the meaning
• What, according to the speaker, is our destined purpose?

Longfellow
“The Cross of Snow”
• Romantic poets use nature to mirror or express painful emotions
• this poem is an expression of
Longfellow’s grief over the death of his wife
• What images in nature can be used to describe grief?
• Grief is__________________________

Longfellow
• Rhymed 14 line poem
• Usually written in Iambic
Pentameter (10 syllables per line)
• Five Iambs (syllables) are stressed, five are unstressed

Longfellow
“The Cross of Snow”
• Sonnet: Two Types
• Shakespearean (Elizabethan)
• 3 groups of 4 lines each—quatrains
• Followed by two final rhyming lines—couplet
• Rhyme Scheme abab,cdcd,efef,gg
• Italian (Petrachan)
• First 8 lines are grouped together—octave
• Last 6 lines are grouped together—sestet
• Rhyme scheme abba, abba, cde, cde
Which type of Sonnet did Longfellow use for
“The Cross of Snow”?

Longfellow
“The Cross of Snow”
• Italian sonnet
• Octave—what is the subject of the first 8 lines?
• Poet’s sleepless nights and memories of his dead wife
• Sestet—what comment is made on the subject of the octave?
• The changeless cross of snow has become the symbol for the grief he feels over his wife’s death

Oliver Wendell Holmes
1809-1894
•
•
•

Oliver Wendell Holmes
•
• Generally light and comic
• Commentaries on social and intellectual shortcomings of other poets
•
• Apostrophe: a direct address to an object or to someone who is not present

Oliver Wendell Holmes
“The Chambered Nautilus”

Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Literary Devices
• Extended Metaphor
− A comparison between two unlike things that is developed throughout several lines or an entire work
What is the extended metaphor in this poem?
The creature building its nautilus shell is a metaphor for the human soul striving for heaven

Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Other metaphors in the poem
• “stately mansions” (nautilus chambers)=spiritual achievements of the soul
• “low vaulted past” (previous chambers)=earlier, less spiritual state of the soul
• “each new temple” (individual chambers)=step toward heaven
• “outgrown shell”=the body after death
• “unresting sea”=life

Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Other Literary Devices
• Apostrophe: a direct address to an object or to someone who is not present
− Where does the apostrophe in “The
Chambered Nautilus” begin?
– Stanza 4: he address the nautilus
– Stanza 5: he is speaking to his soul

Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Theme—what is the message of this poem?
• Throughout our lives, we outgrow things and move on to new ones: as we learn more about ourselves and the world, we are challenged to widen our perspectives

James Russell Lowell
• Background
• Famous for his poetry and his essays by the time he was 30
• Abolitionist who wrote for anti-slavery newspapers
• Literary Elements
• Symbol: a person, place, object or activity that has concrete meaning on its own, but also stands for or represents something beyond itself
• Protest poetry: written specifically to persuade readers to support a certain cause

James Russell Lowell
• “Stanzas on Freedom”
• Table work
1. rhyme scheme
2. Who is the speaker addressing in the first stanza?
3. Who is the speaker addressing in the second stanza?
4. What is the speaker’s message to the audience he addresses in the first two stanzas?
5. How does Lowell define “true freedom” in the third stanza?
6. Who are the “slaves who fear to speak” in the fourth stanza?
7. Give one example of visual imagery from the poem.
8. Find one simile in the poem and explain what two things are being compared.
9. Give one example of alliteration from the poem
10. Based on the poems you’ve read this week, what are three common characteristics of Romantic Poetry you’ve noticed? Explain.

William Cullen Bryant
1794-1878
•
•
•

William Cullen Bryant
• Subject: the natural cycle of life— birth, growth, death, rebirth
• Title origins
•
•
Thanatos —Greek for death
Opsis —Greek for seeing

William Cullen Bryant
“Thanatopsis”
• Original poem was only lines 17-72
• Lines 1-17 and 73-81 were added 10 years after original publication
− Lines 1-17: Address the subject of death and tells how the reader can find the answers
− Lines 17-30: Speaker changes—THE VOICE OF
NATURE: those who die become part of nature's rebirth
− Lines 31-72: we are not alone in death; our resting place will be magnificent; and we will lie down with the great of past generations
− Lines 73-81: returns to original speaker who advises the reader to live life so that they will be able to accept death