The American
Transcendental
Movement
Earliest American Literature to the Romantic Era
Earliest Literature to 1800:
Native Americans
Puritan and Colonial Literature
American Romanticism (1800 – 1860)
History of Romanticism
(1800-1830)
A number of changing attitudes related to a sense of
nationalism—a devotion to one’s nation or patriotism—not a
philosophy yet
•The romantics’ emphasis on the individual
reflects the political ideal set forth in the
Declaration of Independence that “all men
are created equal.”
•This new emphasis leads to a new focus
on the dignity and worth of the common
individual and to social reforms that were
meant to fulfill this ideal of equality.
Romantic Literature and Attitudes:
Romantics were mostly interested in the
expression of their own intuitive
experiences.
Subjects characteristic of Romantic attitudes:
•NATURE
•THE PAST
•THE INNER WORLD OF
HUMAN NATURE
Subjects characteristic of Romantic attitudes:
•NATURE: Romantics emphasized the beauty,
strangeness, and the mystery of nature. As opposed to
the rational laws of the realists/rationalists
•They saw nature not as a machine, but as an organic
process, constantly developing and changing.
• They placed emphasis on the organic connection
between the human imagination and the natural
world.
• The mystery and grandeur of the vast and still
unknown land were part of their heritage and a
powerful influence on their imaginations.
Subjects characteristic of Romantic attitudes:
THE PAST:
The rise of nationalism brought with it a new interest in
the American past.
American literature gradually developed a sense of a
national past and of an emerging national character.
Subjects characteristic of Romantic attitudes:
THE INNER WORLD OF HUMAN NATURE:
Romantics emphasized the emotions, intuition, and the
individual and thus encouraged the exploration and the
expression of the writer’s most private inner being.
Romantic writers became
interested in the irrational
depths of human nature.
The American Romantic writers had
found in Romanticism a new way of
expressing their experiences as
Americans. In this process, they
expressed the nationalistic spirit of
the age and
created a truly
significant
national
literature.
Significant Romantic Writers
The Transcendentalists:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
The Brahmin Poets:
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807- 1882)
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Dark Romantics/Anti-Transcendentalists:
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Edgar Allan Poe (1809- 1849)
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•Chiefly an attitude toward humans, nature and
the world.
•The term came from the German philosopher
Immannuel Kant.
•He wrote the Critique of Practical Reason
(1788)—to him transcendental meant the
knowledge or understanding a person gains
intuitively, although it lies beyond
direct physical experience.
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They had a sense of intense individualism and selfreliance
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They had a sense of intense individualism and selfreliance
•They believed in the unity of God and the world
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They had a sense of intense individualism and selfreliance
•They believed in the unity of God and the world
•They felt the real truths lay outside the experience
of the senses, residing instead in the “over-soul—a
universal benign ominipresnce . . . A God known to
men only in moments of mystic enthusiasm, whose
visitations leave them altered, self-reliant and
purified of petty aims.”
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They revered nature and its relationship to
humanity.
•They had a philosophy of individualism, simplicity,
and passive resistance to injustice.
•Many maintained a positive, optimistic, or rosy
view of life.
•They focused their attention on the human spirit.
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They revered nature and its relationship to
humanity.
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They revered nature and its relationship to
humanity.
•They had a philosophy of individualism, simplicity,
and passive resistance to injustice.
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They revered nature and its relationship to
humanity.
•They had a philosophy of individualism, simplicity,
and passive resistance to injustice.
•Many maintained a positive, optimistic, or rosy
view of life.
Characteristics of Transcendentalists:
•They revered nature and its relationship to
humanity.
•They had a philosophy of individualism, simplicity,
and passive resistance to injustice.
•Many maintained a positive, optimistic, or rosy
view of life.
•They focused their attention on the human spirit.