Lesson 14.2: American Art
and Literature
Today we will discuss the art and
literature of early national America.
Vocabulary
• celebration – the act of praising or
giving honor
• civil – of citizens
• transcend – exceed, go beyond
What We Already Know
During the Enlightenment, the human mind
and its powers of reason were celebrated
over superstition and religious belief.
What We Already Know
During the Industrial Revolution, machines
and unskilled workers replaced skilled craftsmen
in the work place, making manufacturing
much more dull and mindless.
What We Already Know
In the decades after the War of 1812, a strong
feeling of national pride swept the United States,
and increased as the nation expanded westward.
Many American writers were
influenced by a style of European art
called romanticism.
• Romanticism was a reaction
against the Enlightenment,
the Scientific Revolution,
and industrialization.
• It looked back fondly on the
past, when life seemed
simpler.
• In Romanticism, emotions
and imagination were
considered more important
than intellect or reason.
Romanticism
drew inspiration
from nature.
• Nature was a place
free from society's
judgment and
restrictions.
• Romanticism
stressed the
individual,
imagination,
creativity, and
emotion.
An example of the Romantic
attitude, expressed by German
author Johann Wolfgang Goethe:
“All the
knowledge I
possess
everyone else
can acquire,
but my heart is
all my own.”
2a. What was romanticism?
A. Romanticism stressed the individual,
imagination, creativity, and emotion.
B. Romanticism was a reaction against the
Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution,
and industrialization.
C. It looked back fondly on the past, when life
seemed simpler.
D. In Romanticism, emotions and imagination
were considered less important than
intellect or reason.
Choose the one that is NOT true!
Romanticism
encouraged
American
writers to
create truly
American
works.
1. American writers turned their
interest in nature into a celebration
of the American wilderness.
• James Fenimore Cooper
wrote five novels about
the dramatic adventures of
wilderness scout …..
…… Natty Bumppo.
• Cooper’s historical romances
of frontier and Indian life in the
early American days created a
unique form of American
literature.
• One that remains popular:
‘The Last of
the Mohicans’.
2. American writers began using
a more American style of writing.
• Noah Webster gave
guidelines to that
style in his American
Dictionary of the
English Language.
• Webster’s dictionary
replaced British
spellings with
American, and
included American
slang.
3. Writers celebrated America’s past.
• Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow wrote
many poems that
retold stories from
history.
• His most famous,
“Paul Revere’s
Ride,” depicted the
Revolutionary War
hero’s ride to warn
of a British attack.
Washington Irving also wrote
stories about colonial life.
• One story, “Rip Van
Winkle,” tells of a man
who falls asleep on the
eve of the Revolutionary
War and wakes up 20
years later.
• In another, “The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow”, a
teacher is chased by the
headless ghost of a
Revolutionary War soldier
and is never seen again.
Washington
Irving’s work
helped to win
European
respect for
American
writing for the
first time.
2b. How did American writers
adapt romanticism?
A. They turned its interest in nature into a
celebration of the American wilderness.
B. They turned its focus on heroic figures
into stories about legendary figures
from tall tales.
C. They replaced its religious themes with
Native American myths.
D. They transformed its love of nature into
stories about turning wilderness into
civilization.
1. Why are Washington Irving’s “Rip Van
Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
important in American literature?
A. They were the first to include
American slang words.
B. They were the first stories ever written
about life in the United States.
C. They helped win European respect for
American writing.
D. They helped inspire Americans to
rebel against British rule.
European styles
also influenced
American artists,
but some painters
took these styles
in new directions.
3. What were three ways in which
writers helped create a truly
American style of writing?
A. Their works celebrated the
American wilderness.
B. They used American English in
their writings.
C. They wrote about the American
past.
D. They wrote very negative stories
and novels about the European
noble classes.
1. Some American
artists, influenced by
romanticism, painted
lush natural
landscapes.
• One group of painters
was known as the
Hudson River School.
• They were so named
because they painted
the dramatic beauty of
the Hudson River
Valley in the state of
New York.
Asher Durand was a founder of the
Hudson River School.
• His most famous
painting, Kindred
Spirits, shows two
men inspired by a
beautiful landscape.
• The men are Durand’s
friends, the Romantic
poet William Cullen
Bryant and Romantic
painter Thomas Cole.
Several members of the Hudson
River School went to the West.
In their paintings,
they tried to
convey the majesty
of the American
landscape.
2. Others painted American wildlife.
• John James Audubon
came to the United
States from France at
age 18.
• Traveling across the
continent, Audubon
painted the birds and
animals of his adopted
country.
3. Enslaved African Americans also
contributed to American art, crafting
beautiful baskets, quilts, and pottery.
4. What subjects did the early
American painters focus on?
A. the lush landscapes of the Hudson
River Valley
B. the majestic mountain ranges of the
West
C. the birds and animals of the American
wilderness
D. the portraits of European political and
military leaders.
Choose the one that is NOT true!
By the 1840s, Americans took new
pride in their emerging culture.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, a
New England writer,
encouraged this pride.
• He urged Americans to
cast off European
influence and develop
their own beliefs.
• His advice was to learn
about life from selfexamination and from
nature, as well as books.
Emerson’s student, Henry David
Thoreau, followed that advice.
• In 1845, Thoreau
retreated into a simple
cabin he had built at
Walden Pond in
Massachusetts, where
he wrote about the
benefits of living a
simple life.
• Thoreau wrote that
people should live by
their own individual
standards, and march
to their own inner
drummer.
Emerson and Thoreau followed a new
philosophy called transcendentalism.
• It taught that the spiritual world is more
important than the physical world.
• It also taught that people can find the
truth within themselves through feeling
and intuition.
•Transcendentalists believed
that society and its
institutions—particularly
organized religion and political
parties—ultimately corrupted
the purity of the individual.
•They had faith that people are
at their best when truly
"self-reliant" and independent.
5. What did transcendentalists like
Emerson and Thoreau believe?
A. People should learn about life through selfreflection as well as from books.
B. The spiritual world is less important than
the physical world.
C. People should learn about life through
studying nature as well as from books.
D. It is important that people obey all laws,
even those they consider unjust.
Choose ALL that are true!
Thoreau and Civil Disobedience
• Because Thoreau
believed in the
importance of individual
conscience, he urged
people not to obey laws
they considered unjust.
• Instead of protesting
with violence, they
should peacefully refuse
to obey those laws (civil
disobedience).
Thoreau and Civil Disobedience
• For example: Thoreau
did not want to
support the U.S.
government, which
allowed slavery and
fought the War with
Mexico.
• Instead of paying taxes
that helped to finance
the war, Thoreau went
to jail.
6. Why did Thoreau commit an act of
civil disobedience by not paying his
taxes?
A. His Transcendentalist beliefs required
him to be poor.
B. He didn't want the tax money to be
used to support the war with Mexico.
C. As a Transcendentalist, he did not
recognize the authority of any
government.
D. He was living in isolation at Walden
Pond and didn't know the tax was due.
Louisa May Alcott began her writing career
as a transcendentalist poet in the 1850s.
• But Alcott achieved
her greatest fame in
1868 with her book
Little Women, which
became popular with
children as well as
adults.
• Alcott was active in
abolition and
suffrage movements.
• Little Women was a fiction novel
for girls that veered from the normal
writings for children, especially
girls, at the time.
• Little Women has three major
themes:” domesticity, work, and
true love. All of them are
interdependent and each is
necessary to the achievement of a
heroine’s individual identity.”
Another New England transcendentalist,
Margaret Fuller, also called for change.
In her magazine,
The Dial, and in
her book, Woman
in the Nineteenth
Century, Fuller
argued for
women’s rights.
Like Thoreau, other writers
broke with tradition.
• In 1855, poet Walt
Whitman published
Leaves of Grass, a
book that changed
American poetry.
• His bold, unrhymed
poems praised
ordinary people.
• O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip
is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the
prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the
people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the
vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Emily Dickinson was another
transcendentalist poet.
• Dickinson lived in
her family’s home
almost her entire life.
• She wrote poems
about God, nature,
love, and death.
• Most of her 1,775
poems were
published only after
her death.
Emily Dickinson
Part Four: Time and Eternity
EXULTATION is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,—
Past the houses, past the headlands,
Into deep eternity!
Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?
Both Whitman and Dickinson
shaped modern poetry by
experimenting with language.
Fiction writers of the 1800s also
shaped American literature.
• Edgar Allan Poe
wrote terrifying tales
that influence
today’s horror story
writers.
• He also wrote the
first detective story,
“The Murders in the
Rue Morgue.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne depicted love,
guilt, and revenge during Puritan
times in ‘The Scarlet Letter’.
The novel
shows that
harsh judgment
without mercy
can lead to
tragedy.
Hawthorne may have learned that
lesson from his family history.
One of his
ancestors
condemned
people at the
Salem
witchcraft trials.
Herman Melville won fame by
writing thrilling novels about his
experiences as a sailor.
• In 1851, Melville
published his masterpiece, Moby Dick, about
a man’s destructive
desire to kill a white
whale.
• Although the novel was
not popular when it was
published, it is widely
read now.
While writers portrayed the harmful effects
of cruel actions, other Americans were
working to make their society better.
7. How did the writers of the mid1800s shape modern literature?
A. They wrote stories that portrayed the
harmful effects of cruel actions.
B. They gave up fictional characters and
chose to write only about historical figures.
C. Their characters showed that individuals
could change society for the better.
D. They introduced new forms of writing, such
as unrhymed poems, horror stories, and
detective stories.
Choose the one that is NOT true!