2. Romanticism Defined
• Romanticism does not refer to ‘love’ as a
subject matter, rather it is an international
and philosophical movement that redefined
the fundamental ways of how man thought
about themselves and their surroundings.
• F.O Matthiessen termed the American
Romanticism as ‘American Renaissance’
3. • British Romanticism is similar to American
Romanticism. British Romanticism is the
parent of the American literary movement
but differences between the two is easily
distinguished.
6. • Father of American Romanticism
• The importance of expressive art for the
individual and the society:
“For all men live by truth, and stand in need
of expression the man is only half of himself,
the other half is his expression.”
7. • Romanticism was introduced by German artists.
• There is nothing romantic about romanticism
• They are artistic movement that gave way to the
opening of literary history for new movements
• Romanticism is a movement that revolts against
Neoclassicism
• Romanticism dwells on man and nature; they
celebrate the function of the intuition and the
imagination, the metaphysical, revolutionary,
individualism and the spontaneous rather than
reason and morals, objectivity, traditional, social
conformity and control.
8. • Emotional Intensity. The heart and the mind
lead the writer into writing a good piece of
literature.
• Common Man as the hero. Literary pieces of
this time concentrate more on putting the
real flawed man into an extraordinary— if
not out of the ordinary— situation.
9. • Nature as a source of spirituality and
knowledge. American romanticism sees
nature as the source of intellect and
knowledge.
• Self-idealism, honor and integrity. This gave
way to the first-person poetry. The poetic
speaker became less of a character but more
of a direct observation of the poet. In some
occasions, the artist became the hero of the
piece.
10. • Macabre, irrational, Mysterious Universe. It
is through intense emotions from the
unknown that human nature is emphasized.
11. • American frontier expansion allowed for
expansion and freedom. It is in the
expansion of British colonials to the west.
• Uncharted land invoked spirit of optimism.
This seemingly vast and limitless land owned
my colonials gave them the opportunity to
expand more across the horizon.
• New cultures and perspectives brought by
immigration. Britons, Irish, Danish, etc. also
moved to America.
12. • Industrial growth in the north separates
agrarian south. Industrial Revolution that
left the rest of Latin American in economic
progress.
• Search for new spiritual roots . The culture
of the Natives began to play an impact on
the literature of the time.
13. • Industrial growth in the north separates
agrarian south. Industrial Revolution that
left the rest of Latin American in economic
progress.
• Search for new spiritual roots . The culture
of the Natives began to play an impact on
the literature of the time.
14. • James Fenimore Cooper - Last
of the Mohicans, Red Rover
• Emily Dickinson - Because I
Could Not Stop for Death,
Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
• Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature, The Conduct of Life
• Margaret Fuller - Woman in
the Nineteenth Century,
Papers on Literature and Art
15. • Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet
Letter, House of Seven Gables
• Washington Irving - Rip Van Winkle,
Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Song of Hiawatha, Midnight Ride of
Paul Revere
• Herman Melville - Moby Dick
• Edgar Allan Poe - The Raven, A
Dream Within a Dream, Fall of the
House of Usher
• Henry David Thoreau - Walden, Civil
Disobedience
• Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass,
Song of Myself
16. • Herman Melville - Moby Dick
• Edgar Allan Poe - The Raven, A
Dream Within a Dream, Fall of the
House of Usher
• Henry David Thoreau - Walden,
Civil Disobedience
• Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass,
Song of Myself