Romanticism

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=Definition: [|Romanticism]= = = = = = = =Historical Context:=

During the time of Romanticism a lot was going on in the country. The country was being unified by railroads and steamboats. The Louisiana Purchase, of 1803, extended the American frontier. Slavery was still a huge issue between the North and South and was continuing to divide the country. Social reform movements were also in place trying to better mental health treatment, public education, abolition, and women’s rights.

=Authors of this period include:=

James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Holmes, William Cullen Bryant, Riot, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Waldo, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Melville. ((Some of these authors are also included with Gothic Literature, Transcendentalism, and Anti-Transcendentalism))

=Important Works:=

James Fenimore Cooper - //The Leather Stocking Tales// Edgar Allan Poe - "The Raven" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" Henry Wadsorth Longfellow - "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" and "A Psalm of Life" William Cullen Bryant - "Thanatopsis"and "To a Waterfowl" Nathanial Hawthorne - "Dr. Heideggers Experiment", //Scarlett Letter,// and //The House of Seven Gables// Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Self-Reliance", "Compensation", "The Over-Soul", and "The Poet"

=Characteristics:=

Common subjects during this time were nature, past, and inner world of humans. Romantic Literature emphasized the individual and the individuals own experiences through life. It also emphasized emotions, intuition, and imagination. Romantic authors used the beauty, mystery, and strangeness of nature a lot in their writing. There was a big interest in the American past and thoughts that the city was a place of moral corruption as well.

=Decline of Romanticism:=

Romanticism ended at the start of the civil war. Romanticism was about the beauty of nature, the individual’s path, and imagination. Suddenly at the start of the civil war people wanted to ban together and no longer wanted exotic or dramatic literature and started rejecting the idolized, over the top heroes of romantic literature. The focus became on regular, ordinary people and on ethical/social struggles of real life situations.

[|Summary of Romanticism]: This page is a really good sum up of what the romantic period was, their big themes and concepts, and gives more information about what was going on at the time.