INTRODUCTION TO ROMANTICISM 1800-1850’s Home in the Woods by artist Thomas Cole- Hudson River...

INTRODUCTION TO ROMANTICISM 1800-1850’sHome in the Woods by artist Thomas Cole- Hudson River School of Landscape artists

HISTORICAL CONTEXT- The Age of Enlightenment gives way to the Age of Expansion

The Revolutionary War is fought and won The Constitutional Republic is established The Bill of Rights is added to the

Constitution – 1791 Thomas Jefferson completes the Louisiana

Purchase 1803 – doubling the size of the U.S.

Missouri is added as a slave state 1820-1822 The Missouri compromise negotiated by Henry Clay ( Lover’s Leap- Missouri)

Expansion and Manifest Destiny- Claiming the Southwest The Mexican War between the United

States and Mexico- a peace treaty was signed (Feb. 2, 1848) at Guadalupe Hidalgo.

In addition to the annexation of Texas, Mexico ceded California and New Mexico (including all the present-day states of the Southwest) to the United States.

Artists depict the glory of the country to a fascinated public Black Canyon- Colorado

The Rocky Mountains by Albert Bierstadt- An idealistic view of the continent- features the insignificance of mankind in nature.

THE WESTWARD EXPANSION Surveying and mapping activities flourished in the

United States as people began moving inland over the inadequately mapped continent. -

The settlement of the frontier, the development of agriculture, and the exploitation of natural resources generated a demand for new ways to move people and goods from one place to another.

Privately owned toll or turnpike roads were followed first by steamships on the navigable rivers and by the construction of canals and then in the 1830s by the introduction of railroads for steam-powered trains.1

Railway map- U.S. War Department 1857

FULL STEAM AHEAD!

Romanticism= a rejection of expansionism and progress! A school of thought that values feelings

and intuition over rationalist thinking and progressive movement across the country.

Reflected in literature, music and art A reaction against the industrialization of

society, filthy cities, horrible working conditions for the poor.

Characteristics of Romanticism Imagination over logic and reason Innocence over educated sophistication Individualism – the worth of the individual Nature as the path to spiritual and moral truth Wisdom of the past over progress of the present Poetry as the highest form of expression through

the imagination Inspiration from myth, legend and folk culture

Romanticism leads to Transcendentalism Transcendentalists viewed nature as a doorway to

a mystical world holding important truths. They believed even tragic natural events could be

explained on a spiritual level. Death is simply a part of the circle of life. We are capable of evil because we are separated from

a direct intuitive knowledge of God. However, if we trust ourselves– trust in the power to

know God directly– then we will realize we are part of the Divine Soul, the source of all good.

The Transcendentalists: True Reality Is Spiritual

Transcendentalism -one must transcend or go beyond, everyday human experience in the physical world.

To achieve this goal, the individual had to seek spiritual, not material, greatness and the essential truths of life through intuition. It comes from the very oldest of thoughts—Idealism—found as

far back as the Greek times.

A Transcendentalist’s View of the World

MAJOR WRITERS Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson Walt Whitman Margaret Fuller Emily Dickinson

Self-reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and blind conformity to custom and tradition

Spontaneous feelings and intuition are superior to deliberate intellectualism and rationality.

The core concepts of Transcendentalists Simplified:

Self-reliance Non-conformity Free Thought Confidence Importance of Nature

Romanticism and Transcendentalism in the modern world

THE JOURNEY MOTIF IN LITERATURE

The physical journey reflects the psychological journey to finding the true self.