Welcome American Lit! 2/11/13Bell Ringer (In your notebook/binder):

Quotation Journal: Write 5-7 Sentences in response to the following quotation:

(What is it saying? Do you agree, disagree, relate to, question, or challenge it?)

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

TURN & TALK

What would the following individuals/groups think about this quotation?

**Puritans?

**American Revolutionaries: i.e. Thomas Jefferson?

**Frederick Douglass?

RomanticismA Movement Across

the Arts

Please take Two-Column Notes

DefinitionRomanticism refers to a movement in

art, literature, and music during the 19th century.

Romanticism is characterized by the 5 “I ”sImaginationIntuitionIdealismInspirationIndividuality

ImaginationImagination was emphasized over

“reason.”This was a backlash against the

rationalism characterized by the Neoclassical period or “Age of Reason.”

Imagination was considered necessary for creating all art.

British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it “intellectual intuition.”

IntuitionRomantics placed value on

“intuition,” or feeling and instincts, over reason.

Emotions were important in Romantic art.

British Romantic William Wordsworth described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”

IdealismIdealism is the concept that we can

make the world a better place.Idealism refers to any theory that

emphasizes the spirit, the mind, or language over matter – thought has a crucial role in making the world the way it is.

Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, held that the mind forces the world we perceive to take the shape of space-and-time.

InspirationThe Romantic artist, musician, or

writer, is an “inspired creator” rather than a “technical master.”

What this means is “going with the moment” or being spontaneous, rather than “getting it precise.”

IndividualityRomantics celebrated the individual.During this time period, Women’s

Rights and Abolitionism were taking root as major movements.

Walt Whitman, a later Romantic writer, would write a poem entitled “Song of Myself”: it begins, “I celebrate myself…”

OriginsRomanticism began to take root as a

movement following the French Revolution.

The publication of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1792 is considered the beginning of literary Romanticism.

The ArtsRomanticism was a movement across all

the arts: visual art, music, and literature.All of the arts embraced themes

prevalent in the Middle Ages: chivalry, courtly love. Literature and art from this time depicted these themes. Music (ballets and operas) illustrated these themes.

Shakespeare came back into vogue.

Visual ArtsNeoclassical art

was rigid, severe, and unemotional; it hearkened back to ancient Greece and Rome

Romantic art was emotional, deeply-felt, individualistic, and exotic. It has been described as a reaction to Neoclassicism, or “anti-Classicism.”

Visual Arts: Examples

Neoclassical Art

Romantic Art

Music“Classical”

musicians included composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Josef Haydn.

Romantic musicians included composers like Frederic Chopin, Franz Lizst, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky

Music: Components1730-1820.Classical music

emphasized internal order and balance.

1800-1910.Romantic music

emphasized expression of feelings.

LiteratureIn America, Romanticism most

strongly impacted literature.Writers explored supernatural and

gothic themes. Writers wrote about nature –

Transcendentalists believed God was in nature, unlike “Age of Reason” writers like Franklin and Jefferson, who saw God as a “divine watchmaker,” who created the universe and left it to run itself.

Transcendentalism

Origin of the word:

Transcend (verb)

a : to rise above or go beyond the limits of. b : to triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects of : overcome.

Transcendentalism

• A literary movement in the 1830’s that established a clear “American voice”.

• Emerson first expressed his philosophy in his essay “Nature”.

• A belief in a higher reality than that achieved by human reasoning.

• Suggests that every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth through intuition.

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.

• Unlike Puritans, they saw humans and nature as possessing an innate goodness.

“In the faces of men and women, I see God”-Walt Whitman

• Opposed strict ritualism and dogma of established religion.

Basic Premise #1

An individual is the spiritual center of the universe, and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual.

Basic Premise #2

The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self—all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."

Basic Premise #3

Transcendentalists accepted the concept of nature as a living mystery, full of signs; nature is symbolic.

Basic Premise #4

The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization—this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies:

1. The desire to embrace the whole world—to know and become one with the world.

2. The desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate—an egotistical existence.

Transcendentalism: In Summary…

• Believed in living close to nature/importance of nature. Nature is the source of truth and inspiration.

• Taught the dignity of manual labor

• Advocated self-trust/ confidence

• Valued individuality/non-conformity/free thought

• Advocated self-reliance/ simplicity

Who were the Transcendentalists?

• Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Henry David Thoreau

• Amos Bronson Alcott

• Margaret Fuller

• Ellery Channing

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• 1803-1882• Unitarian minister• Poet and essayist• Founded the

Transcendental Club• Popular lecturer• Banned from Harvard for

40 years following his Divinity School address

• Supporter of abolitionism

Henry David Thoreau

• 1817-1862• Schoolteacher, essayist,

poet• Most famous for Walden

and Civil Disobedience• Influenced environmental

movement• Supporter of abolitionism

Amos Bronson Alcott

• 1799-1888• Teacher and writer• Founder of Temple

School and Fruitlands• Introduced art, music,

P.E., nature study, and field trips; banished corporal punishment

• Father of novelist Louisa May Alcott

Margaret Fuller

• 1810-1850• Journalist, critic, women’s

rights activist• First editor of The Dial, a

transcendental journal• First female journalist to

work on a major newspaper—The New York Tribune

• Taught at Alcott’s Temple School

Ellery Channing

• 1818-1901• Poet and especially

close friend of Thoreau

• Published the first biography of Thoreau in 1873—Thoreau, The Poet-Naturalist

Anti-Transcendentalism

19th century (approx. 1840-1860) literary movement that focused on the dark side of humanity and the

evilness and guilt of sin

Reasons / Causes

• Opposed the optimism and naïve idealism of the transcendentalists

• Dwelt on guilt and remorse over past sins• Discontented with current circumstances

in America (poverty/unjust and cruel treatment of factory workers, poor educational system, lack of women’s rights, slavery…) so they focused on moral dilemmas and society’s ills

Literary Works

• Prose (short stories and novels)

• allegory

Key ideas / Philosophies

• Belief in the potential destructiveness of the human spirit

• Belief in individual truths, but no universal truths, and the truths of existence are deceitful and disturbing

• Human nature is inherently sinful (original sin) and evil is an active force in the universe

• Focus on the man’s uncertainty and limitations in the universe

View of Nature

• Nature is vast and incomprehensible, a reflection of the struggle between good and evil

• Nature is the creation and possession of God and it cannot be understood by human beings

Writing Style

• Man vs. Nature conflicts bring out the evil in humanity

• Raw and morbid diction

• Focus on the protagonist’s inner struggles

• Typical protagonists are haunted outsiders who are alienated from society

• Prevalent use of symbolism

Nathaniel Hawthorne

• “As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest.”– “The Maypole of

Merrymount “(1836)

Herman Melville

• “All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.” --Moby Dick

Melville harshly criticizes capitalism, slavery, war and

imperialism, but he shows passionate empathy for “classes of men who bear the same relation to society at large that the wheels do to a coach.”

A final quote from Melville

• “If, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious manuscripts in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and glory to whaling; for the whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”

One Last Dark Soul…

• We can’t forget Edgar Allan Poe!