American Romanticism: Taking the Side of Intuition

English 5-6

Take two minutes to discuss with a partner: If you were given $50,000 to go shopping for a car today, what would you consider in choosing a vehicle?

Would your decision be based more on logic, or on emotion?

Decisions…

In the 17th and early 18th century, rationalism was predominant

Rationalism is the belief that humans find truth using reason, without religious faith or intuition.

They would base their car-buying decisions on data: crash test ratings, trunk sizes, gas mileage, savings, resale value, etc.

Rationalism: Early BeliefsThe Civic has a better

resale value, but the Prius has high MPG…

Romanticism is the name for the school of thought that values feelings and intuition over reason and science

An artistic, intellectual, literary movement They would base their horse-and-buggy

buying decisions on emotional factors: Does it feel right? Does it look good? Will it make me happy?

Romanticism Reacts Against Too Much Logic

That’s the

perfect one. I

can feel it!

Comparing the Two MovementsComparis

onRationalism Romanticism

Timing Earlier (1700s) Later (early-mid 1800s)

How do we learn truth?

Through science, logic and reason

Though intuition, imagination & emotion

Settings Cities (they show society’s progress)

Nature is valued

Characters

Sophisticated, worldly

Unsophisticated, young, innocent

Genre Favors prose writing

Poetry is the highest art form

Americans were trying to create a distinct, new “American” literature◦ Remember, we’d only officially been a country for

a couple decades. How does a country’s literature “grow up”?

By reacting against others’ artistic norms

Why Does Romanticism Matter?

Just so you know where I’m going, next I’m going to talk about:

Romantic Settings Romantic Heroes Two movements within romanticism:

◦Transcendentalism◦Dark romantics

Overview of Romanticism

American Romantic poets and writers looked for “exotic” settings (in the “more natural”) past or to the natural world

These natural/exotic environments helped writers escape the dull realities of the rationalists’ grimy, dirty, and noisy cities

Romantic Setting/Environment

As the US grew westward, frontier life was idealized

Writers of Romanticism argued that innocent American heroes had virtue, not sophisticated Europeans

The good things in life were found in the American wilderness not cities or libraries

Romantic American Heroes

Romantics

Transcendentalists

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dark Romantics

Poe, Melville, Hawthorne

A movement within romanticism Transcendentalism: the idea that in order

to reach God, the universe, and your true self, you must transcend, or go beyond, everyday human experience in the physical world

This is because true reality was found in ideas, not in the world perceived by the senses

What is Transcendentalism?

Believed that everything/everyone was a reflection of the Divine Soul

Active in reform movements, because they believed every person mattered, and everyone can be perfected.

How Did Transcendentalists Affect Society?

Dark Romantics believed that spirituality is found in nature, BUT not everything in nature is good or harmless

Focused on the dark side: original sin, the conflict between good and evil, the effects of guilt, sin, and madness

Wrote about the horror of evil

The Dark Romantics