American Literature

Early American Literature

Romantic Literature

Timeline overview of American Literary

Movements Early American Literature overview and

timeline Emphasis on Romantic Era, beginning with the

historic context. Writing style, major themes, methods of

interpretation and author’s intent of Romantic works

Notable writers of the Romantic era and their works

Outcomes of the lesson

As a reactionary movement to the Age of Reason, infer which concepts and characteristics the Romantic era of literature might emphasize over reason and logic. Explain.

Why do you think society may have desired this genre and style of literature and art in the early 19th century? Explain.

Prior Knowledge Inquiry

Romantic Literature(1800 – c. 1860)

Evaluation Inquiry

“America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every movement seems an improvement. The idea of

novelty is there indissolubly connected with the idea of amelioration. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts

of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do.”

~ Alexis de Tocqueville

This quote from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835-1840) captures the American spirit of wonder and discovery inspiring movement westward. Judging from this quote, infer the major themes pronounced during the Romantic literary era.

1600 - 1750

1750 - 1800

1800 - 1840

1840 - 1855

1865 - 1915

1916 - 1946

1946 - Present

Literary Movements

Puritan Era

Age of Reason

Romanticism

Transcendentalism

Realism

Contemporary and Post-Modernism

Modernism

1600-1750 1750-1800 1800-1840 1840-1855

Early American Literature

Puritan Era

Age of Reason/Enlightenment

Transcendentalism

Romanticism

Romantic Literature Timeline

1800-1810

1810-1820

1820-1830

1830-1840

1840-1850

1850-1860

1860-1870

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter (1804-1864)

Walt Whitman,Leaves of Grass (1819-1892)

Edgar Allen Poe, The House of Usher (1809-1849)

Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1819-1891)

James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans (1789-1851)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Song of Hiawatha (1807-1882)

Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hallow (1783-1859)

American Romantic Literature Era 1800-1860

American Renaissance

Dark Romantics Transcendentalists

1800

1860

1840

Subgenres:

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/president-madison-and-the-war-of-1812.html

Historic Context of the Romantic Literary Era

The War of 1812

Indian Removal Act of 1830, The Trail of Tears

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-trail-of-tears-and-jacksons-indian-removal-act-of-1830.html

Broad themes of the Romantic Era

Intuition

Imagination

Individualism

Imagination Individuality Nature as a source of inspiration Invoking the past for wisdom Seeing the common man as a hero

Romantic Era Themes

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/th

e-romantic-period-in-american-literature-and-art.html

Romantic Era

Washington Irving

Washington Irving, 1783-1859

Born in New York to English immigrants, Washington Irvine was one of the first American authors to gain the respect of the English and European audience with his two literary classics, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hallow which both manifest a sense of individualism and escapism mastered within Romantic work.

Irving Biography: http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/washington-irving-biography-works-and-style.html

The Legend of Sleepy Hallow:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/irvings-the-legend-of-sleepy-hollow-summary-and-analysis.html

Rip Van Winkle:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/washington-irvings-rip-van-winkle-summary-and-analysis.html

The Devil and Tom Walker:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-devil-and-tom-walker-by-washington-irving-summary-and-analysis.html

Washington Irving’s Work

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

H. W. Longfellow 1807-1882

Born in Portland, Maine Longfellow matured to be a poet and professor of literature at Harvard University. In addition to his famous poem, Song of Hiawatha and, which demonstrated sympathy, respect love for the Native American way of life, Longfellow also wrote of historic figures, personal experiences of loss, academic texts (text books) and worked on classical translations, such as Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.

Longfellow’s poem analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/henry-wadsworth-longfellow-poem-analysis.html

James Fenimore Cooper

Born in Burlington, New Jersey, Cooper was a student at Yale (he was expelled), and a sailor on a merchant ship, before he settled down into his family life and writing career. He is credited with creating the first American adventure novel, in his work, The Last of the Mohicans (1826) which acknowledged the initial possession and dispossession of the American Indian’s resources and livelihood by the invading European arrivals. He also wrote sea-tales, war romances, and social works criticizing American values and morality.

Last of the Mohicans analysis:

J. F. Cooper, 1789-1851

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/james-fenimore-coopers-the-last-of-the-mohicans-themes-summary-analysis.html

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-dark-romantics-in-american-literature.html

The Dark RomanticsAmerican Gothic

Negating the reach for perfection attended to by the Transcendalists, the Dark Romantics (a subgenre of the Romantics) emphasized human frailty and fallibility, by focusing on the predisposed nature of the human mind toward mental illness, disillusionment, or delusion which was often known as sin, and materialized in literature through haunting figures and symbols. The imaginary world of the Dark Romantics was realized through stories and poetry of self-examination within the fog of the sea, and often closed with self-destruction.

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-dark-romantics-in-american-literature.html

Writers and their works:

Dark Romantic Literature

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, Tell Tale Heart

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Hester Prynne and Pearl before the stocks (1878), by A.V.S. Anthony

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864

Born in Salem, Massachusetts to a family with deep New England Puritan roots, Hawthorne’s personal history was bound to seek perfection and feel shame all at once. His great grandfather officiated the Salem Witch Trials, providing Hawthorne with a unique ethos into which to many of his works were inspired, particularly The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. After attending college at Bowdoin in Maine, Hawthorne pursued his career as a writer in a Transcendental community of artists and there he married painter Sophia Peabody, with whom he had three children. His works twisted upon the Christian virtues driven to error through arrogance, egoism and elitism. This unquestioned righteousness led to a blindness, lost of virtue and humility.

Hawthorne’s pristine marks among the Dark Romantics include the subgenre’s classic investigation of the mind – the personal psycho-analysis – in its most pure frailty, flaw and fallenness. In his creative examination of man’s relationship to the natural world he falls into unknown and disturbed waters.

Hawthorne’s Work

In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, these dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like his....pray that your griefs may slumber. “

~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Haunted Mind

Nathaniel Hawthorne

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/nathaniel-hawthorne-biography-works-and-style.html

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Biography:

The Scarlet Letter Analysis:

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-scarlet-letter-summary-and-analysis-of-an-allegory.html

Edgar Allen Poe

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe is the most renowned writer of the American Dark Romantics, both beloved and mourned for his contributions to psychological drama, horror, science fiction and poetry. Poe’s imagination was nocturnal and delicately wrought with tension. His perfected poetry holds the frailty of love and imagination as a gentle, cold and passing wind before a deathly storm. It is tense from the loss of balance, yet permanent and stone solid in the certainty of its end.

Edgar Allen Poe

1809-1849

Both parents died before he was three years old.

Struggled with relationships during adult life (his first wife died very young)

He died alone and unhappy His grave was unmarked for

26 years (Baltimore, MD) Poe’s writing placed

emphasis on “the priority of music and sound” over sense.

Edgar Allen Poe

With me, poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

~Edgar Allen Poe

Poe’s Work:The Tell Tale HeartThe Black CatThe Fall of the

House of UsherThe RavenAnnabel Lee

The Black Cat and Tell Tale Heart

• Both stories involve men talking about why they have committed murder

• “A Poe Character is never more insane than at the moment he begins to reason with us.” ~ Larzer Ziff, American Literary Critic.

Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe’s Biography:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/edgar-allan-poe-biography-works-and-style.html Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado Analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/poes-the-cask-of-amontillado-summary-and-analysis.html Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher Analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/poes-the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher-summary-and-analysis.html Poe’s The Raven Analysis:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/edgar-allen-poes-the-raven-summary-and-analysis.html

Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1819-1891)

Melville was born into an wealthy family of merchants in New York City. After receiving his college education, Melville worked on his uncle’s farm, and then as a cabin boy on a ships to Liverpool, England. This led to a job as a whaler. These experiences provided him with the content of his future novels, many of which were sea-faring adventures and life in foreign lands. He married Elizabeth Shaw in 1847, settled into family life, and began his career as a writer.

Melville’s Moby Dick

Melville reached his peak as a writer with Moby Dick which demonstrated his keen perception of human nature. His writing was steeped in metaphor, allegory and satire.

Herman Melville’s Biography:http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/herman-melville-biography-works-style.html

Melville’s Moby Dick Analysis: http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/herman-melville-moby-dick-summary-and-analysis.html

Herman Melville