Notes on American Literature 1830-1865

and Literary Romanticism

First: The "Buzzwords" of Literary Romanticism -- from "Literature for a New Nation" (pages 467-475 in the B.A.A.L.)

• Native peculiarities
• Byronic hero
• Emotions
• Sentimental
• Gothic
• Historical
• Romances
• Mystery
• Psychological
• Terror
• American settings, themes, peoples
• Indigenous materials
• Sense of place
• Sense of the past
• Oral traditions
• Regionalism
• Dignity of the individual
• Use of common speech in writing
• The vital role of nature in human life

Additionally: Literary Romanticism -- from "American Literature 1830-1865" (pages 588-605 in the B.A.A.L.)

1. "The natural world . . . took on a special, spiritual significance" (589).
2. "the Romantic emphasis on the importance of the individual to democratic, egalitarian ends" (589).
3. "The radical and revolutionary implications" (589).
4. "The Romantic concern for human rights and dignity" (590).
5. "a Romantic emphasis on imagination and individual psychology" (590).
6. "the importance of history and locale" (590).
7. "One of the most popular forms was the short story, usually called the sketch or tale" (590).

Novels:

• "Novels were still viewed with suspicion by many clerical critics, who worried about the impact of romantic, unrealistic fictions on both individual readers and the morality of the country" (595-596).

The 1830s:

• Emerson's Nature (1836)
• Emerson's "The American Scholar" (1837)
• Short stories by Hawthorne (1837)

The 1840s:

• Short stories by Poe (1840)
• Poems by Poe (1845)
• Essay by Fuller (1845)
• Slave narrative by Douglass (1845)
• Short stories by Hawthorne (1846)
• Essay by Thoreau (1849)

The 1850s -- the "American Renaissance":

• Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850)
• Melville's Moby Dick (1851)
• Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-52)
• Fern's journalism (1853)
• Thoreau's Walden (1854)
• Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855)

The Main Idea -- "Expansion"

• Westward expansion
• The rapid growth in population
• Developments in science and technology
• The flourishing of the publication trade
• The proliferation of new religious denominations, reform societies, and movements
• The rising literacy rates

From these expansions came calls for the expansion of the rights of individuals, including:

• Slaves
• Women
• The laboring classes
• People of color

Definition: "Renaissance"

• "A period of renewal and rebirth in the arts and letters."

Subjects for American Literature:

• Its landscapes
• Its geography
• Its people
• Its dearly held beliefs
• Its problems

"The study of the literature of the American Renaissance demands that we ask how America and its citizens were being constructed. When considering the overarching ideas that inform much of the literature of this period, including SELF-RELIANCE, DOMESTICITY, MORAL and SOCIAL REFORM, and ABOLITION, we need to ask how and to what purpose the relationships among America and its inhabitants were formulated."

Possible Questions:

ADD

Poets:

ADD

Short Story Writers:

ADD

Novelists:

ADD

Nonfiction Writers:

ADD

Slavery Narratives:

ADD