ART - American Romanticism and Transcendentalism Module Overview

American Romanticism and Transcendentalism Module Overview

You may not think much about copyright laws, except every once in a while when a teacher reminds you not to plagiarize. But the establishment of American copyright laws shortly after the ratification of the Constitution made it more possible to make a living from writing without being supported by wealthy patrons. This opened up writing as a profession to a larger group of people, though most writers still tended to have other sources of income as copyright law continued to evolve to offer more rights for authors.

In this module, you will learn about the literary movements that flourished in the half century after the establishment of the United States Constitution but before the Civil War. The first of these movements was Romanticism, which began in the Lake District of England, with writers such as Wordsworth and Coleridge turning to the natural world and a nostalgic past for inspiration. As Romanticism moved to America, it took on a distinct flavor and formed some of America's first and greatest literary voices.

Within the Romantic movement, a second generation of writers and philosophers were inspired to found Transcendentalism, a strictly American movement that promoted the idea that God's spark is inside each of us and we need only use our intuition to behold God within and all around us.

Not everyone in America was convinced by this optimistic view, though, and out of Transcendentalism arose a counter-movement called Dark Romanticism, or anti-Transcendentalism. As you will see, Dark Romantics worried that within us all is a heart prone to sin and evil and that the natural world is a place of darkness and mystery. The Dark Romantics presented the wilderness of an expanding United States, the vast seas we continued to explore, and even our own homes as places where our madness, evil, and corruption could not be suppressed.

 

Essential Questions

  1. How has literature of the first half of the 19th century helped shape an American identity?
  2. What are the characteristics of American Romantic literature?
  3. What ideals does Transcendentalist literature promote?
  4. How is the literature of Dark Romanticism a reaction against Transcendentalism?
  5. How did Whitman and Dickinson redefine American poetry?
  6. How will knowing the parts of the sentence and understanding phrasing improve my reading and writing skills?

Key Terms

  1. Romanticism: a literary style and movement in America from 1800-1850 that focused on imagination, intuition, innocence, inspiration, and the individual's inner experience
  2. Transcendentalism: an American literary movement from 1836-1860 that proposed an optimistic view of the human soul as containing an inner light from god and promoted self-reliance and the use of our own intuition for guidance rather than tradition or external authority
  3. Dark romanticism: also known as anti-transcendentalism; a literary movement reacting against the optimism of transcendentalism and presenting humans and the world in which we live as corrupt, sinful, and filled with evil with little hope for positive outcomes
  4. Gothic style: style of writing, used by some dark romantics, that creates a mood of suspense and fear through the combination of elements of horror, death, and gloom with romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and extreme emotion
  5. Imagery: language and description that appeals to our five senses: sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch
  6. Figure of speech: any language that is not meant to be taken literally
  7. Personification: figure of speech in which a thing, an idea, or an animal is presented as if it is alive and has human characteristics
  8. Parable: a story designed to demonstrate or teach a specific truth or moral lesson not directly stated in the story
  9. Atmosphere: the feeling, emotion, or mood a writer conveys through the description of setting and objects within it
  10. Characterization: the way a writer helps the reader understand what kind of person a certain character is. Methods of characterization include direct description; the character's speech, actions, and thoughts; and other characters' thoughts and speech about the character
  11. Cadence: the rising and falling rhythm and pacing of a piece of writing, particularly a poem
  12. Free verse: poetry that has no regular meter or rhyme
  13. Slant rhyme: words that almost rhyme, but not quite; also known as half rhymes or near rhymes
  14. Onomatopoeia: a word or phrase that sounds like what it means, making the description more expressive and powerful
  15. Tone: the speaker's attitude toward the subject or the audience
  16. Irony: a contrast between expectations and reality; types of irony include verbal, situational, dramatic, and ironic vision
  17. Symbol: an object used to represent a larger or more significant idea

 

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