Historical and Cultural Connections - What is Romantic Literature?

In 1800, the United States included sixteen states on the east coast and then doubled in size with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. By 1848, the nation had expanded to the Pacific Ocean. By the mid-1800s, technology had greatly improved life with the inventions of the railroad, steel plow, reaper, and telegraph.

It was also a time of social change with organizations fighting for child labor laws, women's rights, and abolition. Although a storm in the form of the Civil War gathered on the horizon, prosperity reigned on the east coast and literature was written, published, and discussed as never before. A plethora of authors found themselves on the world stage. View this presentation for a brief overview of Romanticism and its various genres and writers.

View a printable version of the interactivity.

Rise of Romanticism in America

American writers of the early 19th century such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne had distinctive styles and tones, yet they all shared a commonality. They were all a part of the Romanticism artistic movement.

Romanticism is a school of thought that derived from Germany. There are many different genres under the umbrella of Romanticism, but they all have one thing in common: a belief in the imagination and intuition over reason and logic. Romantic writers valued emotion. Their works of literature told stories that may seem charming and harmless on the outside but represented much deeper ideas.

Romantic writers focused on imagination over reason and intuition over fact. Romantics viewed nature and natural influence with great respect. Authors from this period wrote about everyday people who experienced fantastic events. In addition, writers influenced by Romanticism filled their pieces with imagery, symbolism, and distinctive tones. In today's world, bookshelves are filled with literary genres that morphed from these styles: fantasy, romance, horror, mystery, and science fiction.

Romanticism and Romantic writers also gave birth to a new type of literary hero: the American Romantic hero. This new hero was very different from the sophisticated, worldly, and formally-educated heroes of the Rationalist era and the Age of Reason. The American Romantic hero was quite different from anything seen up to that point. He was youthful and innocent and had a pure purpose. He preferred the beauty and solitude of nature over the dirt and noise of the city. This new hero also had his own sense of honor and morality, and his vision of right and wrong did not always align perfectly with popular opinion. He was almost always destined to be alone as he was uneasy and uncomfortable around women. Seen as the perpetual symbol for domestication and civilization, women were almost the antithesis of the Romantic hero. This new American Romantic hero archetype prevails in modern literature and popular culture even today and is forever immortalized in figures such as Indiana Jones, Superman, the Lone Ranger, and Luke Skywalker: heroes who live outside of society, are attuned to nature and the natural world, quest for knowledge or truth of the natural world, and live by their own code of ethics and honor.

Prominent Romantic authors include James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and William Cullen Bryant. They all wrote pieces that are entertaining, locally-based, nature-oriented, and celebratory of the human experience. However, there were many sub-genres within the Romantic grouping.

 

Transcendentalism

Two famous authors, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, were a part of the Transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalists believed that in order to understand one's self and human nature in general, one must look within and to nature to interpret the most fundamental truths that lie outside the experience of the senses. Writers most influenced by this philosophical movement wrote a blend of Romantic, intuitive, and mystical pieces. Emerson and Thoreau wrote mostly nonfictional pieces about man's identity as an individual, the roles of a democratic government, and the importance of revering nature. These same truths ring in essayists today: literary magazines like the American Literary Review and the Carolina Quarterly and specialty magazines like The National Geographic and the Audubon Magazine value pieces that stress individuality and respect for the natural world.

The Dark Romantics

The more lighthearted Transcendentalists, called the Light Transcendentalists, spurred a genre that was the most Gothic, traditionally called Dark Transcendentalism. Just as authors like Emerson and Thoreau viewed life and human nature as mostly good, many authors viewed those same principles as mostly bad. Writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and to some extent Emily Dickinson focused on the darker side of human nature and freedom. Much of Dickinson's poetry is beautifully written and nature-based, yet it explores death, despair, loneliness, and seclusion. Poe and Hawthorne wrote mainly in a Gothic style that places stories in bleak or remote places, involves violent incidents, and highlights characters plagued by psychological or physical torment. In today's bookstores, novels involving horror, suspense, and the supernatural are some of the most popular books, and they owe their evolution to these somber writers.

The Fireside Poets

To the writers of the Romantic period, poetry was the highest embodiment of the imagination. Often, poets of the time would contrast poetry with science. Romantics viewed science in a negative way and felt it was actually destroying truth, not seeking or presenting truth.

Many poets took the ideas of Romanticism and Transcendentalism and created their own styles. Poets of this time began to break from the norm by writing in more free and blank verse, writing simply about everyday people and events, and filling their poems with imagery. Walt Whitman wrote in simple, frank American English and was criticized for this in the beginning. His unique tone, however, quickly became popular. In addition to Whitman, four other poets named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes became widely read by everyone in America and were known as the Fireside Poets. This title came from the fact that their poetry was read aloud around the fireplace as a form of family entertainment. Their poetry experimented with meter, mood, style, symbolism, and imagery. In contemporary poetry, this same simple, free-flowing style has continued to break molds and evolve.

 

Romanticism Review

Now that you have explored the history and tenets of the Romantic literary movement, review your knowledge in this non-graded activity. Read each statement and decide whether it is true or false, and then select the appropriate answer. Click on the player button get started.