The Literature of American
Romanticism
Early 1800s -1865
contents
•	Origin of American Romanticism
•	Background
•	Features of Romanticism
•	Development of American Romanticism
•	Main writers and works
origin
•	It stretches from the end of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Civil War.
•	started with the publication of Washington Irving's The Sketch Book
•	ended with Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
•	Known as the American Renaissance
–	a flowering, excitement over human possibilities, and a high regard for individual ego
International Background
•	Industrial Revolution (destruction of nature)
•	French Revolution
•	a. Jacksonian democracy of the frontier. (a "monopoly" of government by elites )
•	Manifest destiny: white Americans had a destiny to settle the American West and to expand control from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and that the West should be settled by yeoman farmers.
•	b. Intellectual and spiritual revolution - rise of Unitarianism.
•	c. Middle colonies - utopian experiments
Domestic background
•	Historically,
	immigration, immigrants in large numbers arrive to the US.
	westward movement , vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations
•	Politically,
	democracy and equality became the ideal of the new nation; two-party system
	Polarization between the North and South,
	Industrialized v.s. agricultural
•	Culturally, Significant advancement in literacy and education
•	self-conscious about cultural status
•	new experience: the early Puritan settlement, the confrontation with the Indians, the frontiersmen's life
•	Optimism
•	Religion     stern dogma of Calvinism           Unitarianism and deism
American national experience of "pioneering into the west"
Features of American Romanticism
•	Imitative
–	 against the literary forms and ideas of classicism,
–	developing some relatively new forms of fiction and or poetry,
–	emphasizing upon the imaginative and emotional qualities of literature,
–	a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the sensational, and the supernatural things.
•	Independent
–	 peculiar American experience (landscape, pioneering to the West, Indian   civilization, new nation’s democracy and dreams. example: Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales)
–	Puritan heritage (more moralizing, edifying more than mere entertainment) (careful about love and sex. example: Scarlet Letter)
–	American national consciousness—the sense of mission (The formation of the Republic)
General Features
–	Stressing emotion rather than reason
–	 Stressing freedom and individuality
–	Stressing idealism rather than materialism
–	 Writing about nature, medieval legends and with supernatural elements
Two periods and representatives
•	1770s to 1830s—Early period
•	 Representatives:
–	Washington Irving, The Sketch Book
–	James F.Cooper
–	 New England poets
•	Two famous poets:
–	William Bryant (first distinctive American lyric poet; writing about nature, religion and life
–	 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (balancing Romantic spirits with classical and Christian taste; famous poem - “A Psalm of Life”)
Two periods and representatives
•	1830s to 1860s—Late period
•	Flowering of American literature
•	Representatives:
–	Ralph Waldo Emerson,
–	 Henry David Thoreau,
–	Nathaniel Hawthorne,
–	Herman Melville,
–	Walt Whitman,
–	Emily Dickinson,
–	Edgar Allan Poe
Main genres
1.Short stories:
Washington Irving（1783-1859)
2. Poetry:
a. Henry W. Longfellow:   The Song of Hiawatha
b. Allen Poe: The Raven
c. Walter Whitman: Leaves of Grass and his free verse.
d. Emily Dickson: the only great FEMALE poet in the 19th century in America.
3. Novel:
a. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
b. Nathaniel Hawthorn :Scarlet Letter
c. Herman Melville
The father of the American literature
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
•	last of 11 children
•	lived from end of Revolutionary War to just before the Civil War
•	1809: published parody History of New York, under the pseudonym Dietrich Knickerbocker; became celebrity (New York Knicks NBA team)
•	1815: departed for Europe; away for 17 yrs.
•	1819: The Sketch Book, including “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” both based on German folktales
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
•	first American writer to be a big success in England
•	1828: The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, research in Spain
•	1829-32: diplomat in London
•	1832-42: returns to U.S., builds home Sunnyside on Hudson River, New York
•	1842-46: minister to Spain
•	1851-59: 5 vol. life of George Washington
Sunnyside
Hudson River from Sunnyside
Major works
–	“A History of New York”
–	“The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent ” (a collection of essays and short stories)
•	“Rip Van Winkle”
•	“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
•	It views a striking contrast between an independent United States and the former British colony from the eye of a native inhabitant after his 20-year sleep.
•	“Rip Van Winkle” is the classic American story of a man who finds his home life intolerable, and so escapes into a world of fantasy and vision
Vision vs. Reality
•	Reality: Home life, under the rule of Dame Van Winkle
–	Farm: “most pestilent piece of ground in the whole country”
–	Children: “ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody”
–	Wife: “continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family”
Vision vs. Reality
•	Vision: Community anywhere outside the house
–	Playing with village children/telling stories
–	Minding “any body’s business but his own”; “an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor”
–	“frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village”
–	Escaping into the woods with gun and dog Wolf
Vision vs. Reality: Rip’s Journey
•	Rip’s Kaatskill experience extends his village “vision”
–	Escape from family responsibility
–	Dutch Drinking party: Male community, from past (Henry Hudson and men?)
–	Minding other people’s business
–	Obedience and rebellion: 2 sides of Rip’s character
Political Allegory (1)
•	Upon waking, Rip finds himself in a different political system
–	Village inn Union Hotel
–	King George George Washington
–	People: “phlegm and drowsy tranquillity” “busy, bustling, disputatious tone”
–	“ancient newspaper” handbills
–	Nicholas Vedder(inn owner) dead; Brom Dutcher(Neighbor of Rip) killed in war; Derrick Van Bummel(Village schoolmaster ) in Congress
Political Allegory (2)
•	“a knowing, self-important old gentleman” : a new political type
–	Interviews Rip
–	Leaves when crowd wants to take Rip’s gun Returns “when the alarm was over” (¶56)
–	The crowd imitates his gestures
Political Allegory (3)
•	When Rip sees his son, “a precise counterpart of himself as he went up the mountain: apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity”
•	This scene portrayed by genre painter John Quidor, The Return of Rip Van Winkle (1829? 1849?)
Political Allegory (4)
Rip stands for America’s identity crisis as a new democracy:
“God knows. . . . I’m not myself—I’m somebody else—that’s me yonder—no that’s somebody else, got into my shoes—I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they’ve changed my gun, and ever thing’s changed, and I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!”
Political Allegory (5)
•	According to this allegorical reading,
•	Rip Van Winkle-American People
•	His wife - England–“the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle
Political Allegory (6)
•	But “Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him”
–	Thus, Rip is an anti-hero of the revolution, an anti-patriot, for whom politics makes little difference in daily life
–	Rip becomes a patriarch and “a chronicle of old times”—suggesting a society’s need for memory as well as revolution
The theme of “Rip Van Winkle”
The theme of “Rip Van Winkle”
•	it reveals conservative attitude of Irving.
revolution upset the natural order of things.
	Bewilderment: coming out of the oppressed life, people were at a loss about what they should do.
•	 radical changes are sometimes necessary to move society forward, such changes must not eradicate old ways and traditions entirely. There must be continuity
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
•	Main characters
•	Ichabod Crane (schoolmaster with an obsession with ghost stories )
•	Katrina (only daughter of a wealthy farmer)
•	Brom Bones (a well-liked but irresponsible and rowdy young man)
•	Headless horseman
Writing Style
•	gentle, refined, lucid, beautiful (classical in form though romantic in subjects)
•	Good at creating atmosphere
•	Thin plot
•	Humor
•	Finished and musical language
•	Vivid characters
•	the first American writers to earn an international reputation
•	Father of the American literature
•	His The Sketch Book marked the beginning of American romanticism
J.F. Cooper  (1789-1851)
James Fenimore Cooper
	Life
	Works
	Achievements
James Cooper (1789 - 1851)
•	Life story
–	born in a rich family
–	attended Yale but expelled
–	five years at sea
–	inherited fortune then a comfortable life
–	wrote lots of novels because he one day was disgusted by one novel
Three subjects of his works
•	The Spy --- the revolution(革命历史小说 )
•	The Leather Stocking Tales--- the frontier (边疆题材小说)
•	The Pilot --- the sea (航海生活小说 )
The Theme of The Pioneers
•	wilderness vs. civilization,
•	 freedom vs. law,
•	 order vs. change,
•	aristocrat vs. democrat,
•	natural rights vs. legal rights
Major works
•	Early works:
•	Precaution 《戒备》(1820)
–	First novel
•	The Spy «间谍» ( 1821 )
–	his second novel and great success
The Spy
•	Leather stocking Tales(a series of five novels about the frontier life):
–	The  Pioneers, 《 拓荒者》
–	The Prairie,  、《 大草原》
–	The Last of the Mohicans, 《 最后一个莫希干人》
–	The Pathfinder, 《 探路人》
–	The Deerslayer 《 打鹿将》
The Leatherstocking Tales
	five frontier adventure stories
	the nearest approach yet to an American epic9(Allan Nevins)
	set in the early frontier period of American history
•	Central character: Natty Bumppo
–	several names for same character: Hawk-eye, the Pathfinder, the Deer slayer, Leather stocking
–	a typical frontier man: honest, simple, innocent, generous (represents brotherhood of man, nature and freedom)
Literary traits
•	Theme: modern civilization advancing on the wilderness and the contradiction between them
•	Features
–	Good at inventing plots (Cooper had never been to the frontier area  personally.)
•	Style:
–	powerful, yet clumsy and dreadful
–	Wooden Characters
–	Use of dialect, but not authentic (criticized by Mark Twain)
Achievements
•	created a myth about the formative period of the American nation
•	turned the west and frontier as a useable past
•	 helped to introduce western tradition to American literature
•	one of the most popular 19th century American authors
•	works were admired greatly throughout the world
•	 stories have been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe and into some of those of Asia
•	most memorably criticized by Mark Twain
•	presentation of race relations and native Americans has generated much comment, not all of it sympathetic
•	criticized heavily for his depiction of women characters in his works
The Last of the Mohicans