The romantic period in American literature was kind of an interesting time. You would think that when talking about romance that all of the writing is about the author’s loved ones, but that’s not the case. The readings that were read within this class didn’t focus on a wife or husband, but rather they focused on the ideas of things. Many of the writings talked about death or the afterlife, which is not what one would expect coming from something called the romantic period. The first reading in this collection was William Cullen Bryant’s beliefs on death. He talked about how people shouldn’t be afraid of death and how it’s like going to sleep. His poem said that everyone’s going to die eventually, so we should make light of it instead of being afraid of it. The next piece of literature I read was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem call “Paul Revere’s Ride”. Longfellow wrote this poem to romanticized Paul Revere as a hero. The darker side of romanticism came from Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe. Hawthorne wrote “Dr. Heidegger's Experiment” and it was about four old people. Dr. Heidegger found the elixir of life, and he wanted to try it out on his friends. His friends become obsessed with looking young forever. It shows a darkness in human nature that we are all obsessed with being young forever. Poe wrote “The Pit …show more content…
It shows how dark we as humans can be to torture other living humans. The romantic period in American literature is a very interesting one. It is filled with different interpretations of romanticism. Usually, you would expect romantic writing to be all lovey dovey and cheesy love stories. That’s not what it was all about. People were romanticized for different reasons that didn’t have to do with just love. People were romanticized for being heros. Nature was romanticized, and so was death. Some writers focused on the darker side of romanticism. It was interesting to read about all of those
The Romantic movement became one that began in Germany, moved thru all of Europe and Russia, and, almost simultaneously, modified the whole route of American literature. The American Romantic period, which lasted from about 1830-1870, turned into characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism in addition to glorification of all the beyond and nature, preferring the medieval instead of the classical. Listening to the word romanticism gives us the mistaken idea of a love story, with a woman of protagonist who goes out of love for the man of her dreams, waiting more than anything for him to notice her and they can live happily ever after. Romantic literature is both adventuresome and improbable, however it's plenty greater than only
Romanticism is the involvement of emotion, fantasy, and intuition in a story. It happens to be the opposite of rationalism which involves logic, reason, and rationality in a story. There happens to be five romantic elements to choose from. They include: dissatisfaction with city life, desire to connect with nature, concern of individualism, nostalgia for the past, and supernatural interest. Of the six stories we could choose from all of them have some part of romanticism in them in one way or another. I chose to express a desire to connect with nature in “Rip Van Winkle”, “Thanatopsis”, and Walden.
The period of Romanticism, occurring between the years 1800 and 1860, left a significant impact on not only the literature of that time, but the literature of today as well. Prior to romantic writings, the world focused on society and logic. Romanticism allowed people to start valuing individualism and to appeal to emotional responses. This new way of thinking brought new literary styles, themes, and genres that were never explored before and are still found today. The literature of Romanticism allowed people to escape the harshness of reality and enter a different world.
The romantic period in writing in America was a heavy time of finding values within the people of America. The first example is “Dr. Heidgegger’s Experiment” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This text speaks as to what humans are capable
The American Romantic period of American literature propagated itself throughout the United States and multiple artistic medium from 1800 to 1850. Despite possible confusion caused by the name’s Western implications, this particular literary style originated in Germany with the publication of Goethe’s “Sorrows of Young Werther”. (11. http://www.westga.edu/~mmcfar/american%20ROMANTICISM%20OVERVIEW.html) Stories originating from this period were typically about improbable feats of adventure which provided readers with euphoric experiences not typically common in everyday life. (11. http://www.westga.edu/~mmcfar/american%20ROMANTICISM%20OVERVIEW.html) Eventually spreading throughout English culture, romanticism soon infected the colossal talents
It has shown me how people have changed over many of years. Back then people had a much better chance to get away with any crime. We didn't expect that a person could be so brutal back then, but now we do. There is new technology that we can now use to solve these crimes with ease. I bet most people who are even be capable of killing have backed out because they know that they will get caught. The book also showed me how quick life can change. The victims went out one day to go have fun at a town fair. They probably planned to go with friends or family, and even had plans for what they were going to do after. But that was all taken from them in a single day. All of their lives work, relationships, and more, just taken. It makes you want to be more careful and live life to the fullest while you still can. I also learned how twisted a person could be. You'd never expect your child or a friend to become so evil. Cases like this really show you what good and evil means. You could be good and stick to the normal rules in society, or you could be evil and defy those orders in every aspect. The crazy part is that you will never know what a person is truly capable of until it is too late. This story wasn't really focussed on culture, but there are people who do these types of things all around the world. That shows how people from all over the world, no matter how different they claim to be, are similar. Lots of people like to
Imagine a candle-lit dinner on a starry night in Paris, the Eiffel Tower just in view with dazzling lights shining into the night. This image is probably what you think of when you hear the word “romantic,” correct. However, this image is a stumbling block when people think of the “Romanticism Period” in literature. Where “romantic” means having a lovely time with the person you love the most, “Romanticism” is a piece of literature written with key themes in mind. Those themes tend to be a strong emotion, imagery or worship of nature, and individuality and subjectivity. The peak of inspiration for these pieces was in the years 1800-1850, and there are famous poems that are well loved today from this period. Many of the poets that you enjoy reading and know are, in actuality, Romanticism writers, and instill the themes above in our minds.
Romanticism Influenced American Romantic Authors Romanticism was a philosophical movement that began to emerge in the U.S. during the 1800's and had many writers emerge from the shadows. These writers wished for a change yet wished to conserve a bit of classical ideas. Washington Irving displayed morals through adventures as well as James Fenimore Cooper, Bret Harte and Herman Melville who deeply involved nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe had dark views on romantic issues. American Romantic authors expressed heartfelt emotions in opposition to the Age of Reason, displayed bold ideas of individualism, and captured the beauty of nature and its sense of adventure.
The Romantics were the kids in highschool who listened to underground music, who didn’t hang out with anyone, who wore strange clothing and looked shy from everything others thought was “cool” and “hip” at the time. They wanted to be their own, different from the mainstream. For example, Irving wrote an entire story about making a deal with the Devil. Any normal person wouldn’t make deals with the Devil, showing that Romantic Literature had a lot of rebellious features. Irving also wrote in his other short story, “The dominant spirit that haunts this enchanted region is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head.” This story is very strange and tells the story of a headless horseman and his targets. Again, this shows how rebellious Romantic Literature really was, telling of strange stories and very unique in structure and
There are many examples of Romanticism in this novel mostly in Hester and Pearl. A great example is when Hester takes the A off in the forest. This has a lot of romanticism apart of it because, she is removing the stamp the puritans have given her and she’s doing it in nature. It’s really important that she’s doing it in nature because in Romanticism they believed nature was special. Then there was a play in puritan ways because
The Romantic Movement, or period, was from the year 1828 to about 1865. The main feature of the American Romantic period was the celebration and praise of individualism. This time is also considered to be the first period of genuine American creativity. Emotion, instead of reason, became the largest source of inspiration and creativity during this period. All of this was a reaction to all of the constraints that were forced on people during the era of Realism. At this time in history, America was in a great period of expansion, the writers of the American Romantic period were discovering that could create a new and vastly different voice for this new era in
M. H. Abrams defines romantic themes in prominent writers of this school in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as being five in number: (1) innovations in the materials, forms and style; (2) that the work involve a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”; (3) that external nature be a persistent subject with a “sensuous nuance” and accuracy in its description; (4) that the reader be invited to identify the protagonist with the author himself; and (5) that this be an age of “new beginnings and high possibilities” for the person (177-79).
Women were raising their voices, social norms were changing, and the traditional structure of government was being torn down. Culture was evolving, people were challenging the church, and it was all due to the heavy influence of the French Revolution (Cooper). It was the Romantic era, and also the perfect time for an extraordinary author to arise.
American Romanticism also prefers youthful innocence to educated finesse and it contemplates nature's beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development. It finds inspiration in a myth or a tale. American Romanticism encouraged the individual and protested against the limitation of neoclassicism and religious tradition. Novels, short stories, and poems replaced the sermons and declarations of old/from the past. Romantic literature showed more emotion than ever seen in neoclassical literature.
The Romantic period developed in America in the 19th century, with the Gothic/Romantic stories of Edgar Allan Poe and the quasi-religious, transcendentalist poetry of Ralph Waldo