Early American Writers Ideals

American Romanticism is a journey away from the corruption of civilization and the limits of rational thoughts, and toward the integrity of nature and the freedom of imagination. In other words, it is a journey away from industrialism or rationalism, which is working hard and earning money. This movement, originally started in Europe and later reached in America. It can be best defined as a thought that values feeling and intuition over reason. Some of the characteristics include the importance of feeling and intuition over reason, placing faith in inner experience and the power of imagination, preferring youthful innocence over educated sophistication, finding beauty and reality in exotic locales. It encouraged people to enjoy the integrity of nature and freedom of imagination. It also encouraged one to have faith in imagination and inner experience. In addition, romanticists found inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture and found poetry as the highest expression of imagination. Romanticists believed that the landscape was regarded as an extension of the human personality, capable of sympathy with man 's emotional state, whereas nature was regarded as a vehicle for spirit just as man; the breath of God fills both man and the earth. However, romantics would create chaos when the issues were connected with human rights, individualism, and freedom from oppression (Arpin 138-150).

Piety, courage, and industry were three of the many values and ideals that early American writers considered to be important. These values and ideals were important for the pilgrims because they were viewed as the ideal way to live according to the bible so that they could please God. The puritans moved to America to escape religious persecution and in order to practice their religious beliefs far from the influence of Catholicism. The puritans demonstrate piety through showing their commitment to god by using the bible and its teachings to make choices throughout their lives. The bible says to work hard and don't fear, they followed this very well. The Puritans put the bible in every aspect of their lives and followed the bible in a precise

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.

In the early 1800's America began to create their own unique culture. For the longest time, America had been getting their ideas and being influenced by other countries. I believe that they wanted to create a new type of culture that was truly American. They did this by creating new art forms such as literature, music, painting, and architecture. For example, Americans began using characters and setting that fell into the "American" category. Most characters, were "portrayed as strong, brave, resourceful, and honorable" (chapter 6-3, page 323). Another thing Americans did different, is what they built things. "American architects of the early 1800s developed their own forms of building" (chapter 6-3, page 325). Based on ideas from Greece and

In the beginning times of American Literature, Puritan writers were prevalent which grew into the Age of Reason by way of scientists and philosophers, which eventually emerged into Romanticism and the Renaissance writers, which developed into Realism by the middle of 19th century. Throughout American Literature, religious ideologies and philosophies influenced the way that writers portrayed the time period, characters, feelings, and God.

As the new world struggled to gain impendence from its mother country, Britain, native authors also try to develop their own style of writings. It quickly became evident that the search for a native literature became a national obsession. Then with the triumph of American independence, many at the time saw this as a divine sign that America and her people were destined for greatness. Greatness came with a strong nation and thousands of poems and stories that still shape our nation. The recent revolution greatly expressed the heart of the American people. However, it would take another fifty years of development throughout American before it produced the first great generation of American writers such as, Washington Irving, Ralph

Early American values shaped the United States and have set ground rules for how Americans should live. Faith, freedom, and how to live life to the fullest has been around since the seventeenth century and has had a major impact of on Americans today. Americans live by many values, but faith, freedom, and how a person should live life to the fullest are the most important. These values can be referenced back to religious puritan poetry, slave narratives leading to freedom, and romanticism. Americans way of life has greatly changed in respect to the core values of faith, freedom and living life to the fullest.

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

A strong value within almost all the writing was religion, both Native American and Puritan. Most Native American tales are based around a god or a moral expressed by a god. In "Coyote Finishes His Work" Coyote does all his work

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most important authors in the history of American literature and the genre of Romanticism or Dark Romanticism, due to his unique style of writing and his focus upon subjects of Puritan religion and the unknown. I consider Hawthorne an important author, due to the fact that he skillfully and accurately based his fictional writings upon happenings of colonial times, was one of the first authors to display unfortunate outcomes for his characters’ immoral choices according to Puritan beliefs, and wrote of things that were considered taboo in his time, such as witchcraft, scientific innovation and experimentation. I strongly believe that Hawthorne’s influence for his writings were his Puritan ancestral background, his fascination with Puritan beliefs, and his interest in what was considered the unknown such as witchcraft and science. According to the Norton Anthology Textbook Vol. B, Nathaniel Hawthorne was “born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804” (370). Hawthorne belonged “to a family whose ancestral roots were tied to Puritan history, with his family being among the first settlers of Massachusetts and having one of his relatives serve as a judge during the Salem witch trials” (370). Hawthorne, as a young boy, “had a particular interest in writings such as John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, and by his mid-teens he took interest in British novelists such as Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollet, William Godwin, and Sir Walter Scott”

By the late eighteenth century, the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason as it was called had begun to rapidly spread across Europe. People began believing in the ideals of popular government, the centrality of economics to politics, secularism, and progress. This cultural movement was sparked by intellectuals and commonwealth thinkers such as the influential writer John Locke and the famous scientist Isaac Newton, both who emphasized the fact that man, by the use of reason, would be able to solve all of his problems-whether it be problems with the government, morals or the society. However, these ideals weren’t just limited to the European nations where they had first begun. On the other side of the world, off in the United States,

"I think there 's just one kind of folks. Folks" (Lee 304). Harper Lee is one of America 's most famous and beloved writers of her time. She has inspired people with her unique down-to-earth writing voice and her presentation of the rawness of people and life in general. Because of Harper Lee, America has learned to appreciate the differences in others from ourselves because "you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view" (Lee 39).

Early American literature does a tremendous job of revealing the exact conditions and challenges that were faced by the explorers and later by the colonists of the New World. From early shipwrecks to the later years of small colonies barely surviving through dreadful winters, the literary works of the time period focus on some very recognizable themes. The theme of any given work – being simply the unifying subject or idea – is a very important element of any piece of writing. As one reviews some of this early literature, it becomes obvious that several themes appear repeatedly, and it is these subjects that were clearly very common among people from all over the New World. While a number of themes

Early American literature may be said to begin with the Colonial period. John Smith and John Winthrop are two examples of the types of writing at this period: the former kept a romantic journal of his adventures in the New World; the latter kept a journal (or history) of life in New England, where religious matters were of utmost importance. The Puritans had come seeking a life free from religious persecution (which, they ironically brought with them however, as their descendent Nathaniel Hawthorne would show in The Scarlet Letter).

The Colonial Period in American Literature Blake Quickel The Colonial Period of American Literature was vital not only to the timeline of literature in our country, but it shaped the values and tradition that we identify America with. Literature from this period gives us a look into the beginnings of our country from different views such as Poems and stories from Native culture, Puritans, and the founding fathers. These writings give us an honest view of the way of life during this time. The Puritan writings we read in this class were very interesting in how they showed the early stages of America’s religion. Although religion in our government and our country’s values has become less and less extreme over time, it is amazing knowing how much control it had over society in our country’s beginnings; and many of the morals exorcised in the Puritan culture are still values relevant to our society today. In a reading from the “Introduction: Puritan Voices” assignment (a), the writer refers to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a “man’s world”, describing the limited roles of women in society and how men were portrayed in the church as superior. Puritan ministers often preached that the soul had two parts, the immortal masculine half, and the mortal feminine half. Gender inequality is an enormous part of American Literature throughout all periods, and here you can see where these values originated in our country. Puritan society exists as a valid demonstration for why the first