Romantic
Early American Romantic Authors
Bringing the Romantic Period to Life
Resources about the Romantic Period
1. Bibliographic citation: "Romanticism" 6 June 2007 <http://www.levity.com/mavericks/romantic.htm>
The term romantic appeared for the first time in the 18th century. At that time it originally meant "romancelike" or, resembled a character of medieval romances. Towards the end of the 18th century the style went from classical to neoclassical. Rousseau, one of the first to begin writing in that style, established the human spirit to be free in his writing. William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge was also a poet who wrote romantic literature. This website helped me understand romantic literature more by discussing the time line and who helped form it. I found the website to be very readable and informative.
2. **Bibliographic citation: "Romanticism" The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart. Oxford University Press, 1986. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Apollo Group. 6 June 2007 ****http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t53.e1707>
This site taught me that Romanticism is also imagination and boundlessness and contrasted with classicism (reason & restriction). Romanticism is the view of personal freedom for individuals. The start of romanticism is back when America was struggling for freedom from, "monatchial restrictions." This website was very helpful and informative. It was a pretty easy read and also had the "How to cite this entry" at the bottom of the page.
4. EBSCO Host. “Research database.” June 2007.
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.mc.maricopa.edu/ehost/thesaurus
According to the above source, Romanticism is defines as the “Eighteenth and nineteenth century movement, style, and sensibility, origination as a reaction to the neoclassic focus on reason and intellect, and characterized by an emphasis on imagination, emotions, spontaneity, idealism, and individualism.”
EBSCO Host Research Database is filled with information for information seekers. Whether it is a thesaurus, periodical or newspaper article, EBSCO is the place to go. The research database has an information search tool to help information seekers perform specific searches. The advance searches help users narrow down a search of a particular piece of information.
This resource was valuable to me because I was able to use the thesaurus to find the definition for my first period definition. I am also learning to conduct search on a research database, feeling my way around. This is a credible website because it is a recommended site offered by Mesa Community College. If it weren’t credible, why would the college invest in this research database? The database is currently updating its domain, which authenticates this site. Therefore, this is a trusted website.
5. International Information Programs, “Outline of American Literature” revised edition. Chapter 4, The Romantic Period, 1820-1960, Fiction. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896). Dec 2006 http://usinfo.state.gov
Stowe’s book is an example of what was happening with slavery during her lifetime. She was opposed to the actions of people that were using slaves. According to the publication of the American Literature revised edition, the book lead to a debate that began to reform the society in America as we see it today. The book states, “Its passionate appeal for an end to slavery in the United States inflamed the debate that, within a decade, led to the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865).”
Romantic period before 1860 was shaped by a number of writers. For an example, Harriet Beecher Stowe was a novelist who wrote the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In this book, she contradicts the injustice of slavery in the United States. Therefore, the romantic period is defined as “an era of feeling: The virtues of family and love reigned supreme.” Writers have used their feeling of strong emotion, using their imagination to help correct society. It is there art of stressing and rebelling against social conventions.
This website was useful and informational for me. It help me learn about a time in our history, something I have overlooked in the past. Literature was not my passion, however as I read on, it is giving me valuable information about how history has shaped our society. This is a credible website because it is coming from the sources that are trusted, such as the state department with the extension in the URL dot gov. -NatalieT
6. "Romanticism" The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature. James D. Hart. Oxford University Press, 1986. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Apollo Group. 6 June 2007 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t53.e1707>
Romanticism, term that is associated with imagination and boundlessness, and in critical usage is contrasted with classicism, which is commonly associated with reason and restriction. A romantic attitude may be detected in literature of any period, but as a historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries in reaction to more rational literary, philosophic, artistic, religious, and economic standards. Since it gathered force gradually in its various manifestations, it does not lend itself to the limitations of a concise summary. The most profound and comprehensive ideal of romanticismis the vision of a greater personal freedom for the individual. Its origins may be traced to the economic rise of the middle class, struggling to free itself from feudal and monarchial restrictions; to the individualism of the Renaissance; to the Reformation, which was based on the belief in an immediate relationship between man and God; to scientific deism, which emphasized the deity's benevolence; to the psychology of Locke, Hartley, and others, who contended that minds are formed by environmental conditions, thus seeming to indicate that all men are created equal and may be improved by environmental changes; to the optimistic humanitarianism of Shaftesbury; and to the writings of Rousseau, who contended that man is naturally good, institutions alone having made him wicked. In American literature, such general influences were strengthened by the great English and French romantic authors, the “storm and stress” writers of Germany, and the idealistic philosophy of Kant. To these were added many indigenous forces: a realized political democracy; the individualism, buoyancy, and optimism of the frontier; the idealism latent in Calvinism, as expressed by Jonathan Edwards and others; intimacy with the wilderness; a predominantly agrarian background; and recognition of the heroism of early Americans.
The romantic movement in America, as elsewhere, left its impress not only on the arts, but also in the more practical spheres of action, as in revolutionary activities for political freedom and individual rights; humanitarian reform (Abolitionism and feminism); liberal religious movements (Unitarianism and Universalism); labor reform (Knights of Labor); and economic experiments in communal living (Brook Farm and New Harmony). The most clearly defined romantic literary movement in the U.S was Transcendentalism, centered at Concord (c.1836–60). Characteristics of the romantic movement exemplified in American literature are sentimentalism (The Sketch Book); primitivism and the cult of the “noble savage” (Hiawatha); political liberalism (Jefferson, Paine, Barlow); the celebration of natural beauty and the simple life (Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau); introspection (Poe, Thoreau); idealization of the common man, uncorrupted by civilization (Whittier, Cooper); interest in the picturesque past (Irving, Hawthorne); interest in remote places (Melville, Bayard Taylor); medievalism (Longfellow); antiquarianism leading to the revival of the popular ballad (Longfellow, Whittier); the Gothic romance (Brown); concern with a crepuscular world of mystery (Poe, Chivers); individualism (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman); technical innovation (Whitman's prosody); humanitarianism (The Biglow Papers, Uncle Tom's Cabin); morbid melancholy (Poe); native legendry (Evangeline); and the historical romance (Simms, Cooper).
These characteristics also appear in other arts. The interests that created the Gothic romance
- also created the Gothic Revival, an architectural movement based on medieval styles, whose design carried the eye above the actual form and conjured up imaginative associations. In painting, romanticism effected the change from the severe portraiture of the 18th century to the work of the Hudson River school, which emphasized the charm and grandeur of the American landscape.
After the original impulse of the movement declined, its forces continued as fashions down to the turn of the century. Although the local-color movement
- fostered the rise of realism, it also perpetuated the romanticist's interest in strange places and unusual customs. Sentimentalism appeared in the stories of Bret Harte, and exoticism in those of Cable and Hearn. Even such predominantly realistic authors as Clemens veered from vivid depiction of contemporary scenes to historical romancing and idyllic representations of youth. Lesser novelists like Lew Wallace and F. M. Crawford purveyed romantic ideas to the masses. Aldrich, Boker, Taylor, Stoddard, Stedman, and Gilder tended to imitate earlier romantic poets, and, lacking originality, so relied on attenuated romantic conventions that they came to represent the last stand for the genteel elements in the movement. While the genteel tradition found many revolutionary opponents in the advocates of realism and naturalism, both tradition and iconoclasm were products of the romantic movement. New forces were coupled with the old, as for instance when romanticism felt the impact of Freudian psychology, as seen in works by innumerable American authors from the 1920s on.
7. "Literary criticism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 7 June 2007 < http://search.eb.com.ezp.mc.maricopa.edu/eb/article-51229 >.
Romanticism first began in Germany during the 19th century. Romanticism emphasizes the "individual passion and inspiration, a taste for symbolism and historical awareness, and a conception of art works as internally whole structures in which feelings are dialectically merged with their contraries" in the literal works of the Romantic writers. The page notes a few of the significant authors of the period and what they offered to the meaning of Romantic writing. Literature, during the Romantic period, focused on the "creative perception of meaning in the world," love, and beauty, just to name a few. "The lasting achievement of Romantic theory is its recognition that artistic creations are justified, not by their promotion of virtue, but by their own coherence and intensity." The Romantic movement is influenced by "universalitic and utopian hopes, political reaction, industrial capitalism, and general liberty."
The site provdes encyclopedic information, credible for the academic or personal use. The site is offered through MCC's electronic database, therefore, would be deemed credible.
8. Holman, Hugh and William Harmon. "American Romanticism. A Handbook to Literature. 7 June 2007 < [http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/intro-h4.htm|http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/intro-h4.htm] >.
The page defines Romanticism and provides insights about the beginning of the Romantic period. Included in the information provided, is a list of the general "aspects of the romantic movement," which include love of nature, mysticism, and individualism. The page provides you with a first idea of each Romantic writer's thoughts and views or possibly their inspiration for their works. For example, the "ultimate expression of a poetry organic in form and romantic in spirit, united to a concept of democracy that was pervasively egalitarian" in Walt Whitman's Leave's of Grass. The Romantic period marked the inspiration of the existing and non-existing world on literature. The information is a text-based page created by two english professors and are writers themselves. They have written many other books on literature. The text, which the page is based on, is actually the 6th edition although the latest edition is the 10th.
9. Woodlief, Anne. American Romanticism (or the American Renaissance). 8/18/2001. June 16, 2007. < http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/intro.htm > The purpose of this website is to introduce the reader to the period of American romanticism. The author of the article introduces the reader to the romantic period of American literature by naming several of the authors whose works comprise the romantic period, and by explaining the external forces that influenced the era. The author describes the romantic period of American literature as existing between, 1840 and 1865 with emphasis on the years between 1850 and 1855. These years she calls the golden years of American romantic literature. This resource helps the reader understand several things about American literature of this time. First of all, the author introduces the reader to the players on the scene of American romantic writers. Second, she talks about the economic, social, political, and environmental circumstances that led romantic writers to compose their works. Anne Woodleif is a professor of English emeritus at the Virginia Commonwealth University. 10. Van Spanckeren, Kathryn. “The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets: Introduction.” From Revolution to Reconstruction. 2006. 22 June 2007. < http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/LIT/ch3_p1.htm >. This website is an educational project focused on researching American history. The American Romantic Period is defined as a time that “coincided with the period of national expansion and the discovery of a distinctive American voice.” The Romantic Period was a time of emerging national identity, idealism and passion. Romantics looked to art for inspiration and focused on development of the self. This website gives examples of major authors of the period and how their work displays Romantic elements. The source is a educationally sponsored article. **
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