THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

Romances were not love stories, but serious novels The Romance form is dark and forbidding.
that used special techniques to communicate
Most of the Romantic heroes die in the end
complex and subtle meanings.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) Herman Melville (1819-1891)
1864)

Many of his stories are set in His best-known poem, in his Moby-Dick; or, The Whale,
Puritan New England, and his own lifetime and today, is “The Melville’s masterpiece, is the
greatest novel, The Scarlet Raven” (1845). epic story of the whaling ship
Letter (1850), it has become the Pequod and its “ungodly, god-
Poe’s stories — such as those
classic portrayal of Puritan like man,” Captain Ahab, whose
cited above — have been
America. It tells of the obsessive quest for the white
described as tales of horror.
passionate, forbidden love affair whale Moby-Dick, leads the ship
Stories like “The Gold Bug” and
linking a sensitive, religious and its men to destruction.
“The Purloined Letter” are more
young man, the Reverend Arthur
tales of ratiocination, or
Dimmesdale, and the sensuous,
reasoning.
beautiful townsperson, Hester
Prynne.

Other authors: Jane Austen, Charles

Dickens, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot,
William Thackeray.
WOMEN WRITERS AND
REFORMERS
American women endured many
inequalities in the 19th century:
They were denied the vote,
barred from professional
schools and most higher
education, forbidden to speak in
public and even attend public
conventions, and unable to own
property.
Abolitionist Lydia Child Angelina Grimké (1805-1879) Sojourner Truth (c. 1797- Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902),
(1802-1880) was a and Sarah Grimké (1792-1873) 1883) her life is told in abolitionist and women’s rights
leader of this network. defend the rights of blacks and the Narrative of activist. Her “Woman’s Declaration
Her successful 1824 women. As speakers for the Sojourner Truth (1850), of Independence” begins “men and
novel Hobomok shows New York Anti-Slavery Society, an autobiographical women are created equal” and
the need for racial and they were the first women to account transcribed and includes a resolution to give women
religious toleration. publicly lecture to audiences. edited by Olive Gilbert. the right to vote.
Harriet Jacobs (1818-1896) Harriet Wilson (1807-1870) Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-
1896)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life
Among the Lowly was the most
popular American book of the
19th century. It reflected the
idea that slavery in the United
States, the nation that
purportedly embodied
democracy and equality for all,
was an injustice of colossal
proportions.
Amy Post, a Quaker feminist
abolitionist, encouraged her to
write her autobiography.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave
Girl, published under the
pseudonym “Linda Brent” in
1861.
Harriet Wilson was the first
African-American to publish a
novel in the United States — Our
Nig: or, Sketches from the life of
a Free Black. Showing that
Slavery’s Shadows Fall Even
There (1859). The novel
realistically dramatizes the
marriage between a white
woman and a black man, and
also depicts the difficult life of a
black servant in a wealthy
Christian household.
The most famous black
American anti-slavery leader and
orator of the era. In 1845, he
published his Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass, An
American Slave. Douglass’s
narrative is vivid and highly
literate, and it gives unique
insights into the mentality of
slavery and the agony that
institution caused among blacks.
KATHERIN MENDOZA TAUMA