3.

The Romantic Period in American Literature (1830-1865)

Often considered the first period of American creativity, the Romantic period is placed within
the historical context of westward expansion, the increasingly heated nature of the slavery question,
and strained relations between the opposing desires for reform and separation found in the North and
the South. Historically, this period of tensions resulted in the Civil War. Within the literature, however,
the opposing views of life were able to co-exist relatively peacefully.
The European Romantic movement reached America during the early 19 th century. Like the
Europeans, the American Romantics demonstrated a high level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to
individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive perception, and the assumption
that the natural world was inherently good while human society was filled with corruption.
Romanticism became popular in American politics, philosophy, and art. The movement
appealed to the revolutionary spirit of America as well as to those longing to break free of the strict
religious traditions of the early settlement period. The Romantics rejected rationalism and religious
intellect. It appealed especially to opponents of Calvinism, a Protestant sect that believes the destiny
of each individual is preordained by God.
Relation to Transcendentalism
The Romantic Movement gave rise to New England transcendentalism, which portrayed a
less restrictive relationship between God and the universe. The new philosophy presented the
individual with a more personal relationship with God. Transcendentalism and Romanticism
appealed to Americans in a similar fashion; both privileged feeling over reason and individual
freedom of expression over the restraints of tradition and custom. Romanticism often involved a
rapturous response to nature and promised a new blossoming of American culture.
Romantic Themes
The Romantic Movement in America was widely popular and influenced American writers
such as James Fennimore Cooper and Washington Irving. Novels, short stories, and poems
replaced the sermons and manifestos of earlier days. Romantic literature was personal and intense;
it portrayed more emotion than ever seen in neoclassical literature.
America's preoccupation with freedom became a great source of motivation for Romantic
writers, as many were delighted in free expression and emotion without fear of ridicule and
controversy. They also put more effort into the psychological development of their characters, and
the main characters typically displayed extremes of sensitivity and excitement. The works of the
Romantic Era also differed from preceding works in that they spoke to a wider audience, partly
reflecting the greater distribution of books as costs came down and literacy rose during the period.
The Romantic period also saw an increase in female authors and readers.
Prominent Romantic Writers
Romanticism in American Literature brought us some of the world's greatest writers: Edgar
Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving and
Henry David Thoreau
Romantic poetry in the United States can be seen as early as 1818 with William Cullen
Bryant's "To a Waterfowl". American Romantic Gothic literature made an early appearance with
Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) and Rip Van Winkle (1819), followed from
1823 onwards by the Leather stocking Tales of James Fennimore Cooper. In his popular novel Last
of the Mohicans, Cooper expressed romantic ideals about the relationship between men and
nature. These works had an emphasis on heroic simplicity and fervent landscape descriptions of an
already-exotic mythicized frontier peopled by "noble savages". Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the
macabre and his balladic poetry were more influential in France than at home, but the romantic
American novel developed fully with the atmosphere and melodrama of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The
Scarlet Letter (1850).
 Later transcendentalist writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson still
show elements of its influence and imagination, as does the romantic realism of Walt Whitman.
Emerson, a leading transcendentalist writer, was highly influenced by romanticism, especially after
meeting leading figures in the European Romantic Movement in the 1830s. He is best known for his
romantic-influenced essays such as "Nature" (1836) and "Self-Reliance" (1841). The poetry of
Emily Dickinson-nearly unread in her own time-and Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick can be
taken as epitomes of American Romantic literature. By the 1880s, however, psychological and
social realism were competing with Romanticism in the novel.