Rationalism

and
Romanticism
Benjamin Franklin
 He was the 15 of 17
children and had to
leave school at ten
years old because his
father could not afford
schooling.
 Franklin believed that
education was very
important. Benjamin
worked extra hard to
educate himself ultimately
learning five languages,
becoming a scientist,
inventor, diplomat, writer,
philosopher, musician,
economist, philanthropist,
and the list goes on.
William Cullen Bryant
 He was America’s
nature poet and
had many qualities
similar to William
Worsworth’s.
To a Waterfowl
Thanatopsis
Oliver Wendell Holmes
He was a doctor of
medicine and man-
of-letters.
He is well-known
for his poem and
essays.
The Last Leaf
Nathaniel Hawthorne
 Nathaniel Hawthorne
-grew up in the
companionship of books.
A leg injury made him
develop habits of solitude
and he spent long hours in
his room reading books
and developing his talents
as a writer.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Swan
Edgar Allan Poe
 Edgar Allan Poe
He was the first
significant literary
figure to come
from the Southern
United States.
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee
 Three elements of story

•Setting
•Plot
•Characters
Narration
Transcendentalism
and the
New Poetry
 Ralph Waldo
Emerson
was known as the
“Sage of Concord”
because he came
from Concord,
Massachusetts,
and he became a
lecturer and a
writer of serious
poems.
 Ralph Waldo
Emerson
His essays are
thought-
provoking-
almost that of a
layman’s
sermons.
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
A Fable
Self-Reliance
Henry David Thoreau