Chapter 2

Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers:

The American Revolution against Britain (1775-1783) was
the first modern war of liberation against a colonial power.
We can see the rise of national literature.
Enlightenment 1750-1800
The 18th century American Enlightenment was a
movement marked by an emphasis on rationality rather
than tradition, scientific inquiry instead of
unquestioning religious dogma. It includes:
- Pragmatism – truth measured by practical experience,
law of nature
- Deism – God created the world but has no influence on
human lives
- Idealism – conviction of the universal sense of right
and wrong; belief in essential goodness of man
- Interest in human nature
Enlightenment and Colonialism
Enlightenment coexisted with Puritanism in the early British
colonies.
While Puritanism was religious-based, Enlightenment was
logic-based.
The Enlightenment Period is also known as the Age of Reason
because of the reliance on reason and logic.
This is a shift from faith or religious-based explanations.
Enlightenment questioned the truths about government.
 It pointed toward government limitations in exchange for
protection of rights and liberties.
 It gave colonists a philosophical basis for the American
Revolution.
Revolutionary Writers
 Focused on government, not religion
 Expressed the following ideas:
 Political writing
 Natural law – the idea that people
are born with rights and freedoms.
It is the function of government to
protect those freedoms.
 Human rights
 Key for the creation of a new nation
 Primarily wrote pamphlets, or “little
books,” cheaply made and quickly
disbursed
 Topic of discontent with British rule
 Also believed, like Puritans, that
America had a special destiny to be a
model for the world
American Enlightenment 1750-1800
 Also known as Rationalism/Classicism and The Age of Reason
 Best known for political and philosophical writings focusing on
reason and common sense
 These writings contributed, in part, to the American Revolution
 Authors of this period include:
 Benjamin Franklin: He was a writer, printer, publisher, scientist,
philanthropist, and diplomat. He was an important figure of
Revolution.His work Autobiography is a self-help book.
 Hector St. John de Crévecour : His work: Letters from an American
Farmer gave Europeans an idea of opportunities, for peace, wealth
and pride in America. It gives differences between Europe and
America.
 Thomas Paine: Another important figure of Revolution. His work
Common Sense propeled the colonists to revolution. He concluded
by saying America gives freedom.
Historical Events
1773 - Boston Tea Party
1775-83 – American Revolution
1776, 4 July – Declaration of Independence
1783 - Treaty of Paris
1787-88 - Federalist Papers: Alex. Hamilton, John Jay,
and James Madison
1789 - American Constitution
1789-1799 - French Revolution
Neoclassism: Epic Mock Epic, and Satire
Epic: A long, dramatic narrative poem in elevated
language, celebrating the feats of a legendary hero.
Timothy Dwight with his epic The Conquest of
Canaan, John Trumbull with his mock epic M’Fingal,
Royall Tyler’s The Contrast (the first American comedy
to be performed) are the important names.
The poet of the American Revolution is Philip
Freneau. He adhered to his democratic ideals. The
Wild Honey Suckle is one his important poems.
WRITERS OF FICTION
The first important fiction writers widely recognized
today, Charles Brockden Brown (gothic fiction)(his
work: Wieland), Washington Irving (his work: Sketch
Book), and James Fenimore Cooper (his work Leather-
Stocking Tales) used American subjects, historical
perspectives, themes of change, and nostalgic tones.
They wrote in many prose genres, initiated new forms,
and found new ways to make a living through
literature. With them, American literature began to be
read and appreciated in the United States and abroad.
Women and Minorities
The first African-American author of importance in the United
States is Phillis Wheatley with her work On Being Brought from
Africa to America which confronts white racism and asserts
spiritual equality. She wrote poetry expressing the natural
rights of blacks and the discrepancy between the colonists “cry
for freedom” and their enslavement of blacks

A number of accomplished Revolutionary-era women writers

have been rediscovered by feminist scholars.
Susanna Rowson with her work Charlotte Temple, and Hannah
Foster whose best-selling novel The Coquette can be given as
examples.
Romanticism 1820-1860
Chapter 3
A continuation of the same movement in
Europe. The Romantic movement, which
originated in Germany but quickly spread to
England, France, and beyond, reached America
around the year 1820.
Authors focused on individualism, idealism,
imagination and nature
Often set their works in distant times or places
This is the first movement to really produce a
body of work that embodied the idea of America
while rebelling against the Classicism movement
Characteristics of American Literary
Romanticism

1. INDIVIDUALISM
Popularized by the frontier tradition
Jacksonian democracy
 Supported Abolitionism
 2. IMAGINATION

Reaction against the earlier age’s emphasis on Reason

Abandonment of literary tradition in favor of
experimentation
“Organicism”: every idea held within it an inherent
structure
 3. EMOTION

Feeling is now considered superior to rationality as the

mode of perceiving and experiencing reality
Intuition leads one to truth
Truth/reality are now highly subjective
 4. NATURE

The means of knowing Truth

God reveals himself solely through
Nature
Nature becomes a moral teacher

The actual subject matter of the

Romantics
 5. DISTANT SETTINGS

Both in terms of time and place

Used to comment on attitudes of the time period
Transcendentalism 1830-1850
 The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against 18th-century
rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th-
century thought. The movement was based on a fundamental belief in the
unity of the world and God. The doctrine of self-reliance and individualism
developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with
God.
 Transcendentalists believe that the basic truths of the universe transcend the
physical world and lie beyond the knowledge that can be obtained from the
senses. They feel that every individual has the ability to experience God
firsthand in his/her intuition.
 They value nature and believe in the spiritual unity of all life, stating God,
humanity, and nature share a universal soul. They feel that nothing in nature
is trivial or insignificant; all is symbolic and important.
 They also promoted the belief that every human being is born inherently
good.
 Authors include Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature) and Henry David Thoreau
(Walden), Walt Whitman (The Leaves of Grass)
The Brahmin Poets
They were the first group of American Poets to become
well known just as British poets were
The poets preferred classical form but relied on American
legends and life for their subject matter
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (his work: Evangeline) &
James Russell Lowell (his work: A Fable for Critics) are
the two important names.
Two reformers of the period are:
Abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier with his anti-
slavery poems such as Ichabod
Feminist and social reformer Margaret Fuller with her
work Woman in the Nineteenth Century which is the
earliest and most American exploration of women’s
role in society.
Also, Emily Dickinson’s clean, clear poems are some of
the most fascinating and challenging in American
literature.
ROMANTICISM (Fiction)
Chapter 4
Explored what it meant to be an American, an American
artist
 Looked at American government and political problems
 The problems of war and Black slavery
 Emerging materialism and conformity
 Influence of immigration, new customs and traditions
 Sexuality; relationships between men and women
 The power of nature
 Individualism, emphasis on destructive effect of society
on individual
 Idealism
 Spontaneity in thought and action
Romanticism
In the case of the novelists, the Romantic vision
tended to express itself in the form Hawthorne
called the “romance,” a heightened, emotional, and
symbolic form of the novel. Romances were not love
stories, but serious novels that used special
techniques to communicate complex and subtle
meanings. The Romance form is dark and
forbidding, indicating how difficult it is to create an
identity without a stable society.
Authors often associated with Romanticism include:
Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven), Nathaniel
Hawthorne(The Scarlet Letter), Washington Irving
and Herman Melville (Moby-Dick)
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. Despite these obstacles, a strong
women’s network sprang up. Through letters, personal
friendships, formal meetings, women’s newspapers, and
books, women furthered social change.
 Intellectual women drew parallels between themselves and
slaves. They courageously demanded fundamental reforms,
such as the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage,
despite social ostracism and sometimes financial ruin.
Their works were the vanguard of intellectual expression of
a larger women’s literary tradition that included the
sentimental novel.
Important Names:
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the
most popular American book of the 19th century.
Harriet Wilson was the first African-American to publish
a novel in the United States — Our Nig.
Harriet Jacobs’s book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,
like Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass, An American Slave, is part of the slave
narrative genre extending back to Olaudah Equiano in
colonial times.
The slave narrative was the first black prose genre
in the United States.