Romanticism: Romantic Period in America 1828-1865.

1. Belief in natural goodness of man, that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by
civilization. The figure of the "Noble Savage" is an outgrowth of this idea.
2. Sincerity, spontaneity, and faith in emotion as markers of truth. (Doctrine of sensibility)
3. Belief that what is special in a man is to be valued over what is representative; delight in self-analysis.
4. Nature as a source of instruction, delight, and nourishment for the soul; return to nature as a source of
inspiration and wisdom; celebration of man’s connection with nature; life in nature often contrasted with the
unnatural constraints of society.
5. Affirmation of the values of democracy and the freedom of the individual. (Jacksonian Democracy)
6. High value placed on finding connection with fresh, spontaneous in nature and self.
7. Aspiration after the sublime and the wonderful, that which transcends mundane limits.
8. In art, the sublime, the grotesque, the picturesque, and the beautiful with a touch of strangeness all were valued
above the Neoclassical principles of order, proportion, and decorum. (Hudson River School of painters)
9. Interest in the “antique”: medieval tales and forms, ballads, Norse and Celtic mythology; the Gothic.
10. Belief in perfectibility of man; spiritual force immanent not only in nature but in mind of man.
11. Belief in organicism rather than Neoclassical rules; development of a unique form in each work.
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Elements of Romanticism
1. Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations.
2. Optimism: greater than in Europe because of the presence of frontier.
3. Experimentation: in science, in institutions.
4. Mingling of races: immigrants in large numbers arrive to the US.
5. Growth of industrialization: polarization of north and south; north becomes industrialized, south remains
agricultural.
Romantic Subject Matter
1. The quest for beauty: non-didactic, "pure beauty."
2. The use of the far away and non-normal - antique and fanciful:
a. In historical perspective: antiquarianism; antiquing or artificially aging; interest in the past.
b. Characterization and mood: grotesque, Gothicism, sense of terror, fear; use of the odd and queer.
3. Escapism - from American problems.
4. Interest in external nature - for itself, for beauty:
a. Nature as source for the knowledge of the primitive.
b. Nature as refuge.
c. Nature as revelation of God to the individual.
Romantic Attitudes
1. Appeals to imagination; use of the "willing suspension of disbelief."
2. Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality.
3. Subjectivity: in form and meaning.
Romantic Techniques
1. Remoteness of settings in time and space.
2. Improbable plots.
3. Inadequate or unlikely characterization.
4. Authorial subjectivity.
5. Socially "harmful morality;" a world of "lies."
(Compare the above with Realistic Techniques in Chapter 5 of PAL.)
6. Organic principle in writing: form rises out of content, non-formal.
7. Experimentation in new forms: picking up and using obsolete patterns.
8. Cultivation of the individualized, subjective form of writing.
Philosophical Patterns
1. Nineteenth century marked by the influence of French revolution of 1789 and its concepts of liberty, fraternity,
equality:

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a. Jacksonian democracy of the frontier.
b. Intellectual and spiritual revolution - rise of Unitarianism.
c. Middle colonies - utopian experiments like New Harmony, Nashoba, Fourierism, and the Icarian community.
2. America basically middle-class and English - practicing laissez-faire (live and let live), modified because of
geographical expansion and the need for subsidies for setting up industries, building of railroads, and others.
3. Institution of slavery in the South - myth of the master and slave - William Gilmore Simms' modified
references to Greek democracy (Pericles' Athens which was based on a slave proletariat, but provided order,
welfare and security for all) as a way of maintaing slavery.
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The United States

In the United States romanticism had philosophic expression in transcendentalism, notably in the works of
Emerson and Thoreau. Poets such as Poe, Whittier, and Longfellow all produced works in the romantic vein.
Walt Whitman in particular expressed pride in his individual self and the democratic spirit. The works of James
Fenimore Cooper reflected the romantic interest in the historical past, whereas the symbolic novels of Hawthorne
and Melville emphasized the movement's concern with transcendent reality.
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http://literaryexplorer.blondelibrarian.net/

The period 1828-1865 in American Literature is commonly identified as the Romantic Period in America, but
may also be referred to as the American Renaissance or the Age of Transcendentalism. The writers of this
period produced works of originality and excellence that helped shape the ideas, ideals, and literary aims of many
American writers. Writers of the American Romantic Period include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman.

1828 - 1865: Romantic Period in America (American Renaissance or Age of Transcendentalism)

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Edgar Allan Poe
Herman Mellville
Washington Irving
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Harriet Beecher Stowe
John Greenleaf Whittier
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Walt Witman

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American Romanticism stems from the English Romantic poets, such as Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley,
Byron, and Blake.

The major themes of American Romanticism are:

 intuition is more valid than reason

 experience is more important than universal principles
 man is at the center of the universe and God is the center of man
 man should seek harmony with nature where the supernatural can be sensed
 we should strive for idealism by changing the world into what it should be, rather than what it is
 passion, beauty, emotion are revered
 return to the "romantic" past, i.e., the Homeric & heroic era
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Trancendentalism

Established principally by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his book Nature (1836)

Principles of Transcendentalism:
 all objects are miniature versions of the universe
 intuition and conscience "transcend" experience and reason
 man is one with nature
 God is everywhere, in nature and in man
 extension of Romanticism

--------------

Washington Irving: 1783 - 1859

 Several books of tales and satire

 The Tales of Alhambra, 1832, including "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

James Fenimore Cooper: 1789 - 1851

 The Leatherstocking Tales, including Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer, among his 32 novels

Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1803 - 1832

 The center of American Transcendentalism

 Book Nature and various essays

Nathaniel Hawthorne: 1804 - 1864

 Novels - The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851) , The Blithedale Romance
(1852), and The Marble Faun (1860)
 Over 100 stories, essays and sketches

Edgar Allan Poe: 1809 - 1849

 Numerous short stories of the macabre

 Poetry, including "The Raven"
 Father of the detective story

Henry David Thoreau: 1817 - 1862

 A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers (1849)

 "Civil Disobedience" (1849)
 Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)

Herman Melville: 1819 - 1891

 Novels include Typee (1846), Moby Dick (1851), Billy Budd (1924, posthumous)
 "Bartleby the Scrivener" (1853), The Encantadas (1853), and "Benito Cereno" (1855)

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James Fenimore Cooper
Rebecca Harding Davis
William Wells Brown
Maria Susanna Cummins
Martin Robison Delany
Caroline Lee Hentz
Caroline Stansbury Kirkland
Frederick Douglass

Elements of Fiction

1. Plot - the sequence of events or incidents of which the story is composed.

A. Conflict is a clash of actions, ideas, desires or wills.

a. person against person.

b. person against environment - external force, physical nature, society, or "fate."
c. person against herself/himself - conflict with some element in her/his own nature;
maybe physical, mental, emotional, or moral.

B. Artistic Unity - essential to a good plot; nothing irrelevant that does not contribute to the total
meaning; nothing that is there only for its own sake or its own excitement.
C. Plot Manipulation and Fabulation - a good plot should not have any unjustified or unexpected
turns or twists, no false leads, and no deliberate and misleading information; fabulation is the
introduction of the fabulous or unrealistic or gothic elements in an otherwise realistic setting.
D. Story Ending: In a Happy Ending the stereotypical expectation is that the protagonist must
solve all the problems, defeat the villain, win the girl, and live happily everafter. Unfortunately,
many real life situations have unhappy endings; for the writers of serious fiction, the unhappy
endings are more likely to raise significant issues concerning life and living.
2. Character

A. Direct Presentation - author tells us straight out, by exposition or analysis, or through another
character.
B. Indirect Presentation - author shows us the character in action; the reader infers what a
character is like from what she/he thinks, or says, or does. These are also called dramatized
characters and they are generally consistent (in behavior), motivated (convincing), and plausible
(lifelike).
C. Character Types - a Flat character is known by one or two traits; a Round character is complex
and many-sided; a Stock character is a stereotyped character (a mad scientist, the absent-minded
professor, the cruel mother-in-law); a Static character remains the same from the beginning of the
plot to the end; and a Dynamic (developing) character undergoes permanent change. This change
must be a. within the possibilities of the character; b. sufficiently motivated; and c. allowed
sufficient time for change.
D. Protagonist and Antagonist - the protagonist is the central character, sympathetic or
unsympathetic. The forces working against her/him, whether persons, things, conventions of
society, or traits of their own character, are the antagonists.

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3. Theme - the controlling idea or central insight. It can be 1. a revelation of human character; 2. may be stated
briefly or at great length; and 3. a theme is not the "moral" of the story.

A. A theme must be expressible in the form of a statement - not "motherhood" but "Motherhood
sometimes has more frustration than reward."
B. A theme must be stated as a generalization about life; names of characters or specific situations
in the plot are not to be used when stating a theme.
C. A theme must not be a generalization larger than is justified by the terms of the story.
D. A theme is the central and unifying concept of the story. It must adhere to the following
requirements: 1. It must account for all the major details of the story. 2. It must not be contradicted
by any detail of the story. 3. It must not rely on supposed facts - facts not actually stated or clearly
implied by the story.
E. There is no one way of stating the theme of a story.
F. Any statement that reduces a theme to some familiar saying, aphorism, or cliché should be
avoided. Do not use "A stitch in time saves nine," "You can't judge a book by its cover, " "Fish
and guests smell in three days," and so on.

4. Points Of View
A. Omniscient - a story told by the author, using the third person; the author's knowledge, control,
and prerogatives are unlimited; authorial subjectivity.
B. Limited Omniscient - a story in which the author associates with a major or minor character;
this character serves as the author's spokesperson or mouthpiece.

C. First Person - the author identifies with or disappears in a major or minor character; the story is
told using the first person "I". Interior Monologue -- 1st person, train of thought or stream of
consciousness. Subjective Narration-- 1st person, narrator seems unreliable, tries to get us to share
their side, or assume values or views we don't share. Detached Autobiography -- 1st person,
narrator is reliable, guides reader. Narrator is main character, often reflecting on a past "self."
Memoir or Observer Narration -- 1st person, narrator is observer rather than main participant;
narrator can be confident, eye-witness or "chorus" (provides offstage or background information);
Narrator can be reliable or unreliable.

D. Objective or Dramatic - the opposite of the omniscient; displays authorial objectivity;

compared a roving sound camera. Very little of the past or the future is given; the story is set in the
present. It has the most speed and the most action; it relies heavily on external action and dialogue,
and it offers no opportunities for interpretation by the author.

5. Symbol - a literary symbol means more than what it is. It has layers of meanings. Whereas an image has one
meaning, a symbol has many.

A. Names used as symbols. B. Use of objects as symbols. C. Use of actions as symbols.

Note: The ability to recognize and interpret symbols requires experience in literary readings,
perception, and tact. It is easy to "run wild" with symbols - to find symbols everywhere. The
ability to interpret symbols is essential to the full understanding and enjoyment of literature. Given
below are helpful suggestions for identifying literary symbols:

1. The story itself must furnish a clue that a detail is to be taken symbolically - symbols nearly
always signal their existence by emphasis, repetition, or position. 2. The meaning of a literary
symbol must be established and supported by the entire context of the story. A symbol has its

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 meaning inside not outside a story. 3. To be called a symbol, an item must suggest a meaning
different in kind from its literal meaning. 4. A symbol has a cluster of meanings.

6. Irony - a term with a range of meanings, all of them involving some sort of discrepancy or incongruity. It
should not be confused with sarcasm which is simply language designed to cause pain. Irony is used to suggest
the difference between appearance and reality, between expectation and fulfillment, the complexity of
experience, to furnish indirectly an evaluation of the author's material, and at the same time to achieve
compression.
A. Verbal irony - the opposite is said from what is intended.

B. Dramatic irony - the contrast between what a character says and what the reader knows to be
true.
C. Irony of situation - discrepancy between appearance and reality, or between expectation and
fulfillment, or between what is and what would seem appropriate.

Study Questions
Plot: 1. What are the conflicts? Are they physical, intellectual, moral, or emotional? Is the main coflict between
sharply differentiated good and evil, or is it more subtle and complex? 2. Does the plot have unity? Are all the
episodes relevant to the total meaning or effect of the story? Is the ending happy, unhappy, or indeterminate? Is it
fairly achieved?
Character: 1. Who is the protagonist and who or what are the anatagonists? 2. Are the characters consistent in
their actions? Adequately motivated? Plausible? Does the author successfully avoid stock characters?
Theme: 1. Does the story have a theme? What is it? Is it implicit or explicit? 2. Does the theme reinforce or
oppose popular notions of life? Does it furnish a new insight or refresh or deepen an old one?
Point of View: 1. What point of view does the story use? Is it consistent in its use of this point of view? If shifts
are made, are they justified? 2. If the point is that of one of the characters, does that character have any
limitations that affect her/his interpretation of events or persons?
Symbol: Does the story make use of symbols? What kinds (names, objects, actions) are they? If so, do they carry
or merely reinforce the meaning of the story?
Irony: Does the story anywhere utilize irony of situation? Dramatic irony? Verbal irony? What functions do the
ironies serve?
(Definitions, examples, and study questions in Appendices F, G, & H are from Laurence Perrine, LITERATURE:
Structure, Sound, and Sense; 1978, Shapiro and Beum, A Prosody Handbook; Miller Williams, Patterns of
Poetry; Lawrence Zillman, The Art and Craft of Poetry, and Moffett, James, and Kenneth R. McElheny, eds.
Points of View: An Anthology of Short Stories, 1995)

19th Century Romanticism in Europe

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 Romanticism began in the early 19th century and radically changed the way people perceived themselves and the state of
nature around them. Unlike Classicism, which stood for order and established the foundation for architecture, literature, painting and
music, Romanticism allowed people to get away from the constricted, rational views of life and concentrate on an emotional and
sentimental side of humanity. This not only influenced political doctrines and ideology, but was also a sharp contrast from ideas and
harmony featured during the Enlightenment. The Romantic era grew alongside the Enlightenment, but concentrated on human diversity
and looking at life in a new way. It was the combination of modern Science and Classicism that gave birth to Romanticism and
introduced a new outlook on life that embraced emotion before rationality.
Romanticism was a reactionary period of history when its seeds became planted in poetry, artwork and literature. The
Romantics turned to the poet before the scientist to harbor their convictions (they found that the orderly, mechanistic universe that the
Science thrived under was too narrow-minded, systematic and downright heartless in terms of feeling or emotional thought) and it was
men such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Germany who wrote "The Sorrows of Young Werther" which epitomized what
Romanticism stood for. His character expressed feelings from the heart and gave way to a new trend of expressing emotions through
individuality as opposed to collectivism. In England, there was a resurgence into Shakespearean drama since many Romantics believed
that Shakespeare had not been fully appreciated during the 18th century. His style of drama and expression had been
downplayed and ignored by the Enlightenment's narrow classical view of drama. Friedrich von Schlegel and Samuel
Taylorleridge (from Germany and England respectively) were two critics of literature who believed
that because of the Enlightenment's suppression of individual emotion as being free and imaginative, Shakespeare who have
never written his material in the 19th century as opposed to the 18th century. The perception that the Enlightenment was destroying the
natural human soul and substituting it with the mechanical, artificial heart was becoming prevalent across Europe.
The Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798, was a series of poems that examined the beauty of nature and explored the actions of
people in natural settings. Written by William Woodsworth, this form of poetry was free, expressive and without constraint as evident
by this passage: "If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature's holy plan, Have I not reason to lament, What man has made of
man?" Such passages from his work indicates that poetry and literature was also used as a form of rebellion or distaste for political
institutions or social conditions during the 19th century. However, since most poets thrived on the emotional and irrational abstract that
they were writing about, there was no specific category that this mode of thinking could fall into. This was strength since the freedom to
explore nature was infinite and without any restriction based on rules, law or doctrine. This invariably led to a re-introduction into
religion and mysticism; people wanted to explore the unknown. The Genius of Christianity, written by Rene de Chateaubriand, offered a
contrast to Science. He found Christianity to be "the most poetic, most human, the most conducive to freedom, to arts and literature..."
of all the religions and deduced that Science was lacking this element, which could benefit mankind.
The middle ages were regarded as a creative period when humans lived close to the soil and were unblemished with the effects
of industrialization or urbanization. Romanticism began to show the people that the Enlightenment had overstayed its welcome by
leading the people to a future that offered a vision of mankind as being part of a group rather than an individual. G. W. F. Hegel, a
German philosopher, rejected the rational philosophy of the 18th century because he believed in "Idealism". This involved looking at
life in terms of the importance of ideas not thought the narrow tunnel of materialism and wealth. By advocating Idealism, Hegel
concluded his spirit, his soul, rather than the establishment or the status quo could lead that mankind. Although Romanticism was
perhaps conservative in nature, every participant of this swift and silent movement could relish in his own free and glorious vision of
nature.
Romanticism was not a political movement or a reformist package offered by a group of dissidents; Romanticism was a time
when mankind could restructure his outlook on life so that he was able to reach new heights of intellectual and political awareness. In
the process of doing so, he found answers to practical problems by simply using his heart and searching his soul.

Early American Romanticism...

Romanticism (which flourished as a cultural force throughout the 19th C. and remains powerful in contemporary literature and art) is
defined thus by the Oxford Companion to American Literature:

"Romanticism, term that is associated with imagination and boundlessness, as contrasted with classicism, which is
commonly associated with reason and restriction. A romantic attitude may be detected in literature of any period, but
as an historical movement it arose in the 18th and 19th centuries, in reaction to more rational literary, philosophic,
artistic, religious, and economic standards.... The most clearly defined romantic literary movement in the U. S. was
Transcendentalism....

"Characteristics of the romantic movement in American literature are sentimentalism, primitivism and the cult of the
noble savage; political liberalism; the celebration of natural beauty and the simple life; introspection; the idealization
of the common man, uncorrupted by civilization; interest in the picturesque past; interest in remote places;
antiquarianism; individualism; morbid melancholy; and historical romance."

Many explanations have been offered, as to why and how Romanticism gained such strength in Western Europe and the United
States. Influential artists and writers (Rousseau, Blake, Goethe, Beethoven, Gericault, J. L. David, Mary Shelley, and many
others) broke away from formalities and rationalities of the Enlightenment; political and military leaders (Napoleon most
7
famous among them, but also Napoleon, Nelson, Lafayette, Paoli, Bolivar, etc.) brought so much high theatricality to public
performance. One can also talk about the continuing decay of urban life, the clearer possibilities for viable democracy, and a
middle class exasperated with hierarchies which brought them little in the way of additional power. But there is also the
possibility that the Age of Reason had grown weary, that a fierce reaction against logic, moderation, symmetry, and order, and
pragmatism as core values was inevitable.

Characteristics of American romanticism in the first twenty-five years of the 19th century:
1. 1. Reaction against logic and reason; there was a generalized suspicion of ?ĺscience?Ĺ and
dispassionate logic, though the fervor of this anti-science sentiment varied with the author and artist.
Thoreau was a good and enthusiastic naturalist; Poe ?Ĭ at least in his poems and horror stories -- was
perhaps the most phobic about science.
2. 2. Faith in something inherently good and transcendent in the human spirit, an inward divinity in no
need of salvation, or even of formal creed -- but rather in need of awakening.
3. 3. Faith in the spirituality and the symbolic importance of nature.
4. 4. Anglo-French celebration of common and rural life provided a model for American writers, who
sought a way to satisfy a cultural need for lore - a mythology suitable to a new nation.
5. 5. As the "Fireside Poets" (especially Bryant, Whittier, Longfellow) became enormously popular in
American households, they promulgated a celebration of simple living, intuitive wisdom, innocent love,
and community folklore. By 1870, Longfellow in fact was out-selling every other 19th century author
writing in English, including Wordsworth, Browning, Tennyson, and even Charles Dickens.
6. 6. In the arts, romanticism promoted a popular taste for wild landscapes, ominous skies, ancient ruins,
picturesque rusticity, and other settings for intuitive inspiration.

Romanticism: a movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art, religion, and
politics from the neoclassicism and formal orthodoxy of the preceding period. Romanticism arose so gradually and exhibited so many
phases that a satisfactory definition is not possible. The aspect most stressed in France is reflected in Victor Hugo's phrase "liberalism in
literature," meaning especially the freeing of the artist and writer from restrains and rules and suggesting that phase of individualism
marked by the encouragement of revolutionary political ideas. The poet Heine noted the chief aspect of German romanticism in calling
it the revival of medievalism in art, letters, and life. Walter Pater thought the addition of strangement to beauty (the neoclassicists having
insisted on order in beauty) constituted the romantic temper. An interesting schematic explanation calls romanticism the predominance
of imagination over reason and formal rules (classicism) and over the sense of fact or the actual (realism), a formula that recalls Hazlitt's
statement (1816) that the class beauty of a Greek temple resided chiefly in its actual form and its obvious connotations, whereas the
"romantic" beauty of a Gothic building or ruin arose from associated ideas that the imagination was stimulated to conjure up. The term
is used in many senses, a recent favorite being that which sees in the romantic mood a psychological desire to escape from unpleasant
realities.

Perhaps more useful to the student than definitions will be a list of romantic characteristics, though romanticism was not a clearly
conceived system. Among the aspects of the romantic movement in England may be listed: sensibility; primitivism; love of nature;
sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval; mysticism; individualism; romanticism criticism; and a reaction against
whatever characterized neoclassicism. Among the specific characteristics embraced by these general attitudes are: the abandonment of
the heroic couplet in favor of blank verse, the sonnet, the Spenserian stanza, and many experimental verse forms; the dropping of the
conventional poetic diction in favor of fresher language and bolder figures; the idealization of rural life (Goldsmith); enthusiasm for the
wild, irregular, or grotesque in nature and art; unrestrained imagination; enthusiasm for the uncivilized or "natural"; interest in human
rights (Burns, Byron); sympathy with animal life (Cowper); sentimental melancholy (Gray); emotional psychology in fiction
(Richardson); collection and imitation of popular ballads (Percy, Scott); interest in ancient Celtic and Scandinavian mythology and
literature ; renewed interest in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. Typical literary forms include the lyric, especially the love lyric, the
reflective lyric, the nature lyric, and the lyric of morbid melancholy...;the sentimental novel; the metrical romance; the sentimental
comedy; the ballad; the problem novel; the historical novel; the Gothic romance; the sonnet; and the critical essay....

The term designates a literary and philosophical theory that tends to see the individual at the center of all life, and it places the
individual, therefore, at the center of art, making literature valuable as an expression of unique feelings and particular attitudes (the
expressive theory of criticism) and valuing its fidelity in portraying experiences, however fragmentary and incomplete, more than it
values adherence to completeness, unity, or the demands of genre. Although romanticism tends at times to regard nature as alien, it more
often sees in nature a revelation of Truth, the "living garment of God," and a more suitable subject for art than those aspects of the world
sullied by artifice. Romanticism seeks to find the Absolute, the Ideal, by transcending the actual, whereas realism finds its values in the
actual and naturalism in the scientific laws the undergird the actual.

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Romantic Period in American Literature, 1830-1865.
The period between the "second revolution" of the Jacksonian Era and the close of the Civil War in America saw the testings of a nation
and its development by ordeal. It was an age of great westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the slavery question, of an
intensification of the spirit of embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North. Its culminating act
was the trial by arms of the opposing views in a civil war, whose conclusion certified the fact of a united nation dedicated to the
concepts of industry and capitalism and philosophically committed to egalitarianism. In a sense it may be said that the three decades
following the inauguration of President Andrew Jackson in 1829 put to the test his views of democracy and saw emerge from the test a
secure union committed to essentially Jacksonian principles.
In literature it was America's first great creative period, a full flowering of the romantic impulse on American soil. Surviving form the
Federalist Age were its three major literary figures: Bryant, Irving, and Cooper. Emerging as new writers of strength and creative power
were the novelists Hawthorne, Simms, Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe; the poets Poe, Whittier, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell,
Dickinson, and Whitman; the essayists Thoreau, Emerson, and Holmes; the critics Poe, Lowell, and Simms....
The poetry was predominantly romantic in spirit and form. Moral qualities were significantly present in the verse of Emerson, Bryant,
Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and Thoreau. The sectional issues were debated in poetry by Whittier and Lowell speaking for
abolition, and Timrod, Hayne, and Simms speaking for the South. Poe formulated his theories of poetry and in some fifty lyrics
practiced a symbolist verse that was to be, despite the change of triviality by such contemporaries as Emerson, the strongest single
poetic influence emerging from pre-Civil War America, particularly in its impact on European poetry....Whitman, beginning with the
1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, was the ultimate expression of a poetry organic in form and romantic in spirit, united to a concept of
democracy that was pervasively egalitarian.
In essays and in lectures the New England transcendentalists-- Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Alcott--carried the expression of
philosophic and religious ideas to a high level....In the 1850s emerged the powerful symbolic novels of Hawthorne and Melville and the
effective propaganda novel of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Poe, Hawthorne, and Simms practiced the writing of short stories through the
period, taking up where Irving had left off in the development of the form,,,,
At the end of the Civil War a new nation had been born, and it was to demand and receive a new literature less idealistic and more
practical, less exalted and more earthy, less consciously artistic and more honest than that produced in the age when the American
dream had glowed with greatest intensity and American writers had made a great literary period by capturing on their pages the
enthusiasm and the optimism of that dream.