The Romantic Period of American literature, which was also called the American Renaissance, was seen in writings and works starting around 1830 and lasted until the end of the Civil War in 1865. Romanticism was a period that served as a critique of the Enlightenment. It placed a premium on imagination, emotion, nature, and individuality, which was reflected in the literary works of the time. Events such as the Louisiana Purchase caused the size of America to grow incredibly. Due to this, immigrants still continued to flood in, so Americans had to find their unique identity that would define them as Americans. Their identity came to be reflected in their writing. The ideas and beliefs of human nature, imagination, the supernatural, and nature itself, were developed and placed into their works of that time. The Romantic period produced three major branches of literary authors: Transcendentalists, Romantics, and Dark Romantics, or Gothics. All three groups wrote about the major themes of the time period, however, each reflected their own ideas about them. The Romantics shifted to writing about feelings and creativity rather than logic. They focused on the individual, and believed that isolation, in nature or just in their own greed, would produce evil. Washington Irving wrote about this fear in his story The Devil and Tom Walker, in which he revealed the path of greed he saw Americans heading towards because they were so focused on growing and making more money. The Transcendentalists had similar beliefs in that they shifted from logical thinking to emotional and creative writing. They believed in the Oversoul, a divine spirit that was within every human being and in nature and that by becoming isolated and getting in touch with nature one could get in touch with the Oversoul. Transcendentalists put humans as equals to nature and God, and believed could be reached through isolation, self-sufficiency, and time with nature. This belief was reflected in writings such as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature, where he said “the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am a parcel of God”, which summarized the ideas of the Transcendentalists on nature and humans. The Dark Romantics, or Gothics, were a spin off of the Romantic beliefs. They saw the possibility for everyone to fall into evil, however, they even went as far as to say that everyone is evil at their core, and isolation only brings it out. Edgar Allen Poe revealed this belief in The Fall of the House of Usher. The Gothics’ literary works focused on remote settings, violent or macabre acts, tormented characters, and/or supernatural elements, all of which came together to form a dark story. The Romantics, Transcendentalists, and Dark Romantics all focused on defining the individual and figuring out human nature. Americans needed to find their individuality that would set them apart from other countries, and they found this in the Romantic time period.
Author: Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, New York, located near Long Island. He grew up with 8 siblings and a family who adored the nation of America. Before Whitman turned 4, his dad moved the family to Brooklyn, where Walt would remain for awhile. He attended Brooklyn Public School for six years, and then was pulled out to help his father earn money. He served under various lawyers in Brooklyn, and during this time taught himself by visiting museums and libraries and attending lectures, one of which was by a radical Quaker named Ethias Hicks. In 1831, Whitman became an editor for the Long Island Patriot, his first experience in the printing business. He found a love for putting words on paper, and began contributing to the writing at the age of twelve. Whitman published his first article in 1834 in the New York Mirror, where described his amazement of the quickly expanding city. Whitman continued the printing business at the Patriot until he decided to pursue teaching at the age of seventeen. However, he soon quit because he disliked the career and the students he taught, as he would write about later in his poem There Was A Child Went Forth. He left and started his own printing business, The Long Islander, where he employed his brother George as an assistant. However, his business folded within a year and he was forced to find other work. He became the chief editor at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle until he openly wrote about his support of anti-slavery and the Wilmot Proviso, which led to him getting fired. In 1848, Whitman struck a deal to travel with J.E. McClure to New Orleans in order to start a newspaper, the Crescent, with Walt’s brother Jeff to work as a paperboy While in New Orleans, Whitman enjoyed the French culture and picked up a lot of French words, which were sometimes reflected in his works later in life. His time in New Orleans only lasted 3 months, until he left and returned to Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, he published his most famous work Leaves of Grass in 1855, which he continued to add to for the remainder of his life. In this set of poems, he discussed his new identity and solidified his fame with this work. During the Civil War, Whitman's brother George was injured while fighting, and so Whitman went to Fredericksburg to visit him. After a year, he moved to Washington D.C to visit hospitals, and remained there for awhile, visiting around 100,000 other patients, most of whom were injured Civil War soldiers. He heard hundreds to thousands of stories from war, and because of this wrote some poetry inspired by the war. His poem collection Drum Taps was written in 1865 for the soldiers still fighting. In 1873, Whitman suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He went to Camden, New Jersey to visit his sick mother, who passed away three days later. Walt remained in Camden for the rest of his life, continuing to add to Leaves of Grass. Walt passed away on March 26, 1892. A year before his death, he published his final work, Good-Bye, My Fancy. Whitman’s works often reflected the diversity or identity of America, such as in his poems Song of Myself and I Hear America Singing. He was famous for his use of free verse, which allowed him to rise above literary boundaries, and usually had a deeper representation within his poems. He was also famous for his use of imagery and parallelism, which was very successful in his poems on nature. He was known as an author that served as a bridge between the transition from Romanticism to Realism, which can be seen in his works later in his life. Whitman made a lasting impact on the history of poetry, and is known today as the “Bard of Democracy” and one of America’s most influential poets.
Read my analysis of Walt Whitman's poem By the Bivouac's Fitful Flamehere.
Literary Themes
Several themes were prominent in the Romantic time period as America grew and searched for its own unique identity. These major themes, which shaped the Romantic literature, were nature, emotion, individuality, and isolation. Several works, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature and Henry David Thoreau's Walden, revealed the emphasis on nature and getting in touch with it in order to transcend the physical world. Emerson's Self Reliance and Thoreau's Walden both emphasize the importance of depending on just yourself and removing yourself from society in order to develop an individual character. Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher discussed the Gothic views on isolation, and how becoming alone would allow the evil within a person to grow and consume the individual. Washington Irving addressed a similar problem in his story The Devil and Tom Walker. He wanted to point out the greed in the hearts of his fellow Americans as they all strived to become rich, through events such as the Gold Rush of 1848 and the new land acquired out west that gave farmers an opportunity for large ranges of fields and farms.
Important Authors
Washington Irving: author of The Devil and Tom Walker Nathaniel Hawthorne: author of The Minister's Black Veil Herman Melville: author of Moby-Dick Emily Dickenson:author of Because I could not stop for death, I heard a fly buzz- when I died, There's a certain slant of light, My life closed twice before its close, The soul selects her own Society, The Brain - is wilder than the sky, There is a solitude of space, and Water, is taught by thirst Walt Whitman: author of Leaves of Grass, Song of Myself, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer, I Hear America Singing, A Noiseless Patient Spider, and By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame Edgar Allen Poe: author of The Raven and The Fall of the House of Usher Ralph Waldo Emerson: author of Nature , The Snowstorm, Concord Hymn, and Self-Reliance Henry David Thoreau: author of Walden and Civil Disobedience William Cullen Bryant: author of Thanatopsis Oliver Wendell Holmes: author of Old Ironsides
The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it. - Walt Whitman
Now head to the next page, the Period of Realism and Naturalism!