The Romantic Temper and the House Divided

Background Information

 

Major Beliefs/Characteristics:

(1)   Love of Nature

(2)   Love of the common man

(3)   Love of Imagination

(4)   Loveof the National Past (traditions, wisdom)

(5)   Love of the remote (supernatural)

 

Other influences on the Romantic Period:

A)    A sense of wonder -- the ordinary is extraordinary

B) Emotions and intuition is favored over intellect, sceince and rationalism

 

C) Man is innately good, and if left alone, can achieve great things

 

D) Adventuresome, boyish ideas and literature flourish

 

E) Symbolism becomes a popular form of literature

 

F) Life and literature are openly personal, autobiographical and subjective

 

G) Literature stresses freedom in life an literature over formalism

 

H) A new interest in the medieval, the gothic, the mysterious, and strange emerges

 

I)       Transcendentalism becomes a popular movement

 

Reading Assignments

 

Background Questions: In order to gain an understanding of the literature of the Romantic period and the influences upon its writers, answer the following questions as found on pages 293-298.

 

Short Stories:

 

Washington Irving 301-303;   “Rip Van Winkle” 303-314

 

James Fennimore Cooper  333-336;   from “The Prairie”  342-346  (excerpt)

Edgar Allen Poe 563-565;   “The Cask of Amontillado” 562-566,

Nathaniel Hawthorne 626-628;   “Young Goodman Brown” 640-649

Harriet Beecher Stowe 850-851;   from Uncle Tom’s Cabin…”  851-860

 

"Transcendentalism" 362-364

 

Essays

Ralph Waldo Emerson 365-366;   "Self-Reliance" 419-436

Crosscurrents: Transcendentalism, Women, and Social Ideals

 

To gain an understanding of the society of communal life, read and write the following:

 

  • Page 454

 

  • Elizabeth Peabody—455-456  “[Labor, Wages, and Leisure]”

 

  • Charles Dickens—456-458   from “American Notes: The Mill Girls of Lowell

 

  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton—458-460  “Declaration of Sentiments”

 

  • Sojourner Truth—460-462   “[Aren’t I a Woman?]”

 

Henry David Thoreau 478-480;   "Civil Disobedience” 545-557

“Speech of Red Jacket” 263-264

 

 “Romanticism” 561-562

Edgar Allen Poe 563-565;   "The Philosophy of Composition" 567-74

 

"The Humanitarian Sensibility and the Inevitable Conflict" 779-783

 

Poetry

William Cullen Bryant 346-348   “Thanatopsis” 348-350;   To a Waterfowl" 351-352

Edgar Allen Poe 563-565;   “Lenore” 567;

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 799-801;   The Song of Hiawatha, “XXI. The White Man’s Foot” 823-825;

John Greenleaf Whittier 831-833;   Telling the Bees” 835-836

Oliver Wendell Holmes 838-840;   "Old Ironsides" 840-841