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of their own importance, and inspired struggle for personal freedom, self-government, and a dignified place in society.
Romantic Period of American Literature
Literary Terms.Romanticism: The literature term was first applied to the
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writers of the 18 century in Europe who broke away from the formal rules of classical writing. When it was used in American
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literature it referred to the writers of the middle of the 19century who stimulated the sentimental emotions of their readers. They wrote the mysteries of life, love, birth and death. The
romantic writers expressed themselves freely and without restraint. They wrote all kinds of materials: poetry, essays, plays, fiction, history, works of travel, and biography.Fireside poets:William Gullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russel Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Greenleaf Whittier constituted a group called the Fireside Poets. They earned this nickname because they frequently used the hearth as an image of comfort and unity, a place where families gathered to learn and tell stories. They were widely read around the hearthsides of 19-century American families. Transcendentalism:In New England, an intellectual movement known as transcendentalism developed as an American version of Romanticism. The movement began among an influential set of authors based in Concord, Massachusetts and was led by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Like Romanticism, transcendentalism rejected
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both 18century rationalism and established religion, which for the transcendentalists meant the Puritan tradition in particular. The transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human imagination to commune with the universe and transcend the limitations of the material world. They found their chief source of inspiration in nature. Emerson’s essay nature was the major document of the transcendental school and stated the ideas that were to remain central to it.
Symbolism: It is a movement in literature and the visual arts that originated in France in the poetry of Charles Baudelaire
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in the late 19century. In literature, symbolism was an aesthetic movement that encouraged writers to express their ideas, feelings, and values by means of symbols or suggestions
rather than by direct statements. Hawthorne and Melville are
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masters of symbolism in America in the 19 century.
Free verse: free verse is the rhymed or unrhymed poetry composed
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without attention to conventional rules of meter. Free versewas first written and labeled by a group of French poets of the late 19thcentury. Their purpose was to deliver poetry from the restrictions of formal metrical patterns and to recreate the
free rhythms of natural speech. Walt Whitman was the precursor
who wrote lines of varying length and cadence, usually not rhymed. The emotional content or meaning of the work was expressed through its rhythm. Free verse has been characteristic of the work of many modern American poets, including Ezra Pound and Carl Sandburg.
Puritanism: The word is originally used to refer to the theory advocated by a party within the Church of England. It is also used to refer to attitudes and values considered characteristics of the Puritans. It denotes a rigid moral, or the condemnation of innocent pleasure, or religious narrowness adhered by the early New England Puritans. It exerted great influence over American Romanticism. The preoccupation with the Calvinist view of original sin and the mystery of evil marked the works by such famous writers as Hawthorne and Melville.
In the early 19th
century Rip Van Winkle established Washington Irving’s reputation at home and abroad, and designed the beginning of American Romanticism.Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first book in 1836 Naturebrought American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism.
In the early 19th
century, Washington Irving wrote The Sketch Bookwhich became the first work by an American writer to win financial success on both sides of the Atlantic.
Allan Poe’s poems have the musical quality and romantic beauty. The Raven is his best-known poem.
The Civil War of 1861-1865 ended in the defeat of the Southerners and the abolition of slavery.
Leaves of Grass, either in content or form, is an epoch-making work in American literature; its democratic content marked the
shift from Romanticismto Realism, and its free verseform broke from old poetic conventions to open a new road for American poetry.
Washington Irvingwas regarded as the first great prose stylist of American Romanticism.
In 1823 James Fenimore Cooper wrote The Pioneers, the first of
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The Leatherstocking Talesthe five novels that make up . The
remaining four books: The Last of the Mohicans, the Prairie, the Pathfinder and the Deerslayer, contimue the story of Natty Bumppo, one of the most famous characters in American fiction.The short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is taken from Washington Irving’s work named The Sketch Book.Washington Irvingwas the first American to achieve an international literary reputation after the Revolutionary War. Melville is famous for writing about the sea and the islands of the Southern Pacific. In his master piece Moby Dick, he tells
a story of whaling voyage which sets a symbolic account of the conflict between man and his fate.The first important American novelist was James Fennimore Cooper.
The central figure in the Leatherstocking Tales is Natty Bumppo, who goes by the various names of Leatherstocking, Deerlayer, Pathfinder and Hawkeye.
“To a Waterfowl”is perhaps the peak of William Cullen Bryant’s work. It has been called by an eminent English critic
“the most perfect brief poem in the language”.Among William Cullen Bryant’s most important later works are his translations of the Iliadand the Odysseyinto English blank verse.
Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven”is perhaps the best example of onomatopoeia in the English language.Most of Allan Poe’s stories can be roughly divided into two kinds: tales of Gothic horror or grotesque like The Black Cat, an incisive enquiry into the capacity of the human mind to originate its destruction and .The Fall of the House of UsherA superb book Walden came out of Thoreau’s two-year experience at Walden Pond.
From Thoreau’s Concord jail experience, came his famous essay “Civil Disobedience”.
In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne brought out his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, the story of a triangle love affair in colonial America.
Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick is a tremendous chronicle of a whaling voyage in pursuit of a seemingly supernatural white whale.
In “I Hear America Singingof labor and laborers.
”, Walt Whitman depicts the beauty
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For the whole 19century Emily Dickinsonwas the only woman poet who enjoys high academic esteem today. She has been acclaimed as a poet of philosophical and tragic dimensions, a poet who was responsive to the challenging questions of man, nature and human consciousness.
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The American Romantic period stretches from the end of the 18century through the outburst of the Civil War.
In The Pioneers, Natty Bumppo represents the ideal American, living a virtuous and free life in God’s world.
The way in which Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Lettersuggests that American Romanticism adapted itself to American Puritan morality.
Multiple Choice.
In 1837, the first college-level institution for women, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, opened in ___ to serve the “Muslin sex”.
A. New England B. Virginia C. Massachusetts D. New York
As a philosophical and literary movement, ___ flourished in New
England from the 1830s to the Civil War.A. modernism B. rationalismC. sentimentalism D. transcendentalismThe appearance of the Scarlet Letter marked the maturity of Hawthorne as a novelist. Soon he composed the other three important novel including___, The Blithedale Romance and The Marble Faun.
A. The House of the Seven Gables B. The PrairieC. The Fall of the House of Usher D. WaldenTranscendentalism recognized ___ as the “highest power of the soul”.
A. intuition B. logic C. data of the senses D. thinking
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A new ___ had appeared in England in the last years of the 18century. It spread to continental Europe and then came to America
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early in the 19 century.
A. Realism B. Critical realismC. Romanticism D. Naturalism
The desire for an escape from society and a return to nature became a permanent convention of American literature, evident in___.
A.James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales.
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Henry David Thoreau’s WaldenC.Mark Twain’s Huckleberry FinnD.All of the aboveHerman Melville’s ___ is not only an adventure story, but also a significant philosophical work on spiritual exploration.A. Moby Dick B. The Egg C. Nature D. The Over-SoulIn James Fenimore Cooper’s novels, close after Natty Bumppo in romantic appeals, come the two noble red men. Choose them from the following items.
A. The Mohican Chief Chingachgook B. Uncass
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C. Tom Jones D. Both A and BPoe’s first collection of short stories is ____.A. Tales of a Traveler B. Leatherstocking TalesC. Canterbury Tales D. Tales of the Grotesque and
Arabesque
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The first example of Nathaniel Hawthornerecreation of Puritan Boston in ___.A. The Scarlet Letter B. C. The Marble Faun D.
’s symbolism is the
Young Goodman BrownThe Ambitious Guest
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Herman Melville called his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne ____ in American literature.A.The largest brain with the largest heart B.Father of
American poetry
C. The Transcendentalist D. The American scholarWhich is the character who appears in the novel Moby DickA. Hester Prynne B. Mr. HooperC. Ahab D. Pearl
___ was a romanticized account of Melville’s stay among the Polynesians. The success of the book soon made Melville known as the “man who lived among cannibals”.A. Moby DickB. Typee C. Omoo D. Billy BuddWith the appearance of ___ in 1855, which is about American Indian, Longfellow’s poetical reputation was established.A.Evangeline B. The Courtship of Miles
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C.Song of Hiawatha
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In the early 19
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D. century American
Michael Angelo
moral values were essentially
Puritan. Nothing has left a deeper imprint on the character of the people as a whole than did___.A. Puritanism B. Romanticism C. Rationalism D.
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