ROMANTICISM IN AMERICA

PURITANISM (1620-1730S): THEISM

The Shaping of National Ideals

ENLIGHTENMENT (1740S-1820)

Colonialism: DEISM: The American Democratic Origins: Revolutionary Writers: The Puritan Gives Way to The Yankee

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains,” Rousseau’s autobiography, The Confessions, planted the seeds of romanticism with the following words:

“I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without precedent and which will never find an imitator. I desire to set before my fellows the likeness of a man in all the truth of nature, and that man myself. Myself alone! I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen. I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.”

ROMANTIC PERIOD (1820- to present):

an artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions. This marks the revolution of the Hierarchy Conception.

A. The Green Concept

Mother Nature fills the place of God: pantheism

One example: Thoreau’s Walden

A. The Green Concept

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 is often contrasted with the unnatural constraints of society.

William Wordsworth

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

The cairn marks the site

The Bible on Nature

Genesis 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Romans 1:25 For they exchanged the truth of God

for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

B. The Noble Savage, the

antihero breaks all the

rules

Noble Savage

A belief in the natural goodness and perfectibility of man: that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by civilization.

The Literary figure of the "Noble Savage" is an outgrowth of this idea.

A rejection of the Puritan/Calvinist total depravity concept, which requires spiritual regeneration. It is extreme Idealism!

C. Innocence replaces wisdom; extraordinary characters in unusual

circumstances

• Twain’s Huckleberry Finn• Frodo• Mogoli• Tarzan

D. Sensibility Follow your heart, it will never lie.

Subjectivity replaces objectivity:

“Let’s be sensible: reconsider your absolutres and replace them with reasoning for each situation.” Situation Ethics

‘Sensitivity Training’ will help you learn how to understand relative or subjective truth.

D. Sensibility

Sincerity, spontaneity, and faith in emotion are accepted as markers of truth . . .

Delight in self-analysis: discover yourself!

Follow your heart!

The Bible on the heart

Proverbs 28:26 “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool”

Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

Mark 7:21 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders,

adulteries . . .

E. Revolution of all propriety:

The beginning of anti-tradition, or modernism, is seen in most romantic authors.

The hero becomes an anti-hero:

Literary Heroes

Traditional Hero• Worthy of imitation• Christ-types• Self-sacrificing• Strong & Brave• Humble, loyal• Wise, honest • Religious• Works hard to benefit

others

Anti-Hero• NOT worthy of imitation• Selfish• Brave, or a coward• Arrogant, ego-centric• NOT religious• A loner• Does not ‘fit in’ to

civilization

Modern Anti-Heroes:

Indiana Jones Jack Sparrow

Jack Bauer

Traditional Heroes

The Lone RangerBeowulfGeorge MacDonald’s Knights in his fairytalesSam GamgeeUncle Tom

F. Occult fantasies replace the clockwork universe:

DARK ROMANTICISMShelley writes Frankenstein, setting a pattern . . .

Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy HollowEdgar Allan Poe’s Telltale heart

F. DARK ROMANTICISM

• Explores the dark side of human nature, or

• Characters and settings that deny the Creation in its absolute (real) form

G. Imagination replaces reality The importance of intuition and

relative truth:Characters who reflect Absolute Truth

are replaced with:

Peter PanPrincess Bride

ShrekMonsters

DraculaFrankenstein

THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS

EMERSON THOREAU

A. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the Sage of Concord

Determined self-reliance

Cultural icons

The American Spirit

Essays and Poetry

1. Nature2. The American Scholar3. Divinity School Address4. Hymn Sung at the Completion of the

Concord Monument

CONCORD HYMN 1836By the rude bridge that arched the

flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world,

The foe long since in silence slept,Alike the Conqueror silent sleeps,And Time the ruined bridge has sweptDown the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,We set to-day a votive stone,That memory may their deed redeem,When like our sires our sons are gone.

Spirit! who made those freemen dareTo die, or leave their children free,Bid time and nature gently spareThe shaft we raise to them and Thee.

B. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Philosopher

Mystic

Transcendentalist

THOREAU

1. Civil Disobedience, refusal to pay poll tax towards Mexican War, which benefited southern slave owners

2. Walden (1854), living “deliberately.”

C. Unitarianism

denies doctrine of the Trinity, original sin, vicarious atonement, the deity of Christ, and everlasting damnation. All that is left are communion and baptism. Emerson’s father was a Unitarian minister

D. Transcendentalism:

There is a direct connection between the universe and the individual soul. Nature is the gospel. Follow your own intuition and beliefs, no matter how different they are from the social norm. Rely on yourself to know what is right: Self-reliance.

E. Transcendentalist Club

Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller (feminist), Unitarian preacher Theodore Parker, educator Bronson Alcott, George Ripley (Unitarian minister), and Elizabeth Peabody were the core members of the Transcendentalist Club in Boston

F. The Dial

A short-lived Transcendentalist magazine (1840-44)

G. Authors

Emerson

Thoreau

Alcott

VI. REALISM

(1865-1910 to today)Life is short: then you die

A. SOUTHWESTERN HUMOR/FRONTEIR: LOCAL COLOR

AND REGIONALISM

Bret Harte (1836-1902) Mark Twain (1835-1910), real name Samuel

Clemens

B. SOCIAL DARWINISM:

The Consequences of Man as an Animal

1. The ape man concept, The Descent of Man, in 1871

In 1859, he had published his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Which offspring have the ability to survive? Nature makes that choice – Natural Selection.

Descent of Man

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the progress of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws....Thus, the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.”

2. Moral consequences, the dark side of the struggle for life

While Darwin's influence on scientific thought was profound, his works also influenced thinking about economics, race, class, and other areas. Social Darwinism suggested that in a society of competitors, those who "won" (often affluent whites) prevailed through superior breeding. Those who failed—poor, African-American, Irish, etc.—did so because of inferior breeding. Just as the naturalist writers had done, social Darwinists tended to focus their arguments on the poor and infirm, where the struggle of the species (and its supposedly less fit examples) was most evident.

Glossary

In the final estimation, social Darwinism appears to be a reaction to what was perhaps the most unsettling revelation of Darwinism: the rescinding of humanity's providential purpose. Humans no longer appeared to exist for any particular reason. The earth didn't need us, and had probably existed for a long time without us. Social Darwinism used this theological void to challenge notions of social charity, but also to recast humanity's purpose as willful self-perfection.

Social Darwinism denies theology/religion as a motivating force in the world and instead perceives the universe as a machine. Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers had also imagined the world as a machine, but as a perfect one, invented by God and tending toward progress and human betterment. Darwinists imagined society, instead, as a blind machine: godless and aimless.

3. Darwin’s Teachers

. . . and many great scientists called his theories “the law of higgledy-piggledy”, and “one-tenth bad science and nine- tenths bad philosophy,” with the only purpose of “making us independent of a Creator.”

C. Albert Einstein

His theory of relativity in the early 1900’s did away with Newton’s absolute space, time, and motion. . . There is no fixed point anywhere in the universe against which to measure time or the speed of a moving object

1. Moral Relativity Verses Truth and Absolutes

This theory had major implications for religion and philosophy, as we shall see. While his theory is true in regards to finite man, Einstein did not consider the fact that God is outside of time and space. God is not subject to relativity, but remains absolute and infinite.

D. NEW FIELDS OF ‘SCIENCE’

1. Sociology: human society apart from biblical truths

2. Anthropology: human types apart from biblical account

3. Psychology: study of the human mind

E. REALISM IN LITERATURE

E. Realism in Literature

1. Reality as observed2. Objective – neutral3. Social awareness4. Vernacular dialect5. Focus on character,

rather than plot6. Loss of literary hero7. No more idealism!8.Reject moral absolutes

9. Some Christian authors utilize this style to effect change

10. AUTHORS

a. Stoweb. Emily Dickinson

c. Henry Jamesd. Walt Whitman

VII. NATURALISM (1880-1900 to today)

A. NATURALISM IN LITERATURE

• Attempted scientific objectivity of man• Frankness, blunt animalistic accounts of

human condition • Amoral attitude toward material: does not

make judgments

4. Philosophy of determinism, often man against Nature

a. Man is controlled by his passions, instincts

b. Man is controlled by his social and economic environment

A. NATURALISM IN LITERATURE

5. Pessimism: man cannot control the forces of Nature

6. Projection of "strong" characters,

animal-like or neurotic natures

B. AUTHORS

1. Stephen Crane

2. Frank Norris

3. Jack London

“The Bible is like a vine, with branches spreading across time and continents. The Scriptures have provided inspiration for the greatest musicians, poets, artists, and scientists. All moral progress of our race is directly from the Bible. Try to imagine removing the influence of the Bible from all our art, architecture, law books, scientific laws and theories, poetry, music – what would you have left? The Bible is the dividing line between chaos and civilization.”

Author unknown