“The Rise
of a National Literature" and an American Renaissance
Introduction to American Literature
CHAPTER 3
The Romantic period
The romantic movement originated in Germany spread to England and reached America around
1820. The New England Transcendentalists - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, Walt Whitman and their associates were the inspired by the romantic
spirit. The American romanticism stressed inspiration, spiritual and aesthetic
side of nature, value of common man and the idea of self. According to the
romantic theory self and nature are one. New words like self-realisation, self expression,
self reliance emerged.
Transcendentalism the transcendentalist movement stressed the
humanitarian trend of the 19 th century.
It was a reaction against 18 th century Rationalism. The movement was based on
a fundamental belief in the unity of world and God. The soul of each individual
was identified with the world. The Doctrine of the self-reliance and
individualism improved this idea.
Concord was the first rural artist’s colony. Emerson and Thoreau
practised simple living there. Transcendal club was organised in 1836. Its
members were Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Fuller, Channing, Bronson Alcott, and
Theodre Parker. They published the quarterly magazine 'The Dial'.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)
Emerson was a towering figure of his era. He had a religious sense
of mission. His philosophy was contradictory to religion.
His major ideas of new
national vision are the use of personal experience, the idea of cosmic over
soul and doctrine of compensation. His spiritual vision and writing make his
work effective. He got his spiritual ideas by reading eastern religion
especially, Hinduism, Confucianism and Islamic. In his poem Brahma he
introduces Brahma to the highest Hindu God to the American readers. Emerson has
influenced many American poets including Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace
Stevens, Hart crane and Robert Frost. He also influenced the philosophies of
John Dewey, George Santayana, Fredric Nietzsche and William James.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concorde and lives there
permanently. He led a simple life, according to his principles. He lived in
cabin property owned by Emerson. Be wrote his masterpiece "Walden or Life
in the Woods" in 1854. The book concentrates on the inner self of a human
being. His method of concentration resembles Asian meditation techniques. Like
Emerson and Thoreau he was influenced by Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. His
style is eclectic crystalline and richly metaphysical. In "Walden" he
tests the theories of transcendentalism. The essays of Thoreau surprised William
Butter Yeats, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. His idea of civil
disobedience, peaceful resistance and independence attracted them.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Walt Whitman was born in long Island, New York. He was a partime
carpenter and a man of people. His works reveal the democratic spirit of
America. He was largely self-taught. He left school at the age of 11 and so
missed the traditional education. His masterpiece is "Leaves of
Grass" which published in 1855. It contains the poem "Song of
myself" Whitman was inspired by Emerson's writings especially hi essay
"The Poet". "Leaves of grass" is full of concrete sights
and sounds. Whitman seems to project himself into everything he sees or
imagines. He considers himself as a mass man and at the same time a suffering
individual.
....I am the hounded slave, I wince
at the bite of the dogs.
I am the mash d fireman with
breast -bone broken.
Moreover Whitman imagines a democratic America with free
imagination in his poems. D.H.Lawrence called him the poet of the 'open road'.
Whitman's other poems are 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" "out of
the cradle” "Endlessly Rocking" and 'When lilacs in the Dooryard Bloom'd'. His another
important work in his essay Democratic Vistas (1871). In this work, he calls
for a new kind of literature to revive Americans. In his "Song of
Myself" he places the Romantic self at the centre of the poem.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
Thus Whitman imagines the
modern readers by his innovative ideas.
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was a radical individualist. She was born in
Amherst, Massa. She never married and led an unconventional life. She loved
nature and was deeply inspired by the New England countryside. She lived a life
of q recluse and had a sensitive psyche. She knew the Bible. The works of
Shakespeare and classical mythology deeply. Her poems were unpublished and
unknown in the nineteenth century. They were rediscovered in 1950's.
Dickinson's style is imagistic, modern and innovative. She
combines concrete things with abstract ideas in her compressed style. Her poems
are short and simple. They are sentimental and some are even heretical. She
celebrates the simple objects like flowers and bee. She explores the dark and
hidden part of the human mind. Her poems reveal a wide range of subjects and
her great intelligence. Her poems are known by the numbers in Thomas
H.Johnson's standard edition of 1955. She uses capitalisation and dashes in her
poems.
Dickinson proves herself as a non-conformist like Thoreau. She
reverses the meanings of words and phrases by using paradox.
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye
Much sense - the starkest madness.
'T is the majority.
Her wits is revealed in the poem
288. She ridicules ambition and public life.
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody Too?
Thus her poems are the most challenging and fascinating in American
literature.
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