AMERICAN LITERATURE / JANOSCO
American Romanticism
Some Useful History
The word “roman” was used in Old French to both signify that Old French is derived from Latin, and, at
the same time, to distinguish it as a language that was separate from Latin. (French, of course, is today
classified as one of the “romance” languages, a term that signifies its relationship to Latin.)
Over time, the word “romance” began to be applied to any work written in French. Since the dominant
tales of Old French literature involved knights and their chivalric exploits, the word “romance” began to
be used to describe these stories.
In most European countries, the word “roman” is today used to signify what in English we call the
“novel.” For these cultures, this term links the idea of the “novel” with those tales of legendary and
imaginative material (i.e. knights and damsels) mentioned above.
The distinction between the two terms in English—romance and novel—goes back to debates from the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this period, the “romance” was seen as a highly imaginative and
poetic representation of experience, while the “novel” was seen as a depiction of common people and
normal actions. Thus, the “romance,” as a literary genre, has come to signify a long tale that features:
exotic settings removed in time and space (“She had flourished during the period between the
early days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth century.”);
imaginatively improbable events (“A wolf, it is said … came up, and smelt of Pearl’s robe, and
offered his savage head to be patted by her hand.”);
wild displays of passionate feelings (“O Arthur, forgive me! In all things else, I have striven to be
true!”);
mysterious or supernatural occurrences (“Others contended that the stigma had not been
produced until … a potent necromancer had caused it to appear through the agency of magic and
poisonous drugs.”).
In a word, the romance is mostly free from anything remotely considered as “verisimilitude,” or “the
appearance of being true or real.”
So keep in mind that the very meaning of the word “romance” evokes an argument in the literary arts
concerned with the merits of “idealized” human experience versus “true or real” human experience.
Romanticism
Some of the characteristics associated with the “romance” are, of course, also associated with the literary
period called “romanticism.”
As many of you have already noticed, “romanticism” is in many ways an artistic movement that is
reactionary. Neoclassicism—with its emphasis on rules, order, heroic subjects, restraint, elevated diction,
witty observations, serious tone, and didactic purposes—came to be seen as a barrier to personal artistic
expression.
In reaction, the literary artists that we now call “romantics” completely redefined the role of the literary
artist and the role of literary art.
AMERICAN LITERATURE / JANOSCO
No longer would a poet look to imitate the classics in the name of creating great poetry. The English
romantic poet William Wordsworth, in the 1802 preface to his (and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s) collection
of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads, called for a revolutionary new type of poetry. This new poetry would
refrain from “elevated diction” and instead be based on the “real language of men.” This new poetry,
according to Wordsworth, would arise out of “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from
emotions recollected in tranquility.”
And where would this new type of poet encounter the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”? You
know the answer: in the darkly mysterious holy sanctuary of nature. Many of the romantics, much like
the American hippies of the 1960s, rejected the “civilized” world and sought the spiritual teachings of
nature. (There are other parallels to the American 1960s. One of Coleridge’s most famous poems is a
“fragment” he recorded after having sprung awake from a drug-induced dream. “Taking his pen, ink,
and paper, [he] instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines” exactly as they had appeared to him in the
dream.)
Once an idle pursuit of sophisticated “men of letters” (think Joel Barlow), narratives and poetry now
became the domain of the visionary “literary artist.” Many of them, like the character of Rip Van Winkle,
sought solitude and inspiration in the wilds. Surrounded by nature’s sublime beauty, these artists wanted
to give individual expression to feelings inspired by nature. And since the purpose of their verses would
be to express individual feelings, they did so in a language more personal than what was then
traditionally seen as “poetic”—one meant for a broad audience of “real” people.
American Romanticism (1820-1865)
Though these ideas (along with others that were derived elsewhere in Europe) had a profound influence
on the literary arts in America, the “romantic period” in this country evokes additional ideas and
characteristics. In general, American romanticism encompasses:
a desire to idealize the mysteries, dangers, and holiness found within nature;
a related desire to find solace and escape within uncommodified nature;
another related desire to idealize primitive (“natural”) cultures and primitive people;
yet another related desire to idealize the American past (in lieu of a classical past);
in pursuing these desires, romantic authors crafted literary work that is highly imaginative,
features exotic settings, tends to privilege the individualistic “anti-hero” to that of the
traditional hero or the group, employs a less pretentious language than neoclassical antecedents,
and features many wild displays of emotional outpourings.
You should see Gothicism and transcendentalism as movements related to that of romanticism.
Questions You Will Need To Answer
1.
What do you suppose are the forces, philosophies, movements, and problems within early
nineteenth-century American society that give rise to the desires listed above?
2.
How might new modes of production in the American publishing industry play a role in the
establishment and spread of this new literary movement?
3.
How is the role of the writer and poet changing within American culture? To whom did he owe
his allegiances before, and to whom does he owe them now?
4.
Is it truly possible for a literary artist of “individual talent” to forgo literary “tradition”?
5.
In what ways might the act of “idealizing” a person, place, time, or thing produce negative effects
for the idealized subject?
6.
What is the relationship between the individual imagination of a human being and God?