American literature 1800-1890

American literature 1800-1890
Nationalism: a call for a national literature
Three different points of view:
1. One wanted books that expressed special characters of the nation, not books which were based on European literature.
2. Another group felt that American literature was too young to declare it’s independence from the British literary tradition.
3. The third group felt that the call for a national literature was a mistake. To them, good literature was universal, always rising above time and place where it was written.

Novels
* Novels were the first popular literature of the newly independent United States.
* There were almost no American novels written before the revolution
*The Novel was considered dangerous form of literature by the American Puritans. Novels put “immoral” ideas in the heads of young people.

Modern Chivalry (1792) by Hugh Henry Brackenridge. He wanted to achieve a reform in morals and manners of the people


Brockden Brown (Wieland): had the ability to describe complicated and often cruel minds. Wrote psychological gothic novels.

Washington Irving: Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.



An American Renaissance:
In the 1830s and 1840s there was a call for the “new spiritual era.” The young intellectuals of Boston were dissatisfied with the old patriotism. America’s power and wealth did not interest them. They wanted to explore the inner life. They studied the Greek, German, and Indian philosophers. Many kept diaries about their life and feelings. Others became vegetarians and nudists.
Transcendentalism: a movement of feeling and beliefs rather than a system of philosophy. Transcendentalist rejected both the conservative Puritanism of their ancestors and the newer, liberal faith of Unitarianism (a branch of Christian church which does not believe in the Trinity [the union of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one God].)
They saw both religions as “negative, cold, lifeless.” Although they respected Christ for the wisdom of his teachings, they thought of the works of Shakespeare and the great philosophers as equally important.
The Transcendentalists tried to find the truth through feeling and intuition rather than through logic. They found God everywhere, in man and nature. In many ways nature was their Bible:

Sea, earth, air, sound, silence
Plant, quadruped, bird
By one music enchanted,
One deity stirred.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Major literary figures:
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882):
He founded the “Transcendental Club.” It’s magazine, The Dial, was the true voice of their thought and feelings.
and Henry David Thoreau
The Transcendentalists divided into two groups:
1. Those who were interested in social reform
2. Those interested in the individual (such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau).