Lesson 3.01: Oh, What a Feeling!

According to Merriam-Webster, Romanticism is a style of art and literature during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that emphasized the imagination and emotions.

Think about what was happening in history during this time period. In the early 1800s, a Frenchman named Vente de la Louisiana sold 828,000 square miles of the area known now as Louisiana, making that the biggest land deal in U.S. history. Then in the 1820s, there was an Education Reform trying to reduce the expense of education. And in the mid-1800s, tens of thousands Americans sought fortune in the Gold Rush. People raced to California to find gold in the mountains and the streams. America was beginning to boom.

As you have learned, individuals were trying to reach out and grasp independence. Romanticism, however, was shifting gears to the use of imagination, intuition, idealism, inspiration, and individuality. In Unit 3, you will explore how American literature began to form a new identity through Romanticism.

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What does it mean to call something Romantic?

Read the six sentences below to determine if you believe the statements have Romantic qualities. Write on a piece of paper the word yes, if you believe the statement has Romantic qualities or no, if you believe the statement does not have Romantic qualities.

1. The answers to life's most puzzling questions can be found through discussion with a simple person who lives in the country close to nature - not with a sophisticated, well-educated person from the city.
2. The use of one's imagination is more important than rational thought.
3. Knowledge is gained through gut reactions and subjective hunches rather than level-headed, objective, deductive thought.
4. Nature is more important than art.
5. Poetry should be spontaneous and full of emotion, not planned and straightforward.
6. Sensitivity, feelings, and spontaneity are more important than intellectualism.

Tally up your responses. Count the number you answered with yes.

• If you answered 1 or 2 with yes; you are not Romantic.
• If you answered 3 with yes, you are sort of Romantic.
• If you answered 4 with yes, you are highly Romantic.
• If you answered 5 or 6 with yes, you are extremely Romantic.

Each of those statement contains an aspect of literary Romanticism.

Watch the presentation What is Romanticism? to learn about Romanticism and some major American Romantic writers.

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