American Romanticism

American Romanticism

1. Literary Works:

   • Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee, The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat,
   • James Russell Lowell: She Came and Went
   • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Cross of Snow
   • Washington Irving: The Devil and Tom Walker
   • William Cullen Bryant: Thanatopsis

2. Literary Devices

   • plot, setting, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, imagery, metaphor, simile, alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification, hyperbole, internal rhyme, external rhyme, allusion, theme

3. Characteristics of traditional American Romantic Writing

   • full of emotion, promotes love of nature and distrust of city life, creative, focuses on - idealism/natural goodness of man and the importance of self/individual freedom, reaction against the beliefs of the Rationalism - values feelings over reason, subjects included - love, death, humanity, patriotism (Fireside Poets popular), poetry valued as the highest form of the imagination
   • The Romantic Hero
     • young (or at least acts young), innocent and pure, sense of honor higher than society’s honor, has knowledge of people and life based on a deep understanding rather than education, loves nature, quests for a higher truth

4. Dark Romanticism

   • subgenre of American Romanticism, less optimistic about mankind/God/nature, features the bizarre/supernatural/macabre/mysterious/terrifying, themes often focus on the shortcomings/flaws of mankind