UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO

FACULDADE DE LETRAS
NARRATIVA EM LÍNGUA INGLESA I – 2018.1

AMERICAN ROMANTICISM (1820-1860)

The movement

- A period of national expansion and the search/discovery of a distinctive voice.

- “In this period, a new emphasis was placed upon the imaginative and emotional
qualities of literature, a liking for the picturesque, the exotic, the sensuous, the
sensational, the supernatural and remote past was fostered, and an increasing attention
to the psychic states of their characters was paid, and above all, the individual and the
common man was exalted.” (Available at
http://www2.sdfi.edu.cn/netclass/jiaoan/englit/amlit/romanticism.htm)

Transcendentalism

- Transcendentalism: “A New England movement which flourished from 1835 to

1860. It had its roots in Romanticism and in post-Kantian idealism by which Coleridge
was influenced. (...) Basically religious, it emphasized the role and importance of the
individual conscience, and the value of intuition in matters of moral guidance and
inspiration.” [rather than religious dogma or laws of society] (CUDDONS, 1999,
p.936)

- As a movement, Transcendentalism is closely connected with the ideals of British

Romanticism, even though the latter had already come to an end when the former
started. Some