Romanticism and Realism in American Literature

Germany

Rationalism/Age of Reason

American Romanticism

Fireside Poets

A sense of innocence, a distrust of city life, and a need to go out into the natural world.

familiar subject matter

The American Wilderness

Irony

Satire

Gothic

Transcendentalism

Imagery

Slant Rhyme/oblique rhyme

Allegory

Paradox

Enjambment

Onomatopoeia

Alliteration

Contradiction

Figurative Language

Symbolism

Manifest Destiny

Industrial Revolution

Abolitionist Poets

Women’s Rights Poets

nationalism

Thanatopsis

Washington Irving

James Fenimore Cooper

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau

Anti-transcendentalists

1812

1824

1848

1828

Modern Gothic

The Romantic Hero

Years 1865 to 1900 have been called…

Last 40 years of the 19th century marked…

What contributed to these changes?

Changes were occurring rapidly in American Life, but ___________ in writing developed gradually.

Toward the century’s close that literature would honestly….

Between 1860 and 1900 there was … . Great fortunes were being made, and Americans became aware of the power of money.

In a popular lecture delivered by Rev. Russel H. Cornwell, he said many times, …

After the Civil War, America had unlimited promise in …, but there was a growing sense of social contrast.

Workers, even women and children, had long hours at the mills and factories while the rich lived…

At a time when a person could buy a complete meal in New York City for …, the Hatch family sat for a portrait at the going rate of $1,000 per person.

Harper’s Weekly honored … at a lavish banquet held for his birthday.

The dinner consisted of … courses

Undoubtedly, Mark Twain was the most important writer of the period, but he contributed to … in his own way so he was not a true realist.

Twain is renown as a humorist, social critic, and …

The setting for Twain’s books (Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer) was the … before 1850.

Twain left for the West at the outbreak of Civil War. He tried gold mining, newspaper writing, and wrote stories about …

Twain became friends with Bret Harte, who won acclaim with readers in the East. Harte’s story … tells how the gamblers were left to raise an orphan baby and named him Tommy Luck because he brought luck to the camp.

By the February of 1861, South Carolina and six other states had … from the Union. President Lincoln faced an open challenge to the Constitution.

The dead and wounded refuted the idea that war was romantic. … wrote about the Civil War in The Red Badge of Courage. Crane’s image for war was a machine. The industrial machine of the North helped end the War.

The War had accelerated …. By 1883 the Brooklyn Bridge opened. Entertainment changed from the serious lectures of Emerson to the humorous lectures as exemplified by Twain and Josh Billings.

Serious writers included … who was the leading advocate of realism. To Howells, realism meant telling the truth about life and recording its diverse aspects.

… were on the rise. They became large commercial ventures: there was a race for subscribers. New printing equipment helped newspapers expand. From 1880-1900 the number of newspaper subscribers increased twice as fast as the nation’s population.

Abuses were associated with the nation’s railroads because of _____. The biggest speculators in railroads included_____.

… wrote: “Maggies blossomed in a mud puddle.” Farm life was changing. The farmer was thought of in idealized terms. Hamlin Garland in A Son of the Middle Border wrote about women on the Midwestern prairies who had withered into complaining spinsterhood and ambitious youth who cursed the bondage of the farm.

… was leading Americans into a new century. By 1900 realism was firmly establish as an approach to writing in America, but would not achieve its literary heights until the 20th century.

James’ emphasis on artistic treatment in writing, as well as his involvement with the European theme, would find reflections in the literature of the …

Define Realism

In the first chapter of Huckleberry Finn Twain writes: “You don’t know about me without you have a read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that aint no matter. _____.”

… not realism was the outlook of the day. Huck and Jim floated down the Mississippi River on a raft in the starlight night.

Twain arrived in … when the gold rush was in its last stages. The famous story by Twain came from this period: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

Honest pictures of hardships in the West seldom reached readers in the East. Readers in the East wanted colorful adventures about gamblers, outlaws, and mining camps. Romantic adventures, however, lost their appeal _____r.

In April 1861, ….

In April 1865 ,….

… is what Twain called the punch line of his jokes. In the theater melodrama was at its height; the hero was saved just in the nick of time. Pulp literature which included nickel and dime novels became popular in the Luck and pluck Series by Horatio Alger.

In 1885 Howells wrote The Rise of Silas Latham. Howells also served as editor of _____.

The _____ was the primary source of daily information and could, therefore, influence public opinion. Howells and Twain exchanged letters often. In one letter from Twain to Howells, Twain wrote, after reading the morning newspaper, he spent the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of the human race.

By the last decade of the 19th century realists were taking a closer look at many aspects of American life. ….

Another leading realist was Frank Norris who wrote The Octopus. … As the 19th century came to an end, the position of farmers in American life was declining. There was also a smaller population living on farms while the city was becoming increasingly important.

Henry James was the most individual of the realist group of writers and was ahead of his times. … .”