American Literature in

the 19th century



Tatarenko D.,342
FAQ

 How did historical events affect
on American literature?

 After the American Revolution, and increasingly after
the War of 1812, American writers were exhorted to
produce a literature that was truly native. As if in
response, four authors of very respectable stature
appeared. William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving,
James Fenimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe initiated a
great half century of literary development.
 What literary period was
the 19th century?

 The 19th Century : Late Romanticism in Art
and Literature
 Definition of Romanticism: Romanticism (also the
Romantic era or the Romantic period) is an
artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that
originated in Europe toward the end of the
18th century and was at its peak in the
approximate period from 1800 to 1850.
 But why is 19th century
called realism?

 Realism as a movement in literature was a post-1848
phenomenon, according to its first theorist Jules-Français
Champfleury. ... 19th-century realism was in its turn a
reaction to Romanticism, and for this reason it is also
commonly derogatorily referred as traditional or
"bourgeois realism".
 What is the American
literary tradition?

 By the first decades of the 19th century, a truly American
literature began to emerge. Though still derived from
British literary tradition, the short stories and novels
published from 1800 through the 1820s began to depict
American society and explore the American landscape in
an unprecedented manner.
19-c.

 W.Bryant

 Bryant, a New Englander by birth, attracted
attention in his 23rd year when the first version
of his poem “Thanatopsis” (1817) appeared.
This, as well as some later poems, was written
under the influence of English 18th-century
poets. Still later, however, under the influence
of Wordsworth and other Romantics, he wrote
nature lyrics that vividly represented the New
England scene. Turning to journalism, he had a
long career as a fighting liberal editor of The
Evening Post. He himself was overshadowed,
in renown at least, by a native-born New
Yorker, Washington Irving.
 W.Irving

 Irving, the youngest member of a prosperous
merchant family, joined with ebullient young men
of the town in producing the Salmagundi papers
(1807–08), which satirized the foibles of
Manhattan’s citizenry. This was followed by A
History of New York (1809), by “Diedrich
Knickerbocker,” a burlesque history that mocked
pedantic scholarship and sniped at the old Dutch
families. Irving’s models in these works were
obviously Neoclassical English satirists, from
whom he had learned to write in a polished, bright
style. Later, having met Sir Walter Scott and having
become acquainted with imaginative German
literature, he introduced a new Romantic note in
The Sketch Book (1819–20), Bracebridge Hall
(1822), and other works. He was the first American
writer to win the ungrudging (if somewhat
surprised) respect of British critics.
 J.Cooper

 James Fenimore Cooper won even
wider fame. Following the pattern
of Sir Walter Scott’s “Waverley”
novels, he did his best work in the
“Leatherstocking” tales (1823–41),
a five-volume series celebrating the
career of a great frontiersman
named Natty Bumppo. His skill in
weaving history into inventive plots
and in characterizing his
compatriots brought him acclaim
not only in America and England
but on the continent of Europe as
well.
 E.Poe

 Edgar Allan Poe, reared in the South, lived and worked as an
author and editor in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Richmond, and New
York City. His work was shaped largely by analytical skill that
showed clearly in his role as an editor: time after time he gauged
the taste of readers so accurately that circulation figures of
magazines under his direction soared impressively. It showed
itself in his critical essays, wherein he lucidly explained and
logically applied his criteria. His gothic tales of terror were
written in accordance with his findings when he studied the most
popular magazines of the day. His masterpieces of terror—“The
Fall of the House of Usher” (1839), “The Masque of the Red
Death” (1842), “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846), and others—
were written according to a carefully worked out psychological
method. So were his detective stories, such as “The Murders in
the Rue Morgue” (1841), which historians credited as the first of
the genre. As a poet, he achieved fame with “The Raven” (1845).
His work, especially his critical writings and carefully crafted
poems, had perhaps a greater influence in France, where they
were translated by Charles Baudelaire, than in his own country.
 
 Transcendentalism is a philosophical and social movement that began around 1836, in New
England. However, before we delve into defining and comprehending this movement, it's
necessary for one to understand why it was developed. It was created as a rebellious reaction to
the previous Age of Reason, and its rationalist way of thinking. The original members of the
movement also believed society and its organized institutions (for example, religion and
politics) were corrupting the purity of individuals. The movement was created based on ideas
from a variety of sources, including Hindu texts, various other religious ideas, and German
idealism.

 Transcendentalism, as a whole, centered on the writings and teachings of American author

Ralph Waldo Emerson; it especially focused on his piece entitled, Self-Reliance.
Transcendentalists were some of the first known non-conformists in America, and thus they
critiqued contemporary society for its unthinking conformity. Through his writing, Emerson
urged everyone to find his own 'original relation to the universe.' Now that we have a better idea
why this movement was created, let's move on and focus on its core, essential values.

 The Transcendentalists

 Concord, Massachusetts, a village not far from Cambridge, was the home of leaders of
another important New England group. The way for this group had been prepared by the
rise of a theological system, Unitarianism, which early in the 19th century had replaced
Calvinism as the faith of a large share of the New Englanders. Ralph Waldo Emerson,
most famous of the Concord philosophers, started as a Unitarian minister but found even
that liberal doctrine too confining for his broad beliefs. He became a Transcendentalist
who, like other ancient and modern Platonists, trusted to insights transcending logic and
experience for revelations of the deepest truths. His scheme of things ranged from the
lowest objects and most practical chores to soaring flights of imagination and inspired
beliefs. His Essays (1841–44), Representative Men (1850), and English Traits (1856) were
thoughtful and poetic explanations of his beliefs; and his rough-hewn lyrics, packed with
thought and feeling, were as close to 17th-century Metaphysical poems as any produced in
his own time.

 Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, Orestes Brownson, Margaret Fuller, and Jones Very….
 Literary comedians

 Although they continued to employ some devices of the older
American humorists, a group of comic writers that rose to
prominence was different in important ways from the older
group. Charles Farrar Browne, David Ross Locke, Charles
Henry Smith, Henry Wheeler Shaw, and Edgar Wilson Nye
wrote, respectively, as Artemus Ward, Petroleum V. (for
Vesuvius) Nasby, Bill Arp, Josh Billings, and Bill Nye.
Appealing to a national audience, these authors forsook the
sectional characterizations of earlier humorists and assumed the
roles of less individualized literary comedians. The nature of
the humour thus shifted from character portrayal to verbal
devices such as poor grammar, bad spelling, and slang,
incongruously combined with Latinate words and learned
allusions. Most that they wrote wore badly, but thousands of
Americans in their time and some in later times found these
authors vastly amusing.
 Fiction and local colourists

 The first group of fiction writers to become popular—
the local colourists—took over to some extent the task
of portraying sectional groups that had been abandoned
by writers of the new humour. Bret Harte, first of these
writers to achieve wide success, admitted an
indebtedness to prewar sectional humorists, as did some
others; and all showed resemblances to the earlier
group. Within a brief period, books by pioneers in the
movement appeared: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Oldtown
Folks (1869) and Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside
Stories (1871), delightful vignettes of New England;
Harte’s Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches
(1870), humorous and sentimental tales of California
mining camp life; and Edward Eggleston’s Hoosier
Schoolmaster (1871), a novel of the early days of the
settlement of Indiana. Down into the 20th century, short
stories (and a relatively small number of novels) in
patterns set by these three continued to appear.