Romanticism Unit 1800-1860
Tuesday, January 7th
1. Overview of Semester and New Daily Classwork Procedures
2. vocab: Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Rationalism, Idealism, Predestination
3. journal: A day in the Life of the Romantic period 1800-1860 (Washington D.C. capitol established, Gold Rush, Westward expansion, invention of cotton gin, New York Times Printing Press, Louisiana Purchase, Trail of Tears, Education Reform, Social Rights Movements Begin...)
4. Read: "American Romanticism" (p. 136-149)
**NOTES from Holt textbook article:
American Romanticism: 1800-1860**
Before American Romanticism
Puritans: (1600’s)
HOMEWORK: Write: Essential Questions: (1 page minimum)
A. Characteristics of the Light vs. Dark Romantics - How were they reacting in different ways to the same cultural context?
B. What political, social, and economic events shaped Romanticism?
1. Overview of Semester and New Daily Classwork Procedures
2. vocab: Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Rationalism, Idealism, Predestination
3. journal: A day in the Life of the Romantic period 1800-1860 (Washington D.C. capitol established, Gold Rush, Westward expansion, invention of cotton gin, New York Times Printing Press, Louisiana Purchase, Trail of Tears, Education Reform, Social Rights Movements Begin...)
4. Read: "American Romanticism" (p. 136-149)
**NOTES from Holt textbook article:
American Romanticism: 1800-1860**
Before American Romanticism
Puritans: (1600’s)
- Broad tem referring to Protestant groups that sought to ‘purify’ the Church of England starting around 1560.
- Thought religion should be a personal, inner experience
- Wanted to return to a simpler form of worship
- Persecuted in England (noses slit, ears chopped off, whipped & jailed, etc.) = journey to “The New World” in 1620
- Philosophy centered on doubt: humanity is damned for all eternity because of Adam & Eve’s sin = unregenerate / damned. BUT, God is merciful (ergo Jesus) = elect / saved
- You couldn’t know if you were elect or unregenerate. Theology was clear about what would happen to saints & sinners but it was fuzzy about who was who
- Puritan values developed as a way to try to become elect / saved:
- Self-reliance
- Industriousness
- Temperance
- Simplicity
- Enlightenment
- Rationalism: belief that human beings can arrive at truth by using reason rather than religion, past authority, or intuition.
- Rationalist values:
- Arrive at truth using reason
- God created universe but does not interfere with its workings
- World operates according to God’s rules & people can discover those rules using reason
- People are basically good
- You can worship God best by helping other people
- American Romanticism
- Developed as a reaction to rationalism in light of the Industrial Revolution
- To rationalists, the city was place of success, prosperity, & self-realization
- To romantics, the city becomes a place of shifting morals, corruption, & death
- The imagination was able to discover truths that the rational mind could not reach; favors intuition over reason
- Romantics didn’t reject logic completely; for art, the emotional, ‘felt’ experience was key
- Poetry vs. Science
- Youthful innocence vs. educated sophistication
- Individual freedom
- Developed as a reaction to rationalism in light of the Industrial Revolution
- Romantic Escapism & Nature:
- Rise above ‘dull realities’ to a realm of higher truth
- Searched for exotic settings (nature, away from cities, folklore, etc.)
- Reflect on the natural world to find Big-B-Beauty (and Big-T-Truth)
- In nature, the ordinary becomes EXTRAordinary / SUPERnatural
- Nature could provide sense in a chaotic world
- Nature was the key to God
- Symbolism is EVERYWHERE in nature
- How many times have you found perfection walking down SHS’s halls? Never! That’s because you’re indoors – go outdoors to nature. Therein lies truth and beauty (so thought the Romantics).
- Contemplation of nature = emotional and intellectual awakening
- Wilderness & the Frontier
- America = limitless frontiers, westward expansion = idealization of frontier life
- Frontier is the physical division between civilization & wilderness
- Frontier = create your own identity
- American Romantic Hero:
- Young / youthful qualities
- Sense of honor based on some higher principal but not on society’s rules
- Has knowledge of people based on intuition – not on education
- Loves nature – avoids towns
- Quests for higher truth in natural world
- Uneasy with women = domesticity
- James Finimore Cooper’s Natty Bumppo (Last of the Mohicans)
- Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau
- Transcendental: to know the ultimate reality of God, the universe, and the self, one must transcend, or go beyond, everyday experiences in the physical world
- Roots in idealism: Plato (400 BC) True reality is found in ideas rather than the world perceived by the senses
- Believed in human perfectability
- Transcendental Values:
- Everything in the world is a reflection of the Divine Soul
- Physical world is a doorway to the spiritual or ideal world
- Use intuition, the capacity to know things immediately through our emotions, to behold God in nature (or God within)
- Self-reliance & individualism vs. external authority & blind conformity to tradition
- Spontaneous feelings superior to deliberate rationality (heart over mind)
- Dark Romantics: Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville
- Anti-Transcenentalists: didn’t believe that the “Truths” of nature were good and harmless
- Explore conflict between good & evil
- Explore the psychological effects of guilt & sin
- Explore the madness of the human psyche
- Believed that horror & evil resided behind the facade of social respectability
- “Fathers of Psychology”
- Characterized by horror, tragedy, macabre, supernatural, & the Gothic
HOMEWORK: Write: Essential Questions: (1 page minimum)
A. Characteristics of the Light vs. Dark Romantics - How were they reacting in different ways to the same cultural context?
B. What political, social, and economic events shaped Romanticism?
Thursday, Jan. 9th
1. vocab: tone, mood, archetype, stagnant, superflous, impregnable, parsimony, avarice, obliterate, precarious
3. journal: Stories/Myths about the Devil
4. Read: "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving (p. 151)
HOMEWORK: Write: Essential Questions: (1 page minimum, using examples from "The Devil and Tom Walker" and any other texts you want to quote)
A. Why do we see recurring archetypes across time?
B. How do tone and connotations create a mood in a text?
1. vocab: tone, mood, archetype, stagnant, superflous, impregnable, parsimony, avarice, obliterate, precarious
3. journal: Stories/Myths about the Devil
4. Read: "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving (p. 151)
HOMEWORK: Write: Essential Questions: (1 page minimum, using examples from "The Devil and Tom Walker" and any other texts you want to quote)
A. Why do we see recurring archetypes across time?
B. How do tone and connotations create a mood in a text?
Tuesday, January 14th
1. vocab: palpable, tangible, intangible, tacit, efface
2. journal: Cycles of Nature and of Humanity
3. Go over "The Devil and Tom Walker" - Reading Questions 2-10 & Lit Analysis
4. Analogies
5. Read "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
6. Answer Questions about the poem, "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls"
HOMEWORK: Sit in nature and write a page of descriptive imagery/philosophy
1. vocab: palpable, tangible, intangible, tacit, efface
2. journal: Cycles of Nature and of Humanity
3. Go over "The Devil and Tom Walker" - Reading Questions 2-10 & Lit Analysis
4. Analogies
5. Read "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
6. Answer Questions about the poem, "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls"
HOMEWORK: Sit in nature and write a page of descriptive imagery/philosophy
Thursday, Jan 16th
1. vocab: admonishing, analogy, occult, perennial, blithe
2. journal: Complete Reading Questions from "The Devil and Tom Walker"
- Reading Questions 2-10 & Lit Critique
3. Analogies
4. Read Biography: Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. Read excerpt from "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
HOMEWORK: Reply to one or both of the following questions in a total of one page: (use examples from 3 texts)
A. How can we characterize an author by reading their works?
B. How can we characterize a text by looking at the elements of its genre/literary period?
1. vocab: admonishing, analogy, occult, perennial, blithe
2. journal: Complete Reading Questions from "The Devil and Tom Walker"
- Reading Questions 2-10 & Lit Critique
3. Analogies
4. Read Biography: Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. Read excerpt from "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
HOMEWORK: Reply to one or both of the following questions in a total of one page: (use examples from 3 texts)
A. How can we characterize an author by reading their works?
B. How can we characterize a text by looking at the elements of its genre/literary period?
Friday, Jan. 17th
1. vocab: idiom, creed, encumbrance, impervious, temporal, effete, derision,
2. journal: Self-Reliance: A. What is self-reliance, why is it important, and how does it play a role in your life? B. Examples of Idioms
3. Review: from "Nature"
4. Read: from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
HOMEWORK: Complete Response and Analysis questions for Emerson Readings (p. 187)
1. vocab: idiom, creed, encumbrance, impervious, temporal, effete, derision,
2. journal: Self-Reliance: A. What is self-reliance, why is it important, and how does it play a role in your life? B. Examples of Idioms
3. Review: from "Nature"
4. Read: from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
HOMEWORK: Complete Response and Analysis questions for Emerson Readings (p. 187)
Tuesday, Jan. 21st
1. vocab: A) juxtaposition, diction, paradox, proverb, infringe
B) expedient, posterity, alacrity, eradication, insurrection, penitent, impetuous
2. journal: When is resistance to government beneficial? When does government infringe upon individual rights?
3. Read: from "Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau
HOMEWORK: one page minimum:
A. Using ethos, pathos, and logos, in an expository essay, describe a way in which you would oppose a governmental injustice.
1. vocab: A) juxtaposition, diction, paradox, proverb, infringe
B) expedient, posterity, alacrity, eradication, insurrection, penitent, impetuous
2. journal: When is resistance to government beneficial? When does government infringe upon individual rights?
3. Read: from "Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau
HOMEWORK: one page minimum:
A. Using ethos, pathos, and logos, in an expository essay, describe a way in which you would oppose a governmental injustice.
Thursday, Jan 23rd
1. vocab: imperceptible, tumultuous, insuperable, prostrate, avert
2. journal: Fears: Describe your fears and your images associated with it
3. Review: from "Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau
4. Read Biography of Edgar Allan Poe p. 253
5. Read: "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe
HOMEWORK: Finish reading "The Pit and the Pendulum"
1. vocab: imperceptible, tumultuous, insuperable, prostrate, avert
2. journal: Fears: Describe your fears and your images associated with it
3. Review: from "Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau
4. Read Biography of Edgar Allan Poe p. 253
5. Read: "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe
HOMEWORK: Finish reading "The Pit and the Pendulum"
Tuesday, January 28th
1. vocab: penitent, placid, ominous
2. journal: Reading Questions: "The Pit and the Pendulum"
2. quiz: "The Pit and the Pendulum"
3. Read: "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
4. Review the Romanic Characteristics & Texts we have read
HOMEWORK: Write a poem/short story/essay in the Romantic style - Dark or Light
Study for a VOCAB TEST on Romantic words for Thursday:
Link to Vocab Study Site
1. vocab: penitent, placid, ominous
2. journal: Reading Questions: "The Pit and the Pendulum"
2. quiz: "The Pit and the Pendulum"
3. Read: "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
4. Review the Romanic Characteristics & Texts we have read
HOMEWORK: Write a poem/short story/essay in the Romantic style - Dark or Light
Study for a VOCAB TEST on Romantic words for Thursday:
Link to Vocab Study Site
Thursday, January 30th
1. VOCAB TEST
2. Review for Romanticism TEST
3. Work on Essay Outline, finding textual examples
Homework: Study for a test on Romanticism - characteristics, texts, authors.
Complete Essay outline to use on test
1. VOCAB TEST
2. Review for Romanticism TEST
3. Work on Essay Outline, finding textual examples
Homework: Study for a test on Romanticism - characteristics, texts, authors.
Complete Essay outline to use on test
Friday, January 31st
TEST ON ROMANTICISM!!! Know the characteristics of the genre and the cultural context that set the scene for this literary movement (detailed in bullet points at top of this page)
Know the following texts, their authors, and what they are saying about society in the 1800s
"The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving
"The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
from "Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau
"The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
Essay Question: How do the Romantic authors comment upon the society in which they live? Use examples from ALL of the above texts
TEST ON ROMANTICISM!!! Know the characteristics of the genre and the cultural context that set the scene for this literary movement (detailed in bullet points at top of this page)
Know the following texts, their authors, and what they are saying about society in the 1800s
"The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving
"The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
from "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
from "Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau
"The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
Essay Question: How do the Romantic authors comment upon the society in which they live? Use examples from ALL of the above texts