Romanticism

• Romanticism started in Europe/Germany
• William Wordsworth was considered the leader of European Romantic poets
• Dr. Murdock loves the poet George Gordon/Lord Bryon
• American Romanticism

  • The ultimate reality isn't located in the universe, but rather it exists in the human mind
• The most important part of the mind in this period was the Imagination
• Imagination

  • Individual
  • The Subjective
  • Feelings
  • Emotions
• Never say that the Romantics didn't say there isn't any importance to the physical
• How the imagination works

  1. The imagination perceives an object
  2. It then breaks the object down into it's component parts
  3. The individual rearranges those parts
  4. The rearranged parts constitute reality
• Dark Romanticism: If the imagination goes too far, it can become really bad
• Important things about Washington Irving

  1. He's America's first professional writer/poet and was viewed around the world as uniquely American
  2. He's the father of the short story
  3. He's our first great humorous and satirist writer
  4. He never lost his love for humanity F
  5. He introduces the Goth Tales of Horror
  6. He began the task of creating an awareness of a unique American past
  7. It's the past that determines who we are
• To make facts from the past you need two things

  1. History
  2. Folklore
• Famous works from Irving

  • A History of New York(1809)
  • Pen name: Diedrich Knickerbocker
  • The Sketch Book(1820)
  • A series of short stories
  • Pen name: Geoffrey Crayon
  • 32 tales
  • 20 of them were set in England
  • 4 of them were set America
  • Tales of a Traveller(1824)
  • Framescale structure
• Three types of Gothic tales

  1. Supernatural
  2. Explained: The events that were thought to be real are given natural explanations
  3. Ambiguous: The writer doesn't make it clear wether the events in the story are really supernatural or things that have rational explanations
• Irving was the first writer to emphasize that the most important component of a story is its effect

  • Effect: Feeling and atmosphere
• Irving used humor to bring the readers back to reality
• The Author's Account of Himself

  • Written by Washington Irving
  • From the Sketchbook
  • Romanticism wants us to extend the range of our observations
  • Terra incognita: The unknown(unexplored) Earth
  • America doesn't have enough history like other countries
  • Do American writers hold against their own when comparing to other countries
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

  • Written Washington Irving
  • Irving creates a believable effect
  • Tarrytown
  • He uses certain words to create imagery
  • He likes the quiet valley of Sleepy Hollow
  • Irving uses facts and fables to build a past for Sleepy Hollow
  • Sleepy Hollow folks are superstitious
• Sublime: Contracy emotions of attraction and revolting at the same time.