MODULE EL114- SURVEY OF ANGLO-AMERICAN LITERATURE

CHAPTER 8

Objectives:
a. Describe the major historical and cultural developments of the
Romantic period.
b. Illustrate the images and techniques by the Romantic literature writers;
c. Identify the features and themes of the writers during the Romantic
America

ROMANTIC AMERICA:
CULTURAL INDEPENDENCE

- As the American nation gained control of the

different states from coast to coast, American
literature moved towards maturity.
- This period, also known as the American
Renaissance or the American Romantic
Period, saw the development of
transcendentalism as espoused by Ralph
Waldo Emerson.
- This theory subscribes to the idea that all
people are united in their communion with
the soul and each individual finds his or her
own way to transcendence through self-
knowledge, self-reliance, and the

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contemplation of nature.
- The leading fiction writer of the period was Nathaniel Hawthorne whose works showed
deep psychological insight and probed into complex ethical problems.
- Another fiction writer of note was Herman Melville who wrote stories based on his
experience as a sailor. One of his best known novels is Moby Dick.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow belonged to a group known as the New England Brahmins
because the members were all aristocrats, all steeped in foreign culture, and all
professors at Harvard. In his narrative poems dealing with American history, Longfellow
adopted European methods of storytelling and versifying.
- The Fireside poets (also called the "schoolroom" or "household" poets) were the first
group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country.
- Today their verse may seem more Victorian in sensibility than romantic, perhaps overly
sentimental or moralizing in tone, but as a group they are notable for their scholarship,
political sensibilities, and the resilience of their lines and themes.
- (Most schoolchildren can recite a line or two from "Paul Revere's Ride" or The Song of
Hiawatha.)

The Dark Romantics-Gothic Literature

- The Gothic begins with later-eighteenth-century writers' turn to the past; in the context of
the Romantic period, the Gothic is, then, a type of imitation medievalism. When it was
launched in the later eighteenth century, The Gothic featured accounts of terrifying
experiences in ancient castles — experiences connected with subterranean dungeons,
secret passageways, flickering lamps, screams, moans, bloody hands, ghosts,
graveyards, and the rest

Edgar Allan Poe

- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), American poet, critic, short story writer, and author
of such macabre works as ―The Fall of the House of Usher‖ (1840).
- Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, critic and
editor best known for evocative short stories
and poems that captured the imagination
and interest of readers around the
world. His imaginative storytelling and
tales of mystery and horror gave birth
to the modern detective story.
- Many of Poe‘s works, including ―The
Tell-Tale Heart‖ and ―The Fall of the
House of Usher,‖ became literary classics.
Some aspects of Poe‘s life, like his literature, is
shrouded in mystery, and the lines between fact and fiction have been blurred
substantially since his death.

Early Life and Family

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- Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston,

Massachusetts.
- Poe never really knew his parents — Elizabeth
Arnold Poe, a British actress, and David Poe, Jr
- By the age of 13, Poe was a prolific poet, but his
literary talents were discouraged by his
headmaster and John Allan, who preferred that
Poe follow him in the family business. Preferring
poetry over profits, Poe reportedly wrote poems
on the back of some of Allan's business papers.
- Money was also an issue between Poe and John
Allan. Poe went to the University of Virginia in 1826, where he excelled in his classes.
However, he didn't receive enough funds from Allan to cover all of his costs. Poe turned
to gambling to cover the difference, but ended up in debt.
- He returned home only to face another personal setback — his neighbour and fiancée
Sarah Elmira Royster had become engaged to someone else. Heartbroken and
frustrated, Poe moved to Boston.
-

LITERARY READINGS:

The Song of Hiawatha [excerpt] "‘T is the night-wind in the pine-trees!"

"Look!" she said; "I see my father
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1807-1882 Standing lonely at his doorway,
Beckoning to me from his wigwam
The Death of Minnehaha In the land of the Dacotahs!"
"No, my child!" said old Nokomis,
All day long roved Hiawatha "‘T is the smoke, that waves and beckons!"
In that melancholy forest, "Ah!" said she, "the eyes of Pauguk
Through the shadow of whose thickets, Glare upon me in the darkness,
In the pleasant days of Summer, I can feel his icy fingers
Of that ne‘er forgotten Summer, Clasping mine amid the darkness!
He had brought his young wife homeward Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"
From the land of the Dacotahs; And the desolate Hiawatha,
When the birds sang in the thickets, Far away amid the forest,
And the streamlets laughed and glistened, Miles away among the mountains,
And the air was full of fragrance, Heard that sudden cry of anguish,
And the lovely Laughing Water Heard the voice of Minnehaha
Said with voice that did not tremble, Calling to him in the darkness,
"I will follow you, my husband!" "Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"
In the wigwam with Nokomis, Over snow-fields waste and pathless,
With those gloomy guests that watched her, Under snow-encumbered branches,
With the Famine and the Fever, Homeward hurried Hiawatha,
She was lying, the Beloved, Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
She, the dying Minnehaha. Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing:
"Hark!" she said; "I hear a rushing, "Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
Hear a roaring and a rushing, Would that I had perished for you,
Hear the Falls of Minnehaha Would that I were dead as you are!
Calling to me from a distance!" Wahonowin! Wahonowin!"
"No, my child!" said old Nokomis, And he rushed into the wigwam,
Saw the old Nokomis slowly

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Rocking to and fro and moaning, For her soul upon its journey
Saw his lovely Minnehaha To the Islands of the Blessed.
Lying dead and cold before him, From his doorway Hiawatha
And his bursting heart within him Saw it burning in the forest,
Uttered such a cry of anguish, Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks;
That the forest moaned and shuddered, From his sleepless bed uprising,
That the very stars in heaven From the bed of Minnehaha,
Shook and trembled with his anguish Stood and watched it at the doorway,
Then he sat down, still and speechless, That it might not be extinguished,
On the bed of Minnehaha, Might not leave her in the darkness.
At the feet of Laughing Water, "Farewell!" said he, "Minnehaha!
At those willing feet, that never Farewell, O my Laughing Water!
More would lightly run to meet him, All my heart is buried with you,
Never more would lightly follow. All my thoughts go onward with you!
With both hands his face he covered, Come not back again to labor,
Seven long days and nights he sat there, Come not back again to suffer,
As if in a swoon he sat there, Where the Famine and the Fever
Speechless, motionless, unconscious Wear the heart and waste the body.
Of the daylight or the darkness. Soon my task will be completed,
Then they buried Minnehaha; Soon your footsteps I shall follow
In the snow a grave they made her, To the Islands of the Blessed,
In the forest deep and darksome, To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
Underneath the moaning hemlocks; To the Land of the Hereafter!"
Clothed her in her richest garments,
Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,
Covered her with snow, like ermine; Reference: [Link]
Thus they buried Minnehaha. hiawatha-excerpt
And at night a fire was lighted,
On her grave four times was kindled,

For more information and knowledge about the Romantic America period
please visit the following links:
[Link]
[Link]
- [Link]

Reference:
Language In Literature- Anglo-American Literature-Arkaina et. al., Vibal Group, Inc.

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THE PORTRAITS OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

1860-1865

- As the years went on, differences

among sections within the United
States came up. Influenced by the
different factors like topography,
climate, and most especially different
sources of wealth, the conflict between
the North and South deepened.
- The North exemplified the ways of
life in great cities while the South
typified the plant managers and
farm laborers. Earlier, slaves had
been brought to the colonies.
- The North did not need them for
their farms were small and their

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facto- ries required only skilled workers.

- The South, however, with its huge tracts of land under cultivation, needed more hands.
In the production of cotton, for example, slaves could do the laborious work of picking
and cleaning by hand, for at that time the cotton gin which separates cotton fiber from
the seeds had not yet been invented.
- So the South defended slavery while the North criticized it more and more earnestly and
wanted its abolition. The conflict eventually led to a Civil War.
- The war so engrossed everyone's attention that most of the literature written came in the
form of speeches and letters which tried to persuade, exhort, or explain. From the cotton
fields, the spiritual songs being sung by the slaves took on richer meaning.
- The Civil War in the United States began in 1861, after decades of simmering tensions
between northern and southern states over slavery, states‘ rights and westward
expansion.
- The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede and
form the Confederate States of America; four more states soon joined them.
- The War Between the States, as the Civil War was also known, ended in Confederate
surrender in 1865.
- The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American soil, with
some 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more injured and much of the
South left in ruin.

CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR

- In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous
growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country‘s northern and
southern regions.
- In the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was
mostly limited to small-scale farms, while the South‘s economy was based on a system
of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of Black enslaved people to grow
certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco.
- Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to
slavery‘s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the
existence of slavery in America—and thus the backbone of their economy—was in
danger.
- Did you know? Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson earned his famous
nickname, "Stonewall," from his steadfast defensive efforts in the First Battle of Bull Run
(First Manassas). At Chancellorsville, Jackson was shot by one of his own men, who
mistook him for Union cavalry. His arm was amputated, and he died from pneumonia
eight days later.
- In 1854, the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which essentially opened
all new territories to slavery by asserting the rule of popular sovereignty over
congressional edict.
- Pro- and anti-slavery forces struggled violently in ―Bleeding Kansas,‖ while opposition to
the act in the North led to the formation of the Republican Party, a new political entity
based on the principle of opposing slavery‘s extension into the western territories.
- After the Supreme Court‘s ruling in the Dred Scott case (1857) confirmed the legality of
slavery in the territories, the abolitionist John Brown‘s raid at Harper‘s Ferry in 1859
convinced more and more southerners that their northern neighbors were bent on the
destruction of the ―peculiar institution‖ that sustained them.

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- Abraham Lincoln‘s election in November

1860 was the final straw, and within three
months seven southern states–South
Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, G
eorgia, Louisiana and Texas–had
seceded from the United States.
OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR (1861)

- Even as Lincoln took office in March

1861, Confederate forces threatened the
federal-held Fort Sumter in Charleston,
South Carolina. On April 12, after Lincoln
ordered a fleet to resupply Sumter,
Confederate artillery fired the first shots of
the Civil War. Sumter‘s commander,
Major Robert Anderson, surrendered after
less than two days of bombardment,
leaving the fort in the hands of
Confederate forces under Pierre G.T. Beauregard. Four more southern states–
Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee –joined the Confederacy after Fort
Sumter. Border slave states like Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland did not secede, but
there was much Confederate sympathy among their citizens.

- Though on the surface the Civil War may have seemed a lopsided conflict, with the 23
states of the Union enjoying an enormous advantage in population, manufacturing
(including arms production) and railroad construction, the Confederates had a strong
military tradition, along with some of the best soldiers and commanders in the nation.
They also had a cause they believed in: preserving their long-held traditions and
institutions, chief among these being slavery.

- In the First Battle of Bull Run (known in the South as First Manassas) on July 21, 1861,
35,000 Confederate soldiers under the command of Thomas Jonathan ―Stonewall‖
Jackson forced a greater number of Union forces (or Federals) to retreat
towards Washington, D.C., dashing any hopes of a quick Union victory and leading
Lincoln to call for 500,000 more recruits.

LITERARY READINGS

Battle-Hymn of the Republic

BY JULIA W ARD HOW E

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

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I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His Day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:

―As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.‖

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

For more information and knowledge about the American civil War
please visit the following links:
[Link]
[Link]
-
[Link]

References:
Language In Literature- Anglo-American Literature-Arkaina et. al., Vibal Group, Inc.

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