American literature: Romanticism in America

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Romanticism in America
Romanticism is a movement in literature and art between 19th century and 18th century during the revolt against the previous century`s Neoclassicism. There are various characteristics of romanticism literature ranging from its emphasis on individualism and subjectivity; freedom from stipulated rules; spontaneity; beliefs that imagination is a devotion to beauty and superior to reason; life in solitary rather than society life; the fascination with history, especially with the mysticism and myths of the middle ages; and worship and love of nature. Initially, the literature of romanticism referred to the romances characteristics, whose profligacy carried pejorative connotation in some way. The term however came to assign another type of exotic landscape in the 18th century that evoked the melancholy pleasant feelings. Throughout the early 19th century, romanticism remained an intellectual and artistic movement that is characterized by individual focus on the freedom from political restraints and social conventions, on the nature and human imagination in a typically idealized form. However, most of the romantic authors had special interest in particular culture within the middle ages (Christensen 141-144). This paper therefore seeks to discuss the characteristics of romanticism and the work of literature "liberty leading the people".
Romanticism is particularly concerned with much of emotion than mere rationality. It put a lot of value on individuals more than it does to the society in general, and values nature over the city. Romanticism questions rules, social protocol and conventions. It figures out humanity as living in nature in form of a morally superior and a civilized humanity. The literature of romanticism conceives children by nature as those corrupted by their nature of surroundings. It focuses on the expression of individual and personal emotions. Romanticism was not only evident in the literature in the 19th centuries, but also exhibited in music, art and architecture. The American Romanticism was influenced by the frontier promises of growth, expansion, and freedom. However, this spirit of optimism was not in Europe. Imagination led to emergence of the new perspectives and culture (Richardson 14-17). Generally, romanticism has the following characteristics:
* Static characters with no development
* The setting and the characters are set apart from the general society
* Mysterious, incomprehensible, and irrational universe
* Causality gap
* A formal language
* Silences within the text showing universals instead of truths
* Justice for the good
* A plot that demonstrates honor and integrity, romantic love, and self idealism
* Supernatural visions
The primary aim of romanticism included things like: belief in the humanity goodness and return to nature; the exaltation of emotions and the senses over intellect and reason; the nationalistic pride development; and the discovery of artists like a supreme creator of individual. Nevertheless, romanticism was particularly a revolt of philosophy against rationalism (Richardson 21-26). The authors have demolished the philosophy of the rationalists of the Enlightenment, which are its self evident truth, its natural rights, and its immutable and universal laws of morality. The Transcendentalist authors have, through their characters, conveyed the power of the intellect in the period of Enlightenment, and also mentioned the limitation of the reason (Elbert 27-28). The...