Notes
Romanticism
- American Romanticism (early to mid 1800s) values emotion, imagination, nature, the individual and the mysterious, as a reaction against strict reason and industrialization.
- Irving brought humor and folklore to the tale ("Sleepy Hollow," "Rip Van Winkle").
Transcendentalism
- Emerson: trust intuition, resist conformity, find truth in nature ("Self-Reliance," "Nature").
- Thoreau: live deliberately (Walden) and practice civil disobedience against injustice.
Dark Romanticism
- Poe explores guilt and madness with unreliable narrators, refrains and unity of effect.
- Hawthorne uses symbols and allegory to examine sin, secrecy and hypocrisy in Puritan settings.
- Both disagree with the optimism of Transcendentalism by emphasizing human flaws.
Topics in this unit
Each topic has its own short notes and practice.
Practice
Emerson's "Self-Reliance" argues for trusting oneself.
The narrator's claims clash with his actions, so readers doubt him.
This act inspired "Civil Disobedience."
Hawthorne's work often examines secret sin and hypocrisy.
"Young Goodman Brown" uses symbols and ambiguity.
Nature offered emotional and spiritual meaning for Romantic writers.
Free response
Write your answer first, then open the scoring guide.
Free-response question
Read this original passage: "Mara left the crowded town and climbed alone to the ridge. Below her the fields lay quiet, and the wind seemed to say that she did not need anyone's permission to be herself. She laughed, startled by the sound of her own voice."
(a) Identify two Romantic or Transcendentalist elements in the passage.
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The passage emphasizes nature (the ridge, the wind) and the individual who finds freedom and self-trust apart from society. Emotion and personal discovery are also central.
Check off the points you earned:
(b) Which author's ideas does this passage most resemble, Emerson or Poe? Explain.
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Emerson, because the passage celebrates self-reliance and independence from social pressure ("did not need anyone's permission to be herself"). Poe focuses on dark, troubled minds.
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(c) Rewrite one sentence of the passage so it reflects Dark Romanticism, and explain the change.
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Example: "Below her the fields lay silent as a graveyard, and the wind seemed to whisper that someone had followed her." The new version adds fear, suspicion and menace, which are features of Dark Romanticism, instead of freedom.
Check off the points you earned: