Romanticism sprung from its times. After the time of classism and Calvinism with its rigidity and tradition, America was ready for Romanticism. The stern religious beliefs that were dry and cold lead way to the spiritual quality of romanticism. People were ready to drop the guilt and be ready to believe in themselves. The rise of professional science contributed to that. The stage was also set for the Romantics reaction against slavery and injustice. The country was experiencing an influx of immigrants causing the Anglo Saxon face of America to change. There was a general optimism in the times springing from the expansion of America and its wealth. To understand romanticism, we have to understand its times and how its time lead to the times of the harsh realism of the Civil War.
Romanticism is difficult to define without contrasting it to the ideas of realism. Two key writers of this time period were Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman who both emphases in their own ways the philosophy of Romanticism. Experts have commented that Emily Dickinson, whose poetry was first published in 1890, after her death, rejected the formal structures of most previous verse, and probed depths of anxiety and emotion(SFSU).
She, along with Walt Whitman, put aside the Classical notions of writing having to stick to precise forms and mechanics and strove to explore idealism, depression, death and the rights of the individual. Walt Whitman loved to use nature and imagination to show his creativity. Nature became part of worship for both Whitman and Dickinson as in her poem A Narrow Fellow in the Grass. Even the riddle like quality of the poem is meant to cause the reader to use his imagination and intuition for understanding. Walt Whitman elevated nature to show how close and touchable God was. Both emphasized the spirituality of the individual instead of the faith of the established church. Self reliance and intuition replace church dogma in their writings. Man is good primarily to the Romantic and not the evil sinner of the Puritan time period. It has been said that The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate shaping or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity (Academic).
Politically, the common man was more important than the laws of the established government. Whitman in many of his poems celebrated the variety of people in America like in his poem Song of Myself.
Romanticism is difficult to define without contrasting it to the ideas of realism. Two key writers of this time period were Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman who both emphases in their own ways the philosophy of Romanticism. Experts have commented that Emily Dickinson, whose poetry was first published in 1890, after her death, rejected the formal structures of most previous verse, and probed depths of anxiety and emotion(SFSU).
She, along with Walt Whitman, put aside the Classical notions of writing having to stick to precise forms and mechanics and strove to explore idealism, depression, death and the rights of the individual. Walt Whitman loved to use nature and imagination to show his creativity. Nature became part of worship for both Whitman and Dickinson as in her poem A Narrow Fellow in the Grass. Even the riddle like quality of the poem is meant to cause the reader to use his imagination and intuition for understanding. Walt Whitman elevated nature to show how close and touchable God was. Both emphasized the spirituality of the individual instead of the faith of the established church. Self reliance and intuition replace church dogma in their writings. Man is good primarily to the Romantic and not the evil sinner of the Puritan time period. It has been said that The Romantics tended to define and to present the imagination as our ultimate shaping or creative power, the approximate human equivalent of the creative powers of nature or even deity (Academic).
Politically, the common man was more important than the laws of the established government. Whitman in many of his poems celebrated the variety of people in America like in his poem Song of Myself.
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