Taking a Look at the Romanticist Movement

American Romanticism values feeling, intuition, and individual freedom. The Romanticist Movement, which took place in the early 19th century, included literary elements that had previously never been seen in literature. Primary characteristics of romanticism are the valuing of feeling over intuition, placing faith in the inner experience and imagination, and shunning the artificiality of society for nature’s beauty. Earlier American literary works had been composed primarily of folklore, politics, and religion. Romanticism was fueled by an appeal to the emotion and passion of mankind. Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a tale of the misadventures of a schoolteacher in Sleepy Hollow, a town that is intrigued with the supernatural. Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum is a fear-mongering story of a man imprisoned by the inquisition. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappcini’s Daughter is the tale of a girl alienated from society by the scientific work of her father. Edgar Allen Poe’s Lenore is the story of a grieving man who has recently lost a beloved woman. Poe’s To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad is a work of poetry concerning a man dealing with the grief of losing a loved one. All of these works include elements of entertainment, passion, personal experience, and some even fear that resulted in a change in the paradigm of American literature. American Romanticism makes appeals to mankind through the elements of passion, fear, and morality, which resulted in a paradigm shift in American literature.

Passion is woven into several works of American Romanticism, as it has the ability to get a reader engrossed and attached to a piece of poetry or prose. Passion is a strong, almost uncontrollable emotion. This emotion is seen ...

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...ience in Rappacini’s daughter.

A shift in the paradigm of American Literature is presented with the advent of the appeals to humans of passion, fear, and morality in American Romanticism. Passion, fear, and morality were not commonly discussed topics in earlier American literary works. However, the Romanticist Movement broke the taboo on those topics and began to speak of feeling as opposed to intuition, the solemnity of the country as opposed to urban life, and the inner experience paired with imagination. Passion is seen in the poems Lenore and To -- -- --. Ulalume: A Ballad by Edgar Allen Poe. Poe and Washington Irving incorporate fear into their works of The Pit and the Pendulum and Sleepy Hollow. Nathaniel Hawthorne provides a moral argument in Rappacini’s Daughter. American Romanticism is marked by a shift in the content and paradigm of American Literature.