American Romanticism: Figures, Tensions, Contexts 4219-RS244
1. Introduction: chronology, inspirations, comparisons
2. The forgotten precursors. Preromanticism in the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review and the North American Review: E. T. Dana, “The Winter of Criticism”; B. Welles, “The Love of Nature”; R. H. Dana, “Old Times" (excerpts)
3. The forgotten "dark romantics": W. Allston and R. H. Dana, Sr.: W. Allston, Lectures on Art and Poems; Monaldi (excerpts); R. H. Dana, Sr., “The Dying Raven,” “Paul Felton” (excerpt)
4. Swedenborg, Coleridge, and new theology in New England: J. Marsh, “Preliminary Essay” to S.T. Coleridge's Aids to Reflection (excerpt); J. Marsh, “Letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge of March 23, 1829”; W. E. Channing, “Likeness to God” (excerpts); S. Reed, Observations on the Growth of the Mind (excerpt)
5. Emerson's transcendentalist manifesto and the rise of the Transcendental Club: R. W. Emerson, “Sermon Delivered on September 9, 1832”; “Nature” (excerpts); A. B. Alcott, The Journals (excerpt)
6. "The Latest form of Infidelity" and its opponents: R. W. Emerson, “Divinity School Address” (excerpts), “History” (excerpts) ” “Circles”; A. Norton, “A Discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity”; R. H. Dana, Sr., “The Past and the Present” (excerpts)
7. Unromantic romanticism and the poetry of death: E. A. Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition,” “To Helen,” “The Raven”
8. "Infernal Twoness" and the fictions of spirit: E. A. Poe, “Ligeia,” "William Wilson," “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”; “Letter to James R. Lowell od July 2, 1844)
9. Romanticism - serious and comic: N. Hawthorne, "The Haunted Mind", "The Celestial Railroad", "The Artist of the Beautiful"
10. Transcendentalism in practice: H. D. Thoreau, A Week on Concord and Merrimack Rivers (“Thursday”) Walden (“Economy”, [excerpts], “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For", "Brute Neighbors"
11. The experienxce of nature as the other: H. D. Thoreau, The Maine Woods (“Ktaadn”); “Walking”
12. Woman in nature and history: M. Fuller, Summer on the Lakes, chapters I-II; Woman in the Nineteenth Century (excerpts)
13. Romantic journalism and Europe: M. Fuller, "These Sad But Glorious Days". Dispatches from Europe (selections)
14. A different view of nature: H. Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural (selections)
Type of course
proseminars
Mode
Remote learning
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
1. Students have an advanced knowledge of American romanticism; understand the connections of American romanticism with romanticism in Europe; differentiate between "dark romanticism" and Transcendentalism.
2. Students are able to analyze and interpret complex literary texts, as well as use the vocabulary of literary and cultural studies.
3. Students understand the roots of today's world's cultural diversity.
Assessment criteria
1. Active class participation: 30%
2. Final test: 40%
3. Term paper: 30%
Practical placement
None
Bibliography
1. The Transcendentalists. An Anthology, ed. P. Miller
2. L. Buell, Emerson
3. P. Carafiol, Transcendent Reason
4. E. W. Carlson, ed., The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe
5. C. Cherry, Nature and Religious Imagination
6. Ch. Fresonke, West of Emerson: The Design of Manifest Destiny
7. F. Garber, Thoreau's Redemptive Imagination
8. P. F. Gura, The Wisdom of Words. Language, Theology, and Literature in the New England Renaissance
9. P. F. Gura, J. Myerson, eds, Critical Essays on American Transcendentalism
10. D. W. Howe, The Unitarian Conscience. Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805-1861
11. W. R. Hutchison, The Transcendentalist Ministers
12. D. Leverenz, Manhood and the American Renaissance
13. J. Myerson, ed. Critical Essays on Thoreau's Walden
14. A. C. Rose, Transcndentalism as a Social Movement, 1830-1850
15. S. Rosenheim, S. Rachman, eds. The American Face of Edgar Allan Poe
16. J. Steele, Transfiguring America. Myth, Ideology, and Mourning in Margaret Fuller's Writing
17. L. Dassow Walls, Seeing New Worlds. Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science
Additional information
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