American Romanticism

In the dark world that is set by Nathaniel Hawthorne in “Young Goodman Brown,” there is a tiny spark of hope that makes the reader believe in a way out of all the freakiness that Youngman Brown goes through in the woods of a good Christian’s nightmare, at least until the story nears the end. The good-hearted and loving wife of Goodman, Faith with her pink ribbons, stands for what may be regarded as the main issue of the town’s people.

"Moby Dick" has such a hermetic atmosphere that Herman Melville expresses what he feels about the novel in his letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne: “I have written a wicked book and feel spotless as the lamb.” It seems ironic that Moby Dick makes Melville feel complex feelings: He feels wicked for he has written it, but he at the same time feels pure innocence like that of the lamb. In the similar manner, "Moby Dick" includes different complicated signs within itself  as Moby Dick, or the whale and doubloon would testify. And this paper tries to display its ambiguity through examining  this two subject matters that the novel interestingly deals with.

This essay will apply Fredric Jameson’s Marxist hermeneutics as outlined in The Political Unconscious to a reading of Hermann Melville’s Moby Dick in order to test the efficacy of his interpretive method. Jameson maintains that literary texts by definition encode ideologies, and hence it is the critic’s task to decode them, thereby revealing their true content. In his eyes, “the political perspective” is “the absolute horizon of all reading and all interpretation” (1). The analysis will focus on Moby Dick itself as well as secondary sources: such a strategy will reveal the innate ideologies within interpretive methods, demonstrating how the assumptions underlying our interpretive methods determine the conclusions that we reach about the text. Jameson’s Marxist reading strategy will be applied as an extension to the conclusions of Walter E. Bezanson’s New Critical reading in order to show how a historical-political emphasis on texts is not detrimental to an appreciation of them as aesthetic objects. Hence Marxist hermeneutics will be shown as superior to those of New Criticism.

This is the draft of my contribution—"Transnational Dimensions of Romanticism"—to the forthcoming DeGruyter Handbook to American Romanticism, edited by Philipp Löffler, Clemens Spahr,, and Jan Stievermann.

Though helping to usher in nineteenth-century nationalism, romanticism was a literary and philosophical movement that was transnational in scope. This chapter provides an overview of four different transnational dimensions of romanticism. It explores the idea of "world literature" as it was conceptualized by nineteenth-century writers in Germany, Britain, and the US. Secondly, it offers an introduction to the paradigm of influence studies that for a long time has dominated the study of transatlantic romanticism. As a case study of this approach, the chapter focuses on the transatlantic transmission of the twin concepts of reason and understanding. Thirdly, the essay surveys transnational romanticism from the perspective of transatlantic print culture and publishing networks. The final section examines transnational romanticism in its political dimension and demonstrates the close connections between romantic thought and literature and the revolutionary and reform movements of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Atlantic world.

My contribution to the DeGruyter Handbook to American Romanticism, edited by Philipp Löffler, Clemens Spahr,, and Jan Stievermann.

Though helping to usher in nineteenth-century nationalism, romanticism was a literary and philosophical movement that was transnational in scope. This chapter provides an overview of four different transnational dimensions of romanticism. It explores the idea of "world literature" as it was conceptualized by nineteenth-century writers in Germany, Britain, and the US. Secondly, it offers an introduction to the paradigm of influence studies that for a long time has dominated the study of transatlantic romanticism. As a case study of this approach, the chapter focuses on the transatlantic transmission of the twin concepts of reason and understanding. Thirdly, the essay surveys transnational romanticism from the perspective of transatlantic print culture and publishing networks. The final section examines transnational romanticism in its political dimension and demonstrates the close connections between romantic thought and literature and the revolutionary and reform movements of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century Atlantic world

This paper focuses on two early poems by Russian Romantic poet and literary scholar Stepan Shevyryov (1806—1864), PETROGRAD (1829) and EPISTLE TO A. S. PUSHKIN (1830).  The role of 'elemental,' 'natural' imagery is discussed in relation to a myth of the 18th-century Russia put forward by Shevyryov.    For that purpose the original, unpublished versions of both poems are consulted.  Their flawed publications and republications are surveyed and possible ideological motifs behind their editors' work are disclosed.  Shevyryov's myth of the 18th century Russia and his approach to country's nature is further contextualized through poet's inability to apply Winckelmann's vision of Classical Antiquity to Russia's past and a brief comparison between Shevyryov's worldview and American Romanticism of the 1830's.

As critics of contemporary art and culture, among them Maarten Doorman and Thomas Streeter, observe, the second half of the 20th Century can be understood in terms of its multifaceted bond with Romanticism. Several contemporary artistic manifestos have mutatis mutandis repeated or re‐enacted (rather than continued) the post‐Romantic rebellion against “the rational oppression” represented by technology and the technisization of human environment. This rebellion began with the 19th Century Romantic contestation of the Enlightenment and industrial revolution and was carried forward first by the Victorian aestheticians and morris’s Arts and Crafts Movement in interior design, and then by some of the 20th Century avant‐gardes, and the 1968 social movements. First, we will investigate Pragmatism in its genetic although not univocal relationship to Romanticism, and then the implications of this relationship for a possibility of applying the idea of inspiration to creativity construed in the Pragmatist way. Then we will situate Arnold Berleant’s idea of aesthetic engagement and his concept of the negative sublime within this context. In particular, this text aims to explore how this post‐Pragmatist orientation affects its own recognition of the sources of creative and aesthetic activity. Thus, Berleant’s environmental aesthetics is of particular interest to us from the perspective in which the human being defines himself through his bond with the natural environment and physical and biological conditioning, as well as in an ambiguous relation to the civilization‐related environment – social‐educational, economic and technological. The main question is how, for the aesthetics of engagement, human beings’ belonging to the natural environment is combined with the environment conceived as human‐dependent, and how this complicated condition provides a source of inspiration for transformative activity.

In my previous post in a Department of American Studies, I taught a course in " American Romanticism " at least twice, without understanding in the least what it really entailed. The then Head of Department made it seem as if I was privileged in being given that course, as it was one for which she possessed considerable expertise (at least, that is what she said). I ended up teaching mostly novels, including THE SCARLET LETTER, as well as short stories such as Poe's THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. I focused on the struggles experienced by the respective protagonists, and tried to show how the authors were primarily interested in human potential that was often suppressed in over-repressive societies. Yet try as I might, I could not get away from British Romanticism – something I had studied at school several years previously, and something that colored my interpretation of the novels and short stories in the American Romanticism course. I talked a lot about the power of the imagination and the desire to find alternative forms of expression, both personal as well as political; but try as I might, I could not escape the belief that what I was actually doing was fundamentally colonialist in approach. I was applying British notions to American literature without acknowledging the presence of cultural, religious or historical difference. The course was a resounding failure; I became bored with what I was doing; and my feelings had a significant effect on my pedagogic style. I was glad to let the course go when I ended up switching to my present job in a Department of Education. After a hiatus of nearly nine years, however, I suddenly discovered what had been missing from the course. I realized this as I walked round the American Art collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum, which not only contains well-known works by Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer and other celebrities, but possesses a large collection of nineteenth century paintings focusing on themes such as the conquest of the frontier, the significance of the landscape, and the notion of progress. As I walked round the galleries, I suddenly understood why so many mid-nineteenth century American artists were concerned with the Romantic spirit. They were not only interested in freedom, but the expansion of possibilities; the fact that anything can be achieved so long as individuals are prepared to persevere. This is not only true of the Pioneers expanding westwards, but applies to other major developments such as the creation of new cities; the development of poetry and fiction; and the landscape. The colorful representation of wild, uninhabited lands; or the sight of men galloping across the prairie on horseback embodied this spirit – something that was not only physical but imaginative as well. The galleries also contained another notion, one that I had previously never thought about. If the Puritan settlers had always believed in the utopian vision of " a city on a hill, " their idealism had been lost by the early nineteenth century. Their religion and their world-views had narrowed; to such an extent that they had become in many ways repressive, especially towards women (as in THE SCARLET LETTER). American Romanticism not only tried to challenge such repressions, but it worked toward the recovery of the " city on the hill " spirit; the creation of communities that acknowledged difference and/or diversity. Perhaps that notion was more influenced by contemporary rather than nineteenth century mores, but it did offer food for thought.

O presente trabalho propõe uma leitura comparativa entre o poema Annabel Lee, de Edgar Allan Poe, e alguns textos poéticos da lírica camoniana. Pretende-se, com isso, analisar aproximações entre a escrita desses dois autores, no que diz respeito à construção da lírica
amorosa. Tanto na poesia de Poe, quanto em vários poemas de Camões é possível perceber a presença de um amor paradoxal e de um triste cântico de saudade à amada perdida. Nesse aspecto, também há a presença de determinados elementos constitutivos da estrutura poética que demonstram grande preocupação de ambos os autores na estrutura formal e rítmica de seus textos. Para discutir as relações intertextuais entre as obras em análise, pretende-se utilizar os textos de Kristeva, Carvalhal, Coutinho e Nitrini — que propõem questões importantes acerca da intertextualidade, influência e originalidade.

American Romanticism was the first literary movement in the US acknowledged as such, whose authors published between 1820 and 1860 inspired by the thousands of miles of untamed natural landscapes and American historical events; thus, ideas on freedom, democracy, and frontiers are recurrent in American Romantic works. Even though American Romantic writers were influenced by European authors, whose works emphasized powerful emotions, a worship of nature, and imagination, they inherited and adapted a long tradition in fact rooted as far as in Neoplatonic philosophy. This paper discusses the philosophical roots of American Romanticism and analyses how these theories influenced Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe in their considerations of the process of writing poetry. First, the paper provides a brief account on the relevant aesthetic theories by Neoplatonic philosophers, Immanuel Kant, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Then, the discussion moves to analyze how these ideas reverberate in Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Poet" and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition", the main argument being that their conclusions stem from different interpretations of a long philosophical tradition.

The Spanish novelist Eduardo Mendoza, who defined fiction as " the combining exercise of elements taken from tradition and put to work for story, " blends in his novels elements belonging to the detective and Gothic genres with the ultimate purpose of subverting them through satire. It is my purpose here to prove that one of Mendoza's referents is Edgar Allan Poe, whose tales and poems he affirms to have read at different points in his life. He overtly expressed his opinion about the American author who, he stated, deserves the highest praise for being the founder of the detective story genre and for the poetic atmosphere he created in his tales of mystery. This article is aimed at tracing the presence of E. A. Poe's works in Edu-ardo Mendoza's El asombroso viaje de Pomponio Flato (2008), where echoes of several of Poe's tales and poems can be seen.

As Tribal Historic Preservation Officers leverage the context of Ceremonial Stone Landscapes in cultural resource management, they mobilize complicated relationships.  Long-time advocates of New England's stonework, members of the New England Antiquities Research Association have established themselves as active, and often passionate, proponents of Ceremonial Stone Landscapes study and preservation and, as such, hold the potential to influence the outcomes of Tribally-led initiatives.  This paper considers assumptions, values, and practices rooted in American Romanticism that, if not effectively addressed, may inadvertently complicate or compromise Tribal authority in historic preservation while reinforcing popular misconceptions of Native Americans.  All who engage the context of Ceremonial Stone Landscapes, including professional archaeologists, are encouraged to critically reflect on their relationships to contemporary Native Americans as they move forward.

In this extended introductory essay, Catherine Gander and Sarah Garland suggest new ways of looking at the correspondences between visual and verbal practices toconsider their material and conceptual connections in a specifically American set of histories, contexts and interpretive traditions. Tracing a lineage of experiential philosophy that isgrounded in the overturning of a Cartesian mind/body split, the authors argue for pluralistic perspectives on intermedial innovations that situate embodied and imaginative reader-viewer response as vital to the life of the artwork. Gander and Garland chart two main strands to this approach: the pragmatist strain of American aesthetics and social politics, rooted in the essays of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and emanating from the writings of John Dewey and William James; and the conceptualist strain of French-American Marcel Duchamp, whose ground-breaking ideas both positioned the artwork as a phenomenological construction and libera...

This paper will use selected precepts from American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) and French Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) to explore the dynamics of disintegration in Kerouac’s Big Sur. The demise of the narrator in the novel is articulated through a writing strategy that cripples the occurrence of ex-stasis, understood in the context of Kerouac’s work as the experience of visions of a transcendental nature that are fundamentally ontological. I will argue that it is this sudden inability to generate visions – and thereby realise a form of transcendental being from an Emersonian perspective – that greatly contributes to the narrator’s decay in the novel.
One of the reasons, I will show, lies in the inwardness of Duluoz’s look, which is maintained through the constant monitoring of his downfall and fostered through Kerouac’s writing technique. Duluoz, as he indulges in excessive drinking, scrutinises his own mortification: I will demonstrate that the narrator’s inward look produces a reflexive consciousness that engenders a type of anguish, which will be apprehended in Sartrean terms. This obsession with self-reflection is conveyed throughout Big Sur to the detriment of a more fluid expression of various spontaneous experiences; it dismantles the realisation of the intuitive and transcendental self. This barred access to intuition will be envisaged as hindering the continuum between Duluoz’s being and the self-creative principle of the universal mind ingrained in the individual (Emerson), which as an effect impedes the emergence of visionary states and precipitates his self-destruction.

This article analyzes the metacinematic structure of Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger and argues that it celebrates a form of camera consciousness that subordinates, rather than liberates the Tonto figure. Anchoring the film’s narrative frame, the diorama of the ‘Noble Savage’ establishes an animation paradigm between a masked white child and a Native American statue that is at odds with aims to subvert the original Ranger narrative. The white child awakens the statue to life, and Verbinski imagines this older philosophical and aesthetic formula as an emerging cinematic process in which the film projector transforms individual film stills into the moving image. With this, the boy’s gaze is more than one perspective among many; it both infuses the moving picture with a vital energy and, within the layers of the narrative, this gaze is focalized in the figure of the Ranger himself as he subdues the wild West and the people therein. Instead of a multiplicity of voices and selves in conversation with each other, Verbinski’s form of camera consciousness thereby constitutes a totalizing celebration of technological modernity that aligns the Ranger’s perspective with the movements of the projector and subordinates the Native American within this pattern of visual correspondences.

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Alfred B. Street was a popular poet of the American romantic period who was associated with the Hudson River School painters. His poetry about the environment was precisely detailed and realistic. As a result, he was criticized by romantic literary culture for failing to idealize the natural world.  His books about his travels in the Adirondacks inspired Verplanck Colvin to visit the region. Colvin's work later led to the founding of the Adirondack Park. Though Street published widely in the mid-1800s, he has been previously neglected by literary scholars.

Motivated by the search for a cosmic consciousness, Ginsberg wrote a series of poems under the influence of a variety of psychoactive substances, such as ‘Laughing Gas’, ‘Mescaline’ and Lysergic Acid’ (1959). Through these poems, Ginsberg seeks to record the minute details of his altered condition by attempting to disrupt an ordinary form of consciousness – or, in the words of Blake, by ‘cleansing the doors of perception’; a strategy that allows the poet, under the influence of different drugs, to capture potential visions of a spiritual nature and to communicate them to the audience/reader.
Thus, Ginsberg’s ‘drug poems’ may be apprehended through the lens of the Prophetic; a tradition relayed by poets working in a Romantic trend that Ginsberg actualised in the midst of the 20th-century in America by aiming not only to reach and embody the mystical experience, but also to pass it on to the reader by means of a visionary poetics (Portugés), a poetics largely implemented in ‘Howl’ for instance. In the ‘drug poems’ however, Ginsberg remains mostly unsuccessful in achieving transcendental breakthroughs not only for himself as a speaker, but also for us as readers, and I will shed light on several factors that may account for this failure.
I will underline the crucial role played by reflexivity in these poems, as Ginsberg attempts to self-consciously register his own altered states of consciousness. The constant monitoring of the self, coupled with its immediate transcription in writing form, generates a double-consciousness that interferes with the spontaneous flow of experience and tends to disrupt the poet’s intuitive expression. This reflexivity is a factor of self-alienation: it initiates an anguish that takes over the speaker and ruins his chances at encountering, and channelling, the transcendent.
In equal measure, I will also show that the failure to convey what is left of the visionary in these poems stems from their inoperative poetics, whose primary purpose is to mimic the experience rather than perform it; a poetics which cannot truly embody the vision it describes, and which therefore loses the ability to alter the reader’s own consciousness.