1.1: The Influence of European Romanticism in America
To begin, read this article about the influence of European Romanticism on American authors.
This article offers even more information about the romantic period in US literature. Many use the labels "American Romanticism" and "American Renaissance" interchangeably; as you dig into this course, ask yourself whether you see a potential distinction between these two terms and what each of them defines.
Read the first stanza (lines 1–44) of The Prelude, "Book Twelfth, Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored", to appreciate the role that nature played in the sensibilities of the Romantic writers and artists. Wordsworth's Prelude is a lengthy autobiographical poem narrating, in the author's words, "the growth of the poet's Mind". It is representative of the European Romantic tradition, which is generally centered upon the individual and his experience, reverent toward nature, and colloquial in language.
Read this account of contemporary revisions to our understanding of the period. How do scholars now think more expansively about this time of literary production? Who do we now see as part of this literary outpouring?