In the first half of the 19th century the young American capitalist republic expanded westward and southward. Nine new states were established on the western lands, those of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,

Romanticism.

In the first half of the 19^th century the young American capitalist republic expanded westward and southward. Nine new states were established on the western lands, those of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. In 1803, Napoleon I sold the large territory of Louisiana to the American Government, and within the next decade ten more states appeared including Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The government of the US proclaimed: ‘America for the Americans’. This meant that foreign governments should no longer interfere with the policy of the former colonies because all the colonies had become part of the United States; and that future colonization of any part of the North-American continent would from than bee prohibited; and that those who wanted to live in America had to become American citizens. Later, as a result of a Mexican War in 1848 the US annexed the south-west from Texas to California.

The newly acquired lands in the West began to be called “the free West” and more and more people migrated to it form the Eastern states. Poor farmers went west in the hope of getting land. Factory workers went west to escape from exploitation by the factory owners. But many planters from the South also went westward. They took over large tracts of the new land with a view to cultivate it with slave labour in the new State of Kansas. The local population resisted the attempt. The planters called in government troops and the resulting civil war lasted till 1856. The local farmers with the help of workers saved Kansas from becoming a slave state.

Romanticism appeared in American Literature in the years of social unrest which followed the Revolution of 1775-1783 as great disappointment with the results of the Revolution took hold of the people. The ideals of the age of Enlightenment expressed in the solemn words “Liberty, Equality and the pursuit of Happiness for all” become a privilege for the few, instead of being protected by law and enjoyed by all the people.

Poets and writers romanticized the “common man”, and sought beauty and happiness in the primitive life of the American Indian or the native of some distant land. The works of the romantic writers reflected the clashing conflicts between the harsh realities of life and the proclaimed ideals. The heroes they created were rebels, men who fought for truth and rebelled against the bourgeois society.

The writers of Romanticism depicted life as a struggle between vice and virtue and insisted that virtue should defeat evil. But when they looked for the triumph or virtue in real life, they could not find it. The approach of the writers to life was almost exclusively through the emotions.

The romantic poets and writers produced a powerful literature. They enriched literature theory, developed such genres as the novel (historical, social, fantastic, utopian, philosophical, intellectual), the romance and the short story.

The writers of Romanticism were true patriots. They loved their country and recognized the importance of developing national literature and national history. They gave their readers a taste for old ballads, epics, and the folk-tales of the Indians.

Romanticism was a step forward in the further development of American literature, and formed a link between the realism of Enlightenment in the 18^th century and that of Critical Realism in the second half of the 19^th century.

Romanticism demanded: a dynamic movement of events and sudden changes in the hero’s life. Complicated dramatic conflicts were resolved by casual fatal encounters and exposure of secrets. From the point of view of its development American Romanticism may be divided into 3 periods.

The early period, the 20^th and 30^th of the 19^th century, began with the romances and short stories of Washington Irving. These forms were developed later by other American writers. The historical novel began in America with Fennimore Cooper’s “The Spy” (1821) and “The Pioneers” (1823). Romantic tales of the sea began with Cooper’s “The Pilot” (1824). Romantic poetry appeared in great variety. Most outstanding were poems by Edgar Allan Poe.

Two other famous American writers of Romanticism are Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) greatly contributed to the development of fiction in American Romanticism. He was born in Massachusetts in a Puritan family. He began writing short stories in the 30^th, in which he described the customs, morals and manners of New England.

The second period of Romanticism comprises the 40s and the first half of the 50s. These were the years of mature Romanticism in American literature. Characteristics of this period were Cooper’s later novels (‘The Pathfinder’ – 1840, and the “Deerslayer” - 1841), Edgar Allan Poe’s romances and poems written during the last 8 years of his life, and the works of Longfellow. Nathaniel Hawthorne published his well-known novel “The Scarlet Letter”. In 1850, and the following year he published another of his better-known novels “The House of Seven Gables”.

The early works of the writer and poet Herman Melville (1919-91) also belong to this period of Romanticism in American literature. Melville’s parents participated in the American Revolution. The family was impoverished and ant an early age Melville went to sea with a fishing fleet. He began writing in 1844 and his first works were about the native inhabitants of island where he had been while at sea. Melville was interested social problems. He hated slavery and the despotic power of the dollar, and dreamed of equality among men and of social justice. In 1851 Melville’s masterpiece “Moby Dick” was published.

The third period of Romanticism comprises the second half of the fifties and the sixties of the 19^th century. The early poems by Walt Whitman appeared at that time. Herman Melville write his novel “Israel Potter” (1855), in which he tells of the tragic fate of those Americans who had fought to win independence for America, but had been forgotten by their country and died in misery and poverty. Hawthorne wrote the novel “The Marble Faun” (1860). This work introduced into American literature the theme of beauty and ethics. In this romance the problems of American Romanticism were expressed in an Italian theme. Since then literary works where the scene is set in a foreign country or works treating European themes, appeared in American literature more often than in the literatures of other countries.

American Romanticism as part of world Romanic literature played an important role in the cultural life of America. The works of America’s romantic writers are still read and admired.

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