Zoe Lussier - Background Information on American Romanticisim
.docx
keyboard_arrow_up
School
Northeastern University *
*We aren’t endorsed by this school
Course
1111
Subject
Arts Humanities
Date
Jan 9, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
3
Uploaded by AmbassadorOctopus3044 on coursehero.com
Background information on Romanticism
(Pages 139-150)
Carefully read p. 139 - 150, then answer the questions that follow.
Use an alternative,
readable color for your answers.
p. 139-142 - The Pattern of the Journey
1. To Rationalists, the city was a place to find
success and
self-realization.
2. To Romantic writers, the city was often a place of
moral ambiguity and of
corruption and
death.
3. The characteristic Romantic journey is to the
countryside. And whatever the destination, it
was a flight both
from something and
to something.
4. TWO-PART QUESTION: What is the first truly popular professional writer best known for?
Name the Writer and the character.
Washington Irving
5. American Romanticism can be best described as a journey away from the
corruption of
civilization and the limits of
rational thought, and toward the
integrity of
nature and the
freedom
of imagination.
p. 142-143 - The City, Grim and Gray (in the box)
6. When were the first tenements built in NYC?
1830s
7. Define "tenement".
A room or a set of rooms forming a separate residence within a house or block of apartments.
8. How many people might share a bathtub?
400 families
9. Why were the streets so foul?
Horse droppings, and horses rotting on the street due to being overworked.
10. What epidemic killed an average of 100 people per day in 1832?
Cholera epidemic
11. Regarding the children -
a.
How many children were homeless?
20,000
b.
What was their average life expectancy (if they were lucky)?
20 years old, if they were lucky.
12. Describe the crime and violence.
Waterfront gangs, 15,000 sailors robbed in just a year, riots, and burning down buildings.
13. In 1840, there was one bright spot of hope - talk of building a huge, expensive city park for
"health and recreation".
a.
Whose idea was it to build this park?
William Cullen Bryants
b.
When was it finally built?
1876
p. 143-144 - The Romantic Sensibility: Celebrating the Imagination
14. Romanticism developed in part as a
reaction to
rationalism.
15. To the Romantic mind,
poetry was the highest and most sublime embodiment of the
imagination.
16. The Romantics wanted to rise above (or escape from) "
dull realities" to a realm of higher
truth.
17. Why did America seem "an unlikely transplant" for the Gothic novel?
America seemed like “an unlikely transplant” for the Gothic novel because they had seen no
places old enough to have accumulated a contingent of ghosts or to reek of the decay of ages.
18. In a typical Romantic poem, the speaker sees a
commonplace object or
event. Something
about this commonplace object brings the speaker to some important,
deeply felt insight.
19. American Romanticism took two roads on the journey to understanding higher truths. One
road led to the
exploration of the past and of
exotic, even
supernatural, realms.; the other road
led to the
contemplation of the
natural world.
p. 146 - The American Novel and the Wilderness Experience
20. American novelists discovered that the
subject matter available in America was very
different from the
subjects available to European writers.
21. The development of the American novel coincided with what three things (p. 146)?
The development of the American novel coincided with westward expansion, with the growth of
a nationalist spirit, and with the rapid spread of cities.
p. 147. A New Kind of Hero
22. Most Europeans had an image of the American as
unsophisticated and
uncivilized.
23. What are the characteristics of the Romantic hero?
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help