Unit 2: American Romanticism

I continued on to the next reading unit, Unit 2: American Romanticism and I remembered learning about this from history last year. Writers of this period wrote about the growth of the American nation. “Manifest destiny” is the idea that it was the destiny of the United States to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican territory. Writer Henry David Thoreau figured out that war is immortal and mainly to expand slavery.  During the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution had formed and started to change the economy of the country. Later in the time, slavery became the biggest issue. For slaves it was a tough time, many which were abused and were sold from their families. Romantic poets such as James Russell and John Greenleaf Whittier wrote abolitionist journalism and poetry and even Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a whole volume of antislavery poems. Romanticism had first emerged in Europe in the late 1800s, in reaction to the neoclassicism of the period that had continued it. Many of these neoclassical writers looked at nature for inspiration, they valued reason and celebrated emotions. Other writers influenced in forging an American literature were the Fireside Poets, a group of New England poets who work was morally uplifting and romantically engaging. Over time, many writers began noticing the dark side of poetry creating gothic elements such as grotesque characters, bizarre situations, and violent events in their fiction.