Natasha Bondar
Dr. Craig White
Literature 5535
5 July 2002 

American Romanticism and Society in Transition

Objective 1c: To note the concentration of Romanticism in the late 18^th through mid-19^th centuries and the co-emergence of Romanticism with the rise of the middle class, the city, industrial capitalism, and the nation-state.

My research was focused on the historical aspect of the Romantic literary movement and its co-emergence with “the rise of the middle class, the city, industrial capitalism, and the nation-state.”  This particular topic is of interest to me because, on one hand, I subscribe to the New Historicist notion that literary texts are products (whether reactions against or confirmations) of the period in which they are written and are to be understood in the period’s context. On the other hand, I simply like to ask “Why?” and this objective allows me to ask this question as I look into the cause-effect relationship between literature and society.

Secondary sources, affording scholarly insights into this literary period, supplied all the information for my research.  Although I planned to study background sources as well, I found a sufficient amount of background information in the scholarly books I perused.  

Having recently studied literary theory, I realize that as an undergraduate I was trained in the formalist reading of texts, of which I am glad as I believe it to be the foundational training for literary interpretation. Now I have the pleasure of supplementing my formalist interpretive method with another approach – New Historicism. Although formalist and New Historicist theories of interpretation initially stood at odds with each other, I have noticed that more recent critics tend to combine interpretive approaches that used to be considered conflicting.  I like this development and would like to employ a similar approach myself.

Gilmore, Michael T. American Romanticism and the Marketplace. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985.

My curiosity was continually peaked and satisfied as I read Michael T. Gilmore’s American Romanticism and the Marketplace. This New Historicist critic commences his discussion with the succinct “[t]he American romantic period was the era of the marketplace” (1). The idea of literature as an “article of commerce” seems fresh and potentially meaningful.  The question of the price of art has been a hot topic for a long time.  As an artist’s daughter, I have experienced a practical need for an artist’s lucrative compensation and have witnessed at times my father’s difficulty at arriving at an adequate monetary appraisal of his work.  So Gilmore takes on a subject that has a personal interest to me.

In the introduction to his book, Gilmore presents a compelling picture of the American society’s change in the first half of the nineteenth century and its effects on the country’s literary circles. As a result of technological and economic changes, the reader-writer relationship became impersonal, in pronounced contrast to the earlier period.  No longer could a nineteenth-century writer continue to compose for a homogeneous “group of equals,” instead he or she had to write for a distant public, “as improvements in manufacture, distribution, and promotion helped to create a national audience for letters” (1).

The market became the dominant force in the American society, propelling industry as it was propelled by it. Gilmore explains, “Writing and publishing developed along roughly the same lines as the economy at large: prior to 1820 they had not yet assumed their modern character as professional undertakings”; however, “[d]uring the next three decades sweeping changes occurred in the production, circulation, and status of literature” (3). With the growth of the population and enhanced opportunities for education, the national audience grew. With commercialization of literature, authors lost their privacy, becoming national figures.  Many writers deplored this condition.

Continuing with his explication of the period’s historical context, Gilmore argues that  “[p]eople and their surroundings were brought under the dominion of exchange, and all transactions, including those between the author and his readers, were turned into money transactions” (4).  In his study Gilmore deals with four authors “whose work is undeniably major.” He asserts, “Although my focus is on the literature and not on societal change, a broad historical progression has emerged, a movement from the collapse of the agrarian ideal in Emerson and Thoreau, through the commercialization of culture affecting Hawthorne and Melville, to the problem of class stratification in “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (5).  Gilmore describes the American Romantic movement as that of dissent, yet the four authors chosen for his study “share their culture’s ambivalent reaction to the extension of the market”  (6, 8).

Gilmore explains that although Emerson expressed a resistant attitude toward the increasing commercialization of the society in his earlier works, later in life, he came to view  the emergent market favorably. However, Emerson’s disciple Thoreau, throughout his life, continued to sustain his aversion to the market’s growing influence.  When discussing Hawthorne and Melville’s sentiments toward the commercialization of their society, Gilmore points out that, in contrast to Emerson and Thoreau, they depended on the sales of the work for their livelihood, and because of that sought to establish their reputation before a national audience, even though they resisted commercialization.

Captivating in his command of language – highly intellectual yet lively – Gilmore brings this dynamic period to life.  The tone of his writing is narrative and seamless; perhaps spun would be an even better description of the style of this insightful study.

Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985.

            Another New Historicist critic, Jane Tompkins takes quite a different road in her examination of the American Romantic authors.  While Gilmore chooses to focus on the authors he calls major, Tompkins selects those who have not been given unqualified admittance to the canon, their work criticized for having formal flaws.

            Tompkins rests her argument for the importance of these minor writers’ on the premise that the nineteenth-century authors saw persuasion as an important goal for their work. And by writing popular fiction, they achieved their goal.  She examines the popular novels of the day by Brown, Cooper, Stowe, and Warner.  In her attempt to redefine the way literary texts are evaluated, she asserts: “When classic texts are seen not as the ineffable products of genius but as the bearers of a set of national, social, economic, institutional, and professional interests, then their domination of the critical scene seems less the result of their indisputable excellence than the product of historical contingencies” (xii).  Tompkins, while questioning modernist assumptions in regard to literary value, acts as a true modernist when she argues that a period’s convention wholly governs the value judgments of its readers and critics.

            As I work on defining my preference for a mode of literary interpretation, I welcome, Tompkins’s arguments – compelling and intelligent. I appreciate her desire to redefine the canon on one hand and to restore the unfashionable notion of literature’s didactic purpose on the other.  On this subject, Tompkins says, “The benevolent rescuers of Arthur Mervyn and the sacrificial mothers of Uncle Tom’s Cabin act out scenarios that teach readers what kinds of behavior to emulate or shun; because the function of these scenarios is heuristic and didactic rather than mimetic, they do not attempt to transcribe in detail a parabola of events as they ‘actually happen’ in society; rather, they provide a basis for remaking the social and political order in which events take place” (xvii). She argues that the nineteenth-century Americans did not have a division between the literary and the political realms, and for them writing a work of fiction to advance political and moral ends was acceptable and desirable. 

I would like to bring up a few highlights from Tompkins’s examination of a specific work. Discussing Brockden Brown’s Wieland, she argues that by modern critics the novel “is evaluated and described in terms of aesthetic and psychological norms that assume that the primary focus must be on an individual character, that action must reveal a character, and that character must reveal internal psychic processes rather than public and social ones.” Tompkins continues to say that according to these criteria, the novel seems to fall short of the rigorous literary standards.  But she maintains that these are the twentieth-century criteria, which, when applied to nineteenth-century texts, do not allow us to understand why these works had influence in their time. When Brown wrote Wieland, his chief goal was to make it useful “in the area of national politics, . . . he saw his book not so much as a work of art in our modern sense of the term, but as an attempt to influence public policy” (43).

I found Tompkins’s arguments reasonable and appealing.  I enjoyed reading this critic – she made me think, provoked me to questioning both her assumption and mine.  Like Gilmore, Tompkins wields her language gracefully.  Her style/syntax is simpler than Gilmore’s, but it works effectively as she delivers her arguments.

Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.

            The author of this book attempts to bring together the subjects explored by the authors of the previous two books. He analyzes the relationship between major and minor writers of the American Romantic period.  David S. Reynolds’ study “compares the major literature with a broad range of lesser-known works, combines literary analysis with social history, and discusses writings of various geographical regions and of both sexes” (3). Instead of viewing the popular and the elite literary cultures as adverse to each other, he argues that the relationship between the two was “one of reciprocity and cross-fertilization – almost of symbiosis”(4).

This author seems to combine the formalist and the historicist approaches, “[attempting] to bring together literary and social analysis by showing that the special richness of major literary works was to a great degree historically determined” (6). While subscribing to a historicist reading of texts, Reynolds, however, ascribes more value to their formal qualities than Tompkins when he says, “Literariness – distinguished by special density and by demonstrable artistry of language or structure – is an intrinsic quality of certain works that can justifiably be called ‘major’; but it is misleading to remove these works from their context or to ignore unfamiliar writings that in time may also be designated as major” (7). Yet, he seems to be in complete harmony with her as he maintains, “Exploring the heterogeneous writings that engendered the major literature reveals the inadequacy of hermetic ‘close readings’ that have long dominated analysis of American Renaissance.  The present book rejects the notion of a ‘definitive’ close reading, recognizing that the literary text is a rich compound of socioliterary strands, each of which stems from a tremendous body of submerged writings that have been previously hidden from view” (10).

In addition to this general overview of the book, I would like to give a brief account of Reynolds’s discussion of the American Renaissance women writers and Emily Dickinson. Although he respectfully makes a place for the lesser women writers of the period, the author maintains that “[the] artistic superiority of literary as opposed to political treatment of women’s issues become clear when we compare several women’s rights novels of the 1855-75 period to more artistic forms of women’s literature that emerged during this period.” He argues that the women’s rights literature, despite its historical significance, lacked artistic polish (394).  He makes the connection between the “so-called literature of misery” and Emily Dickinson’s work, arguing that hers, though bearing some similar characteristics, was, in form and content, distinguished by literary genius.  He maintains that

[o]nly Emily Dickinson succeeded consistently in gaining the artistic sophistication and the philosophical originality many women writers were seeking. . . . A primary reason for her success was her majestic refusal to accept monolithic gender roles.  This refusal was largely conditioned by her culture, for the role fragmentations amply documented in antebellum women’s literature created an atmosphere in which gender stereotypes could be amalgamated and recombined at will by the literary artist. (419)

Once again, Reynolds lauds literary virtue while giving a proper place to writings of lesser literary significance.

Morse, David.  American Romanticism. New Jersey: Barnes & Noble Books, 1987.

            David Morse’s discussion was of interest to me because it offered insights into the relationship of Romanticism and American politics.  Morse argues in his treatment of the American Romanticism that it is characterized by excesses: “American literature is born of excessive hopes and excessive claims, burdened from the start by an overblown national rhetoric” (1).   He insists that the American literature, like the American culture in general, has been driven by a desire not to be simply separate from Europe but to surpass it. And since, Morse assets, there was “no distinct American language . . ., everything had to be staked on the grandeur of the American landscape, which could serve as the most potent symbol of everything that America was and, more importantly, could be ” (3).  The critic continues, “In the development of American culture, in the rhetoric that [sought] to create a national self-consciousness, the postulated symmetry between the vastness of the American landscape and the unlimited potential of the American character became an inescapable trope” (5).  He then draws a parallel between the excesses of Romanticism and the style of an American politician: “To achieve prominence in the time of Jacksonian democracy it definitely helped to be a flamboyant and spectacular figure, while today as a rule, it pays to be solid, dark-suited and sober of demeanor” (15). He continues to add that the same excessiveness was a mark of the language of the American people in general. Here, Morse quotes Marryat’s saying, “The Americans delight in hyperbole; in fact they hardly have a metaphor without it” (19).

I found it curious that in contrast to Tompkins’s argument that the nineteenth-century Americans viewed literature and politics as having a permeable boarder between them, Morse asserts that “[t]here simply was no cultural space for literature,” and that “the separate spheres of religion, politics and trade were so all-engrossing yet exclusive that they seemed to map out and include areas of significant activity” (28).  It appears that the richness and variety of this age gave rise not only to manifold but seemingly conflicting perspectives.

Chai, Leon. The Romantic Foundations of the American Renaissance. London: Cornell UP.

Leon Chai’s book, in an attempt to characterize Romanticism, considers different nineteenth-century fields of study: literature, philosophy, theology, and natural sciences. One of his major premises, which is of interest to me, is what he calls the “fundamental formative principle of Romanticism” – “the shift from allegory to symbolism” (1). The author examines this change in the literary mode of representation, connecting the emergence of the symbol with the innovative nature of the times: “The shift from allegory to symbolism as a doctrine of poetics which occurs with Romanticism discloses certain new possibilities for literary representation” (7). 

He also points out the individualistic features of Romanticism as he argues, “From various indications we may surmise that the Romantic canon emerges as a result of the primacy accorded to consciousness.  The increasing significance of mind or self dictates a new relation to the literature of the past, one defined not so much by norms embodied in the works as by authorial relation to the mind or spirit expressed in them” (4). Examining the relationship between literature and history studies, he maintains, “As a result of the Romantic emphasis upon mind and consciousness, Romantic theories of history differ from their predecessors in presenting the significance of history as internalized within itself” (11).

Adams, R.P. “Romanticism and the American Renaissance.” American Literature. 23.4 (1952): 419-432.

According to R. P. Adams, the most remarkable feature of the American Romanticism is its shift from a mechanic to an organic model of the world, and as a result of literature.  He contends that “Romantic thought is relativistic and pluralistic; it rejects absolute values, formal classification, and exclusive judgments; it welcomes novelty originality, and variety.”   Because of such prizing of new forms and ideas, Romantic author “will not strive to imitate an ideal perfection of form which has always existed, but to originate a form which has never existed before and which will uniquely express what he alone feels and knows” (410).  This notion seems to be a reflection of the historical times in which Romanticism flourished.

In this research, my primary goal was to learn more about the period’s cultural, economic, and political characteristics in order to understand the works produced by Romantic authors in greater depth.  I feel that this study succeeded in that.  But also, as a result of my research, I feel a greater affinity to the period – with its excesses, successes, errors, and longings.  This feeling of kinship increases my appreciation of the Romantics.  I am able to disagree without disregarding.

The critics’ arguments stimulate thought, delight the mind and simply stir my interest in the period. Gilmore’s brilliant exposition of the reciprocal and ambiguous relationship between the Romantic authors and the marketplace directly addressed my inquiry into the topics of industrial capitalism, as well as the city and middle class.  I found his book most helpful for my understanding of the period’s historical context.  With as much scholarly value, Tompkins affords her readers an exciting glimpse into the nineteenth century’s mind, in many ways so different from our own.  Her desire for broadmindedness in establishment of the cannon and her reevaluation of the authors deemed minor by the academy widened my knowledge and added valuable perspective. Insightful and stimulating, Reynolds’s work addressed my own attempt to combine a formalist and a historicist approach to reading literary texts as well examining both the minor and the major writers and establishing a relationship between them. I appreciate his attempts to examine the rise of the American Romantic movement in its multi-faceted complexity. Finally, Morse’s and Chai’s discussions of the relationship between the American literary Romantics and the political life of the country as well as Adams’s explanation of the mechanic-to-organic shift that took place during the rise of Romanticism – all contributed to my better understanding of this dynamic literary, economic, and political period. 

In short, all authors advanced the idea that the vibrant literary period of American Romanticism understandably stemmed forth from a vibrant historical era.