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American
Literature: Romanticism
Student Research Submissions
2013 Research Post 1 |
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Daniel B. Stuart
March 23, 2013
American vs.
European Romanticism: Frontier and History
On
both sides of the Atlantic, in Europe and America, the Romantic era stood
witness to a number of distinctive artistic and intellectual trends. No doubt
the spirited energy spawned by the movement was of a similar magnitude during
each culture's respective period. Yet, most assuredly, when it came to truly
identifying Romanticism on each continent, there was at least one thing one
society had in abundance that proved to be a scarcity in the other. For Europe,
this was history; for America, the frontier. Europe possessed centuries of
experience stretching across its cultural landscape while America possessed a
like amount of wilderness at its disposal, vast quantities of natural beauty
still untainted by the encumbrance of civilization. These two rather
self-evident facts were instrumental in defining the Romanticism on each
continent; likewise, each simple truth helped lead its respective culture down
divergent paths of artistic exploration. Within this report, I will investigate
this contrast between the European and American Romantic movements, examining
the distinctions and corollaries that pertain to the issues of space and
experience (frontier and history) while exploring other distinguishable elements
embodied by prominent Romantic writers. It is my suspicion that I will discover
both schools to remain constant in their devotion to individual conscience in
artistic expression, each responding to emotion in place of reason and
emphasizing the forces of imagination over rationality. Yet, I am also highly
inclined to believe that American Romanticism will be distinguished by its
transcendental tendencies, qualities perhaps enabled by the pull of frontier
expansionism and manifest destiny. Conversely, I feel certain that European
Romanticism will be characterized by a greater emphasis on folklore and the
past.
It
seems that Emerson's artistic vision was always set on the remotest horizon,
forever into "space." In 'The Poet', he endorsed a "passage into free space" as
"the centrifugal tendency of man" (Baym 568). Other American Romantics echoed
this endeavoring, exploratory expression inspired by personal destiny (Reuben).
Works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Douglass, Dickinson, Rebecca Harding Davis
and others delivered not only this sense of unlimited possibility and untapped
potential, but of man's capacity to look to nature to appropriate spiritual
renewal and rebirth, even reform. America itself, like the individual, was
observed as being endowed with a divine essence, its horizon clearly indicated.
Subsequently a propensity to want to explore the geography and scope of the new
continent developed, a land considered sacred and destined to flourish naturally
accommodated the spirit of transcendentalism (Reuben).
This
could not happen in Europe where several factors dissuaded the Romantic movement
from going the transcendental route. It was not only space that was limited, but
experience which was overabundant. Geopolitically speaking, nations and empires
had come and gone. Revolutions had unfolded and the siezing of "destiny" by one
individual (as recent as Napoleon) and the subsequent dissolution of ideals had
expired many a Romanticist's hope for personal conscience successfully
overruling rational convention (Tanner 89). Additionally, the continent had
already caught wind of transcendentalism long before Emerson. The inception of
the idea itself originated with German philosopher Immanuel Kant and had been
hinted at by Rousseau among others in the early-to-mid eighteenth century
(Murfin 532). Yet even within a concentrated Romantic spirit, the movement had
failed to gain steam. This phenomenon was perhaps a key common denominator in
Romanticism pertaining to both continents: the question of experience. In
America, the zeitgeist of the period looked forward to a mythical future;
in Europe, the poets and artists looked to a folkloric past and a
well-documented period of Renaissance, Enlightenment and neo-classicism. America
had a frontier whereas Europe had a mythology and heritage; one an open canvas,
the other an interwoven tapestry.
There were other reasons transcendentalism was largely restricted to American
shores and the European Romantics favored less unitarian elements. Again we look
to Emerson, his "transparent eyeball" allowing him to "see all" reinforces the
notion that transcendence is wherever you look for it (Baym 509-510). In
Chateaubriand’s autobiographical novel Rene, his hero in exile states quite plainly that
Europeans constantly in a turmoil are forced to build their own solitudes"
(Tanner 92).
Solitude for the
American is practically anywhere and everywhere. How do we know this? The space
element is one reason, but another may be sound, or rather the lack thereof.
Whitman asks of himself, "What do you see Walt Whitman?" (Whitman 109 ).
Thoreau, likewise, places his emphasis on sight. "We are as much as we see"
(Baym 881). Noise, much less commotion of any kind is noticeably absent from
American Romantics. In contrast, the auditory is a vital element of the English
Romantic poets. Wordsworth's 'Solitary Reaper' prompts a "music of the heart"
(Wordsworth); Coleridge's Ode to Dejection compares the solely visual sense to
true alienation (Coleridge). Keats 'Ode to a Nightingale' is another example
(Keats). Sound was as much a part of the European Romantic aesthetic as sight or
emotion.
But
perhaps it is intimacy which the Europeans embrace more than the Americans who
eschew community in favor of the pure pastoral (Note the conspicuous absence of
human figures in Thoreau or Emerson's more detailed works on nature.). Society,
it would seem, provides its own Romantic ideal for the European. Poor 'Young
Werther' cannot get away from the intimacy of emotion that comes from being a
part of society. Forbidden the love of his life yet cruelly (though by choice!)
situated in such proximity and with such access to his beloved that his emotions
overcome his rationale, he literally embodies the Romantic movement (Goethe).
His raw agony, his soulful articulations, his powerful inner-torment mirrored by
the changing seasons culminate in the ultimate Gothic end, inadvertently defying
the clarity and structure of neo-classicism to rationally find a solution for
the deeper human need.
Perhaps it is not only history, heritage, future or frontier which distinguish
the two schools of Romanticism. It is hard to conceive of logistical reasons
alone being the primary catalyst for artistic differentiation. Yet it is equally
hard to dismiss the cultural implications which contribute, directly or
indirectly, to ideological allowances and the characterization of a literary
movement. The purpose here is not to identify differences so much as it is to
attain perspective. In an 1855 letter to Whitman, Emerson praised the poet for
his "large perspective" (Tanner 102). Perhaps that is the objective of
Romanticist scholarship more than pointing out distinctions and signature
traits. For a movement which centers itself on the primacy of intuition and
emotional emphasis, the conception of the grander scale may prove to be more
prominent.
Works Cited
Baym, Nina. The
Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Eighth Ed. Vol. 1:
Beginnings To 1865. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
Coleridge, Samuel
Taylor. “Dejection: An Ode” Poem Hunter. Online.
www.poemhunter.com
Keats, John. “Ode
to a Nightingale” Poem Hunter. Online.
www.poemhunter.com
Goethe, Johanne
Wolfgang Von. The Sorrows of Young Werther. Boston: Dover, 2002.
Murfin, Ross &
Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. 3rd
Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
Reuben, Paul P.
American Transcendentalism: A Brief Introduction Ch. 4. PAL: Perspectives in
American Literature-A
Research and Reference Guide. Online. <www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/intro.html>
Tanner, Tony. "Notes for a Comparison between American and European Romanticism" Journal of American Studies, Vol. 2. No. 1 (Apr., 1968). pp. 83-103.
Thompson, E.P. The Romantics: England in a Revolutionary Age. New York: The New Press, 1997.
Whitman, Walt.
Leaves of Grass. New York: Wilder,
2007.
Wordsworth,
William. “A Solitary Reaper” Poem Hunter. Online. <www.poemhunter.org>
