The Birth of American Literature
1820 - 1860
In the first half of the nineteenth century, an American national literature was born. Accompanying it was the first American reference work, Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828. This dictionary declared the independence of American usage of words.
Another important milestone for American literature was Ralph Waldo Emerson's address "American Scholar", given at Harvard. During his address, he argued valiantly that Americans were self-reliant and would develop a literature reflecting their own national character. He expressed his support of Transcendentalism, a philosophy which said that intuition and experience provided knowledge and truth as well as intellect did, and that man is innately good and there is unity throughout the country.
Emerson's speech and transcendentalism influenced a flowering of American literature. The country's literary "centers" were New England and New York.
From New England came the historical works of George Bancroft ( History of the United States, ten volumes, the first published in 1834), Francis Parkman ( The Oregon Trail, 1849), and William H. Prescott ( History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1843) as well as the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Emily Dickinson (although Dickinson did most of her writing after the Civil War). Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller were the region's most noted authors. New York produced Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman; Edgar Allen Poe, though bom in Virginia, did most of his writing in New York and Philadelphia.
This period is also known as the "American Renaissance". As well as transcendentalism, it has been identified with Romanticism. The European Romantic movement reached America during the early 19th century. Like the Europeans, the American Romantics demonstrated a high level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive perception, and the assumption that the natural world was inherently good while human society was filled with corruption.
Transcendentalism and Romanticism appealed to Americans in a similar fashion; both privileged feeling over reason and individual freedom of expression over the restraints of tradition and custom. Romanticism often involved a rapturous response to nature and promised a new blossoming of American culture.
Another important milestone for American literature was Ralph Waldo Emerson's address "American Scholar", given at Harvard. During his address, he argued valiantly that Americans were self-reliant and would develop a literature reflecting their own national character. He expressed his support of Transcendentalism, a philosophy which said that intuition and experience provided knowledge and truth as well as intellect did, and that man is innately good and there is unity throughout the country.
Emerson's speech and transcendentalism influenced a flowering of American literature. The country's literary "centers" were New England and New York.
From New England came the historical works of George Bancroft ( History of the United States, ten volumes, the first published in 1834), Francis Parkman ( The Oregon Trail, 1849), and William H. Prescott ( History of the Conquest of Mexico, 1843) as well as the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Emily Dickinson (although Dickinson did most of her writing after the Civil War). Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller were the region's most noted authors. New York produced Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman; Edgar Allen Poe, though bom in Virginia, did most of his writing in New York and Philadelphia.
This period is also known as the "American Renaissance". As well as transcendentalism, it has been identified with Romanticism. The European Romantic movement reached America during the early 19th century. Like the Europeans, the American Romantics demonstrated a high level of moral enthusiasm, commitment to individualism and the unfolding of the self, an emphasis on intuitive perception, and the assumption that the natural world was inherently good while human society was filled with corruption.
Transcendentalism and Romanticism appealed to Americans in a similar fashion; both privileged feeling over reason and individual freedom of expression over the restraints of tradition and custom. Romanticism often involved a rapturous response to nature and promised a new blossoming of American culture.