Romantic Period in American Literature
In American literature, the romantic period was a new, groundbreaking way of not only writing, but also thinking. In this romantic time, writers started to express ideas that no authors dared to go before. Transcendentalists became a large part of this era, especially for writing. These ideas and way of writing were not as formalized, had more of a thought of individualism, and provoked imagination. This type of writing was also found more in forms of novels and poems as they were more of stories than non fiction writings as the past usually was. Transcendentalism became a huge movement for not only literature, but also sparked new ideas and outlooks for many of this time. According to the merriam webster dictionary, transcendentalism is defined as, “A philosophy which says that thought and spiritual things are more real than human experience and material things,” as this was a revolutionary change in literature. The more influential people of this transcendentalist movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau as they brought
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Emerson became the center of transcendentalists, by being one of the unique and original writers of his age. He started a new movement that evoked emotion, individualism, and imagination that people still see in everyday life even in the present day now. He made people think about life, about normal life situations, and more importantly about themselves. By making these broad yet intelligent accusations, he made history. Emerson wrote in his essay of Nature, “I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me,” making many people think of themselves in ways they never have before, about themselves, nature, and non-material things. This was not how ways usually were, which caused a huge breakthrough in the romanticism era called