Browse Hierarchy ESH255: American Romanticism

When the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, in 1776, it was felt to have no ¿national¿ literature. Just decades later, it had one of the most vibrant and innovative literatures in the English-speaking world. This module examines how this happened by reading some of America¿s most influential and significant authors, including Emerson, Dickinson, Douglass, Hawthorne, Jacobs, Thoreau and Whitman. The module will show how American literature developed by adapting key themes of European Romanticism¿the cultivation of the self; the splendour and significance of nature; the critique of industrial modernity; and sexual radicalism¿to the distinct circumstances of the United States, including racial slavery, and the presence of Native Americans.