N. Hawthorne H. Melville Romanticism

SEMINAR 15: American Romanticism. Transcendentalism
Plan:

1. 
   American Romanticism.
   
2. 
   Transcendentalism.
   
3. 
   N. Hawthorne
   
4. 
   H.Melville
   

Romanticism is an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in 18th century Western Europe during the Industrial Revolution. Romanticism, an artistic and intellectual movement characterized by an emphasis on individual freedom from social conventions or political restraints, on human imagination, and on nature in a typically idealized form. Romantic literature rebelled against the formalism of 18th century reason. Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early-to mid-19th century. Transcendentalism is a form of idealism, representatives find out truth through feeling and intuition. Humans can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses and logic and directly receive high truth and knowledge. Main idea – living close to nature and toward the dignity of manual labour, they find God everywhere and searched unified soul of the universe. Every person's relation to God is a personal matter and individual can address God directly without the intermediation of official church. They worked out the principle of self-reliance. They believed in individualism and democracy.
N. Hawthorne is a prose writer representative of psychological and moral trend in American romanticism. His favourite theme – puritan New England. He is seen as a key figure in the development of American literature for his tales of the nation's colonial history. Hawthorne is best-known today for his many short stories (he called them "tales") and his four major romances: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Marble Faun (1860). Another novel-length romance, Fanshawe was published anonymously in 1828.
The Scarlet Letter – subject-matter – the punishment of sexual sin by puritans. Heroine is unfaithful to her husband, her sin is discovered by the community. The punishment is "scarlet letter":she is forced to appear in public with the letter "A" on her breast for the rest of her life. In the end this letter symbolises the sinfulness of the community of puritans as she's treated very badly.
The Minister's Black Veil – main character is aware that people are bad, sinful, he's pessimistic about human nature. He decides to show his attitude with the help of a black veil – the sign of his protest, it prevents him from communicating with other people.
Before publishing his first collection of tales in 1837, Hawthorne wrote scores of short stories and sketches, publishing them anonymously or pseudonymously in periodicals. Only after collecting a number of his short stories into the two-volume Twice-Told Tales in 1837 did Hawthorne begin to attach his name to his works. Hawthorne's work belongs to His writings were in the Romantic Period. Much of Hawthorne's work is set in colonial New England, and many of his short stories have been read as moral allegories influenced by his Puritan background. Ethan Brand (1850) tells the story of a lime-burner who sets off to find the Unpardonable Sin, and in doing so, commits it. One of Hawthorne's most famous tales, The Birth-Mark (1843), concerns a young doctor who removes a birthmark from his wife's face, an operation which kills her. Hawthorne based parts of this story on the penny press novels he loved to read. The Maypole of Merrymount (1836) recounts an encounter between the Puritans and the forces of anarchy and hedonism.