The American Renaissance photo

The American Renaissance

by · Lecture: 8 minutes
  1. Puritanism : a New World Vision
  2. An authentically American Literature
  3. American Literature: a Declaration of Literary Independence
  4. The American Renaissance
  5. American Modernism in literature

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson’s literary and philosophical importance in the American Renaissance and after it has always been associated with his lasting influence in two domains of American intellectual and social life:

  • The emergence of an American romantic sensibility.
  • The emergence of a characteristically American conception of individual consciousness and actions.

For the first time in America, Emerson gave full expression to a philosophy of romantic idealism.

He thought that the spiritual and intellectual ideals of the 18th century, the principles of the Age of Reason, had ended in sterility. Emerson’s ethic of self-reliance represents the necessity for the individual to question most of all forms of social conventions and to refuse his ideas by the accepted standards and values of society.

Also, it represents the necessity for the individual to think and act according to his standards.

But this self-reliance can also be interpreted as moral relativism and as a certain cult of individualistic power. Indeed, Emerson’s philosophy does reflect a certain fascination with power.

Very often, he seems to be too enthusiastic about all manifestations of energy, personal force and superior vitality: “Power first. In politics and trade, pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks”: it’s a philosophy of action.

Such ambivalent affirmations show a great deal of the liberating potential of Emerson’s philosophy but evidently, they also hide a dangerously anarchistic potential that can not be denied.

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Declaration of Literary Independence photo

American Literature: a Declaration of Literary Independence

by · Lecture: 12 minutes
  1. Puritanism : a New World Vision
  2. An authentically American Literature
  3. American Literature: a Declaration of Literary Independence
  4. The American Renaissance
  5. American Modernism in literature

Washington Irving: evolution, nostalgia and imaginary compensation

Irving was not under the influence of sentimentalism or romanticism, the two big influences of that time. In a way, he was the perfect incarnation of the American early literary development. He was a figure of literary transition in a society where American literature was still a hybrid.

Irving’s artistic opinions and his style changed dramatically over time but we can detect certain opinions and thematic elements that dominate his early as well as his later works.

One of the most important things about Irving is the nostalgic consciousness of change and the evanescence of things and people. This melancholic sensibility is to be found in all his works.

Other distinctive aspects of Irving’s writings are:

  • The transformation of material reality through fantasy and imagination. Such a transformation allows the author to represent reality as a fable.
  • The use of humour: human enterprises as trivial and ridiculous (cynicism and bitterness).
  • The use of sentimentalism to describe scenes and characters.

On the whole, Irving emphasizes narration and description rather than analysis and criticism. This choice can be explained for he did not consider his prose as an expression of political or cultural positions (consciously).

Irving started his literary career writing satirical pieces of journalism about the New York cultural and social scene, especially about the Theater circles. We can see that his humour and his early satire were a collage of rational criticism, nonsense humour and irony.

In his satirical works, he turned all human beings into fools including the writer himself: that’s self-reference (makes funny comments about himself as a writer), a very modern way of writing.

He gave full expression to the sense of his satires and historiographies (history in a novel or historical books); it showed his sharp sense of satire.

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Puritanism : a New World Vision photo

Puritanism : a New World Vision

by · Lecture: 4 minutes
  1. Puritanism : a New World Vision
  2. An authentically American Literature
  3. American Literature: a Declaration of Literary Independence
  4. The American Renaissance
  5. American Modernism in literature

The Puritan New World vision in the longer schemes of things

English Puritans can be divided into several groups. Most of the Puritans remained in England. They accepted the principle of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, with the Separatists (no affiliation with authority and the English Protestant Church). They were persecuted and many of them had to run away and come to the New World.

To many Puritans, Christopher Columbus’s passage into America was one of the most important historical events as the sign of a bigger historical destiny, as well as Gutenberg’s printing press (1456) and the Protestant Reformation: 3 events, at the same time geographical, textual and religious, marking the beginning of a New World.

Gutenberg’s invention was particularly important for the New England Protestants for their frequent use of texts (a major means of communication). The Puritan society was a unique form of society in the sense that they defined their identity essentially through texts.

Throughout the 17th century, colonial identity was the product of two things:

  • Literature or texts
  • And concrete movement in social and geographical space.

This particular form of identity can be seen through different aspects of literary expression: the Puritans used these aspects as sermons, declarations, covenants, controversies and statements of purpose.

Therefore, the lasting effect of the printing press on colonial America is to be found in its contribution to the emergence of a national identity based first and foremost on language and writing.

It was first through publication that America declared to the world its identity as a nation and through an effect of discourse she defined proclaimed and projected its past, its present, and its future.

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