Lecture 9: The American Gothic

The writers of the late 1700s and the early 1800s in the new United States were acutely aware that they were establishing a new American voice and identity, and most of them were consciously trying the shape that voice in their works. These early writers were strongly influenced by the Romantic tradition of European--especially English--literature, which included writers such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, and John Keats. Romanticism was based on the idea that art should derive from the inner world of the individual writer. Thus, the focus of interest in Romantic poetry is often on the mind, spirit and feelings of the poet. The Romantics saw themselves as revolutionary, rejecting the old methods and ideas for new techniques and subjects. Along with this, there was the sense that human beings were inherently good and that their potential was limitless. The Romantics' interest was in the human psyche rather than social mores, and they tended to feel that literature should serve beauty as well than truth--that is, poetry should be beautiful and should reveal emotional and spiritual truths, rather than teach a social or moral lesson.

The English Romantic poets often focus on nature as a subject. "Nature," however, usually serves as a metaphor or a catalyst for an emotional state, problem, or issue. Landscape, thus, is given human qualities. For example, in "I wandered lonely as a cloud," Wordsworth writes, I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The English Romantic poets believe that Nature gives human beings direct access to God; thus, Nature replaces organized religion as the route to Truth. For this reason, symbolism, both in nature and in Romantic poetry, plays a large role. "A puddle," says Hazlitt, "is filled with preternatural faces" ("On Mr. Wordsworth's Excursion"). The Romantic poets preferred to use symbolism rather than exposition, since they felt that implication and deduction were more effective than overt preaching.

In keeping with the democratization of the political world, Romanticism glorifies the common. Blake, for example, writes about chimney sweeps; Keats finds universal truths in an ordinary Grecian urn.

Many of the Romantics were fascinated with magic and the supernatural, especially Coleridge, Blake, Byron, and Shelley.

Individualism and nonconformity are prized; a common subject is the outcast.

The ideas of the European Romantics were appealing to many American writers at the time, with their emphasis on revolutionary change, the goodness of human nature, and unlimited human potential. The vastness of the physical landscape, with so much left to explore, gave a peculiarly American twist to the Romantic ideas on nature and her role.

Not all American writers felt the same way, of course. Many believed that, given the size of the country and its diversity, an "American" literature was impossible; they attempted only regional literature. But others--Irving, Poe, James Fenimore Cooper, Hawthorne, and Melville among them--wanted to create a unified vision of the new country. They knew that they could not avoid being influenced by their European roots, but they wanted to be more than "Europe West"; they wanted to shape an identity and tradition that was unique.