American Romantic Period
The American Romantic period of literature was simply an attitude or intellectual orientation that characterized many works of literature in America over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Like the writers who embodied it, it was a time where the people of America had a deep appreciation of the beauties of nature as well as a novel infatuation with exceptional literary figures; focusing on their passions and inner struggles. Writers of this era believed that the creative spirit was much more important than traditional writing procedures. America had been a country for approximately 75 years and was running out of wilderness to fantasize about. The writers of the time came from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Literature at this time was influenced by a combination of French, British, Spanish, German, and African folklore (1) and truly placed an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to a transcendent experience and spiritual truth. Because of the diverse cultural backgrounds of the American populace, and obsessive interest in folk culture occurred giving writers freedom to explore the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the monstrous, the occult, and yes, even the satanic. Using three differ
(3) http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg143.htm (4) http://classiclit.about.com/arts/classiclit/library/bletexts/nhawthorne/blnhawgoodman.htm Simply put, the literature of the American romantic period used aspects of the "unreal" and the "supernatural" to either convey a message or just entertain. Whatever the case, it invoked a heightened examination by the reader of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities. As I previously stated, The writers of this time viewed their creative spirit as more important then the strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures followed by earlier writers and it showed in their work. "Rip Van Winkle" was a short story written by Washington Irving in 1819. The story started out in a period just before American Revolution in a village whose inhabitants were of mostly Dutch origin. The supernatural aspects of the story are also of Dutch origin, but in no way conveys any religious connotations. In Rip Van Winkle's ordeal, he retreats to the serene shelter of the Kaatskill mountains in order to escape the sharp and ever biting tounge of his wife, the Dame Van Winkle. I believe Irving chose this setting in the Kaatskill Mountains for its already rich abundance of local folklore. The little men that Rip Van Winkle encountered during his hunting trip were not fairies or pixies as some people claim that I read during my Internet research, but was spirits of Hendrick Hudson, the Dutch ship captain who first sailed up the Hudson River and his crew.(2) The story relates that the captain and his crew, "kept a kind of vigil there every 20 years with his crew of the Half-Moon". Even though the supernatural aspect of this story is very short lived with little detail, Irving used it as a means to realistically substantiate the true essence of this story, which was the simplistic relief
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1291
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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