American Romanticism Literature

The Romantics believed that the imagination could grasp truths beyond the reach of logical thought.

The Romantics rejected logical thought entirely, considering it invalid for all purposes.

Poetry was considered the highest embodiment of the imagination by the Romantic sensibility.

Edgar Allan Poe praised science as a means of discovering profound truths.

American Romanticism valued feeling and intuition over reason and logic.

The Romantics rejected the noisy Industrial age and sought exotic settings to attain higher truths.

The gothic novel typically features supernatural events and mysterious medieval castles, but not wild, haunted landscapes.

Psychoanalysis, as proposed by Sigmund Freud, is a method of medical treatment for nervous disorders, but it is not used to analyze the psychological conditions of characters, actions, and behaviors in literature.

The Id, according to Freudian theory, is the rational/abstract part of the mind that uses defense mechanisms and adaptation to resolve internal conflicts.

In a typical Romantic lyrical poem, the speaker's contemplation of a commonplace object or event leads to an emotional and intellectual awakening.