What influenced the American Renaissance?
One of the most important influences in the period was that of the Transcendentalists (see Transcendentalism), centred in the village of Concord, Massachusetts, and including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, and Margaret Fuller.
Why is Ralph Waldo Emerson important to American history?
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. considered to be America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”.
What happened in the American Renaissance?
The American Renaissance was a period of American architecture and the arts from 1876 to 1917, characterized by renewed national self-confidence and a feeling that the United States was the heir to Greek democracy, Roman law, and Renaissance humanism.
What is the theme of the American Renaissance?
The thematic center of the American Renaissance was what Matthiessen called the “devotion” of all five of his writers to “the possibilities of democracy”. He presented the American Renaissance texts as “literature for our democracy” and challenged the nation to repossess them.
Who led the American Renaissance?
The authors who began to come to prominence in the 1830s and were active until about the end of the Civil War—the humorists, the classic New Englanders, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and others—did their work in a new spirit, and their achievements were of a new sort.
What is the history of the Renaissance period?
The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art.
Why was Emerson such an important figure in American literature?
Ralph Waldo Emerson is the father of American Literature. In a series of strikingly original essays written in the mid-nineteenth century, he fundamentally changed the way America saw its cultural and artistic possibilities, enabling its separation from transatlantic literary traditions.
How does Emerson describe friendship?
Emerson states that true friendship is when a person is privileged to have another with who they can be sincere and not have to watch what they say or do that it may hurt their feelings or offend them.
How did transcendentalism figure in the American Renaissance?
How did Transcendentalism figure in the American Renaissance? Transcendentalists believed that real truths lay outside the sensory experience. It merged in NE and produces a native blend that was romantic, intuitive, and ethically engaged. Emerson and Thoreau believed this.
What did American Renaissance in literature reflect?
During the mid-nineteenth century, many American literary masterpieces were produced. Often considered a movement centered in New England, the American Renaissance was inspired in part by a new focus on humanism as a way to move from Calvinism.
Where did the American renaissance began?
Sometimes referred to as the New England renaissance, because it was centered in New England, this period ran from about 1830 until the end of the Civil War and it has been closely identified with American romanticism and an intellectual movement known as transcendentalism.
What were the most important results of the Renaissance?
The Renaissance led to significant results. It brought about a transition from the medieval to the modern age. This period witnessed the end of the old and reactionary medieval spirit, and the beginning of the new spirit of science, reason and experimentation. The hands of the monarchy were strengthened.