THE NEW ENGLAND RENAISSANCE
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The New England Renaissance occurred during the middle of the 19th century. Characterized by rapid social changes including developments in industry, technology, and transportation, the New England Renaissance changed the face of American society. Inventions like the telegraph and steel plow, improvements in rail roads, and a renewed faith in the unlimited power of human potential were characteristic of the era. New philosophies posited the human soul as being connected universally to a collective soul known as the ôover-soulö and celebrated a reverence of nature. Known as transcendentalism, a philosophical movement known as anti-transcendentalism would rise in response. Authors like Emerson and Thoreau were leading exponents of transcendentalism in the writing of the era, contrasted by anti-transcendentalism authors such as Hawthorne and Melville. If any characteristic of the New England Renaissance is most symbolic of the era, it is the flourishing of transcendentalist and anti-transcendentalist literature of the period.As industry grew in American society, a movement known as transcendentalism arose in New England. Transcendentalism represented a response to what many found to be industrialismÆs focus on materialism to the point of dehumanization. The transcendentalistÆs believed that people learn knowledge intuitively, rejecting traditional dogma and belief systems. Ration provided the only means of discovering the
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being appreciated. We easily come to doubt they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest realityö (1).
The philosophies of the transcendentalists were far from the only influential expressions in literature during the New England Renaissance. A group of poets also arose during the period known as the ôfireside poets.ö The ôfireside poetsö included such individuals as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Emily Dickinson. The ôfireside poetsö were responsible for creating a renewed interest in poetry in American society, where many families would father around the fireplace and read their works. The ôfireside poetsö continued in the humanistic vein of the transcendentalists. Poets like Lowell and John Greenleaf Whitier attacked what they found to be the material and dehumanizing factors responsible for the institution of slavery. Such poets were responsible for adding fuel to the abolitionist movement developing in New England. LowellÆs works often depicted his personal pain that most human beings could empathize with, such as the loss of his children in The First Snowfall. Others ôfireside poetsö like Emily Dickinson were more reclusive and never intended to have their poems published. Neverth
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Approximate Word count = 2003
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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