Problematyczne narodziny romantyzmu w Stanach Zjednoczonych
The problematic birth of Romanticism in the United States of America

Author(s): Marek Wilczyński
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, American Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: Romanticism; The United States of America; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Edgar Allan Poe; William Cullen Bryant; James Marsh; Richard Henry Dana; Sr.
Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the problematic birth of Romanticism in the United States of America. Although literary historians usually identify American Roman- ticism with Transcendentalism, originated by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1836 and pre- senting Edgar Allan Poe as an opposite “dark Romanticist,” abortive attempts to graft Romantic ideas and poetic diction in the US were undertaken as early as in the first and second decades of the 19th century by essayists who contributed to the Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, and William Cullen Bryant, who made his literary debut in the North American Review. Among those who were impressed by the Romantic ideas coming from Europe were James Marsh, whose edition of Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection inspired Emer- son, and Richard Henry Dana, Sr., an enthusiast of Wordsworth, author of essays and reviews published in Boston literary magazines. However, all those efforts proved to be premature and, with the exception of Bryant’s poems, failed to make Romanticism signi- ficant before Poe, Hawthorne, and Emerson.

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