Essay "Main forms of literature in America at the beginning of the XIX century"

Essay “The USA Culture” Topic: “Main forms of literature in America at the beginning of the XIX century”. Contents: I. Introduction: "Unique American style" .II. Main forms of literature in America at the beginning of the XIX century: 1. Transcendentalism 5 a) The history of transcendentalism 5 b)

The origins of transcendentalism .6 c) Criticism .7 d) Influence on other movements .7 e) Main works of transcendentalists .2. Dark romanticism 8 a) The origins of dark romanticism 8 b) Characteristics 8 c) Notable authors .3. American poetry 4. James Fennimore Cooper 5. Irving: short stories genre .12 6.

Harriet Beecher Stove and the abolitionists’ movement .III. Conclusion .IV. Supplementary V. Literature I. Introduction: "Unique American style". The early XIX century literature is interesting for me, because it introduces such a variety of topics and problems, which the American writers did not refer to before.

Many of the literary movements in America of the time involve only American authors, so the literature at the beginning of the XIX century is considered unique throughout the world. With the War of 1812 and an increasing desire to produce uniquely American literature and culture, a number of key new literary figures emerged, perhaps most prominently

Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, James Fennimore Cooper, and Edgar Allan Poe. Irving is often considered the first writer to develop a unique American style. He wrote humorous works in Salmagundi and the well-known satire "A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker" (1809). Bryant wrote early romantic and nature-inspired poetry, which evolved away from their

European origins. In 1832, Poe began writing short stories – including "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Fall of the House of Usher", and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" – that explore previously hidden levels of human psychology and push the boundaries of fiction toward mystery and fantasy.

Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales" about Natty Bumppo were popular both in the new country and abroad. Humorous writers were also popular and included Seba Smith and Benjamin P. Shillaber in New England and Davy Crockett, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Johnson

J. Hooper, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, Joseph G. Baldwin, and George Washington Harris writing about the American frontier. The New England Brahmins were a group of writers connected to Harvard University and its seat in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The core included James Russell Lowell, Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), an ex-minister, published a startling nonfiction work called "Nature", in which he claimed it was possible to dispense with organized religion and reach a lofty spiritual state by studying and responding to the natural world. His work influenced not only the writers who gathered around him, forming a movement known as

Transcendentalism, but also the public, who heard him lecture. Emerson's most gifted fellow-thinker was perhaps Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), a resolute nonconformist. After living mostly by himself for two years in a cabin by a wooded pond, Thoreau wrote "Walden", a book-length memoir that urges resistance to the meddlesome dictates

of organized society. His radical writings express a deep-rooted tendency toward individualism in the American character. Other writers influenced by Transcendentalism were Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, Orestes Brownson, and Jones Very. The political conflict surrounding Abolitionism inspired the writings of William Lloyd

Garrison and his paper "The Liberator", along with poet John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famous "Uncle Tom's Cabin". In 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) collected some of his stories as "Twice-Told Tales", a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents.

Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances", quasi-allegorical novels that explore such themes as guilt, pride, and emotional repression in his native New England. His masterpiece, "The Scarlet Letter", is the stark drama of a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery. Hawthorne's fiction had a profound impact on his friend Herman Melville (1819-1891), who first made a name for himself by turning material from his seafaring

days into exotic and sensational sea narrative novels. Inspired by Hawthorne's focus on allegories and dark psychology, Melville went on to write romances replete with philosophical speculation. In "Moby-Dick", an adventurous whaling voyage becomes the vehicle for examining such themes as obsession, the nature of evil and human struggle against the elements.

In another fine work, the short novel "Billy Budd", Melville dramatizes the conflicting claims of duty and compassion on board a ship in time of war. His more profound books sold poorly, and he had been long forgotten by the time of his death. He was rediscovered in the early decades of the 20th century. Anti-transcendental works from Melville, Hawthorne, and

Poe all comprise the Dark Romanticism subgenre of literature popular during this time. In my essay I am going to study the literary movements and the most prominent authors of the early XIX century and make a conclusion about this epoch. II. Main forms of literature in America at the beginning of the XIX century. 1. Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is philosophy that emerged in

New England in the early to middle 19th century. It is sometimes called American transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental. Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School.

Among transcendentalists' core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Christopher

Pearse Cranch, Convers Francis, Margaret Fuller, Frederick Henry Hedge, Sylvester Judd, Elizabeth Peabody, George Ripley, Amos Bronson Alcott, and Jones Very. Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott are often associated with the movement; however, this is largely in retrospect, and not very accurate. a) The history of transcendentalism.

The publication of Emerson's 1836 essay "Nature" is usually taken to be the watershed moment at which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. Emerson wrote in his essay "The American Scholar": "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the

Divine Soul which also inspires all men." Emerson closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the new idealist philosophy: "So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes? It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — what is truth? And of the affections, — what is good? By yielding itself passive to the educated will build, therefore,

your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit". In the same year, transcendentalism became a coherent movement with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 8th of September, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals including

George Putnam, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederick Henry Hedge. From 1840, the group published frequently in their journal "The Dial", along with other venues. The movement was originally termed Transcendentalists as a pejorative term, suggesting their position was beyond sanity and reason. The practical aims of the transcendentalists were varied; some among the group linked it with utopian

social change and, in the case of Brownson, it joined explicitly with early socialism, while others found it an exclusively individual and idealist project. Emerson believed the latter. In his 1842 lecture "The Transcendentalist", Emerson suggested that the goal of a purely transcendental outlook on life was impossible to attain in practice: "You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing

as a transcendental party; that there is no pure transcendentalist; that we know of no one but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food;

who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands. Shall we say, then, that transcendentalism is the Saturnalia or excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish".

By the 1850s, Emerson believed the movement was dying out, especially after the death of Margaret Fuller in 1850. "All that can be said", Emerson wrote, "is that she represents an interesting hour and group in American cultivation". b) The origins of transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was rooted in the transcendental philosophy of

Immanuel Kant (and of German Idealism more generally), which the New England intellectuals of the early 19th century embraced as an alternative to the Lockean sensualism of their fathers and of the Unitarian church, finding this alternative in Vedic thought, German idealism, and English Romanticism. The transcendentalists desired to ground their religion and philosophy in transcendental principles:

principles not based on or falsifiable by, sensuous experience, but deriving from the inner, spiritual or mental essence of the human. Immanuel Kant had called "all knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects." The transcendentalists were largely unacquainted with German philosophy in the original, and relied primarily on the writings of

Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Cousin, Germaine de Staël, and other English and French commentators for their knowledge of it. In contrast, they were intimately familiar with the English Romantics, and the transcendental movement may be partially described as a slightly later, American outgrowth of Romanticism. Another major influence was the mystical spiritualism of

Emanuel Swedenborg. Thoreau in Walden spoke of the debt to the Vedic thought directly, as did other members of the movement: "In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and

I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! There I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water-jug.

I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges". c) Criticism. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a novel, "The Blithedale Romance" (1852), satirizing the movement, and based it on his experiences at Brook Farm, a short-lived utopian community founded on transcendental principles.

Edgar Allan Poe had a deep dislike for transcendentalism, calling its followers Frogpondians after the pond on Boston Common. He ridiculed their writings in particular by calling them "metaphor-run," lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake." One of his short stories, "Never Bet the Devil Your Head", is a clear attack on transcendentalism, which the narrator calls

a "disease". The story specifically mentions the movement and its flagship journal "The Dial", though Poe denied that he had any specific targets. d) Influence on other movements. Transcendentalists were strong believers in the power of the individual and divine messages. Their beliefs are closely linked with those of the Romantics. The movement directly influenced the growing movement of

Mental Sciences of the mid 1800s which would later become known as the New Thought movement. New Thought draws directly from the transcendentalists, particularly Emerson. New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father. Ernest Holmes founder of Religious Science church was greatly influenced by transcendentalism. The Fillmores the founders of Unity: Malinda Cramer and

Nona L. Brooks Founders of Divine Science were greatly influenced by Transcendentalism. e) Main works of transcendentalists. By Ralph Waldo Emerson: Collections • English Traits (1856) • The Conduct of Life (1860) • May Day and Other Poems (1867) • Society and Solitude (1870) Essays • "The Over-

Soul" • "The Poet" • "Experience" • "Nature" Poems • "Concord Hymn" • "The Rhodora" By Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli: • Summer on the Lakes (1844) • Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) • Papers on Literature and Art (1846)

Posthumous editions • Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852) • At Home and Abroad (1856) • Life Without and Life within (1858) By Henry David Thoreau: • Sir Walter Raleigh (1844) • Night and Moonlight (1863) • Poems of Nature (1895) 2. Dark romanticism. Dark romanticism is a literary subgenre that emerged from the transcendental philosophical

movement popular in nineteenth-century America. Works in the dark romantic spirit were influenced by Transcendentalism, but did not entirely embrace the ideas of Transcendentalism. Such works are notably less optimistic than transcendental texts about mankind, nature, and divinity. Authors considered most representative of dark romanticism are Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and in some way the poetess

Emily Dickinson. a) The origins of dark romanticism. The term dark romanticism comes from both the pessimistic nature of the subgenre's literature and the influence it derives from the earlier Romantic literary movement. Dark Romanticism's birth, however, was a mid-nineteenth-century reaction to the American Transcendental movement. Transcendentalism originated in

New England among intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller and found wide popularity from 1836 through the late 1840s. The movement came to have influence in a number of areas of American expression, including its literature, as writers growing up in the transcendental atmosphere of the time were affected. Some, including Poe, Hawthorne and

Melville, found transcendental beliefs far too optimistic and egotistical and reacted by modifying them in their prose and poetry—works that now comprise the subgenre that was Dark Romanticism. b) Characteristics. While Transcendentalism influenced individual Dark Romantic authors differently, literary critics observe works of the subgenre to break from Transcendentalism’s tenets in a few key ways. Firstly,

Dark Romantics are much less confident about the notion perfection is an innate quality of mankind, as believed by Transcendentalists. Subsequently, Dark Romantics present individuals as prone to sin and self-destruction, not as inherently possessing divinity and wisdom. G.R. Thompson describes this disagreement, stating while Transcendental thought conceived of a world in which divinity was immanent, "the

Dark Romantics adapted images of anthropomorphized evil in the form of Satan, devils, ghosts… vampires, and ghouls." Secondly, while both groups believe nature is a deeply spiritual force, Dark Romanticism views it in a much more sinister light than does Transcendentalism, which sees nature as a divine and universal organic mediator.

For these Dark Romantics, the natural world is dark, decaying, and mysterious; when it does reveal truth to man, its revelations are evil and hellish. Finally, whereas Transcendentalists advocate social reform when appropriate, works of Dark Romanticism frequently show individuals failing in their attempts to make changes for the better. Thompson sums up the characteristics of the subgenre, writing:

Fallen man's inability fully to comprehend haunting reminders of another, supernatural realm that yet seemed not to exist, the constant perplexity of inexplicable and vastly metaphysical phenomena, a propensity for seemingly perverse or evil moral choices that had no firm or fixed measure or rule, and a sense of nameless guilt combined with a suspicion the external world was a delusive projection of the mind these were major elements in the vision of man the

Dark Romantics opposed to the mainstream of Romantic thought. c) Notable authors. Many consider American writers Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville to be the major Dark Romantic authors. Edgar Allan Poe. Many consider Edgar Allan Poe to be the seminal dark romantic author.

Much of his poetry and prose features his characteristic interest in exploring the psychology of man, including the perverse and self-destructive nature of the conscious and subconscious mind. Some of Poe’s notable dark romantic works include the short stories "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" and poems "The Raven" and "Ulalume". Nathaniel

Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is the dark romantic writer with the closest ties to the American Transcendental movement. He was associated with the community in New England and even lived at the Brook Farm Transcendentalist Utopian commune for a time before he became troubled by the movement; his literature later became anti-transcendental in nature. Also troubled by his ancestors' participation in the

Salem witch trials, Hawthorne's short stories, including "The Minister's Black Veil", frequently take the form of "cautionary tales about the extremes of individualism and reliance on human beings" and hold that guilt and sin are qualities inherent in man. In 1837, the young Nathaniel Hawthorne collected some of his stories as "Twice-Told Tales", a volume rich in symbolism and occult incidents.

Hawthorne went on to write full-length "romances", quasi-allegorical novels that explore such themes as guilt, pride, and emotional repression in his native New England. His masterpiece, "The Scarlet Letter", is the stark drama of a woman cast out of her community for committing adultery. Herman Melville. Best known during his lifetime for his travel books, a twentieth-century revival in the study of

Herman Melville’s works has left “Moby-Dick” and “Bartleby the Scrivener” among his most highly regarded. Also known for writing of man's blind ambition, cruelty, and defiance of God, his themes of madness, mystery, and the triumph of evil over good in these two works make them notable examples of the dark romanticism sub-genre. 3. American poetry. America's two greatest 19th-century poets could hardly have been more different

in temperament and style. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was a working man, a traveler, a self-appointed nurse during the American Civil War (1861-1865), and a poetic innovator. His magnum opus was "Leaves of Grass", in which he uses a free-flowing verse and lines of irregular length to depict the all-inclusiveness of American democracy. Taking that motif one step further, the poet equates the vast range of

American experience with himself without being egotistical. For example, in "Song of Myself", the long, central poem in "Leaves of Grass", Whitman writes: "These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands; they are not original with me " Whitman was also a poet of the body – "the body electric", as he called it. In "Studies in Classic American

Literature", the English novelist D. H. Lawrence wrote that Whitman "was the first to smash the old moral conception that the soul of man is something `superior' and `above' the flesh." Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886), on the other hand, lived the sheltered life of a genteel unmarried woman. Within its formal structure, her poetry is ingenious, witty, exquisitely wrought, and psychologically

penetrating. Her work was unconventional for its day, and little of it was published during her lifetime. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts to a successful family with strong community ties. She studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth and spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing

and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence. Dickinson was a prolific private poet, though fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time.

Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often utilize slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two subjects which infused her letters to friends. "Because I could not stop for Death" one begins, "He kindly stopped for me." The opening of another

Dickinson poem toys with her position as a woman in a male-dominated society and an unrecognized poet: "I’m nobody! Who are you? / Are you nobody too?" Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of

Dickinson's work became apparent. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, both of whom heavily edited the content. A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when book "The Poems of Emily Dickinson" was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th

and early 20th century, critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet. 4. James Fennimore Cooper. James Fennimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the "

Leatherstocking Tales", featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel "The Last of the Mohicans", which is considered to be his masterpiece. Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey. His father was a United States Congressman. Before his first birthday, his family moved to

Cooperstown, New York. At the age of 14, Cooper was enrolled at Yale, but he did not obtain a degree. He obtained work as a sailor on merchant vessels, and at the age of 19, Cooper joined the United States Navy, where he got the rank of midshipman before leaving in 1811. When J. Cooper was 22, he married Susan DeLancey and they had seven children. J. Cooper anonymously published his first book, "

Precaution" in 1820. He soon issued several others under his own name. In 1823, he published "The Pioneers"; this was the first of the Leatherstocking series, featuring Natty Bumppo, the resourceful American woodsman at home with the Delaware Indians and especially their chief Chingachgook. Cooper's most famous novel, "Last of the

Mohicans" (1826), became one of the most widely read American novels of the nineteenth century. The book was written in a second-story storefront-apartment in Warrensburg, New York, just north of where most of the book's plot takes place. In 1826 Cooper moved his family to Europe, having accepted a position with the United States government. While overseas he continued to write.

His books published in Paris include "The Red Rover", and "The Waterwitch"—one of his many sea stories. In 1830 he entered the lists as a party writer; in a series of letters to the National, a Parisian journal, he defended the United States against a string of charges brought against them by the

Revue Britannique. For the rest of his life he continued skirmishing in print, sometimes for the national interest, sometimes for that of the individual, and not infrequently for both at once. This opportunity to make a political confession of faith appears not only to have fortified him in his own convictions, but to have inspired him with the idea of elucidating them for the public through the medium of his art. His next three novels, "

The Bravo" (1831), "The Heidenmauer" (1832) and "The Headsman": or the "Abbaye of Vigneron" (1833), were expressions of Cooper's republican convictions. In 1833 Cooper returned to America and immediately published "A Letter to My Countrymen", in which he gave his own version of the controversy in which he had been engaged

and sharply censured his compatriots for their share in it. This attack he followed up with novels and several sets of notes on his travels and experiences in Europe. His "Homeward Bound" and "Home as Found" are notable for containing a highly idealized portrait of himself. He also wrote a pair of histories of the US Navy, and then returned to the

Leatherstocking series and other novels. He then returned to writing naval history, including "Ned Myers" or "A Life before the Mast", which is of particular interest to naval historians. He turned again from pure fiction to the combination of art and controversy in which he had achieved distinction with the "Littlepage Manuscripts" (1845—1846). His next novel was "The Crater" or "

Vulcan's Peak" (1847), in which he attempted to introduce supernatural machinery and Cooper’s last completed novel was "The Ways of the Hour". Cooper spent the last years of his life in Cooperstown, New York (named for his father). He died of dropsy on September 14, 1851, the day before his 62nd birthday.

His interment was located at its Christ Episcopal Churchyard, where his father William Cooper was buried. Several well-known writers, politicians, and other public figures honored Cooper's memory with a dinner in February 1852; Washington Irving served as a co-chairman for the event alongside

William Cullen Bryant and Daniel Webster. 5. Washington Irving: short stories genre. Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book "

The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent". His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving also served as the U.S. minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846. He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational

letters to the "Morning Chronicle", written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent". In 1819 he continued to publish regularly—and almost always successfully—throughout his life, and completed a five-volume biography of

George Washington just eight months before his death, at age 76, in Tarrytown, New York. Irving, along with James Fennimore Cooper, was among the first American writers to earn acclaim in Europe, and Irving encouraged American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow, and Edgar Allan Poe. Irving was also admired by some European writers, including Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, and Charles Dickens. As America's first genuine internationally best-selling author, Irving advocated for writing as a legitimate profession, and argued for stronger laws to protect

American writers from copyright infringement. 6. Harriet Beecher Stove and the abolitionists’ movement. The political conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired the writings of William Lloyd Garrison and his paper "The Liberator", along with poet John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe in her world-famous "

Uncle Tom's Cabin". Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852) depicted life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S. and Britain and made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions,

energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Upon meeting Stowe, Abraham Lincoln allegedly remarked, "So this is the little lady who started this great war!" Partial list of works: • Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) • A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) • Men of Our Times (1868) •

Old Town Folks (1869) • Little Pussy Willow (1870) • Lady Byron Vindicated (1870) • My Wife and I (1871) • Pink and White Tyranny (1871) • Woman in Sacred History (1873) • Palmetto-Leaves (1873) • The Poor Life (1890) III. Conclusion. So, finishing my essay, I can suppose that the beginning of the

XIX century was a period of growth for the USA. On the 4th of July in 1776 the "Declaration of Independence" was signed; America got the freedom, which she had been yearning for so long, and had all the opportunities to commence a new life. The inventions of the time such as Eli Whitney’s cotton gin could make the land working easier.

However, it was also a period of difficulties, and slavery problem was the most significant of them. In the year 1810 there were 7.2 million people in the States. Among them 1.2 million people were black slaves. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the "Declaration of Independence", owned slaves himself as well as

George Washington and other political leaders. They doubted they would be able to cultivate the vast fields of tobacco, rice and especially cotton without slave workers. But in the north, where the farms were smaller and the climate cooler, farmers did not need slaves to work the land for them. Some northerns opposed slavery for moral and religious reasons and many of them were abolitionists. By the early XIX century many northern states had passed laws abolishing slavery

inside their own boundaries and in 1808 they also persuaded Congress to make it illegal for ships to bring new slaves from Africa into the United States. The American writers expressed their ideas on the historical and national events in their country through their works. New York was the literature centre. Harriet Beecher Stowe in her novel "Uncle Tom's

Cabin" depicted the life of African-Americans under slavery and made the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North. The topic of relationship between Native Americans and white people, the eternal issues of friendship, piece and careful attitude to nature are introduced in James Fennimore Cooper’s novels. Alongside with

Cooper, Francis Bret Harte is remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in America, especially in California. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity ("The Scarlet Letter"). Washington Irving, an American author and essayist was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "

Rip Van Winkle". He is also famous for his work "A History of New York" written in 1809 by the nickname Diedrich Knickerbocker in satire genre. And one of his most impressive historical works is the 5-volumed biography of George Washington. But not only social themes were interesting for the Americans at the time. The new movement of transcendentalists, who concentrated on intuition, feelings

and on what they called transcends of instinct appeared. Among them was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature". There were such writers as Margaret Fuller – the first American feminist, George Ripley,

William Ellery Channing, and Henry David Thoreau in the transcendental group. In July 1840 it began to publish its journal "The Dial". Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works; the most famous of them is "Leaves of

Grass". And probably one of the most famous and most loved American poets is Emily Dickinson. She has been regarded, alongside Emerson (whose poems Dickinson admired), as a Transcendentalist. The major themes of her creation are nature, love, death and eternity, though she frequently uses humor, puns, irony and satire in her poetry. Her poems are learnt and recited by every pupil and student in

the USA and the Dickinson Homestead which in 2003 was made into the Emily Dickinson Museum is visited by many admirers of her personality and style. So we can suppose that the early XIX century literature consisted of various movements, reflecting beliefs and hopes of the Americans at that time. In my essay I have studied them in more detail and demonstrated that the themes the writers and poets referred to

are also important for a nowadays person. IV. Supplementary. Some authors of the XIX century in pictures. James Fennimore Cooper (1850) Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1850) Ralph Waldo Emerson (1859) Nathaniel Hawthorne (1840) Washington Irving (1809) Herman Melville Harriet Beecher

Stove Henry David Thoreau (1854) Walt Whitman (about 1856) V. Literature. 1. Bryn O’Callaghan "An Illustrated History of the USA" Longman, 2004 2. Гиленсон Б.А. "История литературы США". М 2003 3. Позднякова Л.Р. "История английской и американской литературы".

Ростов-на-Дону, 2002 4. Эмили Дикинсон "Стихотворения" (Emily Dickinson "The Poems"). Москва, ОАО Издательство "Радуга", 2001 5. http://wikipedia.org/