ENG 339 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Noble Savage, Transcendentalism, Nonconformist
10 Mar 2020
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Romanticism: 18th-early 19th century, literary mvmnt, started in europe, moved to america when waldo visited, like when theres something you can"t completely wrap your head around. Central aspects of romanticism: solitude (esp in nature, valued intuition over tuition, tuition: being taught directly, valued individual, egotistical approach to nature went into nature to discover self, irrational" experiences. Irrational: beyond the rational mind: drugs, starvation, extreme experiences, meditation, liked automatic writing, keep writing, eventually something overtakes you and writes through you (similar to ouija board, love of the strange/mysterious, love of childhood innocence. Idea romantics subscribed to: belief that happiness increases as your degree of civilization decreases. Idea of noble savage": wilderness life: pure, makes more hardy, moral, etc. If willing, can see nature is trying to teach you something: didn"t want to depend on church, school etc, self-reliance, solitude, nonconformity, don"t need past masters (can figure it out by self)
