Nature in American Romanticism
America is the land of epic landscapes: prairies, volcanoes, Rocky Mountains, canyons. We've got it all over here in America. Is it any wonder, then, that nature is such a huge theme in American Romantic literature? C'mon: just look at these red rocks. They make us want to write a few poems.
The American Romantics looked to nature for inspiration, for escape from society, and as a place where their individuality could let its freak flag fly. The Romantics believed that in nature we could be free in a way that we couldn't be in society, where rules and conventions limit our individuality.
The American Romantics' love of nature, of course, echoes the love of nature we'll find in Romantic literature in Europe. Like their European counterparts, the American Romantics venerated nature, wrote about it, and found lots of inspiration in it. Unlike Europe, however, America has freaky bison and nutso deserts.
Chew On This
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau tells the story of living alone in a cabin in the woods. But he wasn't lonely out there all on his own. Why? Because he had nature to keep him company.
In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, the narrator is awestruck by the sight of whale skeletons, and other (less morbid) natural phenomena.