The Frontier in American Romanticism
For the American Romantics, the frontier was kind of a big deal. Remember, they were living at a time when the country was expanding westward. Many Americans were moving out to those big prairies in the Midwest and beyond.
The reason the frontier was so important to American Romantic writers is because it represented possibility and escape. As we've already mentioned, freedom and individualism are big themes in American Romantic literature. And the frontier, as a space of exploration, embodied those ideals for the Romantics.
Chew On This
James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie is set on the western frontier. Have a look at the beginning of the book, which focuses on America's westward expansion.
Walt Whitman's vision of America in his poem "Song of Myself" is partly inspired by the American frontier. Delve into an analysis of Whitman's vision of America here.