18th Century American Romanticism

Mankind has often tried to unite with a silenced yet ever-bearing nature for the sake of unique creation and experience. With the obliged assistance of all things natural, mankind is inspired to progressively discover all forms of beauty and spirituality. This inspiration is said to have given way to the era of Romanticism which began in Europe during the mid/late 18th century as a revolt against the aristocracy and the corresponding politics of the Age of Enlightenment. European Romantic ideals influenced visual arts and music. More importantly, however, European Romanticism influenced literature and set the precedent for future literary movements such as the American Transcendentalist movement. American Transcendentalism initiated during …show more content…
Rather than appealing to the religious notions of good and evil in their works of literature, the Romantics depended on their own feelings, emotions and observations surrounding the sublimity of nature. Romantics reveled in the world around them, highlighting nature as the ultimate source of spiritualism, inspiration, and even the destruction of the soul. The writing of the movement explored the natural world with great detail, noting that the natural world was inherently good while humans were inherently corruptible beings. It may be said that the solely nature-based inspiration that drove the European Romantic poets to jot down their individualistic, spontaneous overflows of emotion eventually drove them to feel jealous of nature’s subliminal perfection. The Romantic belief that humans were inherently corruptible can be noted in European Romantic poet William Wordsworth’s poem, …show more content…
The protagonist is saddened by his actions and alludes to feelings of immense regret. He is saddened that he has robbed nature of its voice, but what he fails to realize--in the chaos of his corruption--is that nature is already voiceless, and when something is voiceless, it cannot be further silenced. Though the protagonist may have initially wanted to take on a God-like role, this yearning is rendered impossible, as nature is the only important religious source in “Nutting” and in the Romantic theory as a whole. How the protagonist of “Nutting” came to be so destructive is arguable, but Wordsworth’s characterization of him seeks to prove that man is the most imperfect of creatures. Upon deeper analysis, one might begin to believe that nature’s subliminal perfection and, further, its ability to be reborn, might actually serve as the primary source of man’s envy, leading to the overall destruction of man’s sanity. Perhaps Wordsworth’s “Nutting” can be classified as a cautionary tale to humans, warning them against stealing from nature’s seemingly unending fruitfulness due to the envious feeling that we are not equivalent to nature’s perfection. European Romanticism was heavily concerned with the “spirit of perverseness” in human nature, and it is obvious that Wordsworth’s protagonist in “Nutting” acted in