Great Issues in Humanities
European Romanticism and American Transcendentalism

HSP 135 CRN
8:10 – 9:00am
Monday, Wednesday & Friday
Observatory
Dr. Catherine Grimm

In this course we will read and discuss key texts of European Romanticism and American Transcendentalism. We will begin by tracing the beginnings of Romanticism (primarily German but also English), as it evolved out of, and in reaction to the Enlightenment. We will look at the influence of idealist philosophy on the development of this new and radically different approach to literature, philosophy and art, before moving on to literary examples of Romanticism (novels, poems and at least one fairy tale). Themes to be explored include: the changing nature of the individual in society, the concept of romantic irony and the relationship of self to nature. The notion of nature and its connections both to spirit and self (subject) will be the main point of continuity as we turn our attention in the second half of the course to the uniquely American expression of Romanticism namely Transcendentalism.