American Literature and Abraham Lincoln
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The American Renaissance is a time that American writers received
more recognition as to the quality of their works. Before this time scholars looked upon the
works of the artist and writers in America, who were looked upon as secondary across
the Atlantic. The novelist Gustave de Beaumont warned Europeans not to 'look for poetry,
literature, or fine arts in this country'. (McQuade et al pg. 462) When one of the
proprietors of the North American Review first read young William Cullen Bryant's blank
verse, Wordsworthian Thanatopsis (1817), a poem subsequently hailed as the finest yet
written in America, he assumed the author was British: 'No one on this side of the Atlantic
is capable of writing such verse'. (462) The American Renaissance is also a time of
Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is a form of relying on one's own intuition and
conscious.
The American Renaissance is a period framed by two major events, the
Panic of 1837 and the Civil War. The American Renaissance also saw the rise in
leadership from the backwoods politicians Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. Rises
in the distinguishment between social classes start in this period...