Romanticism in the form of Transcendentalism was communicated foremost through the writings of the faithful. Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and others published lengthy works of a range of types on a variety of subjects, each in its own way an expression of Romantic ideals. The Transcendentalists also conveyed their philosophy, concerns, and creativity through shorter pieces printed in the periodical publications that were important to the intellectual life of the mid-nineteenth century. The Western Messenger, published in Cincinnati and Louisville from 1835 to 1841, included pieces on Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, and German and Oriental literature. In 1838, Orestes Brownson began the Boston Quarterly Review. The Dial, the best-known organ of Transcendentalism, edited by Emerson and Margaret Fuller and published for a time by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, was issued between 1840 and 1844. The Brook Farm publication The Harbinger commenced in 1845. Theodore Parker founded the Massachusetts Quarterly Review in 1847. The single issue of Elizabeth Peabody's Aesthetic Papers appeared in 1849. The North American Review began publication in 1854, Atlantic Monthly in 1857. Both were later bought by the Boston publishing firm of Ticknor and Fields. Neither publication was strictly a periodical of American Transcendentalism, but both included pieces by Emerson, Thoreau, and others. (Ticknor and Fields were major publishers, handling the work of such nineteenth century American authors as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Holmes, Longfellow, and Lowell.)
The flowering of Transcendentalism was only one American expression of Romanticism — albeit the strongest one — in the period between 1820 and 1865. Moreover, the literary presentation of Romantic themes and ideas was not confined only to New England authors. Novelist James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) vividly wrote about the frontier experience, life at sea, America's past, the wilderness, and the individual's relation to society. His Leatherstocking Series was published between 1823 and 1841. A critic of Transcendentalism and an opponent of abolition and reform, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) had nevertheless been influenced by Coleridge in his approach to literary criticism. His poetry conveyed intense emotion; his stories were full of mystery and horror. Popular poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) wrote personal sonnets, took history as subject matter (his narrative poem Evangeline was published in 1847), and drew upon Native American legend in his poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855). Although not a Transcendentalist, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) spent a substantial portion of his life among Transcendentalists. Married to Sophia Peabody, sister of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, he lived in Concord from 1842 to 1845, at the height of the Transcendental movement, and again later in life. He was also a resident of Brook Farm. His romances and stories, rich with symbolism and allegory, focused on the individual, explored morality, dealt with historical subjects, and examined the effect of the past upon the present. Herman Melville (1819–1891) wrote narratives drawing upon his personal experiences in exotic places and his knowledge of life at sea. His Moby-Dick (1851) was atmospheric, evocative, allegorical, symbolic, an exploration of good and evil — the embodiment of Romantic literature. Poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was deeply moved by Emerson's thought and writing. His Leaves of Grass (1855) extolled the individual in the person of the poet himself and celebrated personal expression, freedom, and the intuitive understanding of the world. Whitman went far beyond the Transcendental vision in assigning a place of importance to sensuality.
All of these voices of Romanticism, and other writers as well (Washington Irving, William Gilmore Simms, William Cullen Bryant, Nathaniel Parker Willis, and John Greenleaf Whittier among them), contributed to the development of that vigorous national thought and expression that Emerson had envisioned in 1837 in "The American Scholar." The Romantic impulse played a major role in the mid-nineteenth century blossoming of American literature and art that has been called the American Renaissance.
