Reflection+on+American+Romanticism

America has its very roots in the spirit of Romanticism. It was the romantic urge of the early explorers who stumbled upon our continent to find a land across the sea. It is this swashbuckling spirit of an entire world waiting just beyond the sunset. Into the West, always into the West. As conquistadors, pioneers, and settlers warred with and unjustly slaughtered the noble Amerindians that once dwelt from sea to shining sea, they were driven ever onwards by the //American// spirit of Romanticism. That spirit that drives man to look out upon the world and defiantly proclaim "I will fight for what I believe is right!" (for better or worse) is one of the New World, not the Old. That supremely existential idea of "Go and win what you can with the sweat of your brow" is one of great Romanticism, one that (again, for better or worse) built our country and made us what we are today.

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