1. The document discusses the emergence of American Romanticism in literature during the 19th century as the country expanded westward. 2. James Fenimore Cooper was an early American novelist who focused on frontier communities and characters like Natty Bumppo, representing the first truly American romantic hero. 3. Other writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville produced novels featuring natural settings and characters representing American innocence and individualism that came to define romantic heroes of the time.

1. American Romanticism And the Wilderness Experience