Which statement best describes American Romanticism and its representative authors?

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American Romanticism centers on emotion, imagination, nature, and the individual’s experience, valuing intuition and the inner life as the lens through which truth is seen. This fits best with describing the movement as emphasizing emotion, imagination, nature, and individual experience, with Hawthorne or Irving as representative authors. Hawthorne’s stories probe psychological depth and moral complexity, using nature and symbolic elements to reflect inner states. Irving’s tales celebrate imagination, folklore, and the enchanted aspects of the American landscape, showing how personal experience and wonder shape understanding. The other options point to later or different literary currents—science and industrial progress, social realism, or postcolonial identity—so they don’t align with the core focus of American Romanticism.