Jillian Norris

Exploring the Unknown in Early American Literature

          When I signed up to take Early American Literature I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the class. A few years ago I had taken a lower level Early American Literature course and by the end of it I felt pretty cheated by the entire experience. Mostly because we weren't assigned any reading material at all! We could read the material if we wanted to, but in the long run it didn't seem like there was really any benefit to reading it because the extra effort would not be reflected in our grades. In class we would just watch the movie adaptations of texts like The Scarlet Letter and were later tested on what we watched. So after that experience with an Early American Literature course, I wasn't sure what to expect from an upper level literature class. However, from the very first day in this class I knew that it was going to be an entirely different experience from the lower level class that I took before. Your class is what I should expect from any college class because it challenged me to explore topics and themes on my own, introduced me to new and interesting concepts, and the classroom environment was so positive that I would look forward to coming to class every week. Overall this class really raised my standards of what a literature class should be like, and also how college courses should be in general.
          Perhaps the most enjoyable part of this class for me, and the one that I benefited from the most, were the research posts. I had done research papers before, but they were a lot more formulaic and had to meet certain criteria whereas the research posts for this class did have a general guideline that we were supposed to follow, but they allowed for a lot of wiggle room. I chose to do my research posts about the evolution and major influences on the baroque and the plain style after we finished reading a lot of plain style writing such as Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. I was instantly drawn to this style of writing and artistry after we discussed it in class, as well as the baroque, and doing the research posts gave me the opportunity to explore the topic on my own. Since doing my first research post, I was able to go into the second half of the semester with a keener eye for identifying writing styles. Even though we were beginning to delve into the Romantic period, where we didn't cover many plain style texts, I was able to identify the dry, black and white, style of Equiano's and Occom's narratives as plain style literature, which enabled me to interpret the texts easier.
          My favorite texts from the course would have to be Charlotte Temple and Edgar Huntly. I have a big soft spot for novels and gothic fiction so these two texts were right up my alley, but they were also writings that I had never heard of before so it was nice to experience something new. I particularly liked Charlotte Temple because of the recurring themes that appeared throughout the story. Forgiveness is one of the more prominent themes which is first seen early on in the book right after Charlotte leaves with Montraville. When her parents learn from her grandfather of what she has done at first they are angry and disappointed, although they quickly announce that all will be forgiven of their daughter if only she would return. But perhaps my favorite instance of forgiveness occurs at the very end of the novel, in the conclusion. This is when Charlotte's parents are walking through town with Lucy Temple and they spy a haggard woman who seems very ill and hopeless. Charlotte's parents take the woman in and care for her. Even after the woman reveals herself to be La Rue, the woman who convinced Charlotte to run away to America with Montraville in the first place, they forgive her and continue to care for her until she eventually passes away. This moment of forgiveness was really touching and I thought that it was good for Lucy Temple to witness the mercy that her grandparents showed La Rue, even though most people would have just turned the woman away.
          Edgar Huntly, on the other hand, is a much different piece than Charlotte Temple. It is full of darkness and shadows and uncertainty, which is what I think makes this book so intriguing. This book is by no means an easy read, which is another trait that it does not share with Charlotte Temple, but it does hold a certain mystery that urges you to keep reading until the very end. I think that Brown's use of gothic and sublime elements are big parts of what contribute to that mystery. For example, Brown often refers to the wilderness and the shadows cast by Waldegrave's tree to emphasize darkness which helps to create a very gothic, almost spooky, tone to the scene. His use of sleepwalking is also a very gothic element because it shows that an individual is capable of committing strange, and sometimes criminal, acts without being consciously aware of it. In Jeff Derrickson's final exam, he points out a gothic element that I didn't pick up on when I read the story when he says "Brown also plays upon the idea of the cave as a representation of the mind, as Edgar and Clithero seek to understand their true natures as human beings." I really like the idea of the cave being a representation of Edgar and Clithero's mind and it is something that I didn't catch while I was reading Edgar Huntly, so this was a very clever catch on Jeff's part.
          Something else that I appreciated about this course was that all of our texts were available for free online. That alone lifted a huge weight off my shoulders because I was expecting to have to pay a lot of money for textbooks in a literature class. But having the texts online was also useful because it allowed you to be able to insert your own notes and annotations throughout the text, which was a big help to me and allowed me to catch certain themes or ideas that I wouldn't have otherwise picked up on.
          Overall, I will come away from this class with a better understanding of not just early American literature, but early American history as well due to the amount of historical non-fiction that we read and discussed. I have also learned to identify gothic elements and literature and the characteristics of a Romantic piece, which are things that I was only vaguely aware of before. But most importantly I have discovered that a good literature class requires time, effort, and dedication. Where before I was allowed to skate by in class by simply watching movie adaptations of literature, this class forced me to read and appreciate literature on a whole new level which is something that I will carry with me well past this class.