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(2017
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2017 (index to #3 samples) #3: Web Highlights |
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Mason
Cabirac
Web Highlights: Gothic of Early America and Beyond
Admittedly, I have not read so much of the Romantic canon, but in reading
some of it and in appreciating other art of the era as well as trying to
understand its ideas, I feel the need to admit some sense of admiration for the
movement and explore its literature further. Gothic, being an element of the
Romantic, yet predating it, is an aspect that exists even in some of the early
American texts, which perhaps find a time of renewed popularity in the late
1700s into the 1800s and beyond. It has occurred to me that the Gothic is an
idea of uncanny contradiction at darkest and harmony at lightest. This
contradiction can be found, for example, in the human-like, yet inhuman, such as
the Puritans think the American Indians are. To better understand these texts, I
have taken notes on three model assignments, or two, considering that the work
of Ramirez, in my opinion, is abundant enough of ideas without the need for
concentration.
With
hers, I begin: In “How the Gothic Works in Pre-Romantic Texts,” Veronica Ramirez
admits the differences between the Bronte sisters and Jonathan Edwards, due to
the suspense, darkness and fears, which, while stated otherwise, seem like not
such a long shot. Distinctions of “Puritan/Moral Gothic and Wilderness Gothic”
are used to refer to these texts, but are explained later. Ramirez suggests that
it is the Gothic nature of these texts that keep them relevant, without
beginning with an outright definition. In the second paragraph, there is another
distinction mentioned, one of light representing good and dark representing
evil. Protestantism is quoted in Bradford of being “the light of the gospel,”
Catholicism dubbed the “gross darkness of popery.”
Then,
Ramirez explains an idea the other texts lack: a reason why Gothic literature
appears before the Romantic period, being the fears of the initial settlers of
the uninhabitable land, yet inhabited by “savage” heathens. The term Wilderness
Gothic is explained as taking that land and applying the light/dark dichotomy to
it. Puritan/Moral Gothic is explained as relating to “Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God,” by Jonathan Edwards as well as “The Wonders of the Invisible World.”
In the latter text, another Gothic convention is explained: the presence of the
supernatural and “spectral or grotesque figures,” to scare others into believing
in witches, in this case. The Maypole of Merry Mount, by Nathaniel
Hawthorne is written as having brought all the Romantic ideas of the early
Gothic elements, which are those described throughout the essay. They are
described as having been inverted occasionally in addition to being used to a
further extent than the Puritans did. Also, they occur in other Romantic texts
and beyond.
I
took the time to summarize and commentate on bits of A Gothic America: The Early
Years, by Lauren Weatherly. She brings up Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle
and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. She writes that his subject matter is of
“dark, twisted tales full of mysterious and supernatural events.” It is written
that these stories contain Romantic ideals, Gothic sublime and a writing style,
all of which are reasons for adoption by academia, Descriptive landscapes are
mentioned as a feature not existing much before the Romantic era and like
Ramirez, there is a claim that fiction today is affected by this Gothic
expression. Susanna Rowson’s novel,
while admitted as not entirely fitting Gothic conventions, does embody the
subject in various instances.
After a brief biography of Charles Brockden Brown, whose name is not a
typo, against good sense and spell check, Edgar Huntly is appraised to be “full
to the brim with Gothic elements of dark caverns, villages at night time, and
the darkest realm of all, the human mind.” The premise is that the subconscious
is awake while people are asleep, and that it can control the activities of the
body in evil ways. There is a recap, with personal merits of each story and the
essay is closed with commentary on literature education.
In Jessica Gaul’s “Sleepy Hollow
and Edgar Huntley – Gothic and
Sublime,” there are multiple examples of recent adaptations. She defines Gothic
as “the theme or tone a writer uses to describe something creepy, scary or
depressing, the last of those adding to the other model assignments. Sublime is
defined as something that, when existing with the Gothic, make a story spooky,
mysterious, haunting and entertaining. Sleepy Hollow is written to have fit
these definitions, as well as Edgar Huntley. The latter, she feels, rambles.
However, she learned something about description in the process of reading:
while something needs not be described entirely, clues can be used to emphasize
how important something is. Another idea presented is that Gothic literature is
capable of dark comedy.
