LITR 4328: American Renaissance

Model Assignments Final Exam Essays 2016 assignment Sample answers for A1. Overall Learning

Clark Omo

6 December 2016

The Foundation of the Temple

My path in this class ends much in the same way it began. I came in willing to know more and to explore ideas I had been exposed to in the past, and now I leave wanting to know even more and go deeper than before. As I mentioned in my midterm analysis of my journey thus far in this course, I have learned a good deal more about American Literature than I had previously in any other literature study of this period. True, I recalled many of these ideas, especially concerning Romanticism, from my time in grade school, but, through this class, I explored them in an even greater depth than I had in the past. I looked at the mechanics of the Gothic, the Transcendental, the Romantic, and the Realistic. I saw how their themes worked and what their purposes were. I analyzed their effectiveness, as well as their shortcomings. I examined their mechanics and studied their conventions. And through this work, I have gained a better and more concrete framework and understanding of the beginnings of the American style of writing, as well as what this reveals about the American culture. I have learned valuable analytic and interpretive skills as well. Everything I learned in this class has added more stones to my foundation of knowledge, and it is from this foundation that I will build my abilities and skills to become a teacher of the Literature Arts.

One of the first building stones I obtained in this class was the conclusion, or big idea, I reached regarding American Literature. It is interesting to study the literature of a nation like ours. We lack much of the history and development that the nations on the opposite side of the Atlantic possess. America never felt the feet of Jesus walk on its soil. The armies of the Roman Empire never beached on her shores. She never bathed in the blood and glory of the Middle Ages, nor was she born in time to be swept into the turmoil created by the Protestant Reformation. So, with as limited a heritage as America has, it is a truly fascinating journey to see how she developed, especially when her people had to build themselves, and their home, from the bottom up. And through the American Renaissance, I saw an important aspect of her culture develop: her literature. The American Renaissance started with its authors descending from the prominent literary period of the world at the time: Romanticism. American authors explored this period through two outlets: The Gothic and the Transcendental. This is perhaps the biggest idea I took away from this class. At its starting point, American literature did what was to be expected; it copied what was popular. How else is one to compete, after all? However, it explored Romanticism in its own unique, American way. No other country in the world had an Edgar Allan Poe, a Nathaniel Hawthorne, an Emily Dickinson, or a Walt Whitman. These were American authors. And to America alone do they belong. This is the idea I got from this course: America had its own literature to make, and, through the talents of these authors, she made it.

And through this realization, I believe I have gained a critical skill in teaching American Literature, and thus a second building stone. As English and Classical Literature are important to understanding much of the Western World’s growth, such is true with American Literature; understanding America’s Literature is a part of understanding America, whether through Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom Sawyer, or The Last of the Mohicans. With this in mind, I think I have gained an invaluable tool when it comes to teaching American Literature. By helping students see that American Literature is crucial to our nation’s cultural identity, they will then be able to see how the literature reflects American culture, expounds and critiques American history, and reaffirms and analyzes American values. And from this revelation will come a deeper understanding of the importance of literature, and why it is so essential that the subject be taught in American schools. Thus, I have gained a further, more anchored confidence in teaching American Literature. I would teach American Literature as that: American Literature. It is not the works of Homer, Ovid, Virgil, Hesiod, Sophocles, Thucydides, Aristotle or any other member of the Classical world. It is not the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Joyce, Dickens, Kipling, Austen, or any other member of the English World. American Literature is what America can do, and by teaching that, students would be urged to decide for themselves whether or not the works birthed from the minds of America have proved their mettle in standing against the sands of time as the works of the English, the Greeks, the Romans and other members of the great literary canon have done.

And another major building block I gleaned from this course was another step in my maturation as a reader and as a writer. This course, in all honesty, challenged me. This was especially so in the midterm. Though the writing assignments themselves contained a fair balance of difficulty and simplicity, they nonetheless revealed several of my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. As I hoped, my success in the midterm proved that I, and I say this hopefully without the effect of sounding vain, do possess strengths as a writer. For the most part, I believe I get my points across with a fair amount of clarity and that I present critical and essential ideas concisely to my audience. But, unfortunately, I do lack some in the way of consistency and explanation. I leave things behind and I sometimes stop when I should proceed or elaborate. But, these are flaws that can easily be remedied. And, as for my progression as a reader, I have only increased. I am very grateful for the fact that I am experiencing these works of literature at the age and time I am. Otherwise, I fear I might not appreciate and understand their value as much as I do. By reading the works presented in this class, I have learned to identify Gothic, Transcendental, and Realistic themes, both in the literature of the past and of the present. I understand the method and theories of sentimental stereotyping. And I have learned, with resounding truth, that all in all, that the details of a story hold little worth compared to the story itself. While the atmosphere established by the Romantic narrative and the setting constructed by the Realistic are important and undeniably contribute to the story’s impact, the story itself is the core. And that, if anything, is what truly matters. Perhaps the best example of this proverb is The Last of the Mohicans. While we learned in class that the great American storyteller, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) has plenty to say regarding the potholes in Cooper’s storytelling, we arrived at an essential fact: Cooper did not care. He wanted to tell a story, and he told it the way he wanted to. That is a pivotal statute and a critical capstone to the art of writing. Writers (at least not all writers) do not write for the satisfaction of the audience. They write for their purpose and their ideas. And, as a reader, I would do well to keep that in mind.

This is what I experienced in my time in American Renaissance. I see and understand the value of this period and how it speaks of America’s struggles and progress. Through this acquisition, I unearthed a critical point that I will undoubtedly recall on the day I must examine and interpret this literature to a class of my own: this is America’s literature. It is for us. I have seen my risings and my fallings as writer, and I have learned how to think as a reader as well. My foundation is rising, and this course added more stones to the temple of knowledge in my mind. Though it will never be complete, and some stones will eventually be removed or remade while others stay the same, some new ones have nonetheless been added. And chiseled into their faces are the names of American authors.