LITR 4328: American Renaissance

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

Laura Elizabeth Wilson

December 7, 2016

The American Romantic from a British Romantic

When I first signed up for this class I had very little idea of what to expect, I just knew I liked the course description and I was a fan of Emily Dickinson so why not? While most of my classmates have been exposed to at least some of these texts and authors in previous schooling, I had not. Growing up in Scotland, in high school they tended to teach us Scottish poets like Robert Burns, or the British Romantic authors. What I knew of American Romantic authors like Nathanial Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, and Washington Irving had been gleaned from pop culture. The exception, of course, being Edgar Allan Poe. I think you would have to travel to the rainforests of South American to find someone who hasn’t read Poe, and even then they’ve probably heard of The Raven. I did have a vague understanding of some of the terms and concepts, mostly the Gothic, but more as it pertained to the British authors I knew. Upon discussing this with a friend, he looked at me confused and asked, “Does American literature have a renaissance period?” At the time I could only shrug and say I was going to find out, and suffice to say I now have a definitive answer to his question.

The most important idea I learned about the literature of our period of study was the historical significance of the texts. They provide a window into the past so that we might view the concerns and issues facing society during that time period. Much of this I learned as we progressed into Romantic Realism, particularly Whitman’s The Wound-Dresser. The poem, about Whitman’s time as a hospital volunteer during the American Civil War, blends realistic elements not normally seen in poetry like gangrene, with romantic rhetoric to make something deeply personal while at the same time a glance into the world of the time. The lines “these furious passions, these chances, of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave” (Whitman), are a beautiful example of this.  Particularly when viewed through the lens of historical perspective, literary works such as this not only give us a view on historical events, but also on the psychological state of society at that time.

The puritan Gothic was another style I found captured this well. Hawthorne portrays the puritan Gothic wonderfully in his short stories like Young Goodman Brown. Not only does he use the wilderness to draw correspondence between society’s physical fear of the unknown and fear of the dark woods, but  also the religious concerns of the time. Goodman Brown ventures out into the woods and stumbles upon something he doesn’t want to see, namely all his neighbors and his wife taking part in a satanic ritual. Though he resists, and it’s left ambiguous whether true or he dreamt it all, the damage was done. He’s unable to find any joy in life afterwards and distrusts everyone, even in church, “he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain” (Hawthorne). It was fascinating to read this and consider the moral and psychological implications of the tale at that time, which are applicable even today.

Learning about the literature of the American Renaissance has given me an understanding of American history I didn’t have before taking this course. I didn’t learn about American history in school, and I have yet to take any college history courses, so any knowledge gleaned on the subject was new and interesting to me. While probably quite ignorant on my part, due to lack of educating myself on the topic, I’ve always been a bit confused about the different periods of American history. Did the cowboys and idea of the Wild West happen before or after the Civil War? In hindsight, the answer is obvious to me, but it wasn’t until I read Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper that I began to understand. Again, through use of the wilderness Gothic the implications of it representing the great unknown became clear to me. The use of Gothic motifs, such as Cora and Alice representing the dark lady/light lady, I was able to make associations with works of literature I already loved and have a new appreciation for them.

The gradual progression into more historical texts our class took was a great help in my understanding of the period. If we had jumped right into the civil disobedience, or representative literature pieces I don’t think my understanding would have developed as fully as it has. As it is, I feel like through the texts we read in class, and the insightful discussions we had in class, I have become a more rounded student with a greater appreciation not just for work of the American Renaissance, but American history as a whole. Needless to say, if my friend asks me again if American had a Renaissance period of literature, I can answer with a resounding yes, and have an expansive list of examples.