LITR 4328: American Renaissance

Model Assignments Final Exam Essays 2018 (final exam assignment) Sample answers for A1. learning about American Renaissance

Alexis Gomez     

December 11, 2018

The Ever-Expanding Umbrella of Romanticism

          The American Renaissance has brought us many wonderful collections of art, music, and literature. Many of the works that were written during the Romantic period often fall under the umbrella of romantic style, while other works are a mix of romanticism and realism. The range of romanticism at first glance did not seem wide to me at first, because I was used to associating the word “romantic” with a love story; however, as this course progressed I learned that even the most sinister tales can count under the term romanticism.

          Writing that is reflective of Romanticism tends to showcase characters, diction, or objects in an elevated way; that is, whatever it may be becomes grander than it typically would be portrayed. Typically, the term romanticism brings out styles and values in a text, and these can be but are not limited to feelings, emotions, imagination, nature as beauty, nostalgia, desire, excess or extremes, idealization, transcendence, the gothic, or sublime (“romanticism”). When texts use some to the styles related to romanticism, the reader typically gets the feeling that some of the subject matter goes beyond the here and now.

          Most of the texts that we have read in this course coincide in one way or another with the term romanticism. Ralph Emersion’s Nature romanticized childhood and how one can transcend through nature. Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ligeia” uses romanticism in the typical fashion by presenting the audience with his long-lost love who he still desired; he also incorporates gothic characteristics to the woman and settings in the tale. The classics “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving displayed their romantic style through the use of the gothic and sublime. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” displayed several attributes of romanticism by displaying fantasy-like writing in its gothic description of the settings and characters. While all of these stories allow for the readers’ imagination to run wild with all of the vivid descriptions and unrealistic story telling. It is important to note that one term not under the umbrella of romanticism is realism.

          While all of the texts we have read in class were written in the American Renaissance (The Romantic Era), not all of the terms or works seem to fit within the umbrella of the romantic style of writing. Realism, opposite of romanticism, gives precise detail, typically about knowledge or experience. It also talks about real issues like: social pressure, greed, lust or confusion, and sometimes incorporates humor as well. Realism texts tend to lean closer to The Victorian Era, which is why some of the texts we have read in class blend the usage of both romanticism and realism styles. Realism, however, is not the only term that does not fit under the umbrella of romanticism; non-fiction texts also do not contain the same details as those presented in texts like Edgar Allan Poe’s. Moreover, the term slave-narrative and civil-disobedience should and are typically taken more serious by authors and do not incorporate much of the romantic style of writing.

          Some of the texts we have read in class align more with realism than they do romanticism. Take Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; while there is some sense of romantic style in the way she talks about going to the north and transcending the dark place she once was in, the majority of the story is very much realistic in the subject matter that it covers (slavery). Rebecca Davis in “Life in the Iron-Mills” tells a realistic story of everyday working life in the iron-mills, but she marries the realistic story with romantic styles in that she describes regular objects with great vivid and gothic explanations. On the other hand, John N. Seguin’s personal memoirs were very much realistic in that he was trying to set the story straight and appeal to Americans.

          It is important to understand both the terms romanticism and realism, and how those terms interact with the text. While realism does not fall under the term of romanticism, both can be used together to tell a story that is made up of both facts and fiction. While the range of Romanticism is quite large, it cannot encompass what is in the here and now.