LITR 4328: American Renaissance

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

Lauren Kruse

December 12, 2018

Discovering the American Renaissance

          Entering this class, I knew little of the American Renaissance – I may even confess that in the class description I misread Dickinson as “Dickens” (who isn’t even American, but we’ll ignore that) and quickly discovered that this course was not what I had anticipated. However, I embraced this opportunity to discover authors and writings that I had before read. The variety of works that I encountered fascinated me, as well as their historical perspectives, discussed in class; bringing these pieces and authors to life.  My understanding of Romanticism was also challenged, growing from very little understanding to (I feel) a relatively solid grasp of the subject.

           The period of the American Renaissance, spanning from the 1820s to the 1860s, was an influential time for American society, found in the glory days of America’s Romanticism.  Shifting from the Enlightenment period of reason and science, authors such as Poe and Emerson embraced Romanticism with its ideas and rhetoric.  Instead of the restraint found among their predecessors, Romantic authors embraced excess in emotions and imagery; here, towers began to “loom,” and “glower,” and science, with its cumbersome facts, was discarded for the simple admiration of nature’s beauty.  Offering an escape from the daily grind and the urbanization of the cities, this literary movement brought vivid images of love, loss, despair and beauty.

However, as noted by Bryan Tarpey in Reflections on a Semester of Learning, “Romanticism [is] a wide arching term that can be argued to be involved in numerous literary pieces.” Aside from the poetic works filled with romantic rhetoric, the American Renaissance saw the rise of writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Washington Irving. Hawthorne’s works often incorporated symbolic characters as they journey through tests and trials. Young Goodman Brown is an excellent example of this approach, as Hawthorne tells of a good Christian man as he is tempted to take communion at the Devil’s table. Ending without a pleasing resolution, Hawthorne leaves his readers pondering the deeper lesson presented.  Irving’s Rip Van Winkle tells of a journey through time as the title character sleeps in the mountains for over twenty years.  Here, an implausible setting presents the relatable struggle between work and pleasure, in a manner that brings a chuckle and yet a somber moment of reflection.

More than the Romanticism of the American Renaissance, this class also introduced me to powerful writers of the abolitionist movement. Having previously read and enjoyed the works by Frederick Douglas and Harriet Beecher Stowe, I was equally moved by the personal accounts of Sojouner Truth and Harriet Jacobs.  These unique individuals, each with their own experiences and styles of writing (or speaking as in the case of Truth), managed to convey powerful messages of the brutality and inhumanity of slavery.  Their writings moved the nation at a pivotal moment, leaving lasting effects and literature to be cherished, studied and discussed for generations to come.

Towards the end of this period, I noticed the shift towards Realism, as we dug into the writings of Abraham Lincoln, the women of the Antebellum and Abolitionist movements, and Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills.  Here we read of the harsh realities of life for women, slaves, and the poor working class among the urbanized cities.  Davis’ depiction of the burning iron mills, filled with ash and despair, left the reader longing for Whitman’s poetic fresh air.

I was fascinated with the many different works of the American Renaissance, as I discovered new terms to describe the depths of what I was reading, such as the real meaning of the Romance narrative and Romanticism.  As I leave this course behind, I will carry with me the many lessons wrought from the pages of authors such as Whitman, Stowe and Douglas, and hope to use their knowledge and work to make the world a better place.  When the world brings its ups and downs of life, or when it seems as though our country is facing its most contentious moments, I can reflect upon the harsh realities while maintaining the hope of a brighter and better place to come – just as these writers did before us.