LITR 4328: American Renaissance

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

Anne Ngo

12 December 2018 

Thoughts on the American Renaissance: A Reflection

Throughout the course, I learned that Romanticism can be regarded as a style, movement, or period, while the American Renaissance represents a period, or the generation before the Civil War, of American literature (American Renaissance: Course Webpage). We can think of Romanticism as both a period and a style that reflects the cultural and literary renaissance of American literature. Moreover, I learned that the American Renaissance is a reflection of the various literary styles that flourished during this period.

Thus, the American Romantic period encompasses seemingly different styles, but ultimately represent Romanticism in American literature. The period itself is vast: beginning from the late 1700’s that ends the Neo-Classical period, up until the late 1800’s that start the next literary movement, Realism. Therefore, the length of the timeframe allows for different styles to co-exist within the literary period, even in a single literary text.

An early Romantic text, Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle showcases romantic styles of both the gothic wilderness and the sublime in nature. When Rip wakes up to find his environment changed, the rocks around him “presented a high impenetrable wall” and the “torrent” dropped into a “deep basin, black from the shadows” of the “forest” (25). The grand size of the rocks represents aspects of the sublime, while the shadows of the forest indicate a variation of the gothic, the gothic wilderness. Hence, the two distinct styles can work simultaneously with one another in a single text, still representing Romantic literature in the American Renaissance.

Similarly, Rebecca Harding Davis’s late Romantic text, Life in the Iron Mills, also presents romantic characteristics of the gothic and the sublime. When visitors inspect the iron mills, they find “in the darkness,” a “white figure of a woman” with “giant proportions” (88). The “white figure” in the “darkness” represents the light and dark contrast of the gothic, coupled with the “giant proportions” of the sublime. As seen with Rip Van Winkle, Life in the Iron Mills also incorporates hints of the gothic and the sublime, despite being a late Romantic text, verging on the Realistic.

Therefore, Romanticism is not limited to just the gothic and the sublime, as seen with Rip Van Winkle and Life in the Iron Mills. Other styles such as transcendentalism, the romantic narrative, and the emphasis on nature also represent the Romantic period in American literature. Thus, the inclusion of various styles shows the range of Romantic literature in the American Renaissance.