LITR 4232 American Renaissance

LITR 4232 2008 final exam

Essay Answers to Question 6: how this course influenced or reflected your experience

as a student and / or teacher

Josh Hughey

Unifying Terms

            As a literature student the courses one takes should be influential to his understanding of whatever styles studied.  This is essentially the desired effect of any educational endeavor.  Literature, however, is an entirely different game.  This has to do with the fact that much of the interpretation of many works and passages within works are fiercely debated.  Mathematicians do not constantly debate the answer to two plus two.  Everything within mathematics is based on standardized rules.  Literature is an ever-changing living thing.  This in turn makes teaching a literature class all that much harder for it is up to the instructor to determine the proper balance between standardized terms and discussion of the many possibilities that any particular genre has to offer. 

            The period of the American Renaissance is a particularly effective era to showcase diversity.  With modern literature readers and scholars are used to constantly engaging new styles and possibilities.  Both the European and American Renaissance saw the emergence of many new styles and attitudes toward literature.  The difference between the present and then is that at that time new styles and attitudes were not a regular occurrence.  For people who were used to reading either the bible or perhaps an early adventure novel, some of these new styles would come as quite a shock.  Whether reading the sexual free-verse lines of Walt Whitman’s poetry or the depressing, and many times morbid, poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson.  Then there are other authors who take a more traditional approach to, say, romanticism while still applying new American ideas such as the forest as gothic scenery rather than a castle. 

            The reason this course is so beneficial to a student of literature is its influence on discussion and firm inclusion of history.  As mentioned earlier, modern readers think nothing of constantly changing styles or works in which death and sex are very noticeable.  This course’s inclusion of history gives students a valuable understanding of the time period in which the texts were written and as a result helps them understand the progression of American literature as a whole through the era of the American Renaissance.  Stories like “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” make more sense to students if they know of the strong Dutch background of the area in which they take place.  Certain readers might only understand castles as the setting of gothic works, but this course discusses the significance of there being no castles in America but authors still seeking out someplace dark and mysterious, thus including the forest.  These things may seem obvious to some but to others they are entirely new concepts and stories to help them better understand the literature of the period.  Also, for those that do understand, the course remains beneficial for eventually there is something covered that they do not already know and being able to associate it with previous material, even if it was old to them, aids in memory.  A better understanding through discussion, definition and close reading as well as examination of the history that pertains to the works (objectives 1 & 2) is what this all boils down to. 

            Objective 3 goes hand in hand with objective one.  Upon examining the history behind many of the texts the course brings to light for students many of the problems facing America during the Renaissance.  This not only gives the students a better understanding of the meaning of the texts it also enlightens them as to why the authors may have chosen to write their provocative (Whitman) and sometimes morbid (Poe, Hawthorne, Dickinson) works of fiction as well as the importance of the writing style in other forms such as the speeches of Abraham Lincoln.  Overall this course very well covers the wide range of authors and styles present during the American Renaissance as well as certain themes, such as Romanticism, the gothic and the sublime that often unite these otherwise different approaches.  The combination of the aspects and discussion-heavy classes are very beneficial to the learning experience of any student, myself included.