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LITR 4232 American
Renaissance 2010 Student Midterm Samples 2. Short essay (4-6 paragraphs) on 1 of 2 options (or combinations as inspired) :
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Victoria Narcisse
2b. Sublime: The Beautiful, the Terrifying, and the Ridiculous
My favorite term thus far in American Renaissance
has been sublime because it is not limited to only one way for it to be used, it
can be used in many different ways. For example, there is sublime beauty in
nature, sublime terror, and sublime in the ridiculous. There are many examples
of this in “Rip Van Winkle”.
For example, when Rip Van Winkle goes up to the
mountains in paragraph 14, the narrator takes the time to describe the beauty of
the scene through Rip Van Winkles eyes. It says “Panting
and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered
with mountain herbage that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening
between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of
rich woodland. He saw at
a distance the lordly Hudson,
far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the
reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there
sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands.”
Just the wording and the imagery alone captures your attention, draws you in,
and make you imagine this wonderful, beautiful sight and takes your breath away
without ever having seeing it in real life.
On this same mountain there are aspects of it that
make it a dark and foreboding place to be. In paragraph 15 there are key words
and phrases that make it sublime in a terrifying way. For example, the narrator
describes the scene: “deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom
filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the
reflected rays of the setting sun. . . . evening was gradually advancing; the
mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that
it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he heaved a heavy
sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle.”
With the scattered light that he has on the
mountain in the forest, one wrong step and he could very well find himself
at the bottom of the mountain glen as a human
porcupine
and if that wasn’t scary enough, after getting home he
would most likely have to face the wrath of Dame Van Winkle.
As for the ridiculous being considered as sublime,
all we have to do is look at the scene of the party in the Catskill Mountains.
Here, there are games and drinking but there is not a single smile on any of the
faces that are partaking in this event. Liquor is being distributed and being
imbibed but not a single one has lost his inhibitions. A party is supposed to be
about fun, talking, and laughter, none of that is happening here. The narrator
describes this as “the most melancholy party of pleasure that [Rip] has ever
witnessed.” That in its self is an oxymoron. Pleasure is supposed to bring you
happiness and feelings of joy, but it just seems that these apparitions are just
going through the motions. Their dress was just as ridiculous as their attitude
toward the party. The narrator describes one of the gnome-like figures as “a
stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet,
broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and
high-heeled shoes, with roses in them” (par.18).
From this description, it is just plain laugh out
loud funny. But with further reading we see that this dress was common during
the time when the Dutch settled in this area. But still, red stockings and roses
in their shoes? Too funny.
