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(2013
midterm assignment) Index to Sample Student Midterm answers 2013 #1: Long Essay |
LITR 4232 |
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Sarah Gonzales
The American Renaissance: its Significance to Modern Day Literature
So far,
my experience in this American Renaissance course has been very enjoyable and
has exceeded my expectations. To be quite honest, I was undoubtedly clueless as
to the time period, literature, authors, and genre of this era. To my relief
however, I quickly discovered that we would be discussing some works of Edgar
Allan Poe and Washington Irving of which I am familiar with. Week by week, I
have become more knowledgeable of Romanticism as literary, artistic, and
personal style.
As I
previously stated, I was unsure of what the American Renaissance actually was.
What I learned is that it was in reality a Romantic Movement in American
Literature that began in the late 1700s and went on through the early 1800s. The
term “Renaissance” means “a flowering” or “culture on the rise”. I assumed that
this meant that American literature and arts were going through a period of
change for the better. This subject and the authors involved are of great
significance because of the effect they had and continue to have on American
culture. Classical authors such as Poe made such an impact with their style of
writing that it is safe to say that we will continue to study their work for
years to come. As the saying goes, “classics never die”.
The term
“Romantic” to me, meant something in the lines of sappy love story
characteristics. This being the influence of the countless romantic comedies
that I have watched, I was pleased to learn that “Romantic” has a broader
meaning. A real Romantic person is a dealer, idealist, and nonconformist on a
quest for undefined or unfamiliar goals. Thus what is Romantic is often the long
ago and far away rather than the here and now. Something that I found very
inspiring is that Romanticism generally values something or someone beyond or
lost. To me this is typical of Poe’s writings. Poe is the epitome of a Romantic,
Byronic persona. His poetry has elements of gothic and romance most of the time
describing the death of a beautiful woman and the grief of a bereaved lover. I
love reading his poems because Poe expresses such a deep feeling of love and
sorrow in a musical and dreamlike way unlike any other author can do. Sonnet –To
Science was Poe addressing Science as the thing that has taken from him
something so valuable. The poem just sings to the reader. In large part, Poe
continues to be a favorite of mine because he wrote in formal verse. I prefer
formal verse rather than free verse because of the deliberate, regular rhymes
and/or meter it possesses. Modern day poetry is usually now in free verse but I
do not think it sounds as appealing as when a poem written in formal verse is
read. I am confident that formal verse will continue to survive. However, it
might be limited to greeting cards and didactic poetry which utilize it only to
express clichéd sentiments or simple morals.
More
than anything else, I love to read a story that involves a Byronic hero. A
Byronic hero is a character who is dark, handsome, and self-destructive. They
are often times haunted by something from their past and have a “wandering” sort
of searching behavior. An example of a Byronic hero, besides Poe, is Magua from
the Last of the Mohicans. “The native
bore both the tomahawk and knife of his tribe; and yet his appearance was not
altogether that of a warrior. On the contrary, there was an air of neglect about
his person, like that which might have proceeded from great and recent exertion,
which he had not yet found leisure to repair. The color of the war-paint had
blended in dark confusion about his fierce countenance, and rendered his swarthy
lineaments still more savage and repulsive than if art had attempted an effect
which had been thus produced by chance. His eye, alone, which glistened like a
fiery star amid lowering clouds, was to be seen in its state of native
wildness”. This description of Magua paints the perfect picture of what the
commanding Indian must have looked like as well as his temperament.
Romantic terms, such as
the gothic, are well represented in many works of literature of the American
Renaissance. Gothic elements, names and images can reveal themselves in a text
in the form of someplace haunted, light and dark or bloody colors, startling
sounds, and even repressed fears and desires of death and decay.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and
The last of the Mohicans both
transferred the gothic elements into a haunted forest/wilderness. This type of
setting generates fear and suspense from the reader but also a thrill from not
knowing what will reveal itself from the wilderness. In the case of
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the
reader knows that the headless horseman resides in the forest, so when Ichabod
Crane ventures inside, one can already imagine what awaits him. While reading, I
saw the gothic forest as a sign of danger or death and in the end, was it was
directly connected to Ichabod’s death.
The sublime is another
term that relates to American Renaissance literature that I am glad to have
learned so far in the course. It is present in every text that we have read so
far. The sublime signifies beauty mixed with terror, danger, or threats that is
usually present on a much grander scale. For the reader, the experience of the
sublime brings a powerful mixture of pleasure and pain. In the story of
Rip Van Winkle, Rip describes what he
sees and hears while he ascends the wild mountain, “…like distant thunder, that
seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks,
toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, but
supposing it to be the muttering of one of those transient thunder-showers which
often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine,
they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheater, surrounded by perpendicular
precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so
that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud.
There was something strange and incomprehensible about the unknown, that
inspired awe and checked familiarity”. The sublime transcends or overwhelms
human perception or expression. When an author is able to capture the sublime in
literature or a work of art, the effect is astounding. The author has managed to
tap into a new realm of complex human emotions.
One of the challenges
that I believe exists with studying works of literature from the American
Renaissance is that students have to work harder to comprehend the classics
rather than what is popular at the moment. Literature that students want to read
is not refined or intellectually complex like the classics are. What is popular
today appeals to them more because the writing style is modern and less formal.
However, they lack much of what is so great about American Renaissance
literature, such as heroic individualism, chivalry, honor, love, ideals, and
elevated language. It is crucial that the classics continue to be taught in
schools because they offer lessons of morality that we have managed to keep
alive for decades. Everyone should be knowledgeable of the great authors of the
American Renaissance because their work is the foundation to what America’s
expectations should be in regards to great art and literature. As a future
English teacher, I will do my part in not only keeping the classics alive but
teaching my students the deeper meanings that they reveal when carefully
analyzed.
