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(2013
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2013 #3: Web Highlights |
LITR 4232 |
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Britini Pond
Romance’s Influence on My Peers
So far this semester my favorite aspect of
learning has been that which we have done over Romanticism. Everything about
romantic literature excites me and leaves me in awe of the work that has been
created under the genre. Therefore, I was very interested in reading the essays
and reviews done by my peers, especially when their epiphanies and realizations
closely resembled mine on the topic of Romanticism. One of the most interesting
web highlights that I reviewed this semester was one titled
The Romanticism of
American Renaissance Literature
written by Amber Criswell. Her long essay on romanticism in American Renaissance
Literature was spot on, in my estimation, and I really agreed with many of the
points that she made throughout her essay. She writes “Romanticism
is a captivating force that focuses on the transcendent. It is focused on the
beyond, and implicit to its meaning, can never be achieved. If reality is what
is directly in front of you, romanticism is what is in your heart”. These lines
are the most telling of all that she writes because they are so true.
Romanticism is what it’s your heart because romance is something so much bigger
than it is given credit for today. She writes that romanticism allows the
readers, and authors, to escape from a much harsher reality than what they are
reading or writing about. I think this is one of the most important qualities
that a romance novel or romance can embody – the theme of escape not only the
author is writing the work, but for the readers while enjoying the work.
She goes on to say that the beauty of romanticism is how
different the authors and their stories can be but yet how similar their
meanings and morals. Works of romance are, as she puts it, works of the heart –
and I agree because a work of someone’s heart will always differ from anyone
else’s. Criswell also writes “It is appealing to imagine that there is a
transcendental universe that is waiting to be discovered, as postulated by
Emerson in Nature. It is alluring to
believe that the power of love could conquer even the absolute end of death,
such as Poe describes in Ligeia” –these
lines are absolutely correct, it is the power of romanticism that allows such
works to do what they do in an extraordinary way.
I also really enjoyed
reading Velma Laborde’s The Woman of
Sleepy Hollow. Her short analysis of a passage from
Sleepy Hollow adequately described
the gothic overtones in the description of women and America during this time
and Velma does a great job in relating the story to the time is written. She
writes “America is like a
woman: scary, changing and caught between the past and the future.
Similarly, the woods, an otherwise common place of
refuge, solitude and beauty change into something sinister and scary like the
old country opposed to modern society”. Her ability to tie in the action that is
taking place in the story to an actual, real time source is impressive, and
makes sense.
The people that were living in this ever changing, still
young America were writing these works of romance and gothic and realism to
express their feelings and their interpretations of the ever changing world
around them. These authors were undoubtedly affected by their surroundings and
that is expressed through their works. I did not make the same connection that
Velma did and I am glad to of had the insight into this way of viewing the
literature that we are reading.
Lastly, I learned a lot form Joe Bernard’s
A Romantic Romp Through the (American)
Renaissance. He enlightened my way of thinking by applying romantic
renaissance literature to adolescents – a connection I had never thought of
myself. He writes, “Literature
tends to not stay in one place, rather choosing to morph into various forms,
which excites those who are engrossed in the subject matter, but frustrates
those who do not see the practicality or the “Why should I?” of understanding
literature, which is the category that the adolescent populace falls into”. So
many teenagers today only want to know something if you can give them a
definitive answer as to how it is ever going to be relevant in their adult
lives. Well, literature is always relevant – it is a documentation of history
and the every changing world that we live in. History, in my opinion, when
expressed through literature is not only more accurate, but so much more
invigorating because it’s depicted in so many different ways.
This I
believe, is what Bernard believed also about literature. He expands on this
thought by making the connection to today’s society when he writes – “A gigantic
issue even today is that of treating all races equally and not discriminating
based on background or color of skin”. These are issues we still face today and
teenaged students could absolutely learn from the history that is expressed
throughout works of literature during this time period. Bernard states that by
making connections to the literature written during the renaissance makes the
reality of the life the student’s in today’s society are facing more real –
because they are not the only ones who have faced similar situation. I believe
that students today could find comfort in some of the similarities of our
current age to the age of the renaissance.
Al three of these works by my peers tell me that I am not the only person
as interested and excited by the topic of Romance and the Romanticism paradigm
that dominates the literature during the renaissance period.
The works are captivating and moving on every level and I am not
surprised that so many of my peers have had the same feelings toward the
subject.
