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(2015
midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2015 #1: Long Essays (Index) |
LITR 4328 |
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Mariah Glidden
Romance: It’s Not What You Think
I was unsure of what to expect
when I came to class that first day. My knowledge of the Renaissance was mostly
medieval (pun intended) and I wasn’t sure what the American Renaissance was. I
knew that Renaissance meant “period of new growth” but whom and what was
growing?
This class has helped
me understand the American Renaissance from both the literary and cultural
perspectives. I have realized it was much more than just physical growth. The
American renaissance was a period in which our country grew in its culture, its
history, and its intellect. You can see these changes in all of the assigned
readings we have read thus far in this course. Our country was going through
some major changes; one of them was the expansion of its borders. During this
expansion we were met with resistance by the Native American tribes that
inhabited the land.
The Last of the Mohicans
uses elements of the gothic; mainly the associations
of goodness with light colors and badness with dark colors, to help the reader
better understand the issue of race that was evolving, or rather resolving,
during the American Renaissance. The use of color coding, a term which I had not
heard before taking this class, helps the reader to identify were the issue of
race is present. When Cora says, “Should we distrust the man because his manners
are not our manners and that his skin is dark?" Cooper is using color coding to
direct the reader to the issue of discrimination based on race.
I am familiar with
some of the terms we have learned about so far this semester some of those being
gothic, sublime and Romanticism (it seems you cannot take a literature class
without these three rearing their heads). I feel as though this course has
helped me delve deeper into these terms and develop a greater understanding of
them. Other terms I had heard but never fully understood, like
transcendentalism, evangelical, and sentimental. Being able to read the
definitions of these terms and see examples of them has helped me immensely to
identify them in the passages that we read. I was able to pick out the
sentimental sections of
The Lamplighter
such as the little kitten “pleading for itself in a
way she could not resist” and how it “with feeble cries, seemed to ask her to
take care of it.” This scene tugs at your heart and just begs for you to ‘aww’
at it.
Romanticism is
something I thought myself well versed in because I have previously taken a
class over romantic novels. Romanticism is such a broad term in the literary
field. It envelops everything from true love to bloodied revenge. Nature is a
staple of romantic writing, the scenes of picturesque mountain and darkened
woods can be found throughout this style of writing.
This
class furthered my understanding of romanticism by enabling me to take what I
had learned through reading romantic novels and apply it to poetry. It’s obvious
that Poe’s poem “Romance” would be well, romantic, but one must be able to spot
where the romantic aspect comes in while reading. I still get a bit flustered
when I see stories typically thought of as horror, such as
The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow, categorized as
Romantic because my brain is so hardwired to believe that the sappy, ooey-gooey
Nicholas Sparks type stories are the only romantic stories.
One of my favorite things that this course has
provided me with is the readily available style sheets on each of the poets we
have studied. I feel that learning the background information and lifestyles of
the poets really helps to understand their poetry. You are able to put yourself
in their shoes a bit more and can get a better grasp on what they are trying to
say. Trying to understand the authors can be a bit more complex. Having heard of
most of them I was vaguely familiar with their styles, but it can be very
difficult to analyze each of their writings and find that deeper meaning to the
story that makes it so great.
Overall this class has been a great learning
experience for me. I am better able to detect the defining terms of romanticism
in everyday life such as television shows and popular novels. I can see the
gothic and sublime in my favorite crime shows and I can see the romantic
elements of my favorite action movies that I normally wouldn’t have seen before.
American Renaissance literature is important for students (or everyday citizens)
to study because it was a monumental time in our history. Reading and learning
about this era can only broaden ones understanding of the world around them,
present past and future.
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