|
(2015
midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2015 #1: Long Essays (Index) |
LITR 4328 |
 |
Jennifer Robles
Mundane America Reexamined
Because historical texts have never held my
interest, I did not have any desire to take the “Early American” literature
course.
In fact, I had a preconceived notion that any American
literature course would be absolutely dreadful- droning on about the
Constitution and excerpts from journals about war.
While very admirable works in their own right
and a true testament to the development of America, it seems monotonous and
another notch to a student that has had to take many American history classes in
her time. I like honesty, vulnerability and boldness in my literature that
stands the test of time- I am a classics girl through and through.
The Bronte sisters, Browning, Dickens, Keats,
all glorious artists.
Seeing as how American literature is a
requirement for my degree, I decided to bite the bullet this semester and
enroll.
As I read the very, very brief online description of
this American Renaissance, I began to see just how little I actually knew of the
beauty of this period and place.
Hawthorne? Whitman? Dickinson... Emily
Dickinson?
One of my absolute, all-time favorites and I
had never even entertained the thought that she was an American author. How
absurd to think that all the beauty in literature had come from Europe.
I came to the first day of class with my heart
and mind open, ready to embrace a history of America that I had never fully
explored.
The American Renaissance was greatly influenced
by all those events that we had explored in boring history classes.
Examining the literature of those people
directly involved with those events tell a deeper story, personal and raw
feelings of despair, lost, hope, justice and a general questioning of self.
These emotions are just small parts of the key
themes that defined this great period of literature.
Historically, this period was marked with huge
changes in the cultural dynamics of a society that included increasing
urbanization, movement in women’s rights and the abolition of slavery, and a
rise in mass evangelical religions.
These changes coincided with the British
movement, Romanticism, which included concepts of nature, gothic, and
transcendentalism- ideas that would come to define America’s very own Romantic
period.
Much of America’s land had been relatively
untouched by human development in the early 1800s.
America was rich in natural beauty, a key theme
of Romanticism. In There Was a Child Went
Forth, Walt Whitman demonstrates how nature and your surroundings become a
part of who you are:
“The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month became part of him,
Winter-grain sprouts and those of the light-yellow corn, and the esculent roots
of the garden,
And the apple-trees cover'd with blossoms and the fruit afterward, and
wood-berries, and the commonest weeds by the road.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson also contributed to this idea that
nature becomes one with man in Nature,
“ Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and
through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to
nature.”
The beauty of America’s natural wilderness was
marred with devastation and loss and literature reflected this in the
“wilderness gothic.” The gothic in itself, conjures images of death, blood and
fear.
The wilderness gothic takes these images into a more
natural setting like a forest or piece of land.
In The
Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper sets the scene right away that
this land is haunted by memories of war and bloodshed: “A wide frontier had been
laid naked by this unexpected disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded
by a thousand fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed
that the yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued
from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific [terrifying] character
of their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the natural horrors of
warfare.”
Cooper is able to reach in and completely
demolish this image of a serene, vast frontier of America by exposing the
consequences of hostility and conflict.
With the ever increasing urbanization of
American, many people felt a desire to abolish slavery and give rights to those
who had been repressed.
America experienced a revival in a religious
movement called “The Second Great Awakening.” Many people became a part of a the
rise of evangelical religions- feeling called spiritually to activism and having
an excitement to a close connection with God.
This new way of looking at one’s relationship
to God influenced many authors greatly during the American Renaissance and they
were not afraid to share those sentiments.
Susan B Warner wrote in
The Wide, Wide World how a
relationship with God is like having a friend that will never disappear, “But
Ellen, you say that when I am away and cannot hear you, there will be nobody to
supply my place. Perhaps it will be so indeed; but then, my daughter, let it
make you seek that friend who is never far away, nor out of hearing. Draw nigh
to God, and he will draw nigh to you. You know he has said of his children:
'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.”
Warner is adamant that even if everyone else
abandons Ellen, God never will.
With the growth of the Second Great Awakening
came the theme of Transcendentalism, more of an intellectual movement in regards
to the religious uprising.
It came to identify one’s spiritual
self-identity and how that would contribute to social justice. In
I Sing The Body Electric, Walt
Whitman demonstrates this perspective of a more elevated spiritual awareness:
“The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him.”
As I delve deeper into the literature of the
American Renaissance, I discover how raw and bold it really is.
Much of what I loved of British literature is
found in the pages of America’s own artistic history.
I have found it much more enjoyable in a sense
that I know much more of historical contexts of America than England, so the
material is more relatable. I am looking forward to expanding my scope of
America’s literature and tearing down my own prejudices of what I thought it
looked like.
 |
 |
|