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(2015
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2015 #3: Web Highlights |
LITR 4328 |
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Karin Cooper
Byronic, Sublime and Romantic
I chose to review two short essays and one long essay all three of them
midterms. The long essay was "The American Renaissance:
its Significance to Modern Day Literature" by Sarah Gonzales. The two
short essays were "Reach for the Sky" by Mickey Thames and "The All-Encompassing
Romance" By Britini Pond. I chose them mostly by glancing at the titles and
having a slight interest in them from that. I did learn something from each of
them and I enjoyed each of them in varying degrees. So without further ado a web
review.
The American Renaissance: its
Significance to Modern Day Literature by Sarah Gonzales was honestly my least
favorite. It was not my least favorite for lack of substantial content it just
was not very interesting to me. Sarah focused largely on Edgar Allen Poe which
was probably a big reason I did not care for it quite as much. Edgar Allen Poe
is not very enjoyable to me. She was thorough, and I could not really find fault
with any of her information. What I really enjoyed about this essay was the
section on The Last of the Mohicans
and Byronic heroes, a "Byronic hero
is a character who is dark, handsome, and self-destructive" (Sarah Gonzales long
essay). Of all the terms so far this semester I feel that the Byronic Hero is
the one that I am least familiar with. Sarah described it well and used Magua
from Last of the Mohicans as an
example of one. I really had never given Magua a second thought let alone
analyzed him as a Byronic hero. I feel that I now know more about Byronic
Heroes, and I thought about a character in a way I never have before. I feel
overall her paper was a strong one.
"Reach for the Sky" by Mickey
Thames was the next one I reviewed. To be honest the reason I chose to review
this one is because the title reminded me of Woody from Toy Story, an animated
film I love. Obviously the similarity between the essay and the movie ends
there. In this short essay Mickey gives and excellent description of the sublime
that would be good for anyone to read who wants to know more about what the
sublime is. His story about his real life experience with the sublime when he
first saw the night sky away from a city is really nice: "It was larger than any
sky I’d ever beheld, and I fell over backwards". It was an excellent description
of the sublime, falling backwards with the force of the feeling. That is
sublime.
Lastly I reviewed "The All-Encompassing Romance" by Britini Pond. This was my
favorite. This was so enjoyable to read, by the end I wished it was a longer
essay. She adequately describes what romance is, and what she had previously
perceived it to be. Something I learned from her essay which I did not feel we
covered in class much was her passage on "The Lamplighter". I like how she talks
about its romantic beginnings "It is hard to really tell from the first two
chapters of the novel what kind of story it will shape up to be, it could be a
work of “realism” that is working to shed light and bring attention to the
problem of adoption laws, or lack thereof, during this time in America.
Regardless of the novel’s intent, the first two chapters themselves are a
romance" (Pond Model Essays). I like how she mentions that whether or not the
story means to be a romance it is. I also feel that in class "The Lamplighter"
kind of got a bad rap so I enjoyed seeing it in a better light.
After reviewing all three essays I feel like I am better for having read them. I feel like each essays taught me something, or made me see something in a different way. Reading other people's essays also opens up my mind to different ways for me to write my future papers. Romantic literature is a broad genre that encompasses many things, and each essay I read did a good job of emphasizing a different aspect of the American Romantic Genre.
