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(2015
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2015 #3: Web Highlights |
LITR 4328 |
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Sarah Hurt
Nature and Romanticism
“When thinking of the land before, during, and after the
industrial revolution, one can project that there has been a loss in the
connection of man to nature. This loss of purity, so to speak, leads to a desire
for it once again. And the destruction of nature by man, only leads to man’s
desire for pureness. I think that throughout the course of time, this work of
literature will continue to speak to a range of audiences because humans will
always have a desire to be closer to nature/purity… what makes this work
continue to flourish is that people are still able to relate to “Nature” ”
(Amanda Duarte, Connecting with Nature,
Short Essay 2a Midterm 2013)
“While overviewing the model assignments, I noticed there
was a pattern amongst some of the essays; the modern culture connection. I found
this to be an interesting application, especially because of the time of the
American Renaissance. There is nothing “modern” about a castle in the woods or
legends of headless horsemen, and yet it is so ingrained into our minds and
woven into our modern culture.” (Victoria Webb,
Modern Culture Connections, Web
Highlights midterm 2013)
“Romantic ideals pervade our modern culture.
Especially today, society pushes the limits of excess and extravagance.
Divorce is on the rise because people have delusions about reality.
They desire the things that our culture says they deserve.
The “American Dream” is built upon this romantic idea that all things are
possible when you only believe it…. We cannot break free from the principles
that catapulted America’s rise in canonical writers and made our country a
powerhouse of literary authority.” (Angela Sims,
Branching Out to Something New, Long
essay Midterm 2012)
In Amanda Duarte’s essay over Emerson’s
Nature, Duarte’s descriptions of why
Nature can still be relatable today
were really interesting. While I don’t necessarily agree with her statements
regarding “humans will always have a desire to be closer to nature/purity” as I
feel that this along with a few other claims are too broad as they seem to
encompass all of humanity, I agree with her idea that “loss of purity, so to
speak, leads to a desire for it once again.” The ideas about nature and
connecting to nature to gain spirituality or a better sense of life itself have
always been one of my favorite topics regarding the American Renaissance, and I
was interested in how she connected loss with the desire to regain in regard to
nature during the time period. I thought she could have gone even further with
that idea in regards to loss.
The other two essays I read dealt more with modern and
American Renaissance comparisons. I was not totally surprised at the amount of
essays that made connections between modern ideals and the works we are reading
in American Renaissance. More and more often I have noticed in literature
classes students trying to connect literature of the past to their modern
favorites or their modern life. While I think that sometimes this can be a
useful tool in understanding terms or styles that otherwise might seem obscure,
I feel that it is now being so overused that it simply clouds the original
meanings behind the texts and styles. Just because a work has one thing in
common with the Romantic writing style of the past, I don’t think that it should
instantly be used as an example of the historical style.
In Victoria Webb’s essay, she wrote about noticing the
modern themes tied into the works she reviewed, and I found it interesting how
she furthered someone else’s idea regarding Star Wars elements similar to the
Romance style by stating that “If writing the same thesis, I would state not
only the theme of “dark side”, but also the journey Luke Skywalker must go on,
the separation and reunion of the twins Luke and Leia, and Luke’s transformation
from a boy from Tatooine into a Jedi.” While I already was aware of the dark
versus light and the Skywalker journey aspect, I had not thought of the others.
This may be because I have only seen one or two of the films, but I appreciated
how Webb expanded the Star Wars Romantic elements. Webb also discussed Beauty
and the Beast, specifically the film version and its possible connections to
Romanticism. I was less interested in this section of her essay considering this
modern film version has ties to fairy tales written before even the American
Renaissance. Yes it was made during modern day but a lot of the ideas are much
older than Disney or even film.
I was rather intrigued by Webb’s discussion of another
essay, so much so that I had to go and read it so that I could review it myself.
Webb seems rather upset about Angela Sims’s finally paragraphs in her essay that
overshadow the rest of her essay to some degree, in which Sims does seem rather
negative towards any modern aspects of culture that have been influenced by our
American Renaissance past. Like Webb, I felt that Sims’s second to last
paragraph is one-sided and I was actually taken aback by some of her claims,
mainly because while I do think that our literary history as a country has an
effect on our modern culture, I don’t think that divorce, contemporary lyrics,
or drug and alcohol abuse are directly linked to the American Renaissance. After
all, those problems plague many other modern countries that are not tied to the
American Renaissance literature movement.
Unlike Webb however, I feel the need to look closer some
of Sims’s other ideas in this essay. Sims over all descriptions of Romanticism I
agreed with, and I liked how she pointed out that though many of the styles we
are reading can seem very different, the authors are “writing in response to the
same historical and cultural changing happening in America” during the American
Renaissance. That being said, I don’t agree with all of her claims, such as
“that the romantic transcendentalist view of nature and the gothic view of
nature is quite opposing, in essence.” While nature is something pure in
transcendentalist writings, and can be rather terrifying in gothic literature as
Sims points out, the basic idea of nature as powerful and spiritual ties them
together for me. I don’t see these two ideas regarding nature as polar opposites
the way that Sims does.
