(2016 midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2016 #1: Long Essays (Index)

LITR 4328 American Renaissance

Tyanna Beverly

9/27/2016

An Era of Various Voices

          The American Renaissance, or American Romanticism, moved past the age of Enlightenment by replacing the importance of reason and logic with emotions and imagination. This period of literature showcased nature and individuality as the center of knowledge and truth. The focus is given to the identity and adventures of the individual, encouraging self-discovery through experience with the natural world. This emphasis on emotional and imaginative freedom of thought spurred several different genres to be counted as a part of the Renaissance, from essays to poems and from the gothic to the historical fiction of the Leatherstocking tales; it all has found a place in this period.

As Emerson introduces in his essay Nature, he blames his era for looking back on the past for inspiration on how to live in the present. Instead of witnessing “God and nature face to face” like their ancestors, they are simply regurgitating what those before them have said and believed. And if all a person knows is what they have heard from others, do they actually have an opinion or identity? Emerson wanted the individual to be inspired through nature and their imagination, to see how they work into the greater picture of the world and how they are a “part or particle of God” no matter what their station of life may be.

Romanticism will find unlikely heroes to follow, such as men on the outskirts of society like Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook in The Last of the Mohicans. While James Fenimore Cooper will attempt to create the American novel as an adventure that leads to a cultural identity, it is still a part of Romanticism in the way that its emotional ties to the past lead to an imaginative view rather than a solid truth. Hawkeye and Chingachgook both mourn the death of Uncas at the end when Tamenund claims that “the pale faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red men has not yet come again.” This aspect of mourning also contains a possibility of hope, the sublime mixture of dark and light that constantly stirred throughout the novel is summed up with a cliffhanger of “not yet.”

 In Washington Irving’s short story “Rip Van Winkle”, escapism comes into play in a supernatural fashion for the main character. The character is noticeably a Romantic character, for not only do all the townspeople love him, but “the children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached.” He was revered by both the old and the innocent. The Enlightenment led to many positive changes for America, society grew and places were populated, however this also led to unwelcome expectations for some. In the case of Rip Van Winkle, he escapes his nagging wife and the horrors of war by hibernating for twenty years in the wilderness, becoming a figure of myth for future Americans of the days before the revolution.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is another endeavor to create an American legacy through stories, with the land being possibly “bewitched by a High German doctor” or by “an old Indian chief,” the past is used to add interest to the present. After all, this story is still popular today; the mysterious tale can be viewed as gothic and supernatural or entirely realistic, depending on the reader. The ghost “haunts this enchanted forest” in the beginning and end, as “the old country wives” continue the story in the oral tradition. Just as the story remains a part of American tradition today, the story became a part of the culture within the story. The fact that it might have been a clever ruse used on the over imaginative Ichabod does not really matter, since the trick not only worked on its intended victim but continued to work long after, leading even the schoolhouse to fall into decay due to its haunting effect.

 The works of Edgar Allan Poe generate a gothic element that is considerably darker than those of Irving. In Poe’s “Ligeia”, the essence of the supernatural is clouded with possibilities of delusion and insanity caused by an intense desire to perceive the impossible. The gothic landscape is represented in a European fashion, an old English abbey that holds “the many melancholy and time-honored memories connected” with its location, a form of escapism inherent in Romantic writings. The ending is still similar to the ending of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in the aspect that whether or not Ligeia really overcame her death is unimportant, for the narrator of the story “can…never be mistaken” of her revival. The effect of the minds longing to believe overcomes any potential rationality; she is resurrected by the imagination.

          It is difficult to give a concise and all-encompassing definition of the American Renaissance. It was a gathering of different perspectives and imaginations that all sought to portray an essence of their experiences without the restraints of reason and reality. It requested that the individual write what they feel in order “to build…their own world” (Emerson 28) and in doing so, many varied worlds were created.