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(2016
midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2016 #1: Long Essays (Index) |
LITR 4328 |
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Austin Green
9/28/2016
Getting Romantic
On
our first day of class, I was pleased to see that I was at least somewhat
familiar with a few of the authors listed on our syllabus. I think most of us in
the class had read at least some Poe. It had been awhile since I read it, but I
could have still told the story of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" before I
re-read it. As I continued to look
over the syllabus, it became clearer and clearer that authors I was not familiar
with definitely outweighed the ones I was. That was alright. I understood the
texts we are learning in class are canonical texts any literature major should
know.
To my
surprise though, the actual stories we are reading have become almost second in
importance in the class. What has become most important are the themes we have
been studying since the beginning of class, and identifying them in the texts.
By doing this, we can see how they all come together in Romanticism. We can see
how the gothic can set the tone or mood of a story, and how the sublime can do
the same or simply hide itself within the gothic. Studying and learning to
identify in our texts terms and ideas like Gothic, Sublime, and Romance (among
others) has helped not only my understanding of the terms, but my understanding
of American Romantics, and the American Renaissance. This period of time is so
important (and not just to literature majors) because its influences are still
seen today. Our current pop culture still relies on these same terms and
concepts, even if they do not realize they are using them. It is also worth
noting that the Romanticism being discussed is purely American Romanticism.
While these authors may have been influenced by the English Romantics, the two
time periods did not occur simultaneously. This was a new America trying to
create its own literary styles and traditions; trying to figure out what
America's imprint on literature could be moving forward.
You
can read definitions of terms and think you understand them, but I've found, for
me at least, that the true understanding really comes when I see the term in
action in out texts. One of the first works we read, "Ligeia," was a great
example of truly seeing what some of the class terms meant. In this story alone
we of course had the gothic, or the macabre. Gothic style could easily be
compared to modern day horror in terms of its tone and effects. In "Ligeia," we
see the gothic pretty much throughout the entire story, but some of my favorite
examples included
the light haired Rowena and the dark haired Ligeia. This contrast of light and
dark is a staple in gothic writings.
In the last lines of the poem, when describing the returning Ligeia we are told
of her hair that “...it was blacker than the raven wings of the midnight!"
Darker than the dark any normal person is used to. This dark is special. This
dark is one only our narrator can understand. He continues "And now slowly
opened the eyes of the figure which stood before me. "Here then, at least," I
shrieked aloud, "can I never—can I never be mistaken—these are the full, and the
black, and the wild eyes—of my lost love—of the lady—of the LADY LIGEIA." Here
is a good example of the gothic and romanticism mixing together. The two helping
each other to create the mood of this ending. Out narrator does not yell, he
shrieks. When he sees the big (full) black eyes he repeats twice that he could
never be mistaken, this is his lost love returned back from the dead.
After
that initial contact with the terms, it becomes easier to recognize them. We
again see the gothic in "The Last of the Mohicans." Instead of Rowena and Ligeia
as our fair and dark ladies, this time we get Alice and Cora. Instead of being
"trapped" in the bridal chamber with the dying Rowena, our characters in "Last
of the Mohicans" find themselves trapped and hunted in the woods. Both castles
and woods are staples of the gothic
genre. We also have other elements of gothic like the secret passages found in
the caves, and even an American Indian Byronic Hero.
In Emerson's "Nature" we see a glimpse of the sublime in the line "I have
enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear." This definition
of sublime being a beauty or admiration in the face or terror, horror, or even
danger can be found among our readings as well. We see it in "Ligeia" when our
narrator is with the dying Rowena, and we see it in "Last of the Mohicans"
during an Indian attack. This is a perfect example of Romanticism, where we can
see the characters "feelings, emotions, and imagination take priority over logic
and facts" (Romanticism term page). They are both terrified and in awe of the
death around them.
We then saw a different side of American Romantics in Susan B Warner's "The
Wide, Wide World." Like sublime, the definition of romance in literary terms has
a sort of different, specific meaning: " type of story or narrative that usually
features a hero's or heroine's journey or quest through tests and trials (often
involving a villain or antagonist) in order to reach a transcendent goal,
whether love, salvation (or rescue), or justice (usually revenge)" (Romance term
page). The story our main character Ellen travels during the reading fits this
definition perfectly.
Like the gothic, you can still see our definition of romance appear in most pop
culture movies, television programs, and novels today. Since both of these terms
can fall under the umbrella of Romanticism, you can see how wide reaching the
influence of these novels has been. Without the works of these authors, our
culture could look completely different today.
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