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(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 #3: Web Highlights |
LITR 4328 |
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Adrian Russell
Perspectives and Definitions Regarding the American Renaissance
The short essays selected for review all happen to be from 2010. Dorothy
Noyes, Jennifer Hamilton, and Kat Henderson all employed notable definitions of
terms related to the American Renaissance. In reading the authors’ perspectives
on terms used in the course, I not only found myself sharing a similar
perspective on these terms, but their unique way of phrasing the definitions
shed more light on the multiple dimensions of early American literature.
In the essay titled, “Men Without Names: Poe’s Byronic Heroes”, Dorothy
Noyes explained her experience with reading Edgar Allen Poe’s
The Raven and
The Telltale Heart. What my eye was
specifically drawn to was her definition of the Byronic hero. In the next to
last paragraph, she states, “We can’t ignore the passion with which he mourns,
so despite his obviously flawed nature, we are drawn to him. What excited me
about this definition was that it seemed to look at why we are drawn to the
Byronic hero as opposed to what the Byronic hero is. The only thing that could
have been added is the answer to the question of what is it about the reader
that is drawn to the Byronic hero.
Understanding why are drawn to a passionately flawed character not only says a
lot about human nature, but human desire, attraction and self-image.
Moving on to other short essays, I came across Jennifer Hamilton’s “Who
Am I?” The title alone grabbed me. However, it was when she said, “Romanticism
deals with the past, or “good days”, or the hopeful future, never the present
here and now, and provides a way to escape reality”. This, in a way, is the
perfect description of how I, myself, feel about Romanticism when I read it. It
does not lend much help to my perceptions and philosophies because my issues
with human existence are here right now. Nature will not save us. We cannot run
into the past or future in order to escape ourselves. Philosophy can be argued
until the end of time, but in the moment I read Jennifer’s interpretation of
Romanticism, at least one thing made more sense to me.
Lastly, Kat Henderson’s “Dark and Light: Two Faces of the Sublime”
wrenched my heart with her definition of “the sublime”. In her first paragraph,
second sentence, she hits hard from the very beginning by saying, “When
something is sublime it is more than just exceptionally beautiful. It is
beautiful to the point that it becomes scary or terrifying. It reaches the
profound and begins to strike fear into the heart.” I had to take a moment and
wonder. Through the lens of Kat’s definition of sublimity, I began to see the
sublime phenomena in my life. I thought of the fear one feels when they see
their child being born, the feeling when a person wants to talk to someone they
are attracted to, but they are too afraid, or when a person daydreams about
being something more than they are. For a moment, life is beautiful. The moment
owns us. We do not know what is going to happen, but we know that in the moment
before we face failure, the moment is unspoiled. If we refuse to rise to the
challenge of interacting with sublime beauty in our life, maybe we think we can
preserve that moment of perfection before the potential fall. Though, if the
line between beautiful and terrifying is blurred, then maybe we can learn to
find the beauty in the fall. Embracing the fear might make us fly.
At first, I did not understand why Dr. White wanted us to read model
assignments from other students. Although, after reading these three essays, it
became more clear to me that, as I stated before, reading the unique perspective
of others helped me attain a more multi-dimensional understanding of course
topics.
