(2017 midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2017 #3: Web Highlights (Index)

LITR 4328 American Renaissance

Jessica Zepeda

Nature’s Correspondence

Melissa King: You can Rain on my Parade, Julicia Beharry: Mother Nature through the eyes of Emerson, and Jennifer Martin: Correlating Correspondence are my choices for the web highlight selection. I chose certain passages that each student highlighted from the midterm and focused on what they all had in common  –  Correspondence.

Correspondence is one of the terms this semester that I have never heard of in British romanticism, or in literature in general. However, based on Professor White’s definition of correspondence to be a “relation or agreement of things to each other or of one thing to another; congruity, harmony, similarity, or analogy; sympathetic response.” Correspondence seems to be similar to that of projection amongst people, only, since this is the era of romanticism, a projection is correspondence due to it being transferred to nature instead of people.

       Susan B. Warner’s The Wide, Wide World depicts a great example of Correspondence between nature and man: “as if somebody was saying to her, softly, ‘Cheer up, my child, cheer up; things are not as bad as they might be; things will get better’” (Warner Chapter 2). This excerpt from The Wide, Wide World is nature's correspondence to the feelings little Ellen released from the thoughts of her emotion as she gazed out the window above her at the bright sky. Melissa King describes correspondence to “be used to project one’s own emotions onto nature. Instead of one stepping into nature and embodying the emotions present, one can step into nature and view it based on how they are feeling that day (King).” I think King’s evaluation on correspondence is an accurate description of what is going on in this section of passage from Warner’s The Wide Wide World. Little Ellen’s emotions for that day were being projected out into nature, and therefore, nature’s correspondence back was that of someone softly telling her to cheer up.

         Ralph Waldo Emerson’s, Nature is a primary text that was found in all three midterm papers for its explicit description of correspondence. One passage in particular, from Emerson’s Nature, expressed the corresponding relationship between man and nature: “for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece.” The passage expresses that every change in nature is within correspondence to the shift of mind and emotion within the individual, and nature is in fact given the authority to change its relation and feeling with that individual based on the ruling mind of emotion for that time. According to Melissa King, “the way I am feeling inside corresponds to the atmosphere around me, particularly in the elements of nature. I agree with King on this and believe that this is what Emerson is expressing about Correspondence in this passage of his poem. But to take correspondence a step further, Julia Beharry states that “It’s the relation between the soul and nature ( Beharry)” that gives the power of correspondence.

         In Beharry’s thought of soul to nature, poets like Emily Dickinson come to mind. Poets and writers whose work seems to be trapped in their minds with nothing to reflect or bounce their emotions off of. Jennifer Martin stated that “ Correspondence is different from the other terms by the fact it neither escapes from reality like romanticism, repels us from the horror of the gothic, nor does it transcend us to a higher place (Martin).”

Correspondence is reflected contemplation of one's own thoughts, fears, hopes, worries, and joys. And it is through the correspondence with nature that the character and poet in the two previous passages were able to resolve the angst they were feeling. Whether that feeling of angst is joy, sorrow, or reflection. When released, the feelings are able to be overcome and make way for new feelings to emerge. In this way, the feelings inside do not fester and become gothic, or sink more into the gothic, but are able to move forward and so is the individual.