(2018 midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2018 #1: Long Essays (Index)

LITR 4328 American Renaissance

Natalie Womble

October 1^st, 2018

Defining Romanticism: A Study of Distinction and Eminence

          American literature has always particularly interested me. This is the fourth college course I’ve taken that is comprised of studying American texts and yet each re-reading of an anthologized literary work yields new and original reading experiences. There is certainly something to be said about the depth of literary art produced in such a young, yet powerful nation. Moreover, the potential for creative abilities we utilize in the present being unabridged is dependent upon our ability to understand and appreciate that of those who came before us. Especially a period like the Romantic era that plays such a significant role in shaping, and has lasting effects on, the way literary arts are viewed and practiced today.

Previously, my knowledge of the Romantic or Renaissance era missed a few different components that were introduced to me in this course, and even literary terms and ideas that I had previously studied were now questioned or approached in a new way. These revelations came about while studying a few texts in particular.

          In my reading experience, the first distinct quality of Romanticism that I was able to conceptualize manifested through paying attention to what was valued in the literature. Romanticism bestowed value and validity to the things that the previous era of Enlightenment ignored or robbed of focus. Poe’s “Sonnet – To Science” is the epitome of this quality. Poe asks “Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, / Vulture, whose wings are dull realities” (4 – 5)? He makes it very clear that things like beauty and emotions are undervalued by cutting off their potential with factual explanations. The discoveries of the Enlightenment cast a shadow on the intangible realm of humanity; our concern became naming the stars and mapping their movements, We were no longer captivated by their light or inspired by their beauty. Romanticism is the inevitable reactionary shift in focus when the ability to believe in something greater or supernatural is taken away. This reaction is demonstrated by what characters, images, circumstances, or perspectives became sensationalized in Romantic literature as a result. The dynamic between fact and fantasy is presented brilliantly in Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric.” The poem reflects that border between romantic and real by portraying the mundane as fantastic. When describing the male form, Whitman abandons all scientific jargon in favor of a more enchanting portrayal, “he is action and power, / The flush of the known universe is in him . . . The wildest and largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well” (7-8, 10).

          Once I better understood the romantic essence, I was able to approach another of Romanticism’s distinct qualities: Transcendentalism. This is the tool through which Whitman and Poe wrote reality, with room to reach for something beyond. The exemplary quintessence of which is written by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his series of essays titled “Nature.” Emerson clarifies the importance in being able to transcend beyond reality, “the invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common” (26). The dullness of a perspective focused only on what it can currently comprehend is outshined by the astonishing revelations that happen when one begins to reach, whether outwardly into space or introspectively within, beyond: “The sordor and filths of nature, the sun shall dry up, and the wind exhale” (30).

          The dynamic between fact and fantasy is emphasized through another motif specific to Romanticism: the sublime. The sublime is demonstrated in the ability to experience the summation of opposing forces and perceive them both fully. In class lecture it was described as things “so beautiful they are terrifying.” The sublime exists as the harmonious connection of two powerfully conflicting emotions. Poe’s “Ligeia” tells the story of a man mourning the loss of his late wife, Ligeia, re-marrying only to watch his new wife become slowly taken by death as well, and through that death experiencing the reemergence of his first love in all ways haunting – as if Ligeia was being resurrected in her body. Ligeia is the sublime personified. Poe describes her eyes as having “delighted and appalled” him. Of her affection, Poe illustrates Ligeia’s expressions of love as “the overflowing of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry” (11-12). When visions of Ligeia occur after her death, the text describes the invoked “amazement” and “profound awe” struggling with each other within the widower. Romanticism employs the sublime as what exists between being delighted and appalled, devotion and idolatry, amazement and awe. It is the comprehensive whole of both sides of duality and being able to understand and experience them simultaneously.

          The allure of Romantic literature is easily understandable. The sensationalized idea of nature unlocking life’s secrets, the sublime mysteries bordering opposing elements, the search for depth and meaning in the mundane, the inspirational spirit of transcendence; all of these and more are exclusively romantic literary themes. The American Renaissance and the Romantic period in general are arguably the most seductive and fantastic of all literary eras, and at the very least, Romanticism serves literature scholars in reminding them of the immeasurable value of what we study; the pure, concentrated power of words invoking emotions that are far stronger than fact and logic could ever hope to be.