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LITR 4232 American
Renaissance 2010 Student Midterm Samples 2. Short essay (4-6 paragraphs) on 1 of 2 options (or combinations as inspired) :
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Jennifer Martin
Correlating Correspondence
One of my favorite terms learned in this course is
correspondence. At first it was not entirely clear to me what correspondence was
or how it worked in literature, but over the weeks it has become more pronounced
and now I see it everywhere. By class definition correspondence means a pairing
of one thing to another or the agreement of two ideas. Correspondence is
important because it serves as a formula for why ideas work in literature to
make it appealing or useful.
There are several passages from “Ligeia” where the term
really stands out. “I felt my heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I
sat.” This quote is given while the narrator is sitting next to the corpse of
his wife and serves as an example of the outer matching the inner. He was
sitting next to a corpse so inside he felt like a corpse.
Another passage reads,
About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the Lady Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery was slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy; and in her perturbed state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of motions, in and about the chamber of the turret, which I concluded had no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the phantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She became at length convalescent—finally well. Yet but a brief period elapsed, ere a second more violent disorder again threw her upon a bed of suffering; and from this attack her frame, at all times feeble, never altogether recovered. Her illnesses were, after this epoch, of alarming character, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike the knowledge and the great exertions of her physicians. With the increase of the chronic disease which had thus, apparently, taken too sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated by human means, I could not fall to observe a similar increase in the nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently and pertinaciously, of the sounds—of the slight sounds—and of the unusual motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly alluded.
This passage is another interesting account of the outer
matching the inner. Lady Rowena falls ill in her room that is described as
having “phantasmagoric influences”; while her mind believes there is unknown
phantom that she cannot name. Therefore, the chamber and its décor match the
restless imagination of a feverish woman.
Similarly, in
Emerson’s Nature, there is more evidence of correspondence.
In those passages Emerson frequently relates the outer displays of nature
to the inner domains of human thought and virtue; likening “tranquil landscapes”
to man’s beautiful nature and “different state of mind” to the changing hours of
the day by “breathless noon to grimmest midnight”. In a more pronounced and
profound way Emerson says, “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” This
single sentence sums up correspondence more completely than the others by
showing nature in all its colors and having it agree with the human spirit as
being equally colorful and diverse.
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. Correspondence demands that we take our world just as it is
and make it correspond or agree with our inward emotions and thoughts.
This is the reason why we don’t take our grandmothers to romantic
comedies-we take dates. This is why we leave the lights on after reading a scary
story because our disturbed minds don’t want disturbed surroundings and this is
why we long to have class outside on beautifully sunny days so that we can enjoy
beautiful words in a beautiful setting.
