LITR 4232: American
Renaissance
Online Student's Assignments
Frances Sargent Locke Osgood as Sentimental
Frances Sargent Locke Osgood’s poetry is classified as sentimental. She writes about children, love, beauty, music, and other happy things. It seems as though her poetry would mainly appeal to women, especially mothers, even though “Ellen Learning to Walk” concerns the father of Ellen. There are no dark, sinister elements in her poetry as there are in Poe’s. Her poems are light-hearted and most likely have the ability to lift someone out of a depression after they have been reading poetry by Poe.
In a 2002 reader presentation, the presenter stated that, “ ‘Ellen Learning to Walk’ appeals to those, especially those with children, and seems to show potential aspects of the sublime by portraying both the excitement of a father watching his daughter take her first steps, and the possible remorse of not being able to help her.” There do seem to be some traces of remorse in the poem. The father seems to be feeling a little remorseful because Ellen wants his help, but he has to refuse it so that she can walk on her own. The poem is almost like children’s verse. The lines all rhyme and it seems to have a singsong quality to it. It also uses quite a few exclamation marks. This shows how excited the parents are about Ellen’s walking, but it also adds to the child-like quality of the poem.
Regarding representative literature, a student in 2002 wrote “The comfort of recognized emotions and situations extends from the stock characters and plot lines of Irving to the emotions presented by Osgood in “Ellen Learning to Walk” and “The Little Hand”. This is true is Osgood’s poetry. Her poetry does have a comforting quality to it, even if it is not a recognized emotion or situation. I am not a parent and have never been around a child learning to walk for the first time, but I still understood what she was talking about. It is more comfortable for the reader to put themselves into situations like this, rather than the dark situations of a Poe story.
“Lines” is also a sentimental poem. It
references Greek Gods and Goddesses, but it they seem really detached from the
poem, and they are just in there as a requisite reference to Greek mythology
because it was popular at the time. It
just seems to be mainly about a girl that is sleeping and since there is only so
much that can be said about a sleeping girl, then Greek mythology is referenced.
They do not seem to fit as well in this poem as they do with other poets
of this time period. Perhaps that is why she is considered a professional writer
rather than a literary artist.