Paul Campbell
Literature 5535
American Romanticism
 Mid Term Exam 

The Recurring Element of Desire, Loss and Nostalgia in Early American Romantic Literature

Early Romantic ideology or style was characterized by and associated with by such ideals as rebellion, idealism, the individual in nature, the long ago and far away, and by desire, loss and nostalgia. This paper will focus on the latter last, the Romantic element of desire and loss and the related topic of nostalgia.

This purpose of this paper is to use three texts from early American authors to exemplify the use of desire, loss and nostalgia as a common unifying theme in early American Romantic ideology. This paper will also show how this common Romantic theme eventually converges in James Fenimore Cooper’s novel "The Last of the Mohicans".

The three texts that will be used to demonstrate this are "The Letters of Christopher Columbus", by Christopher Columbus, "A Personal Narrative" by Jonathan Edwards, and "Rip Van Winkle", by Washington Irving. While all three texts and "The Last of the Mohicans" use the Romantic style of desire and loss, none exemplifies this style more effectively than the early writing of Christopher Columbus. Columbus was the most basic of the Pre-Romantic writers. His basic Romantic style led the way for more complicated styles of Edwards, Irving and Cooper to follow. Most people know that Christopher Columbus is credited with discovering the New World but few realize he is also considered one of America’s earliest Pre-Romantic writers.

As a result of the early exploration of America by Europeans, a whole new genre of American Romanticism was formed. Early descriptions from Columbus and other European explorers of the vast, rich lands of perpetual spring helped fuel the growth of Romantic American writing. In fact, without this early explosive growth in detailed chronicles of the explorers’ adventures, European expansion into the Americas may have slowed or even stopped for awhile. The English, French and Italians were preoccupied with internal matters of state at the time, so they had little interest in the initial voyages of Columbus to America. This would change over time, partly due to the large number of American Explorer texts being published, which richly Romanticized the New World and made it irresistible to explore.

Columbus was one of the earliest writers of American Romanticism in its most pure form. He original intent was not, of course, to discover the New World. Columbus originally set out on the commission of Spanish Monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, to find a commercially viable Atlantic route to Asia. This brief moment of unbelievable wonder is evident in his first letter to Luis de Santangel, "Regarding the First Voyage". In it, Columbus starts the narrative in the rich Romantic language of the time.

The strong sense of desire of the newfound riches of the New World are present on page 12, the second paragraph reads;

"…This island and all the others are very fertile to the limitless degree, and this island is extremely so. In it there are many harbors on the coast of the sea, beyond comparison with others which I know in Christendom . . . . "¹ Columbus describes a land of unbelievable beauty and fertile "to the limitless degree." Farther down, he describes a land of perpetual spring

" …All are most beautiful, of a thousand kinds and tall, and they seem to touch the sky….as green and as lovely as they are in Spain in May….And the nightingale was singing and other birds of a thousand kinds in the month of November ²…"

He even describes things, which are not native to the Americas in an ever-ending effort to Romanticize his journey to the far off land. Both the nightingale and the honeybee are not native species to the New World:" …and there are very large tracts of cultivatable lands, and there is honey, there are birds of many kinds and fruits in great diversity."³

He also makes mention of the possibly the strongest desire of his time; that of his monarch patrons to be sure, the material riches of gold and silver:

"In the interior are mines of metals, and the population is without number. Espanola is a marvel."⁴ Columbus is setting the stage for many more explorers who will desire for the riches and wonders of the New World Desire and longing will be a lasting trademark of American Romantic writers for hundreds of years to follow. The forests are not just filled with trees, they are filled with thousands of trees, which are not just tall, but are so tall they seem to touch the sky. The new found wonder and excitement of his discovery, as seen in his early account of exploring Espanola, is not long lasting however. It is eventually replaced with a sense of profound loss. Many writers including Edwards, Irving and Cooper will repeat this early use of desire and loss as a critical element of romantic writing. The new found discovery and desire for the untold riches of the land that is brief, is followed by the agonizing pain of loss. Later, after the thrill of discovery has left, and the business of the Spanish crown takes over (plundering and eradicating, according to Columbus) and Columbus experiences profound loss.

In his "Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella Regarding the Fourth Voyage", his pain and sense of paradise lost is excruciatingly apparent. Ten years after his initial discovery was made, he is no longer in command and blames the local Spanish authorities who are now in control for the down turn in affairs. In the opening line of the letter, Columbus writes: "Of Espanola, Paria, and the other lands, I never think without weeping. . . . they are in an exhausted state; although they are not dead, the infirmity is incurable or very extensive . . . . in destruction, everyone is an adept."⁵

Columbus reminds the royal court of Ferdinand and Isabella of the promises and contracts they originally had with him, which they now are no longer honoring: "…it was a privilege and agreement, and under seal and oath, and you granted me the title of viceroy and admiral and governor general of all. And you fixed the boundary, a hundred leagues beyond the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands, by a line passing pole to pole."⁶

Once lord over all he discovered, now he has lost everything. Columbus has had his reputation and honor completely destroyed. He is now a desperate prisoner of the Spanish crown. Columbus looks back on his life nostalgically, to better times of his youth: "I came to serve at the age of twenty-eight years, and now I have not a hair on my body that is not gray, and my body is infirm . . . ."⁷ He gave the best years of his life to the crown, and now all is lost. This pattern of deep desire followed by profound loss is a pattern that is repeated in a very spiritual, Judeo-Christian way in the next selected text by Jonathon Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards’ "Personal Narrative" is a moving true story of desire, fulfillment and subsequent fall from power that is among the most compelling true stories in all of American Literature. Edwards, like Columbus, would experience patterns of loss, desire and fulfillment throughout his personal life. Born in New England, Edwards had a fervent calling to the spiritual world. His life was devoted to restoring to New England, the original sense of religious commitment exemplified by the early Puritan settlers of the region. He felt it was his duty to convert all Christians from simply believers to true believers who were spiritually moved by their religious doctrine. He was very nostalgic about the early Puritan pioneers. He felt a sense of loss that their fiery religious passion had somehow been lost over time.

Edwards was known for delivering thunderous sermons designed to torment and terrify his congregation into feeling the fervid emotion of religious revivalism the he felt so deeply in his heart. But his is story of desire fulfillment and of loss, so ultimately; his fortunes would also have to turn. In the early days, he could do no wrong. His church was filled with parishioners eager to be converted to true spirituality. All were convinced of the precarious state of not only their own souls, but also how closely all humanity was to the edge of utter despair; held back only by the sovereignty or good graces of God. But Edwards would eventually go too far. He began naming and condemning those who had went back to their original state of Christian Ideology from the pulpit. Soon, his followers turned on him, and his own congregation effectively silenced Edwards. In his writing, Edwards would also follow this pattern of desire, loss and nostalgia.

In the text, "Personal Narrative", Jonathon Edwards writes a classic romantic story of his own spiritual life. Early in his life, Edwards becomes aware of his own spirituality and discovers a need to follow a spiritual path to God. He finds intense pleasure and delight in worshiping and praying to God. In the first paragraph, he writes, "I used to pray five times a day in secret, and to spend much time in religious talk with other boys and used to meet with them to pray together. I experienced a kind of delight in religion.⁸" His desire and longing in life is to follow a spiritual path and to engage in religious duties is a classic Romantic theme. But, in the second paragraph, things start to change: "But in process of time, my convictions and afflictions wore off; and I entirely lost all those affections and delights…and returned like a dog to his vomit, and went back in ways of sin."⁹" Edwards suffers his first loss and fall from grace. He goes from the ultimate in spiritual devotion, to dreadful and wicked ways of sin. In his narrative, he is tormented by his falling away and spiritual loss but rationalizes it by saying it occurred only as he grew older and more cynical.

In this personal narrative the pattern of Romantic desire and loss is apparent. As with Columbus, his personal desire and fulfillment is fleeting and is soon replaced with tragic loss. In his case, the loss is of his spiritual life, which he has, although initially drifted from, then makes a more profound discovery;

"From my childhood up, my mind had been wont to be full of objections against the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, in choosing whom He would to eternal life and rejecting whom He pleased, leaving them to perish and be everlastingly tormented in hell…¹⁰" Not only has he drifted spiritually from God, he has also started to question his sovereignty in choosing who will be saved and who will not. So, he not only falls to the ways of a sinner, he also falls to one questioning the whole righteousness of God.

The story takes yet another turn when he comes back to ways of God. He now comes full circle from desire and loss back to desire and desire’s fulfillment. After realizing he could take comfort in God’s sovereignty, Edwards writes: "…I should be if I might enjoy that God and be rapt up to God in Heaven and be as it were swallowed up in Him….I prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do, with a sort of affection . . . . "¹¹ He returns to an even higher level of spirituality. Edwards’s treatment of desire and loss is very serious and foreboding, which contrasts greatly with Washington Irving’s truly comical approach in Rip Van Winkle.

The story of Rip Van Winkle is a classic case of comic Romanticism. Washington Irving takes the tenants of romantic desire and loss and puts a comic spin on the style. Irving used an old Germanic folk tale about lost time to tell a tale of generation loss and subsequent desire to get it back. It is a theme repeated in all our lives as generation passes and a new one takes its place. We all feel a tremendous sense of loss at its passing and a strong desire to have it back (as impractical as that may be, it is a very human emotion and one that will become very apparent in "Last of the Mochicans"). Desire for a past that is simpler, slower paced with few problems is at the core of this story.

Irving opens his tale in an old, pre-Revolutionary war, settlement in what is now up state New York. The romantic story centers around the main character, Rip Van Winkle. The elements of desire and loss do not enter into this story until after he has slept for twenty years. Then the New World comes crashing down on him, Irving writes: "He now enter the troops of the village…. strange children ran at his heels . . . . The very village seem altered: it was larger and more populous …rows of houses he had never seen before…strange names were over doors…strange…faces at the windows . . . ."¹² This is Rip’s first inkling that his world has changed and has somehow been lost. Time has changed, even the character of the people he met, negatively, of course. Irving writes, "The very character of people seemed changed…. busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity…."¹³ Rip desires the return of a more tranquil time. But, as with all our lives, that is not to be. Irving writes of his loss, "Rip's heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, finding himself thus alone in the world….he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair…."^{14 Ir}ving’s take on Romantic desire and loss is distinctly comical. He is telling a tale of loss with a comic twist.

In "The Last of Mochicans", Cooper will take this desire and loss technique and put a much more dark, and tragic twist to it. He will take this theme and expand it to use influences of Columbus, Edwards and Irving come together in Coopers epic tale of desire and loss.

In James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, the Romantic element of desire and loss is really at the heart of his story. Even the book’s title, gives an early indication of what the book is fundamentally about. Cooper uses the words last of the Mohicans as a clear signal that his book is about the loss of race of Indians and his belief there is perhaps, something fundamentally wrong with that happening. The concept of desire also manifests itself in other ways throughout the novel. The pattern is repeated several times at many different levels. The more obvious level of a vanishing race, but also a much more personal level with the individual character parings that Cooper develops. But, clearly, the most obvious use is with the European encroachment and destruction of the native population and land. As with Edwards and Irving, the natural world is a romantic place of wonder and desire.

Clearly Cooper is wrestling with what would have been a fundamental issue of American/European colonization and expansion into the New England Frontier. As in the early Columbus Letters, Cooper sees the American wilderness in terms of its grandeur and wonder. And also he struggles, as did Columbus, with the fact that European colonist were destroying the native land and its indigenous people. Cooper is using the same tragic loss vehicle for his theme of vanishing Indians and encroaching European settlements as the direct cause. The Mohican tribe, Cooper writes was once a proud and flourishing nation. Its territory once stretched far out to the salt-water lake (Atlantic Ocean). As European settlers invaded and settled this area, the Mohicans were forced to leave and try and find a peaceful coexistence with other neighboring tribes. Eventually, they were absorbed and then lost in other Indian Tribes with Chingachgook and Uncas as the last surviving members. As did Columbus , Cooper sees this as a European problem and that continued white settlement will eventually lead to more devastation. Early desire of white Europeans for the richness and wealth of the new world eventually leads us to loss and nostalgia for a better time (Columbus nostalgically recollects back to a better time when he first discovered and explored the new world as does Cooper when he reflects to Mohican life before European colonization of New England Cooper borrows from Jonathan Edwards when he develops this nostalgic view of a time long since gone.

Edwards was very nostalgic about the early Puritans of New England. Edwards believed they were purer Christians, somehow closer to God. Cooper also bestows upon the early Mohicans a sense of nobility (the noble savage) and nostalgically looks back to a better time of the noble Mohicans, taking care of natural world which to Cooper and Edwards, were "Holy".

Edwards also develop a repetitive pattern of desire and loss, which Cooper uses extensively in the personal lives of some of his primary characters. The pattern of desiring to follow a spiritual path to enlightenment; losing this desire and spirituality and then getting it back again over and over is a similar pattern that Cooper develops with his main characters. As with Irving, this appears to be the main Romantic theme of the book; that of desire and loss.

The first and most obvious desire element comes with Duncan and Alice. Duncan develops a strong desire to be with Alice. The pattern develops as an early attraction of Duncan for Alice. The desire element is clear as he helps transport Munro’s daughters to Fort William Henry. He will eventually lose Alice when the party is by Magua and taken prisoner. Duncan’s desire for Alice seems to grow stronger after this initial loss. When they are finally liberated and manage to make it back to the safety of the Fort, Duncan’s desire seems to grow even more. When he arrives at the Fort, he decides to ask her father for permission to seek her hand in marriage. The loss pattern eventually repeats itself as the party is separated and Duncan loses Alice again to Magua. At the conclusion of the story, Alice and Duncan are finally brought back together again to live in the land of the palefaces happily ever after, we presume.

The other important character desire and loss thread Cooper weaves throughout the story is that of Uncas and Cora. They go through the same desire and loss pattern as do Duncan and Alice. But their pattern will eventually lead to loss and not desire’s fulfillment. Uncas is the last of the Mohicans. He fulfills Cooper’s overall loss theme. So, his and Cora’s fate are, perhaps, predestined by this simple fact. The central theme of the book, the loss of an entire race, is fulfilled by the death of Uncas and the final loss of Cora at the hands (but not actually Magua’s hand) of Magua. This nostalgic loss element also borrows from an earlier writer; Washington Irving and his story, "Rip Van Winkle," where the loss was of a better time, a simpler time that was less populated, less hurried, and friendlier. Cooper’s loss is similar but more profound, a generational loss expanded to include an entire race of people. Cooper’s earlier time was also simpler. The noble Mohicans lived a life that was free of the complexities of the white civilization. But as in Irving's tale, it is hard to go back and change the past and also very impractical. They both hark back to a simpler, better time but fail to address the real problems that would create for the society they inhabit. Irving's desire for a simpler life is finally addressed by realized loss that it was not coming back (Rip could travel back in time) and this was progress.

Cooper seems to have a similar view, while he writes of this tragic loss, he also clearly sees this as a predestined condition (that is, separate races pushing each other into extinction) and not something he thinks we should change. His progress seems to come at a price; that being the total extinction of an entire race. This is fundamental loss, and I believe the real meaning of the book. Cooper's desire for a better time (when Mohicans roamed freely) ultimately leads to loss (Cooper finishes them off, as the title of the book would suggest).

Cooper uses early influences of Columbus as the first European to desire and sorrow over the loss of the New World, the repetitive cycles of loss and desire of Edwards and the nostalgic loss and desire for a better time from Irving to culminate in The Last of the Mohicans. All three writers and were clearly leading the way and perhaps guiding the way for Cooper as he wove his epic story of Romantic desire and tragic loss of The Last of the Mohicans.

Footnotes:

1. Page 12, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
2. Page 12, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
3. Page 13, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
4. Page 13, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
5. Page 13, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
6. Page 14, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
7. Page 13, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
8. Page 176, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
9. Page 176, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
10. Page 177, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
11. Page 178, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
12. Page 435, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
13. Page 436, The Norton Anthology of American Literature
14. Page 437, The Norton Anthology of American Literature

Bibliography:

Cooper, James Fenimore, The Last of the Mohicans, Penguin Books, Introduction copyright 1986.

Baym, Nina ed., The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Norton and Company, copyright 1999.