LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Student Presentation on Reading Selections, fall 2003

Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Presentation Summary:  Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald  N 2126-2143

Reader: Yvonne Hopkins

Objective 1c: to speculate on residual elements in “post romantic” writings from later periods such as “Realism and Local Color,” “Modernism,” and “Postmodernism.”

Objective 2: American Romanticism exposes competing or complementary dimensions of the American identity: is America a cultural base for sensory and material gratification or moral, spiritual, or idealistic mission?

Bedford 268: definition of Modernism – second paragraph.

Quote from Amana Le Blanc: “This Modernist text (WD) retains echoes of Romantic ideology while simultaneously being extremely conscious of the influence of the social environment.”

As a writer, Fitzgerald was deeply influenced by the British Romantic poet, John Keats; yet Fitzgerald was also a chronicler of his time, and his subject matter reflects this.  In terms of Romanticism, Winter Dreams projects the elements of desire and loss, transcendence, nostalgia, and idealism; however, the traits of Modernism – disillusion, materialism, and the commoditization of love – emerge to define the story as post-romantic.  With these ideas in mind, the class discussion proceeded from the following two questions:

Question 1:  What makes Winter Dreams a modernist romance?

Question 2:  Can Romanticism adapt to a changing social climate without losing something of its essential character?

Discussion:

Question:  What makes this a modernist text?

White:  Good question.  In general, if teaching modernism, you would teach Ezra Pound.  He is a Modernist. 

Yvonne:  Sense that disillusionment is part of Modernism.  That thing will come back—Romanticism would.

Sheila:  Desire & Loss?

White:  Reminds us of Whitman.  Still hopes in the city.

Yvonne:  Fitzgerald sees the reversal with modernist.  Country goes back to city.  Sense of recognizing that the past is done with.  The end of innocence. Love becomes a commodity.

White:  It’s unembarrassed unlike Emmerson.

Sheila:  page 2133.  Romantic would not worry about this.

White:  Fitzgerald articulates class.  Class repels America, but when Fitzgerald does it, it doesn’t mind.  It’s agreeable-buying into it.  Materialism is connected.

Yvonne:  Shelia talked about Dexter getting away from education.

White:  Likes to push questions.  How much Judy seems like a real thing or is it illusion.  She’s desirable, but also implies it’s all a sham.  As an American guy, we don’t lose our desirability.  Traditional terms and then not at all.  The diction increases her value. 

Yvonne:  With effort, Abilities to talk about human relations is anti-Romantic. 

White: “Tender is the Night” -  love is a bank account, only so much distributed before you’re bankrupt. 

April:  Cornucopia of love would be Romantic.

White:  It’s very false about her presentation.

Kristy:  The way he says her name bothers me.  It’s like a character.

White:  page 2138.Shifts from Romanticism to Modernism.

Question:  What are the elements of Romanticism?

Kristi:  The first entry read has lots of desire and loss.

Shelia:  There is correspondence on 2127.  There is a tiny bit in there.  Also, an allusion to Adam and Eve.  Page 2135:  The Adam syndrome.

White:  There is a lot to work with.  2135: Interesting restatement of Romantic hero.  Empty of all but potential.  Talking in terms of stock male.  Brilliant convergence, but now finances are involved.

April P.:  Earliest descriptions and environmental found Romantic.  Whole paragraph page2132.  It seems romantic how he’s watching her.

White:  Personified too.  Like Poe talking about Ligeia. 

Yvonne:  Lots of Keats in this passage. Caught up in the moment and time. It’s like a transcendence.

White:  Right, also correspondence.

Sheila:  Deep corners—Good Poe moment. It’s like Noir moment with shadows.

April P:  Dialogue is like film noir.

White:  The dialogue is kind of brief.  The contrast I have in mind is Wolfe.

Emily(red hair):  It talks about playing off each other.

White:  I’m drawing a blank because I don’t have the terminology.

Charlie:  Witty Banter.

White:  Back in the 30’s, if they did have a term for this style, or Ashley’s “cheeky talk.”

Kristy:  Bringing in my research—complaining about American Literature at low ebb.  In order to be great literature, it has to be mundane.  It’s definitely taking away from the whole WWI affecting it.

White:  Reviewer, Dale Peck, famous hatchet like Poe, says most models held up are Modernist- alienation-anger.  We give the Modernist period too much credit.  It is easy to see how WWI is part of civilization.  Need to go back to 19^th c.  The best out of a 100 novels was James Joyce Ulysses. 97% of population can’t even read through it.  Maybe—but we lose a lot if that kind of standard is working.

Yvonne:  You said you think of Pound, but Fitzgerald is right in the middle.  I think what happens to Fitzgerald is he doesn’t like modernism.  There is a lot of gothic in Capote.  I think its just not cool to be a Romantic, but I think authors still have it in their works.

White:  Are we running on fumes then?  This is important, and it’s not resolved.

April P:  I don’t think we’re running fumes.

April D:  I hope for a better change.

White:  Yeah, just cynicism.

April P:  Dichotomy of industrial, materialism, and organic.  If that’s the alternative, then yeah, don’t go the way of the mass.  Hopefully it’ll always be in our consciousness. 

White:  Another way to look at is Post Modernism.  Modernism and Romanticism can coexist.

Sherry:  All the Pretty Horses is a good book I’ve read, and then White Noise was anile—Life has no point.

White:  Yeah, its anti-Romantic.

Sherry:  Most authors wrote these conventions like a trend?  Nobody is pure one thing.

April D:  Whoever wrote it put it out under Romantic notion of change.

Kristy:  Romantic literature somehow appeals to all humans.  Authors were more popular in their time than new modernists literature.  Maybe has something to do with adopted canons.  Romantic has gone way of popular culture.

Yvonne:  In terms of readership, the number one book is Gatsby.  Students like it.  It resonates with the youth, it speaks to youths.

White:  Part of it is if people read for selves, the past is out of business.  There really is something heroic about reading Wasteland, Sound & Fury. 

Yvonne:  People want to throw out some of these, but you can’t.

White:  If people embrace it.  Of all the texts by Henry James, Daisy Miller has got a lot of Romantic interludes, and it's his text that people gravitate to.