Sample answers to question 3 on multi-racial Romanticism

[complete email essay]

The romantic impulse towards rebellion against oppressive institutions or beliefs lends itself to writers of all races.  Rebellion is usually initiated by desire and loss and results in a journey and a quest for identity.  European-American writer Henry David Thoreau, African American writer Harriet Jacobs, and Native American writer Zitkala-Sa all reflect the romantic ideals of desire and loss, journey, and quest for identity in their writing.

            Thoreau’s rebellion against society is illustrated in “Walden” which chronicles his journey in search of an individual identity in the midst of industrialized society. Thoreau’s desire is for a life independent of industrialized society’s rules and norms.  He feels that his life within this society results in a loss of freedom of choice and individual judgment.  According to Thoreau, industrialized America turns men into machines who have no time for thoughts of spirituality or of a higher purpose in life.  Instead men’s lives revolve around the vicious cycle of making and spending money.  Within this system there is no allowance for individual needs, desires, wants, or creativity unless they coalesce with the needs, desires, and wants dictated by consumer culture.

            Similarly, Harriet Jacobs’ “Life of a Slave Girl” examines the journey of a slave in search of an identity outside of the bondage of slavery. For the first six years of Linda’s life she is unaware of the fact that she is a slave. The shattering of this illusion after her mother’s death leads to an extreme crisis of identity as well as desire and loss. Though some elements of desire and loss such as wanting her mother to return, the death of her good mistress, and her romance with the free man come and go throughout her life, the desire for freedom permeates her life at every turn. Linda openly rebels against her master and his wife, in spite of the subsequent wrath and abuse. Ultimately his abuse is what prompts her journey to freedom. 

            Zitkala-Sa’s story carefully outlines the formation of her identity within her native culture, only to end the story with the stripping away of that identity as she begins her journey to a foreign culture.  Though it is not carefully chronicled, the last two pages of her story allude to the difficulties encountered by a Native American trying to forge an identity from two antithetical cultures. The first sign of loss is when her mother quits using buffalo hides on their teepee and begins using the white man’s canvas.  Then she gives up her wigwam “to live, a foreigner, in a home of clumsy logs,” (1803).

            The young girl is ignorant of this loss of culture as she desires to see the “wonderland” of the east.  She recognizes this new desire as the strongest that she has ever felt.  Her desire manifests itself in a rebellion of sorts as she rejects the land of her mother for the new land of the palefaces.  Of course, after she is allowed to pursue her desire, she feels the sharp stab of loss as she rides away from her mother and finds herself surrounded by an alien culture that she does not trust (1805).

            While each of these authors is rebelling against some form of society, the weight of oppression varies significantly between the three.  Though the oppression felt by Thoreau is valid, it is a much more abstract form of oppression than that suffered by minority races. While Thoreau is able to rebel openly and complete his journey without being molested, Linda’s rebellion against extreme physical and mental oppression results in an equally oppressive journey. While Thoreau relaxes in a cottage by a pond reflecting on the meaning of life, Linda suffocates in a tiny attic fearing for her life and scratching at scabies.

            In addition, the desire and loss element is similarly disproportionate among the races.  While Thoreau desires a higher form of spirituality and laments the loss of autonomy and individualism in American society, he is not confronted with extreme or harsh physical or emotional oppression.  In fact, by dropping out of the social system he is allowed to quite freely pursue his own course of action.  His feelings of loss seem to be more oriented toward the fact that in the pursuit of his desires he loses the company of society.

            Desire and loss in terms of African and Native Americans consists of much more physical and emotional hardship.  African Americans have lost any sense of identity or freedom and therefore their desire is such. Native Americans suffer from a similar plight, but with fewer overtones of physical harm and coercion. They have an identity, but it is slowly taken away and replaced with European values.

Another major difference between the journeys of the three authors has to do with the element of free will. Thoreau’s journey to Walden Pond is by his own choice. There he attempts to live a simple and reflective life of physical labor, meditation, and writing. While the journey of the girl in Zitkala-Sa’s story is arguably made of her own free will, there is a major difference in how the two arrived at their respective decisions. First, Thoreau is a grown man as opposed to the impressionable child of the Zitkala-Sa story.  It is quite arguable that the girl was coerced in making her journey by propaganda on the part of white America. In Jacob’s story, Linda’s journey is made of her own free will; however, in light of her alternatives her decisions are heavily influenced by outside factors.

All of these stories show that romantic ideals can be adapted across lines of color, race, and culture. The definitive factor common to all seems to be rebellion against oppression and resulting feelings of desire and loss. [April Davis]

[complete email essay]

When the term Romantic literature is mentioned, the first writers to come to mind are inevitably European.  Even if a broader knowledge exists and American writers such as Cooper or Poe come to mind, rarely do writers of non-European descent get considered in this light.  When considering writers of other races, it is understandable that they would resist the classification of “Romantic” writers because the classification has become entwined with a historical time frame during which they were oppressed.  While there are obvious reasons for assigning dates to the beginning and end of literary periods, the issue of race, particularly in America, would be less problematic to literary discussions if the focus were on themes of the movement rather than when it occurred.

The predominant themes and attitudes of Romanticism–the quest, desire and loss, nostalgia, “the sublime,” and even rebellion–are universal truths and values.  When writers from non-European backgrounds produce a work with Romantic themes, they have not necessarily considered or adopted these themes from a European movement, they have simply written from their own experience.  Because of the universality of the themes, they fit the movement, but they are not a product if it. 

Romanticism was recognized as a movement because during that time period the dominant literary scene was agreeable to indulging those aspects of human nature.  The social and political setting at the time was conducive to a Romantic period.  Just because the setting changes and factors such as war change the aspects of human nature which are being emphasized, does not mean that the Romantic attitudes are no longer present.   In fact, that is why Romantic literature has continued to appeal to readers throughout time.

If Romanticism is thought of solely as a set of ideals and themes then to associate with it writers of other races do not have to associate with a time period which represents oppression within their race.

Native American writers provide a good example of the universality of Romantic themes.  In Black Elk Speaks, we first of all get a sense of nostalgia which is common among tales told in cultures with great oral traditions.  This nostalgia often translates directly into a desire for that which has been lost, in this case, the promise of his great vision.  We also see the important Romantic theme of the individual on a quest toward transcendence through Black Elk’s spiritual vision.  Finally, Black Elk’s vision takes place as he is alone in nature, apart from the society of his tribe and family, if only in his mind.

African American poets such as Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes demonstrate the ability of Romanticism to transcend both racial and time period constraints.  The poem “Incident” by Cullen is a personal look at the desire and loss theme which occurs within a single moment within a small boy.  The poem opens with the narrator, then a young boy, full of childlike desire to experience the world and all it has to offer.  He had a “heart-filled, head-filled with glee.”  Then in one short moment another child brings about the loss of his innocent world view and his outlook is forever changed–“Of all the things that happened there, That’s all that I remember” (2243).  Hughes, likewise, gives his poetry a romantic feel through the use of natural settings and metaphors.  His combination of traditional Romantic themes with his own unique use of black oral traditions represents the Romantic theme of rebellion in and of itself.  He did not conform to pure literary patterns.  His poetry even approaches a sense of the sublime.  The words and cadence in poems such as “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” have the traditional sense of beauty, but then the undercurrent of meaning catches up to the reader and the beautiful becomes ugly.  Pain and pleasure in one poem.  Likewise, in “Mulatto,” poetical phrases such as “The moon over turpentine woods. The Southern night, Full of Stars, Great big yellow stars,” clash painfully with “Of nigger wenches,” and “O, you little bastard boy” (2227).  Hughes and Cullen would, no doubt, resist being called Romantic, but if the term were seen not as a time period, but as a set of universal human themes, then it would become apparent that the Romantic cannot be confined to only one culture.

Finally, even writers of European descent can reinforce the argument that Romanticism is not a European movement that other races borrow from, but a universal set of themes which reflect human nature.  One such writer is Harriet Beecher Stowe.  The fact that her novel is intimately concerned with issues of race serves to show that an American writer of European descent can write a novel that is out of step with the historical time period, but appealing to the Romantic ideals present across the racial divides.  She appeals to her readers by pointing out instances when emotions transcend racial lines.  One such time is when she appeals to the reader as a mother, “If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, to-morrow morning– . . . how fast could you walk?” (794).  The love of a mother for her child, especially in this situation, is an example of the sublime.  She loves so much it hurts.  Stowe is a white woman, but she can use Romantic ideals to bring two races together in a way that is beneficial to others.

Romanticism is a term that is problematic because it is specifically tied to a historical period when Americans of European descent were oppressing those of other races.  The ideals of Romanticism, are, however, not inherently European.  Romantic themes and attitudes reflect universal truths that can be found in the literature of all cultures and races.  Therefore, when a writer from a minority race writes a “Romantic” work, he is not necessarily borrowing from or even being influenced by the Romantic Movement.  He is writing from the Romantic themes which inspire all humans.  There obviously must be a term to speak about conventions and movements within literature.  The term “Romantic” is a perfect representation of the themes present in these works; it has just come to have a broader historical context that is problematic to those who have always been absorbed into European worlds. [Kristy Pawlak]

  [email excerpts]

One of the most interesting ideas I encountered early in this course (I believe it’s in the handout about The Last of the Mohicans) is that white Americans are stubbornly insistent on the notion that the races are pure and separate despite much evidence that they are not.  Early Romanticist James Fenimore Cooper was already exploring this in the 1820s in the characters of Cora and Hawkeye.  Cora’s blood is actually mixed, although her parentage is only briefly explained in the novel’s pages.  Hawkeye is repeatedly described as a man “without a cross,” yet his lifestyle is only another kind of mixing.  I’m inclined to think, after two recent research projects concerning mulatto characters in American literature, that the relation of race to Romanticism can be fruitfully discussed by looking at the places where (supposedly separate) black and white are entangled. . . .

Stowe, of course, wanted to show that the entire institution of slavery was unchristian and should be abolished on those grounds.  Her portrayals of black characters are formed with this purpose, without regard for balance, realism, or a real sense of individual African Americans.  An article I read about Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin pointed out that while Tom, who is dark skinned, becomes a martyr, the mulatto character George Harris is spared excessive suffering, and, in fact, moves closer to a heroic role.  The character of Eliza is another example of how Stowe used aspects of race for emotional effect.  Eliza is a mother which is always good for creating empathy.  But she is also mulatto which probably made her easier for white readers to identify with.

It’s worthwhile to note that both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs were mulattoes, as well.  So a significant portion of Romantic literary representations of African Americans were actually mulatto characters or the autobiographical accounts of mulattoes who escaped to the North.  During the Harlem Renaissance, a number of writers who we typically think of as simply African American were also mulattoes, and the intersection of supposedly pure races is thematically present in some of their work.  Below, I intend to look at depictions by writers like Stowe might have persisted to affect the writings of Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Jean Toomer.

During the Harlem Renaissance, whites became newly and intensely interested in literature, music, visual art, and dance created by African Americans.  Successful black writers of this time were often dependent on white support or endorsement to get their work published.  Their texts were read by a predominantly white audience.  The races mixed in literary circles as well as in the ancestry of individuals – yet another way that the American ideology of racial purity is contradicted.  Black artists were faced with the dilemma of which race to write for – whether to meet black or white expectations. . . .

Jean Toomer might well be the writer most confined by American polarization of race.  Although his Cane is considered a masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance, Toomer was uneasy about his imposed identification with African Americans.  (His grandfather’s mother was mulatto.)   One critic I read conceived of Cane as Toomer’s attempt to unify his racially divided sense of self.  I think this is a god interpretation, because Cane is riddled with sets of thematic opposites including North/South, black/white, body/soul, love/violence, prose/poetry, and male/female. 

“Georgia Dusk” reminds me of Hughes’ “Mulatto” with its positive use of darkness and dusk.  The sun, on the other hand, is “indolent.”  Another line reminds me of Cullen’s “Heritage.”  Toomer lists “High-priests, an ostrich, and a ju-ju man.”  He is also pulling in references to Africa.  But his writing is about uniquely American places, people, and circumstances.  Fern is a good example of the light-skinned or mulatto women that Toomer paints verbal pictures of in the first section of Cane.  Her face is “soft cream foam” and her nose is “aquiline, Semitic.”  The narrator thinks of her as “a cream-colored solitary girl” whose voice makes him think of a Jewish cantor.  “Fern” has a motif of desire and loss, perceived loss, because Fern is a woman that no man can really have.  She is unattainable which makes men desire her, remember her with longing.  The narrator even considers how long it might take him to quit thinking of her when he is gone back to the North.  He seems to think that the feelings of loss and nostalgia are permanent ones.

Harlem Renaissance writers like Cullen, Hughes, and Toomer were writing in the shadow of authors and stereotypes that came before.  I think this is always true – at least true of the way we study the works – of African American writers.  These writers use of the color black to symbolize strength, safety, or beauty is inevitable seen as a variation on an existing idea, as the inversion of Gothicism as written by writers of the dominant culture.  We also talk about Romanticism in African American works by noting that realism seems to intrude more often on dreamy, fantasy-like narrative or poetry.  Douglass and Jacobs, for example, or the repeated references to lynching in Harlem Renaissance poetry. 

Yet, a number of Romantic elements are very similar in writings by both European- and African Americans.  I found nostalgia, desire and loss, the Gothic.  I somehow managed not to even mention the notion of the Romantic quest which is inherent in the slave narratives, and later shows up as a search for racial identity.  Throughout this course, I’ve thought about race and Romanticism in the same manner we conceptualized the American Dream in the minority literature course.  We can accurately and fairly talk about Romanticism – or the American Dream – across literatures by different racial groups, but there will be variations in how those groups write about it.  I learned an important corollary to this idea, however.  The variations are not always going to neatly divide by racial group, because even the authors are not as racially separated as American ideology tries to maintain. [Ashley Salter]