1.  Why do “desire and loss” re-appear so frequently in American Romantic texts, both as driving forces in the “romance” narrative and as indexes for Romantic values?

Describe the significance of this pattern for the romance narrative and its general significance in Romanticism, citing works by three or four writers.

*Consider Columbus, Smith, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, Edwards, Poe, Hawthorne, Douglass, Jacobs, Stowe, Whitman, Jewett, Zitkala-Sa, Wolfe, Hurston, or Fitzgerald. Feel free to suggest others.

Sample Answers

American Romantic texts follow the pattern of desire and loss frequently because the basic romantic impulse is a desire for something beyond the here and now and this desire in many cases cannot be reached by those pursuing it.  Once a desire has been given a voice it becomes the here and now and thus the loss of the thing desired leads to a new desire to be sought after.  Authors of such romantic patterns as Poe, Hawthorne and Fitzgerald all take their own path on the road to desire, but the ultimate end is always loss.  These authors are brilliant at reviving what could be a very boring and repetitious pattern and making it not only believable but intriguing.  Necessary in all these texts is the object of desire, the description of the desire for it, and the loss of the desired object.

Each author describes a desire for a different object that the characters cannot do without.  This object can be a person, a time in the past, or a representation of a feeling that once lost if lost forever.  Poe describes in Ligeia the characters desire for a woman whom he loved more than anything.  A woman who he desires beyond reason and sanity to be returned to him.  Ligeia is a woman who Poe describes in the most beautiful terms and yet there is definitely a clear undercurrent of the gothic in his descriptions that added to the dark and deep felt desire that the character feels toward Ligeia.  Not all objects of desire have a physical presence as Poe describes the love of the Ligeia.  Another desire often describes in Romanticism is the desire for innocence to never be lost. 

Hawthorne describes just such a desire for the continuance of innocence in The May-Pole of Merry Mount.  Hawthorne describes the desire for the innocence of the couple in the story to continue forever.  The desire that the realities of life will not impinge on the innocence of their youth an their happiness in each other.  He describes quite clearly a fight between the “jollity and the gloom” taking place all around the innocent and happy couple.  While desire for a woman and desire for a feeling or way of being are described in both Poe’s and Hawthorne’s stories it if Fitzgerald who combines these desires for a person and a feeling into the character of Judy Jones.  In Winter Dreams Fitzgerald describes a woman who he desires but the desire for that woman is not purely physical.  The character’s desire for Judy is more about her representation of the love and youth lost to the past than it is about her as a specific person.  Each of these desires are driving forces in the American Romantic Literature of the past and to a certain extent of the present literature.

In order for the object of desire to create in the reader the real sense of loss when the character loses the desired object  the descriptions must draw on another classical theme in the Romance texts and that is a journey.  Each of these authors use the idea of a journey either a physical one or an emotional one to connect to the desired object.  Poe describes his characters desire for Ligeia as  a dark and gothic desire that must be met.  Poe’s character so wishes to be reunited with his dead wife Ligeia that his sanity becomes questionable even through the gothic descriptions of his lost love the emotion of the character is palpable.  Hawthorne’s desire for innocence is described in his story using quite sublime descriptions of a war between the jollity of innocence and the gloom of reality.  This description brings out in the reader the forceful nature of life and its many realities.  The fact that the reader knows that innocence cannot be kept forever only adds to the significance of the author’s description of the loss of it.  Fitzgerald’s desire to keep the love he found in his youth as a measuring stick that he carries through his life is not an uncommon goal for many of the readers.  The romantic nature of the woman Judy who in herself represents all that the love of one’s youth can mean is something that cannot be kept forever, and the story certainly proves that is so.  It is the willingness to draw in the reader to emotionally involve the reader in the narrative that romanticism is so good at and that leads to a level of enjoyment in the literature seldom found in anything else.

As with all desires whether they are real or imaginary, physical or emotional the ultimate result is always the loss of that desire.  The loss takes many forms depending on the object desired the loss may be through death, emotional upheaval, or adulthood.  Poe, Hawthorne, and Fitzgerald each describe a loss of something that is gone forever not to return.  Poe may use insanity to return the desired woman but even that is a loss that is permanent, the loss of the characters sanity.  Hawthorne’s description of the loss of innocence is a classical tale one told since the loss of Eden.  Innocence once lost is never returned and this as well as Poe's loss through death are descriptions that all readers can relate to.  Each person that reads of the loss of innocence will in their own life remember theirs and each that reads of loss through death will remember their desire to reconnect with those that they have lost.  The universality of these forces is put into even greater perspective in Fitzgerald’s story of the loss not only of the girl but of the feeling that relates to the girl.  Loss and desire are concepts easily understood by readers.  They are ideas that are significant to the lives of all those living on the planet earth.  It is this universality of desire and loss in literature and in life that leads the reader to understand and enjoy the literature more. . . . [MB]

            The issue of desire and loss is a recurring theme in Romantic literature because it demonstrates the unhappiness of the here and now, and gives hope of the ideal promise that the future will be better. They reappear in texts because both Romantic artists and post-Romantic artists are well aware that humans are in the process of becoming, and they use base feelings and emotions in their works to convey the message of unhappiness with the current state of affairs. They play on human atavistic instincts to create a longing for something better; even when the current situation is well. In one sense, the ideas of desire and loss are idealistic because human wants and desires are endless. Once a person attains something, then he/she no longer desires it. In another sense, people have a desire to return to a primitive time where they believe life was simpler and pristine. This driving force of desire and loss allows the Romantic writers to create a distortion of the current reality, and an ideal belief of a better world.

            Christopher Columbus demonstrates the desire and loss concept in the Letter to Luis de Santangel regarding the first voyage. Columbus described a new land as a beautiful paradise with lovely landscape. His description creates imagery that is similar to the mythical biblical story of the Garden of Eden. The Romantic style of desire and loss is to create unhappiness with modern society, and make readers reflect about a previous, less complex lifestyle that is in harmony with nature and was lost long ago. When describing the islands called Espanola, the reader develops an innermost longing for a primitive way of life. For example, Columbus writes "All are most beautiful, of a thousand shapes, and all are accessible and filled with trees of a thousand kinds and tall, and they seem to touch the sky" (27). There is an exaggeration of reality when Columbus describes Espanola to Ferdinand and Isabella. He writes "The lands which here obey your Highnessesses are more extensive and richer than all other Christian lands" (28). "This is, no doubt, the most prolific land in all the Indies. It produces three crops a year; the trees bear a great variety of fruit; and beautiful rivers and brimming springs abound throughout" (36). Clearly, the Romantic ideal longing of a previous, natural way of life reflects desire and loss in Columbus's writings.

            Another writing that imparts the idea of desire and loss is Anne Bradstreet's poem "Upon the Burning of Our House". The poem begins by describing the tragic event of a fire that consumed her family's entire house and material possessions. As Anne walks by the remains of the devastation, she begins to reflect on previous happy moments that occurred within her home. Anne desires these happy times and all of the memories associated with her family. She recalls the table they sat at and enjoyed dinner as well as the marriage that took place in her home. While reflecting on these special events, she chided herself to stop thinking about them. They are all gone now, and her desires are now to reach heaven and God where her real treasure is. Although written before the Romantic period, "Upon the Burning of Our House" is an early precursor of the Romantic concept of desire and loss.

            Finally, a story that portrays the Romantic idea of desire and loss is Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Dexter Green is an ambitious young man who wished to be successful, wealthy, and at a higher social class. He achieved his economic desire by opening a chain of laundry mats and selling them several years later at a handsome profit. His greatest wish and desire was to marry a rich girl by the name of Judy Jones. Unfortunately, Judy was a spoiled girl who had low morals and questionable dignity. Despite Dexter's patience and devotion to her, she played games with Dexter's feelings and broke his heart. He tried several times, but his quest for fulfillment was never accomplished because she always changed her mind and ran off with other men. This desire and loss is a continuous pattern throughout the story. Fitzgerald describes Dexter's feelings when he states "No disillusions as to the world in which she had grown up could cure his illusion as to her desirability" (2137). At the end when Dexter finds out that Judy got married, he realizes that despite all of his desires and efforts, he would never have her. He remarks "The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him" (2142). Muskievicz in her 2002 final exam agrees with this when she remarks "Dexter realizes that his desire for fulfillment will never be realized…Dexter is economically successful, but she is not a part of it". Kellye Nye also upholds this in her 2002 final exam when she asserts "Fitzgerald presents desire and loss as the impetus behind Dexter's every action". The story "Winter Dreams" aptly describes the Romantic theme of desire and loss because Dexter's hope and desire of marrying a beautiful rich girl were all in vain. [BH]

Of all the characteristics associated with American Romanticism, why is it that the theme of desire and loss continues to play such an undeniably strong role in American Romantic texts? Perhaps, because, other than fear and hunger, it is desire and loss that are the two most powerful forces that shape the human experience. It is our desires which drive us, both as individuals and nations, which have forged the rise of mighty empires, and it is desire, ultimately, which lies behind every human motivation towards action. This is especially true in the United States, a country either colonized or conquered, (depending upon your view) by poets, dreamers, explorers, and visionaries, with none of them content with merely living the status quo. With this questing spirit in our national consciousness to see what is beyond the horizon, is there any doubt that this desire would not also show up in our literature? This essay will attempt to examine some of the themes of desire and loss in Harriet Jacob’s "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," Wolfe’s "The Lost Boy" and Fitzgerald’s "Winter Dreams".

One of the more prominent and complex examples of desire and loss can be found in Harriet Jacobs’s "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." In this slave narrative, Jacobs’s tale seems to avoid categorization. For Jacobs, her primary desire appears to be personal freedom for herself and her children from the cruel and inhumane institution of slavery; however, she does not have this desire for freedom until she first experiences loss. This loss comes in the form of the shattering of her childhood innocence; until Jacobs realizes that something has been taken from her, she apparently has little desire for freedom: "I was born a slave, but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood has passed away [...]. My mistress was so kind to me that I was always glad to do her bidding, and proud to labor for her as much as my young years would permit. I would sit by her side for hours, sewing diligently, with a heart as free from cares as that of any free-born white child." (Jacobs 813-815)

Jacob’s desires are minimal in this Eden-like state of childhood innocence. After her realization (i.e., her loss of innocence) that she is a slave, she begins to desire her freedom. This desire is complex and can be explored on at least three levels, the first being the desire to love. Because Jacobs cannot choose a partner for herself, her very act of loving and being loved in return are controlled. Jacob’s laments, "why does a slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twin around objects which may at any moment by wrenched away by the hand of violence? (816). Next, Jacobs has the desire to control her own body. On page 818, Dr. Flint begins his plans to move Jacobs to Louisiana with him as his mistress. "In the blandest tones, he told me that he was going to build a small house for me, in a secluded place, four miles away from the town. I shuddered; but I was constrained to listen [...]." Lastly, Jacobs has the desire to be respected as a person with "white" individual rights. According to Jacobs, "the more my mind had become enlightened, the more difficult it was for me to consider myself an article of property; and to pay money to those who had so grievously oppressed me seemed like taking from my sufferings the glory of triumph" (832). Jacob’s desires are a product of the loss she has suffered, but also her story seems triumphant at the end because she obtains the object of her desires. 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.

Although it is not classified as a typical "romance narrative," the theme of desire and loss is also evident in Thomas Wolfe’s short story "The Lost Boy." The desire and loss is represented as a cycle, with an emphasis on nostalgia and the loss of childhood innocence. "The Lost Boy" tells of a family’s poignant desires to revive their deceased brother Robert, even if only in their minds. In particular, the narrator travels back to the house in which his brother died in hopes of filling some sort of void in his life: "So I waited for a moment for a word, for a door to open, for the child to come. I waited, but no words were spoken; no one came" (1705). Although he does fulfill his desires to go into the room where Robert died and relive some of his childhood memories, he nevertheless experiences a tremendous loss, as "It all came back and faded and was lost again" (1709). In realistic fashion, the world that the narrator thought he knew has changed and will never be the same again.

Thomas Wolfe weaves a narrative of physical desire and loss as well as psychological desire and loss. The very title gives the impression that what has been lost must be regained. Each of the narrators focuses his/her desire on regaining a time when their brother Robert was alive. Robert has become bigger than life because he died at a young age, and nostalgia has placed him on a pedestal. The sister focuses on the loss of youth. She remembers when she and Robert went to the St. Louis Fair. The memory is nostalgic as she says, "It all came back to me the other day when I was looking at that picture". Nostalgia is desire for what we once had. She not only desires her brother to be alive, but she desires to regain her youth. She is searching for the truth of her emotions. Looking at the picture she says, "…it all comes back, and nothing has turned out the way we thought it would." She desires the answers she seemed to know when she was young, answers to the questions "what has changed since then?" and "if it happens to us all." She wants to know "how it all gets lost."

On the other hand, the main narrator seems to be searching for lost time. He goes back to the last place he shared with his brother. In his mind he sees that nothing has changed. If he goes back, will Time have stood still? Will he find his brother just the same? The American Romantic ideal is evident in his desire to recapture the past. He does find an answer although it causes him loss rather than fulfillment of his desire. He finally realizes that his image of his brother is a type of shadow in his mind. He says his brother is "the dark lost boy" who "would come, would go, and would return again." He has discovered that his brother isn’t there where everything seems to be the same, "in finding all…all had been lost." Wolfe sums up in his final paragraph the emotional impact that is so characteristic of the romantic concept of desire and loss: "But I knew that it could not come back…the cry of absence in the afternoon…the child that dreamed; and through the thicket of man’s memory…poor child, life’s stranger and life’s exile, lost, like all of us…". Unlike Jacob’s story, in which desire is manifested as an impetus to move forward, Wolfe’s narrators are filled with nostalgia and the desire to return to the past, and although everyone has this desire to a certain degree, Wolfe poignantly shows us that, ultimately, you "can’t go home again." As Holly Anderson so eloquently wrote in her 2003 final ". . . . There appears to be a constant that humankind must come to terms with and that is things will change. We must let go of the people we love, the places we remember and the unavailable future. . . ."

F. Scott Fitzgerald takes this concept a step further. Jacobs examined desire and loss by looking toward the future. Wolfe examined desire and loss by looking to the past. However, Fitzgerald’s protagonist in "Winter Dreams" lives his life by chasing the material things of the present. This story seems to be a synthesis of the material excess and raw detail seen in Realism, and Romanticism’s idealistic beauty. Realistic glorification of the city and industry is fused with Romantic desire and loss. Dexter’s quest begins as the Romantic desire to cross boundaries, in this case, class and social boundaries, but it ends as a Realistic quest for economic gain. Dexter desires Realism’s wealth with Judy Jones as his symbol of success. He is on a quest, and begins in a rural town, heading to the city for fulfillment. The Romantic quest is reversed in that the character leaves nature for industry in the search for fulfillment. However, the Romantic quest is sustained in the pursuit of love through desire and loss. Ultimately, Dexter’s economic gain does not insure Judy’s love. In fact, a frustrating cycle of desire and loss ruins his ideal of love and tarnishes his success. All the Dexter has left of his desire for Judy is a romanticized remembrance of her beauty. Dexter’s vision of ideal beauty collapses as he learns of Judy’s physical decline in gritty, realistic detail.

He seems to accumulate everything he desires except Judy Jones. It is the character, Judy Jones, who teaches Dexter Green about desire and loss. It seems he will fulfill his desire of having her, just as she breaks it off. This loss of her heightens Dexter’s desire for her. "Succeeding [his] first exhilaration came restlessness and dissatisfaction. The helpless ecstasy of losing himself in her charm was a powerful opiate rather than a tonic." Fitzgerald presents desire and loss as the impetus behind Dexter’s every action. His emotional involvement takes over every dream of his life. When this dream fails, when Dexter can no longer desire even Judy, nothing is left to him. In this sense, desire and loss become unromantic as Fitzgerald ends the story where Romantics would begin: "Long ago there was something in me, but now that thing is gone."

Humans live in a finite world, knowing that someday we will return to the void of creation, but as sentient beings we have a human capacity for reflection and projection that give desire and loss such power in our lives and in the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. We have the unique ability to simultaneously recall our yesterdays with crystal clarity, though they are forever lost to us, and yearn for uncertain tomorrows, which are always beyond are reach. This temporal state, which is the basis of our existence, is also the wellspring to the desire for romantic expression via literature and other art. It has been said that people create art to not only carve our names in eternity but also to try to understand ourselves. Perhaps the reason why desire and loss are so integral to American Romanticism is because it is our national consciousness trying to understand itself through the story of its desire for what tomorrow may bring and regret at the loss of infinite yesterdays. [DC]