Kristin Hamon

Understanding Romanticism: The Long and Winding Road

            Romanticism terrified me. I had not experienced some form of transcendence too unbelievable to explain, but instead, was made speechless by the assignment to teach a hyperactive group of eleventh grade students. How do you explain Romanticism to an inner-city high school student? This is the enigma with which I have struggled since my first year of teaching American Literature. I remember reviewing Romanticism in high school and even recall falling in love with English because of a certain Mr. Henry David Thoreau. Instead of plastering pictures of rock stars or Hollywood heartthrobs on my binder, I gingerly slipped pictures of a bearded transcendentalist inside the cover of my notebook. Thoreau and his like-minded transcendentalist posse carried with them a love for nature that was contagious to a high school girl interested in saving the earth.

However, if invited into a discussion on the nature of the sublime or asked if I noticed any residual effects of Romanticism in modern literature, I would have been embarrassingly silent. Honestly, I had no idea what my teacher, Mrs. Jones, was speaking about when she mentioned “the sublime.” I knew it was mysterious, but that was it. I did not understand and was not interested in how this seemingly arbitrary literary construct affected me. My intellectual ignorance remained unchecked until the fateful day that I willingly accepted the role of English III Lead Teacher at Chavez High School and realized that I was now responsible for transmitting knowledge regarding Romanticism to both trusting teachers and disinterested students. Thankfully, my story as an educator did not end at that moment. I wanted to become enlightened regarding the nature of Romanticism and Dr. White’s course helped begin my own Romantic journey. I might have entered the course with a limited amount of knowledge, but will depart filled with an excitement concerning my own budding Romantic narrative.

            Being separate from the masses is one element of Romanticism I thought I understood before entering Dr. White’s course. Interested in Transcendentalists, without fully understanding them, I became intrigued at an early age about the desire to escape an urban environment in order to seek peace in that which is ultimately sublime. Also, as a daughter of a Southern Baptist minister, I felt interconnected with authors similar to Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I understood when Edwards described the gospel as something that was “to [his] soul like green pastures” (N 177). The rhetoric of nature seems to flood (pun intended!) the Bible with vivid imagery in an attempt to create an analogous relationship between the untouched environment and God. As a result, the almost Biblical language of Edwards or Emerson seemed to resonate with me. It made sense that one might experience something awe-inspiring in a private moment, because a verse constantly quoted in sermons encourages readers to “be still and know that [He] is God” (Psalm 46:10, NIV). The overwhelming impact of a quiet moment creates an opportunity for inspiration and the sublime. Therefore, Emerson’s description of a “meditative moment” existing while he looked at a river or some other equal picture of beauty seemed understandable. However, understanding how an individual could be separate from the masses while being among the masses was an entirely new and confusing concept introduced by Dr. White’s class.

            The conversations that took place in our class helped me begin to understand the paradoxical relationship between desiring isolation and being a part of an inescapable society. Also, conversations regarding this subject matter encouraged me to contemplate Emerson’s concept of the “Over-Soul.” For example, in “The American Scholar,” Emerson extols the virtues of the communal state of man when he states, “I grasp the hands of those next to me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an intellect that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech” (N 525). I remember being confused when reading this, considering he seemed to be an advocate for the individual. I started to understand that Emerson was interested in isolation within one’s own self and simultaneously interested in the collective and communal experience of men and women as a whole. This concept was a truly transcendental moment in my education as I felt my ignorance slowly slipping away every Thursday night from 7:00 – 10:00 PM.

            Understanding the confusing nature of the Over-Soul and the implications of isolation were just a few lessons I will cherish from this class. However, learning how to discuss the sublime and its presence in literature is one of the most essential gifts I have received. Early in my academic career, I understood that a sublime moment could not be described, but no one had ever showed me how to correctly identify its presence within an author’s work. Sylvia Plath’s poem “Blackberrying” was one work that both moved me as a reader and helped me to better understand the characteristics of the sublime. Describing her isolation among the “blackberries” which “accommodate[d] themselves to [her] milkbottle” created a sense of relationship between the narrator and the natural environment. The intimate nature of this relationship creates an ironic ending when the speaker begins describing “nothing” but “white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths beating and beating at an intractable metal” (N 2659). I enjoyed the class discussion concerning this poem because the sublime was approached in poem and discussion in a manner unfamiliar to me as a student and teacher.

Before this course, I thought the sublime needed to remain a positive event filled with only an overwhelming sense of happiness. My fellow colleagues and Dr. White helped me understand, however, that the sublime often integrates wonder, fear, pleasure, and pain. The resulting effect of this discovery has caused be to revisit authors I might have originally not considered when analyzing the sublime. For example, when Nathaniel Hawthorne describes “peculiarity in such a solitude,” or Edgar Allan Poe refers to a transcendent love “stronger by far” than “those who were older,” I am now aware that the sublime experience is, in fact, a powerful force in both poem and prose (N 606, 678).

            The addiction to the sublime seems to have initiated many of the Romantic journeys discussed this semester. Studying the presence of desire and loss and how this dichotomy of feelings seems to pursue the speaker of a poem or narrative was most intriguing. Edgar Allan Poe seems to be a master at harnessing these emotional highs and lows. In “Ligeia,” Poe details his ardent desire for Ligeia exclaiming that she had a beauty that “no maiden equaled” and that “it was the radiance of an opium dream” (N 680). Of course, intense desire can breed intense loss and a strong sense of nostalgia, which only ignites the desire once again. As a result, Poe’s emotionally tormented narrator becomes overwhelmed with the “consuming intensity of [his] longing for the departed Ligeia” (N 685). It seems that many, if not most, of the Romantic heroines or heroes are plagued with the past or that which they cannot ever attain. Although this initially seemed to me like a dismal existence, I found these narratives highly contagious. After all, human beings never seemed quite satiated. This desire for change in relationship, emotion, or place is what throws us into journeys in our own life. Perhaps this is why many students or teachers enjoy Romantic narratives. Everyone has desired something or lost someone and being nostalgic is a favorite pastime of the human race.

            I will grow a bit nostalgic when I think about this class in years to come. Every time the sublime is discussed or I read a piece of literature, I will be looking for the presence and impact that Romanticism has made on other works or art or text. Perhaps learning to identify Romantic characteristics in other works is the greatest result of this course. Romanticism has become exciting instead of frightening and perhaps this was the intended effect, because I now have all emotions necessary to truly experience a transcending moment in teaching and learning.