American Romanticism Index to Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2010 (alphabetical order)

assignment

Mid-length essay: Review & prioritize your learning in American Renaissance.

Denielle Alexander, My Past Knowledge of Romanticism, Uses, and Progression

Danielle Maldonado, Blurring the Lines of Romanticism

Kyle Rahe, Looking Back: A Short Essay Review of American Romanticism:

Veronica Ramirez, “Quest” for Romantic Knowledge: Fall 2010

Amy Shanks, Romanticism: a Transcending Semester

Helena Suess, More Modern than Not: On the American Literature of Centuries Past

Long Essay Questions (Choose Two Questions)

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?

Helena Suess, Modern Consequences: Desire and Loss in American Romanticism

2. How has American Romanticism continued or changed in post-Romantic American literature?

Kyle Rahe, To Be Romantic in the Face of Reality: Changes in American Romanticism:

Helena Suess, The Ideal v. the Real: Post-Romantic American Literature

3. Write an essay involving three writers representing at least two of the three major early American races:  European American (required), African American (required), and Native American Indian (optional). Consider how race either complicates, absorbs, or exemplifies the formulas of Romanticism.

Kyle Rahe, Nothing Romantic about Race: A Struggle for Representation:

Julie Garza, Studying Multicultural Authors in a Mainstream or Classics Course

Amy Shanks, Adaptations of Romanticism Across Race and Culture

4. Citing at least three authors, review and evaluate some varieties of the Gothic . . .

Danielle Maldonado, Varieties of the Gothic

5. Review and defend Romantic Poetry as an essential medium for American Romanticism, explicating 2-3 poems (one of which may be outside our course readings).

Veronica Ramirez, Forging bridges: Poetry for all Romantic Souls