American Romanticism Sample Student Final Exam Answers 2010

Kyle Rahe

Looking Back: A Short Essay Review of American Romanticism:

          I was very excited to be enrolled in the Romanticism course particularly because I had never completed the course as an undergraduate.  However, when I signed up for the course I was expecting Romanticism to be more a time period than a concept that would bring us nearly to the present day.  This confusion was not negative though; I enjoyed the class and the way it was taught.  I am just pointing out that before the class when I thought of American Romanticism I assumed solely Hawthorne, Emerson, Poe, etc.  The thing I gained most from the course was a new effort to constantly look for romance in all texts even if they are traditionally characterized as realist or modernist. 

          The tough part about the course is that it is almost too rich in that I think you could do a whole American Romanticism poetry course as well as a short story course or even a novel course.  I appreciate the updated canon of women’s voices and minority lit but there is also something to be said for the experience of reading The Scarlet Letter or Walden completely.  The instructor did a good job though of providing edited and annotated versions of Cooper, Emerson, and Thoreau.  Sometimes you just have to do the best you can with the time allotted.  I could happily spend two classes on Langston Hughes, but I know how difficult it would be to devote so much time to one poet. 

          I think my interests in the course reveal that I am most drawn to writers who concentrate on the American Dream, or lack thereof.  I am always thrilled to do Whitman because his vision is just so central to American literature and all the poetry that came after.  “Winter Dreams” by Fitzgerald was a delight because I think The Great Gatsby is the best candidate for Great American Novel, so seeing everything Fitzgerald did in this little story was wonderful, particularly the inversion of the dream or quest.  Finally, the Harlem Renaissance writers were refreshing for the way they turn the dream language back on the dominant culture.  Re-reading Langston Hughes I was reminded at what a major poet he is and how original and inventive.    

          One of the uses of the course is re-familiarizing readers with concepts and terms like the sublime, Gothic, and transcendentalism.  I chose to do my research project on The Scarlet Letter because I felt that this would be the perfect time to read such a weighty text.  An understanding of the Gothic, the color code, and the forest helped me get a deeper reading of the novel.  All these are things we had already discussed in the course which aided me greatly.  Ayme Christian, in her essay “Rags to Riches: My Personal Journey of Transcendence from romance to Romanticism”, points out that one of the strengths of the course is the use of the students as instructors.  I couldn’t agree more, it was refreshing to not have the same set routine every day.  It was also fun to see the ways in which different students taught different authors as well as the differences between poetry presentations and text-reader presentations.  Overall, a good course and from now on I will be looking for elements of Romanticism in any text I read.