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LITR 5431 American
Romanticism 2010 Student Midterm Samples #1 long essay (incl. instructor's comments) |
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Cristen Lauck
Part 1 – what’s real anyway?
Throughout the semester, I have been trying to find
what unifies all of these Romantic writings. All of them are very different yet
they are placed in the same category. Even the sub-themes are very different and
not all of the works have the same elements. Some might focus ore on the gothic
and sublime elements such as Poe while others focus on nature like the poets
Mary Oliver and James Wright. But what do these works have in common? What is
the underlying theme at the root of Romanticism? I found it is the “unreal”
aspect of life that unifies them all. For me, Romanticism can be defined as
anything but the “real”. [chance to
refer to objective re “anything but here and now”] It is the opposite of
Realism.
All of the readings we have encountered exhibit this trait in
one way or another.
For example, writings that focus mainly on the
nature aspect of Romanticism tend to only see the good side of nature. A works
that comes to mind that displays this is Mary Oliver’s poem
When Death Comes. Her poem
speaks of death as a beautiful, almost spiritual occurrence in which you
think back on all the beautiful things in life.
However, she fails to mention the harsh realities of death like how your
body rots and decays or how your death can negatively affect your loved ones.
She doesn’t talk about the complicated business matters like the funeral
arrangements and finances. She chooses only to think about the beautiful,
spiritual aspect of death, not the reality of it.
There are also many other writings that do the same thing. They only look
at the positive side to life. [or death]
A journey, whether spiritual, mental, or physical,
is another way of escaping reality.
[good transition + maintains thesis]
The fantasy journey that Rip Van Winkle takes in Irving’s story of the same name
was Rip’s way of escaping the realities and responsibilities of life. Instead of
facing the harshness of the world he made a magical journey through time in
which he didn’t have to deal with any of his responsibilities. Even the journey
in Last of the Mohicans was a kind of
fantasy. If the story were real life, then the travelers wouldn’t have had as
many positive encounters and opportunities and at some point the travelers most
likely would have died or become ill. Their journey was a little too easy for
them to be real life.
The gothic is another element to Romanticism that
is designed to escape or wash down reality except this is focusing the dark,
somber parts of life [<reverse order of
points?] . What comes to mind are the gothic images in the Irving’s
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in which
the reader is filled with the dark images of the night, woods and giant tree.
Ichabod was consumed by his creepy, eerie surroundings and headless horseman
tales instead of rationalizing that the tree and woods are harmless and the
horseman is not real. But that’s what Romanticism does. It doesn’t rationalize
what’s going on but instead asks for other, non-worldly explanations for things.
Again, it overlooks or focuses on the unreal.
Sublime elements do the same thing. For instance,
the sublime language and descriptions in Poe’s
Ligeia speaks of how the narrator was
consumed and tormented by Ligeia’s beauty.
Even after her death, the narrator was painfully obsessed with thoughts
of her. However, he didn’t see the reality in that she was only human, with her
own faults, and how sick she really was. His incomprehensible obsession for her
itself is unrealistic. The reality is that people could see that she wasn’t
prefect. The sublime elements to these stories are just another way of
overlooking reality.
Lastly, transcendentalism is yet another way of
escaping reality. James Wright’s poem, A
Blessing, shows this quality in it’s
conclusion. In the end, the narrator describes his feeling of being transformed
into flowers because he is overcome with joy. This level of happiness is
unrealistic because people see difficulties in the world. No one can say they
have not seen harshness in life and therefore they know this kind of happiness
cannot exist. It’s simply unrealistic which makes it Romantic.
But why do we need this in what we read? Why did
Romanticism ever develop? Isn’t it foolish to think irrationally? Perhaps, but
then again that may be the point. Perhaps one reason we read
is to escape reality. We see enough
harshness in our everyday lives that we may need a break from it. Romanticism
has all the unreal elements to it because we need different ways to escape real
life. We don’t always need realism. Sometimes we need a little Romanticism.
[also consider distancing that allows
one to rethink reality]
