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LITR 5431 American
Romanticism 2010 Student Midterm Samples #3 web reviews |
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Denielle Alexander
My Progression of Understanding
the Sublime in Romantic Literature
The sublime. The word and definition of sublime were
completely foreign to me. When I had first started the American Romanticism
course, I was ignorant to what the term meant. I still didn’t fully understand
until the third class session. It took constant readings, numerous definitions
and of course Wikipedia. After I fully grasped what sublime means, I fell in
love with the concept of something so beautiful that it inflicts beauty, pain,
pleasure and hurt. It is an unexplainable feeling, something that you cannot
specifically put into words; it’s an experience. You can only described the
experience to the best of your ability, and even with words, unless you are
there and experience it, you will not fully feel or understand the sublime
experience. The web highlights that I reviewed focus on different facets of the
sublime. I wanted to learn more about other intellects and their opinions or
learning about what the sublime is in relation to the texts we read in class.
What makes nature part of the sublime experience? While
learning what the sublime is, I fully focused on nature giving Edwards the
experience, instead of mental and emotional thoughts of the metaphysics in which
he surrounded himself. I learned more of the meaning by reading Christine Ford’s
midterm: “pleasure/pain sublime leads to change or at least the desire for
change.” She careful draws up a different conclusion in Jonathan Edwards’
Personal Narrative and studies the
emotional world of Edwards’ and its contribution to the sublime feeling. Her
midterm creates a different point of view, that nature itself is not the sublime
in Edwards finding his religious epiphanies. Instead the dramatic experience
that induces his change, whether it was mental or physical, is what creates the
experience. One quote that she uses, I thought it was absolutely amazing in
defending her reasoning: “And his blood
and atonement has appeared sweet…which is always accompanied with an
ardency of spirit, and inward struggles of breathing, and groaning, that cannot
be uttered, to be emptied myself, and swallowed up in Christ.” (178). It is not
nature itself that open Edwards’ mind to the unexplainable thought and religious
feelings, but merely dramatic change within him. He changes himself in the
comfort of nature’s habitats, but his change is what created the sublime. The
pleasure and pain the he encounters in the physical state of nature are what
contribute to the sublime, and not just nature itself.
In understanding more about the term sublime, I grasped that
it consists of pleasure and pain, or fear and something beyond a state of
happiness. What also can contribute to the sublime experience is the higher
power of God, or the transcendent feeling of some spirit which is supernatural
and does not take on a human form. In Mary Brooks’ Midterm, “In the Space
between Rests the Sublime,” she opened my eyes into a different aspect of the
sublime that I never understood before. While she describes the normal
description of the sublime, she also says “Each of these depictions of nature
and emotions is prevalent in the pre-romantic and romantic period ‘depictions of
nature and a higher power of God.’” The sublime experience is more than fear,
more than pain or pleasure; it is a super natural experience that’s beyond the
control of humans. In reading Mary Rowlandson’s
Narrative of the Captivity and
Restoration, Mary Brooks sparked my interest in her indepth understanding of
Rowlandson and how she uses her faith to create her sublime. Brooks carefully
writes:
Even though Rowlandson feels she is in the depths of hell she
is still relying on her faith and the ‘divine intervention of the Lord’ to pull
her through…Rowlandson believes that the entire experience of her captivity is
on such a grand scale that it cannot be attributed to anything but a divine hand
that she manages to come out of the experience relatively unscathed.
In my opinion, while reading this essay, I had my own sublime
moment. Awe’s and oooh’s were running through my mind, because she took me to a
place where I have never been in understanding this term. I just contributed the
sublime factor in Rowlandson to more of the evil between the Indians, and her
pleasure and pain related to her captivity. I did consider her reliance on God,
but I considered that more Transcendence rather than the sublime. It was
interesting to read a different perspective. It actually helped broaden the term
for me and created an edge of better understanding.
I admired Brooks’ understanding of the sublime in
Romanticism. Her essay covers some interesting topics, topics I do not think
were covered in class, or at least I could remember. Brooks includes also in her
essay the supernatural characteristics of the characters in James Cooper’s
The Last of the Mohicans. According
to Brooks, “Cooper’s novel takes many cues from Rowlandson’s narrative, things
such as the captivity drama and the super natural abilities of the characters
that allow the captives to survive almost ever encounter with captivity.” It’s
interesting to note that super hero-like qualities make the characters
themselves part of the sublime. The characters in
Last of the Mohicans and Rowlandson’s
narrative survive every deadly or dangerous encounter or position that they were
in, situations where the average human being would not have survived. Even their
physical characteristics and capabilities are part of the sublime; they are
effortless and beyond normal human capabilities. Brooke even went into detail
about how “awe or astonishment is a common emotion used in the sublime of the
Romantic period and is also used to describe those things where natural or
manmade that defies the human imagination to comprehend”. It made me think about
if I had any sublime moments in my life, where I experienced something so
beautiful and so painful it was indescribable.
Tanya Stanley’s midterm was easily readable. Her essay also
focuses on how the term sublime was newly introduced to her and how she learned
the many meanings of it. It is quite refreshing to know that someone other than
yourself is new to a term or concept, and that you are not the only one out
there. Tanya went through series of the many definitions of sublime and how she
gathered her own understanding of it. Her midterm drew connections of the
sublime and Romanticism through the texts of Rip Van Wrinkle and Sleepy Hollow.
Out of her whole essay, the one part I found most interesting was her finding
the sublime experience or persona through James Wright’s poem “The Blessing.”
She referred to the Western culture and its meanings of light and dark in
regards to the ponies “Western culture consists of dualism between light and
dark in which the appearance of light represents good and the appearance of dark
represents evil”. I like how she refers these cultural definitions to the Indian
ponies, in which James Wright considers the sublime experience for his western
readers.
This class American Romanticism has helped opens my mind to a
new facet of literature. In this class, the term sublime stuck out the most for
me. I had to do outside research on numerous definitions, interpretations and
context clues to fully understand. The first day of class was very overwhelming,
but I enjoyed learning new things, especially interesting and attention grabbing
new things. And honestly, I look forward to reading more Romantic novels and
texts; they are very intriguing and such a breath of fresh air.
Sarah Coronado, 3. Web Highlights – Investigating the
Sublime
I felt that my understanding of the sublime was just a bit
hazy, so I was glad to see that so many people focused on the sublime in their
previous midterms. One of the most enjoyable midterms I read was Kristin Hamon’s
The Sublime: An Individualistic or Communal Moment? (Midterm 2008) This midterm
investigated the relationship, or I might go further to say, the
dependence of the sublime on
isolation. She highlights several stories in which the sublime/transcendent
moment occurred only while the character was isolated from society in one way of
the other. Her examples included Jonathan Edwards spiritual journey (set alone
in nature), Rip Van Winkle’s escape from life (and wife) into the wilderness,
and even Reverend Hooper’s Black Veil who astonishingly achieved isolation even
while being in the middle of society. Her argument was that it was the isolation
these characters experienced which made it possible for them to reach a sublime
moment. I found this very interesting because I never before made the
connection.
In continuing my perusal of previous
midterms, I find that Tanya Stanley’s essay (Experiencing the Sublime: A Checked
Familiarity, Midterm 2008) also follows this train of thought in which the
sublime exists in isolation and she focuses on the duality of the pleasure/pain
principle. I include her midterm, however, because I felt her argument weakened
in her statement that “The people of Sleepy Hollow indulge in the sublime
unconsciously.” Asserting that while they enjoyed the pleasures of their
traditional ways of life, they experienced “the physical pain of manual labor”.
To me, this takes one aspect of the sublime and spreads it a bit too
thin. Where is the overwhelming sense of feeling? To me, it’s a paradox to state
that someone can experience the sublime “unconsciously”. The way Sharon Lockett
explains the sublime experience as a “uniquely all-consuming, yet satisfying,
human experience…one that cannot be replicated or sought within the normalcy of
everyday life” (The
Sublime: A Coveted Escape from Reality, Midterm
2006) completely contradicts the thought that the Sleepy Hollow inhabitants were
experiencing it everyday with their old-fashioned toils.
In another midterm by Christine Ford (Pleasure and Pain in
the Sublime, Midterm 2008), an assertion is made that “it appears impossible for
a character to undergo a dramatic sublime experience without also undergoing
some sort of change”. Again the examples are given of Jonathan Edwards and Rip
Van Winkle. Jonathan Edwards seems to go through several dramatic changes and
his faith both grows and falters, however, the sublime experiences he has while
on his solitary walks always makes his desire for a solid faith the strongest
outcome. Rip experienced an even greater change after his sublime escapade in
the mountains; he comes home to see that 20 years have passed.
This claim that the sublime produces an after-effect makes
perfect sense to me now that it has been stated. I can most easily identify with
sublime experiences in regards to faith as Jonathan Edwards did. One of my
favorite quotes by an unknown author is “unshakable faith is faith that has been
shaken”. To achieve such a strong sense of faith, one must have experienced
something great to strengthen it. And this concept can be diluted to apply to
changes occurring outside of the religious sector. For example, in order to
create a change in character or situation, sometimes there must be an experience
of something great, bold, and sometimes awful.
It is interesting that while I was focusing intently on
discovering what the sublime was, these students where focusing on the
circumstances in which it was taking place, and the after-effects of a sublime
moment, ultimately giving the sublime a setting and a purpose. In understanding
this, I begin to see the greater significance of a sublime moment.
Christina Crawford, 3. Da-Da-Da-dummm
(Read it aloud, low and ominously: tri-ple-it one)
The first
text I looked at for review is Ron Burton’s “The Gothic Other.”
I think he is successful in clearly identifying a strong romantic theme
for discussion. I especially admire
the way he addresses three separate texts with very smooth transitions.
He illustrates how “the gothic other” is used by writers preceding
romanticism, during, romanticism, and after romanticism.
Where Burton seems to fall short is in any detailed analysis of what this
means. His essay dwells entirely on
isolating this theme in various works, I do not think it is enough for a work of
criticism to point out the existence of a theme; the critic must take one more
step towards a conclusion about what this use means in any way.
Cory Owens’s
“The Marriage of Death and the American Gothic: A Study on Poe” falters in the
opening paragraph. His assertion
that it is an obsession with death that defines Poe’s work and exemplifies the
American Gothic, is going to be very difficult if not impossible to prove when
looking at only three of his works for a relatively short paper.
It is clear to a reader that there is a
relationship to be found between Poe’s work, Gothic Romanticism, and death; but
I really think that Owens’s is extremely presumptuous in his thesis.
I don’t think that Owens’s read this essay after writing it.
There is definitely some sloppiness in the writing with misplaced
articles and simple blunders in syntax.
He writes three short paragraphs mainly describing the role that death
plays in three works from Poe, failing to link them together in any relatable
way. I think his most interesting
assertion is about the role of the narrator and the narrator’s relationship with
death. If he had focused on the
role of the narrator or managed to fully flesh out an argument for the
“personification of death” I think it would have been a more successful paper.
Finally, I
looked at Leigh Ann Moore’s essay “The American Gothic.”
Really superb analysis in looking at works that so exemplify the American
part. Her essay starts with an
interesting look at an architectural example of the gothic and how the same
elements that contribute to an building can be found within these romantic
stories that also have elements so specifically American within them.
I do think it is a slight problem with the argument that neither
Rowlandson nor Irving wrote during the period that defined American Romanticism
and more importantly that their works contain elements that are neither Gothic
nor Romantic. Both authors preceded
romanticism, and while there are many elements of romanticism within their work
there are also elements that are not which Moore ignores completely.
Moore’s essay is overall a very well organized and interesting essay.
(Does my title make any since now?
It was a dark overture and all three essays dealt with the Gothic.
Oh well, I thought it was fun.)