Michael Osborne

8 December 2016

Romanticism and Realism Reconfigured: An Important Lesson

          I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve always had trouble understanding and differentiating between the styles of Romanticism and Realism – (it may help to know that Literature was not my concentration as an undergrad). In light of that difficulty, I would have to say that a vastly more accurate understanding of the two styles is the most helpful and significant lesson I am able to take away from this course.

          As I would come to discover, I had already been exposed to several of the traits of Romanticism, I just didn’t realize that they were traits of Romanticism. Now, I not only have a much firmer grasp of those traits, but I can identify them with ease. I understand now that when Emerson states “[w]hoso would be a man must be a nonconformist” in “Self-Reliance,” he is espousing Heroic Individualism (8).[1] I recognize in Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” that it is Romanticism’s idealized version of honor that allows Parson Hooper to hold to his principles even when faced with losing his betrothed (46-50).  I also recognize that in Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” when the speaker says he “Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars,” he is discovering the sublime in nature (8).

          I had even less understanding of the traits of Realism when the semester began. Now, however, I understand that the real-world images Warner details outside Ellen’s window in The Wide, Wide World are one of the hallmarks of Realism (2.3-2.5). I recognize that the real-world consequences for Daisy’s flaunting of societal norms shows Realism’s focus on social relations, instead of Romanticism’s individualism (II:119-133). I also recognize that the aptly named Dexter Green’s drive for wealth in Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” shows Realism’s focus on real-life urges as motivation (2.1).

          Perhaps most importantly, this semester I learned that Romanticism and Realism are not inherently disparate styles as I thought them to be. They overlap, they borrow from each other, and elements from both can not only easily co-exist in the same story, they actually complement each other. In Jewett’s, “A White Heron,” old Mrs. Tilley’s speech is true to her dialect, a hallmark of regionalism, a sub-genre of Realism (15). However, at the end of the story, the “murmur of the pine's green branches is in [Sylvia’s] ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron's secret and give its life away” (40). In a moment steeped in Romanticism, Sylvia, remembering her time high in the massive pine tree, embraces nature as sublime, and the beauty and truth she finds there prevent her from betraying the heron’s secret.

          With the firmer grasp of Romanticism and Realism I have now, I feel much better about classes I will take in the future. As I read, I notice the different elements of both styles so quickly that they practically leap off the page.  Most importantly, I’ll never have to feel like the only one who doesn’t understand when the class discussion turns to these styles.