American Literature: Romanticism Student Midterm Submissions 2016 (midterm assignment) 3. Web Highlights

Michael Osborne

Learning from the Recent Past

Marissa Holland: The Trifecta of the Sublime

Though the sublime is a prevailing feature in American Romanticism, and it is often quite easy to identify; I must admit that I have had some difficulty comprehending the concept.  In that light, I found Marissa Holland’s 2015 midterm essay, “The Trifecta of the Sublime,” quite helpful in expanding my understanding of the sublime.  Particularly useful to me was Marissa’s quick overview, in which she states that, “the sublime can encompass nature, awe inspiring landscapes, and passionate emotions that can overtake the senses.”

Marissa’s connection between the sublime and elevated language is interesting, but seems to lack foundation.  She says that it is through “language that one obtains the ability to reason … although, it is not just language but instead elevated language that provides this power as every human … has the ability to interact with the sublime.”  While this view does seem to have some merit, it does not account for the presence of the sublime in purely visual mediums such as paintings.  I’m not actually sure I disagree with her argument, though I’m not sure I agree with her examples, but I feel that some cited reference would have made her essay, and her argument, stronger.

Niki Bippen: H.P. Lovecraft Posts

          I was drawn to Niki Bippen’s 2015 Research Posts on H.P. Lovecraft not only because he is my favorite American author, but because I plan to focus on Lovecraft for my Research Project as well.  I was worried when I first saw her posts that her project would exclude my own, but fortunately, the focus of our individual topics does not appear to overlap.

          I found Niki’s work to be well researched and very beneficial to my own research, especially the direct ties she makes between Poe and Lovecraft.  She does a good job establishing Poe’s overshadowing legacy, and the difficulty of other horror writers in escaping that seemingly all-encompassing shadow.  Lovecraft in particular seems obscured by Poe more than others, perhaps because he was, as Niki says, “fiercely devoted to his craft and mechanics regardless of the criticism it received.”  As she points out, Lovecraft is usually excluded from the canon; a fact that continually baffles me considering his vast influence. 

Marichia Wyatt-Jones: Dreaming, Hallucinating, or the Devil Himself: How Do We Teach the Ambiguous “Young Goodman Brown?”

          This semester marks the third time I have studied Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” as a college student.  Each time I encounter this story, I come away baffled, yet intrigued.  I can never decide how to take the ending of the story.  In that light, I was quickly drawn to Marichia Wyatt-Jones’s 2015 Research Journal, “Dreaming, Hallucinating, or the Devil Himself: How Do We Teach the Ambiguous ‘Young Goodman Brown?’  Considering my own plight in understanding this story, I found not only insight, but comfort as well in Marichia’s project.

          At various times infatuated or infuriated with the ambiguous ending, I’ve struggled with “Young Goodman Brown” repeatedly.  However, in Marichia’s project, I found a compact, and yet thorough, synopsis of several pieces of available criticism that does a great deal towards expanding my understanding and appreciation of the story.  In fact, if I were going to write a paper on “Young Goodman Brown,” I would start my research with this project.

          Perhaps most helpful in dealing with my personal plight with this story is Marichia’s ending, in which she reminds us that “[w]hat does matter is that we are still evaluating these questions one hundred and eighty years after its publication.  This may be in large part due to the fact that a story that stands the test of time without any concrete answers is exactly what dreams are made of.”

          Though I wasn’t sure of the point of reviewing past submissions when we first reviewed the midterm assignment, I definitely understand now.  I gained a great deal of insight into the work we’ve covered this semester just by reading through the submissions, and I wish I had read through them on my own before class discussion.  I plan to do just that for the rest of the semester.