Romanticism: What is it?" Legend of Sleepy Hollow", and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" part 1 (had to split them up because I started rambling, and no one wants to erase such awesomness)

Romanticism: What is it?

Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot 

Objective: recap and discuss romanticism, especially in relation to The Scarlet Letter, and "The Devil and Tom Walker", read "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and describe how the story captures the imagination of reader's today, listen to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", read what ever it is that I am supposed to read on Wallis Willis, and answer these questions: How is this song about escaping the physical conditions of slavery? How is this song about religious hope and faith? How is this song reflective of it's time period? How does it relate to today?.... Well, this is going to be fun.

Romanticism Recap

.To begin, it is important to understand this. Genre's are weird, mainly because a writer doesn't sit down and force himself or herself to conform to a set of defining rules. They don't say " I must kill off this character because this is a horror story, and it would go against the rules if I didn't kill everybody". bwahahahaha!" No. An author writes what they want when they want how they want, and that's what makes them good writers... most of the time, but we need to recognize the conventions that usually seem to be present in all writings similar in time period. Good writer's don't write to make money... well... maybe they do, but they also write to make change, they may write to express themselves, they may even write to relieve themselves of those irritating voices pounding in their brain, but those manuscripts aren't often published, except for that Charles Dickens one that was literally called "Madman's Manuscript", but let's not talk about that. The point is that all writer's are sincerely affected by the changing world around them. Whether they consciously wrote a dystopia novel to express skepticism, or if it was born form their unconscious doubt raised by current events on some level all good writer's reflect their personal take on the way that the world looks to them. Did you ever find it odd that in rough estimate 99.9% of all popular books have a solid element of mystery, confusion, or chaos. There's usually a secret, and the hero, or heroine is trying to find it out, or of course there's the old stand-by They're planning to take down the secretly evil government with their evil secrets and their chaotic awfulness rebel style, with some hot, and emotionally scarred guy named 4.
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oh, wait I'm getting too specific aren't I? alright, let's go with Gale... What do you mean that's already taken? My point being that one is obviously hostile towards "the man". Because current events, and our sudden enlaunchment (Is that a word?) (yes, I did just make up a word. If Shakespeare can do it I don't see why I can't) into the world of technology has made us as a race, and a country uneasy. Books are like holding up a squeaky clean window to the world; the image is blurred, maybe swirled around a little bit, there may even be a little rainbow action going on, but if you look at it just the right way it is as clear as a text book. The same go for genre-but-not-quite-a-genre genre's like romanticism.  Romanticism breaks of into several different branches, because romanticism isn't just some way of writing that was conformed to in a certain time period. It was actually and literally the time period, and more importantly the authors. Romanticism came from a shift in the way people look at things. I personally believe that these shifts date our progress as a race, and document our hiccups along the way. Our shifts from puritanical witch burnings, and the belief that if your house burns down oh, well I guess that's what god wanted I'm sure that candle I left burning by my secret liquor stash had nothing to do with it, to a negative reflection upon those things like in The Scarlet Letter , prove our progress... its also an indication when we take a historical name, add "ical", and turn it into a word that, to most, basically means crazy. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows his romanticism colors by writing about his ancestors, the puritanical puritans, as ,well, you know, puritanical. The story contains emotions, supernatural elements, and plenty of nature which shows development in not only the acquisition of such ideas, but the clearer expression of them. Heck, in puritan times their idea of romantic was "lets be good so we can go to heaven together"... Moving onto mentioning "The Devil and Tom Walker", I would like to point out that, being romantics, both stories explore the good, and evil of man. They analyze, and weigh the puritan beliefs in the power of the devil, or evil, and the powers of god. The Scarlet Letter explores Hester, and Dimmsdale's sin, and their path to redemption. "The Devil, and Tom Walker" explores Satans powers of persuasion, and their effect of humans, and his eminent presence. Well, I'm glad I got that done...

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is the story of a school teacher who loves scary stories. He falls in love with a girl in rivalry with a thug, and then magically one night is chased off the road and then apparently far far away by an infamous specter known as the headless horseman. I am supposed to be describing how this story captures the imagination of the reader, and it really does, but I would also have to say that Disney, and Jr. High "jacket time" pretty much ruined it for me. First of all, my parents, by the grace of god (it's a saying; not a pushy "hey, look I'm a Christian" ), were probably the most patient parents anyone could ever have. They probably bought every animated Disney movie ever in existence, and watched it with me at least 50 times over, so while reading this story instead of imagining the story itself, I saw bright flashes of oddly clad men swooning over an oddly clad woman, and for some odd reason I faintly remember a scene with apples, and a door split into two doors, a top, and bottom one, and a really thin guy getting hit by one...maybe, and THEN in jr. high we read a play inside some random magazine that was the legend of sleepy hollow, I get the feeling that both were incredibly off. The story has good use of words in the imagery department. In the opening sentence it says, "In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of Saint Nicholas, there lies a small market town which is generally known by the name of Tarry Town." Yep, definitely do not remember that in either one. It uses beautiful words that engage the readers mind, and imagination in trying to picture it. The story also leaves off in a mysterious, and chuckling manner, after old Ichabod had fallen from his horse, and says, " They shook their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head anymore about him. It is true, an old farmer who had been down to New York on a visit several years after brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had only changed his quarters to a distant part of the country, had kept school and studied law at the same time, had turned politician, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival's disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin, which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell." This engages the reader's imagination by adding helpful little hints to lead the reader to form their own conclusion, but the correct one, and that is my answer to that.




well, I'm pretty well done here.

I will see you again, Kitty Softpaws!

Southern Gothic Romanticism

southern gothic romanticism... a feeble attempt at a response to a prompt which exists... or something...

In the story "The Life you save may be your own" by Flannery O'Connor, a man basically cons a woman into marrying off her deaf innocent, and secretly kind of old daughter, giving him her pick up truck, and 17 dollars and 50 cents, so that  he can go home to his mother or something equally awful of him. He ends up leaving his new wife at a café where she falls asleep. He tells everyone she's a hitchhiker, and leaves. Boys are jerks.

Not to mention the fact that it was supposed to be a weekend trip to a motel and back. ha-ha-ha-ha good times, good times... Then he picks up a hitch hiker who is apparently leaving home, and that's where the motivation for being awful starts to become clearer. He starts raving about how much loves his mother, and how amazing his mother is out of the blue, to which the boy replies, "Go to hell. My old woman's a flea bag, and yours is a stinking polecat". Well, at least it's more original than dropping the f-bomb every other 5 seconds, am I right? At this point my English teacher is probably wondering how this is addressing the prompt in any way shape or form, but as a student of madness I must make things at least a little disorganized. The hitchhiker episode is a forming moment in the story because it makes the horrible Mr. Shiflet a more defined and human character. It reveals the motivation that has driven his actions, and moreover adds a lot of depth to his character. In the prompt my lovely English teacher asks why this episode makes the story "work". I would say that this adds a motivation to the story, and fully develops the main character. The story would have failed without it. There are several distinctive elements of the story which identify it as Southern Gothic romanticism, the presence of a grotesque, or a character that inspires both disgust and empathy. In Flannery O'Connor's story the grotesque would be Mr. Shiflet, whom is not only missing an arm, but did some pretty despicable things in the regret of leaving home, but homesickness is something we can all relate to, and we feel empathy for him. There is also the setting of the South, and "freakishness", or where the main character is set apart from the world in a negative way, or by Mr. Shiflet's missing arm. There is also a class difference in where the beginning of the story the mother sees Mr. Shiflet, and tells herself that he is just a dandy, and no one to be afraid of. All this leads this story to being classified under "Southern Gothic Romanticism". Moving on to the story of "A Rose for Emily", this is the story of a woman who hoarded dead people... let's let that sink in for a minute...now let's reread that... yep, I guess it really does say that. Talk about crazy.

My teacher wants me to explain why Emily's "crime" went undetected till her death, however, I don't actually think it's illegal to hoard dead people, and unless I misunderstood, I don't think she killed her husband either. However, if we are operating under the assumption that it is illegal to hoard dead people, I will explain the circumstance. The story begins with the death of Miss Emily. Then it goes back to relate events of her life, and the becoming of the shut-in she was. At the end it goes back to the townsfolk entering her house, and discovering the body they knew in their hearts was already there. Now, the obvious answer as to why her "crime" went undetected is that she was a shut in who refused to allow anyone to enter the house, but because everyone in the community pretty much knew her husband was dead, and still in the house, we also need to address the factor the southern culture played in the story. In  that period of southern culture women were respected on some level, especially older women, and so no one could bring themselves to break that code of honor. She didn't want them in her house... well they weren't even going to try it. They even 

went so far as to sneak around her house at night, and sprinkle lime on everything to stop the smell. But if my English teacher wants me to conclude that she killed her husband she is going to be sadly disappointed as people are innocent until proven guilty, and there is insufficient evidence to support any such claim. They found his body on a bed in the position of an embrace. Beside him in a pillow they found an indentation of a head, and on it a hair of the same iron grey that Miss Emily had, but i am going to conclude from this that Miss Emily sometimes slept with her dead and rotting husband. Which is sort of sweet...i think... actually no, that's really gross!!!!
                        

There are several key things that make "A Rose For Emily" southern gothic romanticism. Not only the time period it was written, and the setting of the south, but also the elements of imprisonment, where Miss Emily was shut up in her house, and more importantly imprisoned within her own mind and by the inability to let her husband go. Also there is the presence of social classes, such as her "negro man" who did all the work around the house.
There are several different things which separate southern gothic romanticism from romanticism, and gothic romanticism. Southern gothic romanticism occurred in the south after the civil war as a backlash of their loss. It belongs under the umbrella term of modernism as it contains more progressive, and changing ideas. Romanticism is merely an umbrella genre under which falls things like fantasy, and other more specific forms of romanticism. Gothic romanticism did not necessarily occur, for the most part, in the southern part of the U.S. Southern Gothic romanticism takes the classic gothic romanticism characters such as the monster, and the hero, and turns them into southern characters.

Well, that's all I have to say... Kirk out.