David M Zuba

The American Romanticists of the mid-19th century may not have held a monopoly on being the first literary authors to opine about nature’s vast beauty, overwhelming immensity and humbling simplicity, but they were a generation of writers that had the ability, thanks to the enlightened and provable facts and ideals of science and philosophy, to understand that man was “a part of nature, and of the proper relationship between him and the rest of created things” (Krutch 14).

Nature, in all of its resplendent boundless innate beauty, wonder and immensity, from sea to shining sea, provided Concord’s most famous literary giants, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, with the inspiration and impetus to let their imaginations flourish with wild and creative abandon and to capture, on paper for the first time, the personal sentiments that made man recognize its eternal bond with the natural world and at long last give American’s their own literary genre that spoke to their affinity for the land and a nation they were proud to call home.

To many, the continent of Africa, with its 54 nation states or countries, as well as two whose independence is still disputed, symbolizes the backwardness, lacking and longing of a land and a people who have yet to integrate themselves into a 21st century global community that seems to be passing them by.

Africa resembles many third-world countries with its lack of economic resources, intellectual ingenuity and talent drain, which the rest of the developed world has come to rely upon, to more prosperous countries throughout Europe and North America. But, there is one all-important ingredient that may not be measured in dollars or euros and will not be found on Wall Street or the stock market: pride.

The indigenous peoples of Africa and South Africa, for all that they fail to possess and call their own as consumers in a predominantly capitalistic society, make up for in family values and heritage, a bond with the land, which many generations before them cultivated, worked on, played on and died on. For the African and South African, the extended family of their lineage plays the cultural role of the United Nations and their living ancestors, the ambassadors of a way of life that is slowly dying and must be preserved for future generations.

The lives of our four authors - Sindiwe Magona, Antjie Krog, Wole Soyinka and J. Nozipo Maraire - were all affected by their upbringing in Africa. Whether familial, political, historical, cultural, religious or environmental, change and circumstances beyond their control perpetuated social upheavals in their respective lives that altered the world in which they grew up and lived in. All four writers represent, in subtly different ways, symbols of African and South African courage in the face of tremendous adversity and autobiography was their preferred literary genre to help tell their respective stories.

The objective of this paper is to make a Formal Analysis of Ansel Adams’ photograph titled "From Glacier Point." This analysis will reveal the details, history from the era it was created, the use of artistic resources and assets, and the overall meaning of this achromatic photograph. This analysis will also decipher what the landscape and Adams himself are attempting to tell us, the viewer. In the end, we will have a new understanding of this photograph, its hidden characteristics, and its outwardly visible and sophisticated detail.

Beginning in the early 19th century following the revolutionary victory over the British Empire to once and for all establish a free nation for all Americans to live, govern and dream, literary imaginations flowed freely like the dreams of their newly-minted American citizens. Then, as new lands west of the Mississippi River were opened to settlers hoping to reach the shores of the Pacific Ocean and the promised land of California, the motivational cry of Manifest Destiny awakened the senses and allowed the American Romanticism movement to flourish.

This new literary movement sought to encapsulate the nation's bountiful natural beauty and grandeur; the citizen's hard-fought right to freedom through democracy that led to the power of individualism; the trials and tribulations that all were personally experienced would be conveyed through heart-wrenching emotion; and the liberty to dream and facilitate a new life in a wondrous land would permeate through the imaginations of these literary geniuses.

In this course, our authors-have all contributed in their own unique way in the styles of Nature, Individualism, Emotion, and Imagination (Democracy and Freedom). We will discuss how our five authors embraced the myriad facets that encompass the American Romantic literary genre and how their unforgettable prose still resounds today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 essay titled “Self-Reliance” implored Americans to strive for self-improvement, to trust themselves and to achieve the triumph of their own principles. American self-reliance was originally ingrained in this nation’s lexicon until 1929’s Great Depression and the inauguration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered in the age of The New Deal. Today, self-reliance and New Deal-inspired
progressivism are collectively as important as ever in a swiftly-changing world. Can the two co-exist?

William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois was the preeminent scholar, thinker, writer and African-American social realist, who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, advocated for the strengthening of black civil rights, voting rights, equality and higher educational opportunities. In his greatest literary production, The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois tackles the
most important and highly-divisive issue of his time, the color line between blacks and whites in America. He speaks to the African-American struggle of coping with the “double-consciousness” that afflicted the black man’s sense of worth and made him look at himself as if through the eyes of others.

Du Bois was born in 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. His childhood was one of fun, family and friendship, but he would learn where he stood as a young black man early on when he found himself rejected by a white girl in school. Du Bois would harness lofty ambitions,
his thirst for knowledge and graduate from Fisk University in 1888. Later that year, he began his graduate studies at Harvard University and then graduated 1892 with a degree in History. Du Bois would commence his doctoral studies at the University of Berlin before moving back to the
United States and returned to Harvard where he wrote The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 as his doctoral dissertation. This inaugural production would become one of his most famous literary works and it would earn him his Ph.D plus the honor of becoming the first African-American to do so.

After a stint at the University of Pennsylvania, Du Bois moved on to Atlanta University in 1897 where he would teach Sociology and begin his intense research and study into African-American history and life. Du Bois would forever refocus his energies towards activism for black rights soon after he found a black man, who was accused of rape and murder, whom he was scheduled to present an appeal for, brutally lynched, dismembered and burned at the stake.

Six years later, in 1903, Du Bois would release The Souls of Black Folk, a far-reaching and learned sociological study of the quest for black equality and civil rights in a country that neither guaranteed them their rights and looked upon them as sub-human, property and ⅗ of a man. One particular chapter in The Souls of Black Folk castigates Booker T. Washington’s stance regarding black suffrage, equality and civil rights. It would be damning indictment against a man, in Washington, who up until then, was looked upon and revered as the preeminent black scholar and advocate for African-American rights. Du Bois would forever change how the black community, whites in the South and North, and history in general view Washington’s soft-handed and conciliatory tone toward the oppressive white masters in the South.

There are words spoken and statements written by political leaders today and dialogues recorded of ordinary citizens in the 21st century that epitomize the current sordid state of religious relations between Christians and Muslims throughout our global society.

Since the discourse between the two tends to be full of distrust, acrimony and hatred, the two factions rarely find commonality today, but there is one sentiment that members of both religions may agree upon: “Religious understanding must be one important path to world peace." This statement captures the essence of why literature plays an immense and vital role in the public discourse that is needed to mend humanity’s distrust and dislike of those with differing religious belief systems.

Even though scientific advances, knowledge of the cosmos and Earth’s beginnings as a planet have raised doubts about the theory of a divine plan and creation by an omnipotent deity, it is critically important in the 21st century that literature be utilized to foster knowledge, and bring about understanding and acceptance of civilization’s myriad beliefs. Doing so has the powerful potential to, not eliminate all religious-inspired conflict, but to transform ignorance into acceptance and hatred into respect.

Literature alone, though, is not a panacea towards realizing tolerance, acceptance and understanding between Christians and Muslims. Members of the two religions must be willing to temporarily pause their long-held religious beliefs in order to open their minds and listen objectively to another’s own beliefs while resisting the temptation to cast judgments. Let us take a brief glimpse into the history of these two religions.

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) and Antjie Krog’s Country of My Skull (1998) are two entirely different stories written almost exactly 100 years apart, in a global environment that had monumentally changed from days of telegraph lines and horse-drawn carriages to high speed internet and gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles. Despite their aforementioned differences Conrad’s and Krog’s literary works are very much alike as they depict white colonial powers oppressing native black populations for financial gain while brutalizing and terrorizing the indigenous black peoples in hopes of instilling fear and maintaining unlimited control.

In history it is a fait accompli that the more things change the more they stay the same and that history will usually repeat itself somehow and somewhere. For the purpose of this paper we will examine how King Leopold II’s 19th century white colonial power in Central Africa’s
Congo Free State and apartheid’s 20th century white colonial power in South Africa under its first Prime Minister Dr. D.F. Malan featured similar antagonists, protagonists and literary dualities.

The Romantic Era of the mid-19th century introduced America to its first distinct form of national literature that brought worldwide recognition to its prominent authors and their works. Yet for hundreds of years prior the continent produced various literary styles that emanated from native tribes and European explorers to revolutionary heroes and leaders, culminating in a vast treasure trove of history that stood as a precursor to what lay ahead.

The natives of North America, absent of their own written vocabularies, passed down their histories, tales, myths and legends to their younger generations by word of mouth. Later, European settlers, after sailing across the vast Atlantic Ocean and reaching the shores of the
North American continent, would write their own accounts of their findings and eventually decipher and translate the native’s stories into the myriad languages of the western and non-western world.

Late 18th century American literature would be full of patriotic fervor from the writings of Thomas Paine, who would help rally General George Washington’s troops and bring new energy and hope to the American cause of independence and freedom. By the early 19th century,
and after a second conflict with England, the nascent American nation was ready to sink its teeth into a newly-found national literature that would introduce the Romantic Era while its prominent authors would write about heroic hard-fought battles for democracy, the vast frontiers, and imaginative spine-tingling tales.

It would be nature, though, in all of its resplendent boundless natural beauty, wonder and immensity, from sea to shining sea, that would provide the inspiration and impetus for two literary giants of this era, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, to let their imaginations flourish with wild creative abandon and to capture, on paper for the first time, the personal sentiments that made man recognize its eternal bond with the natural world and at long last give American’s their own literary genre that spoke to their affinity for the land and a nation they were proud to call home.