24. Respond to one of the following essay prompts (26 points)
A Poe believed that good short stories require a single, unifying effect. Evaluate one of the
stones in the American Romanticism unit using Poe's standard of unity. Do the descriptions,
incidents, and images all contnibute to the single effect of the story? Is there a single effect?
Feel free to evaluate Poe's own story
B. Consider what you have learned about American history during the period of 1820 to 1864.
How do the stories in the American Romanticism reflect what was going on in the country
then?
C. Read and analyze "When I head the Learn'd Astronomer" by Walt Whitman.
What Romantic ideas does it express, and how does the structure of the poem reinforce the
meaning?
When I heard the lean'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was showm the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When L, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-
rOom,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick
Till rising and glidng out, I wander' d of by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
Select the link to access the English Essay Rubric.