Annie Proulx: Unlikely Champion of the Romantic Tradition in Literature

[Front-Ranger]

The Romantic School of Literature began in 18th century England (some say even earlier) and is thought to have ended with the coronation of Queen Victoria, ushering in the Victorian age in 1837. But it really moved to America, and is still going on, continually moving west. Such western writers as Hemingway, Steinbeck, and now Proulx and Hunter Thompson have carried on the tradition. For more about the beginnings of Romanticism, see this site:

http://classiclit.about.com/od/britishromantics/a/aa_britromantic.htm

[Front-Ranger]

So, what are the characteristics of the Romantic School of Literature? Thank you for asking. One of them is the faith in something inherently good and transcendent in the human spirit, an inward divinity in no need of salvation, or even of formal creed -- but rather in need of awakening. In Brokeback Mountain, this shines through in the enduring goodness of Jack and Ennis's love for each other despite the restrictions of the prevailing dogmas in Wyoming, the West, and the world during that historical time period.

[Front-Ranger]

It's interesting that Romanticism flowered in some of the most repressed societies of the world--England and puritan New England. Some also think that Romanitcism's roots actually were set down in another very regimented society--that of Germany. But in a way this makes sense to me because the artists and writers of 18th century England and, later, of New England, would have been the natural pioneers in the fight against regimentation and a restrictive morality.

Another place where we see the first characteristic of inherent virtue is where Jack sings Water Walking Jesus, setting off distant coyote yips. The script writers expanded on this by making it clear that Jack didn't know the first thing about the Pentacost. He had it mixed up with the Apocalypse. Jack doesn't need to know anything about the dogmas of society because he is a natural man, a child of nature, and therefore inherently innocent and good.

[Front-Ranger]

The second characteristic of Romanticism (I am listing these more or less arbitrarily) is the belief in the spiritual and redeeming qualities of Nature. Or, to put it in other words, "Love is a Force of Nature." This characteristic is one of the reasons why the Romantic Movement obeyed Horace Greeley and went West. At the turn of the 20th Century, Owen Wister's The Virginian was published, paving the way for the Western hero/cowboy as full of virtue because of his place at the center of a natural world. In fact, the Virginian was called "Nature's Nobelman."

Related to this is the concept of the common life being attractive and virtuous. This idea flowered in the French Revolution, which began in the late 1700s. It is very much alive today in Annie Proulx's work, which focuses not on nobility or exalted, glamorous beings but instead on ordinary, unschooled, rural people with no prospects.

[Front-Ranger]

Y'all are welcome to chime in with some more examples of Western Romanticism or some characteristics that link the Romantics to Annie!!

The next characteristic I would like to talk about is a personal favorite of mine: the tendency of the Romantics to go for the drama. This is seen particularly in the arts, with wild landscapes, ominous skies, ancient ruins, and pagentry. In music, Beethoven's Symphony #3 (Eroica), dedicated to another Romantic, Napoleon, brought the Romantic flair for drama to symphonic music.

In Western art, there are three artists often cited by Annie Proulx as inspirations: Charles Russell, Frederic Remington, and Richard Price. Russell, particularly, followed the Romantic tradition in tying Nature and man together and in highlighting the dramatic aspects of the harsh Western landscape. As detailed in the book The Cowboy Way, Russell first gained popularity by illustrating the great cattle die-off during winter blizzards of the late 19th century.

Emphasis on drama was part of the backlash against the Puritanism of colonial America as well as stuffy British society. In modern times, it gave us "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "On the Road" and "Howl" by the Beats Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and even the best work of Hemingway and Steinbeck. There is plenty of drama in Annie Proulx's work too despite her fondness for reticent and inarticulate characters. How many of us would just throw up our hands when presented with the character of Jack (particularly as he is portrayed in the story), denigrating his "half-baked" ideas and "plans that never came to pass"?

[louisev]

I would agree that Ossana/McMurtry bring elements of the Romantic to their screenplay.

However, "Brokeback Mountain" and indeed Annie Proulx's opus is an exemplar of a syncretic naturalism.  To perceive this, one has to revert to the text of the short story itself to see the features of naturalism, which was a late 19th century lashback to Victorian and Edwardian romanticism.

The features of naturalism in English/American literature, for example, show nature as hostile and forbidding, a force that cannot be easily overcome and whose whim dominates human existence and limits, even crushes it.  One of the greatest American exemplars of naturalism are by immigrant novelists such as Ole Rolvaag, who wrote the seminal "Giants in the Earth" about his own grandparents' emigration from Norway to South Dakota.  The hallmark of Annie Proulx's prose when she writes of the natural world in Wyoming is starkly unsentimental, animating nature with chilling clarity:

The first snow came early, on August 13th, piling up a foot, but was followed by a quick melt. The next week Joe Aguirre sent word to bring them down, another, bigger storm was moving in from the Pacific, and they packed in the game and moved off the mountain with the sheep, stones rolling at their heels, purple cloud crowding in from the west and the metal smell of coming snow pressing them on. The mountain boiled with demonic energy, glazed with flickering broken-cloud light; the wind combed the grass and drew from the damaged krummholz and slit rock a bestial drone. As they descended the slope Ennis felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong, irreversible fall.

The very stones chased them down the mountain, hastened by the wind. There is no friendly Nature here, no triumph of human spirit.  The "demonic energy" of the mountain gives it a life far more than that of a volcano or other natural event - but that of THE most hostile spirit: and the wind, animating the the weather-stunted trees (krummholz - stunted trees) and the inanimate rock with "a bestial drone."  This is stark naturalistic style, and it is very, very similar to Rolvaag and even to Steinbeck's naturalism.

In the Naturalistic prose tradition, nature plays a hostile and limiting role, and Annie uses this to illuminate that just as Nature is hostile to man, so Society is hostile to the passion Jack and Ennis found, so they were doubly bound, and doubly condemned.

[Front-Ranger]

One more characteristic that the Romantics embraced was turning away from valuing the Classical idea of beauty and instead venerating the grotesque and the picturesque, all with a touch of strangeness. This tradition was carried on by Annie Proulx in her creation of the main characters Jack and Ennis as ordinary looking men with buck teeth, caliper legs, and unattractive habits. The Romantics liked to follow a more realistic approach in developing their characters and themes. They believe that anyone can find love, not just the Beautiful People.

[opinionista]

I would agree that Ossana/McMurtry bring elements of the Romantic to their screenplay.

However, "Brokeback Mountain" and indeed Annie Proulx's opus is an exemplar of a syncretic naturalism.  To perceive this, one has to revert to the text of the short story itself to see the features of naturalism, which was a late 19th century lashback to Victorian and Edwardian romanticism.

The features of naturalism in English/American literature, for example, show nature as hostile and forbidding, a force that cannot be easily overcome and whose whim dominates human existence and limits, even crushes it.  One of the greatest American exemplars of naturalism are by immigrant novelists such as Ole Rolvaag, who wrote the seminal "Giants in the Earth" about his own grandparents' emigration from Norway to South Dakota.  The hallmark of Annie Proulx's prose when she writes of the natural world in Wyoming is starkly unsentimental, animating nature with chilling clarity:

The first snow came early, on August 13th, piling up a foot, but was followed by a quick melt. The next week Joe Aguirre sent word to bring them down, another, bigger storm was moving in from the Pacific, and they packed in the game and moved off the mountain with the sheep, stones rolling at their heels, purple cloud crowding in from the west and the metal smell of coming snow pressing them on. The mountain boiled with demonic energy, glazed with flickering broken-cloud light; the wind combed the grass and drew from the damaged krummholz and slit rock a bestial drone. As they descended the slope Ennis felt he was in a slow-motion, but headlong, irreversible fall.

The very stones chased them down the mountain, hastened by the wind. There is no friendly Nature here, no triumph of human spirit.  The "demonic energy" of the mountain gives it a life far more than that of a volcano or other natural event - but that of THE most hostile spirit: and the wind, animating the the weather-stunted trees (krummholz - stunted trees) and the inanimate rock with "a bestial drone."  This is stark naturalistic style, and it is very, very similar to Rolvaag and even to Steinbeck's naturalism.

In the Naturalistic prose tradition, nature plays a hostile and limiting role, and Annie uses this to illuminate that just as Nature is hostile to man, so Society is hostile to the passion Jack and Ennis found, so they were doubly bound, and doubly condemned.

This is very interesting Louise and I agree with this. In fact, it always seemed to me to the short story was more of the naturalistic type, but I wasn't sure. It makes a lot of sense.

[Front-Ranger]

Very, very interesting, Natali and Louise...okay, let's examine the characteristics of this naturalistic school of literature. First, as you mention, there's the idea of Nature as a harsh, arbitrary force, forbidding, dominating, limiting, and crushing. Other elements are...I could enumerate them, but others are welcome to jump in!!

By the way, I pointed this out back on May 3, 2006--the naturalistic school of literature is generally agreed to have started with Emile Zola. But there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,462.msg21001/topicseen.html#msg21001

[MaineWriter]

Very, very interesting, Chrissi and Louise...okay, let's examine the characteristics of this naturalistic school of literature. First, as you mention, there's the idea of Nature as a harsh, arbitrary force, forbidding, dominating, limiting, and crushing. Other elements are...I could enumerate them, but others are welcome to jump in!!

Opinionista = Natali
Penthesilea = Chrissi