The Tale of Ichabod Crane

What is Romanticism?- Double Response

Response to "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (aka "Headless Horseman")

The story "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a Gothic Romantic masterpiece beyond it's time (which is ironic since Romanticism somewhat focuses on the past), with it's involvement of a twilight-enveloped spooky forest, a spooky mansion, and most of all, a headless horseman. In fact, these three reasons are more than enough to capture the imagination of any reader today. But, the fact that all of these details are in the context of a love story (a funny love story at that), which is the main topic of anything that isn't drug or sex focused nowadays, this is a great story for today's readers.

The horseman had apparently has his head "carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War." This quote shows how the already cool sounding HEADLESS horseman lost his head. Decapitation is a means of death that fascinates a lot of people to watch and hear about, so to read that rather than having his head be cut off he lost it to a cannonball, that's just crazy.

Women love big, buff men. This story has just that. Take a hopeless teacher that knows nothing of romance and wants a beautiful woman named Katrina, throw in a guy with a "Herculean frame" who has great skill in "horsemanship...races and cockfights" and was the "umpire in all disputes," AND wants the same girl as the protagonist (the teacher, Mr Crane), and there's a grand old rivalry in this story.

One final thing is that we don't know what happened regarding Mr Crane and Katrina. That stimulates the imagination. Much like we don't know about the Bermuda Triangle or the Illuminati, which are both spooky and imagination-capturing subjects.

All-in-all, to round this up, this piece of literature is amazing. It's very stimulating. It should capture the imagination of any and all readers above an IQ of 50. I loved it.







Response to "Swing Low Sweet Chariot"- "Just like, a leather bound Bible"


The spiritual "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" is a song that was originally written to show the escaping of slavery. The escaping of the physical conditions of slavery is shown through the chariot coming down to "carry me home," with the "home" being the holy kingdom of Heaven. This faith in the chariot "swinging low" is shown as faith in God, with the hope that He shall save the slaves from the torment inflicted by their masters. Through this connection, it is seen how this song is reflective of the time period. Now by today's standards, with this song, this might not have anything to do with today, for this song was written and sang as a song for escaping slavery. However, people today are slaves. Slaves to themselves and the problems that plague their own beings. Depression is one of the masters that people tend to be slaves to, and they might sing for the chariot to "swing low" and "carry" them "home." Will it happen? Maybe. Maybe not.