Literature into Cultural Romaticism

It wasn’t until reading Toomer’s “Cotton Song” in class that I think I really understood what Jean Toomer’s Cane was really all about. Something Professor McCoy say in class really struck a chord with me. She compared Jean Toomer writing this play as compared to a Geneseo student on their first day of classes. This idea allowed me to really understand where the narrator of the short poem was trying to get across. This poem touches on the song that the share croppers would sing while working in a cotton field.While the poem is about a very grueling task, Toomer views it as a beautiful poem on teamwork. This is most similar to a new student here at Geneseo. One the first day their view is clouded by all of the things that they expect to find here on campus and have not yet realized all of the students that have come before them and what their realistic views are. The new student will only look at the beautiful sunset and the pretty halls like Bailey or the ISC. What they are not looking at, however, are the less glamourous parts of Geneseo that a more experienced student can only know about, like the giant hills you have to crawl up to class or the many buildings that have no air conditioning. This romanticized version of the truth both allows individuals to create their own reality but also change the culture that is shown in literature. This plays into the second chapter of Interdisciplinary by Moran. The entire chapter touches on the language of literature into culture. The culture is being shifted by the way that it is talked about in literature. This can both be seen in the wording in the poem or in the Geneseo pamphlets. The new literature is shifting the culture for the past, present, and future.