Discussion on Modernism, Romanticism, and Rationalism

Today in class the discussion were actually pretty entertaining. I'm not sure you guys meant to have the class taken up by something so easy to discuss and all we did was just choose sides. However, our class had really intimate and intelligent conversations about what each romantics, rationalists, and modernists thought about when it came to how weather changed mood at times. Just like I thought everyone choose rationalist to disagree with that sentiment that weather changes mood because they believe in science and weather has nothing to do with mood. Also they didn't have the concept of the human brain at the time too, so their thoughts were purely educationally biased. With romantics however, people did change their views, some stayed in the middle while most went to the 'agree' side. I was one of the ones who stayed in the middle for romantics. I believe this because despite them believing in mystical things, and how nature is amazing and their love for it, romantics view things as black and white. If you were feeling one way, your mood won't just do a turn around change because of the weather. The same thing happened with modernists. They unlike the other two had the concept and knowledge of the human brain. This made the idea of perception come about. Depending on the perception of a character or a person the weather could effect how someone is feeling. For instance, if a community is going through a drought that was brutal, if it were to downpour that community's spirits would be uplifted at the sight of rain. Also modernists view things with both feelings + science. They see the science when it comes to certain things but like to question the uncertainty which would be, "What if weather had an effect on someone's mood?" Also in class we figured out that weather does effect mood according to Catherine's parents who are therapists, it's called seasonal disorder which is a brain disorder.
     This class let us know why know why the Great Gatsby is such an American novel. It switches between all these views from Nick's perspective. The coming of age through romanticism, rationalism, and the finally modernism shows how we've progressed with American literature. Using this lesson, we can all say that we got a better understanding on how to answer that class question for our harkness discussions. This class was also useful into seeing the amount of POVs there are when it comes to a single topic and that people are still fighting and arguing about it today.