On main thing both of the poems have in common is that they are both talking about how their parents were. They use a variety of metaphors to suggest what their parents are like. “Gilded finches” and “moon’s eye to me.”…
Compare the ways the ‘Clown Punk’ and ‘Medusa’ show characteristics of being isolated and having bad or no kind of relationship with people.…
“Thanatopsis” is a romantic poem written by William Cullen Bryant. The poem gives a pantheistic and philosophical view of nature, God, and death. “Thanatopsis” was a revolutionary work for its time because it focuses of finding solace in death. Bryant’s writing challenged the normal concept of literature by building off of and borrowing old ideas. Before transcendentalist ideas became popular, writers’ work was centered on God and the physical world. Bryant and other transcendentalist writers challenged this ordinary way of thinking by questioning reality, finding comfort in nature, and concentrating on improving their inner beings. Bryant vividly describes the beauty and grace in nature with the use of personification. He wants the reader…
In William Cullen Bryant’s ‘Thanatopsis’, the poet and nature are communicating. The poem refers to how death is not saddening, but it is much greater than thought. The poet is at first saddened by death as they stat “-and breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart-”. The poet then consults nature “Go forth, under the open sky, and list to Nature’s teachings,-”. Upon listening to nature, it says that the poet will not be alone when they die, “Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the earth-with kings, The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good-”. The poet concludes from their teachings from nature, that he should live his life, so that when death does come, he is not regretting his life and he is fully ready when death does come for him, but only when it is supposed to. This poem is glorifying life by saying, “So live, that when thy summons comes to join-” , “-Thou go not, like the quarry-slave…
While they’re similar in their view of death, their view of the afterlife is different. In “Thanatopsis,” the afterlife is portrayed as a situation where the individuality of the deceased is relinquished, their soul…
"Thanatopsis" reassures the reader that they will not be alone in death: "Yet not to thin eternal resting-place shalt thou retire alone" (32-33). This is a comforting fact to the reader because they will not be alone when they are buried and returned to the earth. People fear being alone, and with the great unknown, death, at hand, this verse reassures the reader that they will not be alone.…
Furthermore, William Bryant uses nature as a form of motivation to comfort ones fear of death. In the beginning of "Thanatopsis", the meaning of the poem is pretty much stated. "To him who in the love of nature holds communion with her visible forms", simply reads that if one is in communion with nature, then nature will give you a message. The message will tell one how to live ones life, and it will be unique to everyone else who is in communion with nature. Hence,nature is ones friend. Secondly, in the third stanza, Bryant attempts to make death a comfortable feeling, referring to the word couch, as something you curl up and feel good in. He does this so that one can see that death should be anything be fearful.…
In the poem, “Fish Fossil” by Aix Qing, the speaker is sympathetic towards the fossil. He is reminiscing the time where the fish, “leapt in the foam / And swam in the sea,” (4-5). The speaker admires the life the fish once lived. Then there is a shift at line 5 because the speaker begins to express a sorrowful tone. He tells the fish how, “ Unfortunately, a volcano’s eruption / or perhaps an earthquake / cost you your freedom,” (5-8).…
An article, “Metaphor and Literature,’ defines metaphor as a tool that produces “meaningful communication” (MacCormac 59). Similarly, by adding visual metaphors in her poetry, Smith tries to submerge the readers into a deeper level of experience about abstract issues i.e. death and grief. She writes, “You stepped out of the body/Unzipped like a coat” (92-93). Here, Smith gives an insight to the belief that the soul leaves the body after death, which she imagines occurred with her father’s soul. She is trying to give the notion that death involves the separation of the soul. Likewise, in the later part of the poem, Smith uses different species of extinct tigers, “Javan,” “Bali,” and “Caspian,” to symbolize her father (80-82). The emptiness felt by her causes her to imagine her father as a rare species, who might also be alone in heaven. She imagines that her father might have also felt the deep pain in losing one dear to him. Smith describes this loneliness as “a solitary country” (84). However, later, she finds comfort in the fact that her father is no longer in fear. “Night kneels at your feet like a gypsy glistening with jewels” (90). “Night,” is considered to be a symbol of darkness, a time when people usually hide. Smith, adding these images throughout her poetry, tries to say that fear is eliminated in heaven .She emphasizes that her father experiences real power in his…
William Cullen Bryant was a famous American poet of the 1800s, integrating major themes of transcendentalism into his poems and short stories. Thanatopsis is one of Bryant’s most famous works, and combines the themes of nature, death, and the unity of these two with humanity. He starts by personifying nature, and claims he has a unique relationship with “her” and all her different “forms”, referring to sights that adorn the landscape. Valleys, brooks, and plant life are all her different forms. Bryant explains that nature speaks differently to an individual according to their mood: “Communion with her visible forms, she speaks/A various language; for his gayer hours/She has a voice of gladness, and a smile” (2-4). When that individual’s attitude changes, so does nature’s character: “and she glides/Into his darker musings, with a mild/And healing…
Meaning: Thanatos (death) Opsis (seeing) - The title presents the poem as a way of looking at death.…
The poems “Sympathy” and “Why the Caged Bird Sings” are similar because they both talk about a caged bird who can not be free, even in his mind. They both talk about how hurt and frustrated the bird is. Both the authors know how the caged bird feels, but expresses it in such different but similar ways. They both talk about how the singing of the birds, but the singing is not with happiness, although it sounds like it. The singing of the birds is rage, even if it sounds very sweet.…
What do people think when they read about Thanatopsis? Shall people be afraid of death? No is the best answer to respond to this question, especially, when death is predestined; therefore, people shall be ready when they are facing the actual "death". Usually, their fears of facing the actual death are caused by their own negative perspective, when they have to define and understand about death itself. Death is really connecting to the word Thanatopsis that the word itself came from the Greek word called Thanatos, which means "demise or death" and opsis means, "vision" or point of view. The new word is defined by the poem: a way of looking at and thinking about death (Element of Literature 166). Bryant used his famous Thanatopsis to show his supportive ideas of looking at the positive side of death in human beings.…
We are all torn between wanting to stand apart and wanting to fit in. How is this conflict explored in 2 poems and one text? (800 words)…
One’s voice, language that he or she speaks is one of the possibilities to approach a relation with the world, and death of native speakers usually understood as the end of their language that is alive while it is used as a tool of communication. According to the subject of the poem, “ language is a part of human body, a life could end as an abrupt, violent sentence” (20) that empathizes its possible physical devastation. Thus, in this context, one feels the narrator’s desire to live despite fear. She writes, “I was afraid we would die before we could make a statement ” (15) – this is an allegory of life of the human beings as a sequence of proclamations dictated by language. Nevertheless, her lower replays that “language presupposed meaning, which would be swallowed by the roar of the waterfall” (15). Thus, the metaphor of water in which they look like into the mirror, and the image of the waterfall corresponds with categories of time and death, and, in the opposite, language is the mortal construction related to the limited space and restricted abilities of understanding the…