The Prairies By Thomas Rowlandson

In the beginning William Bradford characterizes nature as a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men. Rowlandson echoes Bradford's feelings, referring to the New World as a vast and howling wilderness an often calls nature a desolate place. Just like Rowlandson, Edward Taylor seems to have a distaste towards nature. Puritanism becomes more accepting of the natural world and more liberal in its use of nature imagery. Whereas Taylor becomes seemingly more detached and distrustful, it can be witnessed in his increasing preference for nature images drawn directly from Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold. “The Bear breathes the Northern blast did numb, torpedo-like, a wasp whose stiffened limbs encramped, lay bathing in Sol’s warm breath and shine as saving.” Taylor focuses on how cold it is in the New World and how harsh the conditions are. He illustrates the northern cold and how numbing it can be on the mind and body.
In the nineteenth century the wilderness represents the romanticism growing from American nature and how it fueled a sense of pride in its people. This is quite different in comparison to other authors who openly write about their hatred and fear of wilderness. The love for the wilderness in the American West flourished from the
In the first stanza Bryant writes of the vastness of the skies, the sweeping, rolling hills, and the rippling grasses and flowers making the hills seem like ocean waves. In the second stanza, the narrator is intrigued by the mounds surrounding him and begins to speculate on the past presence of human beings on the prairie. “A race, that long has passed away, built them”. The speaker, having created this race in his mind, relates the story of these people of their lives, their culture, and their ultimate destruction by the warlike "red man," who came and destroyed these peaceful people and all they had