The Romantic Period in American literature lived up to its namesake - many works of this era strived to romanticize typically negative, taboo topics. Writers of this period sought individualism, imaginativity, aesthetics, and imagery in their compositions. Working with these components enabled authors and artists alike to transform an ordinary subject into something larger than life. Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote simply of nature in an his essay Nature. Although the subject was unsophisticated, Emerson employed imagery to romanticize nature’s abundant beauty. Lines of the prose demonstrate this: Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky...I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration; In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Of nature’s everlasting grandeur, Emerson expresses feelings of awe, a common emotion in romantic literature.
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Most prefer not to discuss death, and shield themselves from the fact that it is inevitable. It is a bleak part of life, but Bryant paints a pretty picture out of mortality. The last lines read, Like the one who wraps the drapery of his couch/about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. By portraying death as nothing more than the painless process of falling into a deep, peaceful slumber, death is given a positive and comforting connotation. Finding the good in the bad as Bryant did is the essence of
Most prefer not to discuss death, and shield themselves from the fact that it is inevitable. It is a bleak part of life, but Bryant paints a pretty picture out of mortality. The last lines read, Like the one who wraps the drapery of his couch/about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. By portraying death as nothing more than the painless process of falling into a deep, peaceful slumber, death is given a positive and comforting connotation. Finding the good in the bad as Bryant did is the essence of