Edward Cullen

asking what grass is. The line of answer is "the beautiful uncut hair of graves" (Whitman 2747). When we die, we are buried in the ground. We are returned, in a sense, from whence we came. God did form Adam, the first man, from the earth. William Cullen Bryant says in "Thanatopsis," "earth that nourishes thee, shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to earth again" (Bryant 2673). The earth has now become our home, our resting-place, our lap, "and here you are the mothers' lap" (Whitman…

word that holds an abundance of meaning. Everyone has felt deaths powerful, heart-wrenching grip and some have a difference of opinion on death. Many believe death is the beginning of a new life and others believe it is the end of a life. William Cullen Bryant, and Dylan Thomas have rather contrasting views on death, and this is primarily due to differences in their lives as well as their religion. These are both important aspects pertaining to death and can be influential to a person’s…

Closure in Lycidas What is the right response to death? How and to what extent should we mourn the ones we love? When John Milton's college friend, Edward King, drowned off of the Welsh coast 1, Milton wrote Lycidas in memoriam. A pastoral elegy, the poem represents King as the lost shepherd Lycidas and uses agricultural imagery to portray loss. The majority of the poem is spent highlighting the irrevocability and completeness of death, that is until lines 165-168: "Weep no more, woeful…

To Live or Not to Live: The True Message of William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” Life and death are common subjects seen throughout different written forms for as long as mankind has been around. This statement is definitely true for the poem “Thanatopsis” by William Cullen Bryant. There is no denying that the general themes are about discussing living as well as dying. However, what is ambiguous is which topic Bryant is trying to advocate for. Although the poem title itself references Thantos…

The idea of salvation inhabits an important part of American cultural history, especially in regards to America’s Puritan heritage. The foundation of Puritan culture was religion. The Puritan philosophies that stressed the choice between a life of sin or salvation. These ideas can be seen in early American literature such as that of Anne Bradstreet’s “The Author to her book” and Johnathan Edwards’s “ Sinners in the among others. American literature eventually evolved into a secular art. Later…

The Humble Poets: Anne Bradstreet and William Cullen Bryant From the settling of America to its Civil War, literature changed rapidly and gave future readers an idea of the struggles throughout that time period. Poets, in particular, were excellent at capturing the emotional tone of the time and discovering new meanings around and within themselves. Anne Bradstreet—a Puritan poet that came to America with John Winthrop—and William Cullen Bryant—a Romantic poet writing in post-Revolutionary…

William Cullen Bryant wrote thanatopsis in 1811, the events within this time period severely impacted the writing of this poem because at the time there was a lot of very violent deaths going on throughout america. Around the time that thanatopsis was written there was an uprising of slaves who broke free from their owners and ran to freedom., about 400 ran but 66 were captured, killed and their heads mounted on stakes along the streets of the town to warn other slaves of their place. The…

Romantic Literature Romantic literature is defined as the individual's expression of emotions, awe of nature, imagination, fixation on/analysis of death, etc. Some great authors include Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, and many more. Throughout this essay I will do an analysis on these stories: The Devil and Tom Walker, Thanatopsis, and section 33 from Song of Myself. The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving, is about a common man who lives in the…

Has one ever had the horrifying thought of death? Or where one will end up after their death? Over 70% of humans fear the thought of death, yet death is something no one can escape. In William Cullen Bryant’s poem “Thanatopsis”, imagery, symbolism, and the use of metaphors demonstrate how nature comforts people when they fear death. Bryant’s use of imagery presents a full picture of how nature is a woman who is sensitive to people’s feelings and needs. Nature is not just trees, rocks, and…

Title Thanatopsis is an entrancing poem which portrays death as a sweet return to the ultimate nourisher: Mother Nature. The poet, William Cullen Bryant uses the personification of nature and death, and shifts in mood to not only acknowledge the bitter ache of loss, but to soften the sharpness of the injury, by opening the reader’s mind to the other more positive aspects of death. In addition, he uses grief counselling techniques, and realism to get his message across. In the first couple of…