Thanatopsis Reflection Blog

The poem Thanatopsis is a very deep and depressing poem. Since thanatopsis literally means "View of death" you can tell that this poem is not going to be a happy one (Huff). This poem starts off with a not so depressing view on death. It sort of shows the views of death from a younger person's point of view, explaining how they do not really worry about it and how it happens all the time to other people. William Cullen Bryant, the writer of this poem, basically writes about how death happens. There is no way to avoid it. When it is your time, there is nothing you can do to escape it. He also claims that people should not really be afraid of dying. At the beginning of the poem, it seems that death is not real to him. It is almost as if he will welcome death when the time comes, but at the beginning it will not happen.

The Romanticism period really relates to this poem. During this time period, creativity was very important. Creativity was to Romanticism like God was to the Puritan time period. During this time period, one of the most important ways to show creativity was to write poems. William Cullen Bryant was very deep in this poem as he expressed his views on death. I found it very interesting how he viewed death. He explained some things that I would not be able to explain in words. Death is a very hard thing to talk about, but he was creative enough to write about what others wish they could find the words for. Not only did he find the words for it, but he made the words flow in a beautiful way.
In this poem, he seems to talk about a girl in a very high way. It seems like he thinks the world of her. For example, he says that "she speaks a various language, for his greyer hours..." (Bryant lines 2-3) and "she glides into his darker musings" (Bryant lines 5-6). These two passages that I took from Thanatopsis really make me happy. I feel that he used the perfect words to describe his feelings. He obviously felt strong feelings towards a subject, but this subject could be a number of different things. I am sure that different readers of this poem feel that he could hae been writing about a number of things. Although it is very easy to argue about what he was talking about, I think that it is clear that whatever he was talking about he felt very strongly about.
I wish that I could write like he did. The way he just magically through all of these words together amazes me. They were beautiful and it was a very interesting poem to read. I will probably venture out and read more by William Cullen Bryant. This poem really interested me. He seems like he was a very talented man.
Bryant definitely belonged in the Romanticism period. His life poem was very descriptive and showed a lot of beauty even when he was writing about a depressing subject.

journal 19

Nature and spirituality are very important in the cycle of life and death. Nature seems to be in your life as soon as you are born. As a child, your parents are always bugging you to go outside and play. I know that the phrases I heard day after day, such as "It's a beautiful day, go enjoy it!" or "Get off the computer and go outside," were always a delight to hear. And by delight, I mean an annoyance. You also see nature in school. I think that in every science class I had in elementary and middle school, nature was involved. We had trips to the habitat to look at bugs, trees, leaves, the pond, and so much more. We studied nature.

Spirituality also seems to start right at birth. In this day and age, most kids are the same religion as their parents. For example, my parents were raised Christian, so they raised me to be a Christian. I will probably raise my children to be Christian as well unless they choose otherwise. People of all religion seem to raise their children to be the same religion as them. With multiple churches per town, spirituality is hard to ignore. I am sure that even Atheists contemplate spirituality.

Spirituality is not just religion, spirituality could also be believing in ghosts. I believe in ghosts and spirits. I have heard so many stories that you never know are true or not, but they seem believable. My parents do not believe in ghosts, so I guess I went with my own path on that choice. Some of the things that I have heard makes me believe in ghosts and spirits.

Spirituality is very important because it brings creativity. Without believing in something, you kind of just live your life and then disappear. Some people who believe strongly in a religion think that there is no point to living if there is no God. The point of life to some people is to prove to your God that you are worthy to live with him. Religion gives people something to believe them and gives them hope for something better with their lives.

Spirituality and religion are very important in the circle of life and death, especially to someone who believes in a religion.

Reflection: Fireside Poets

The fireside poets use very different writing styles than the previous writer's that we have read in our English class. According to our textbook, the fireside poets were a group of highly popular American poets of the 18th century. These poets got their name because people thought that their stories would be good to be told be a fire (Wilhem 210). They were also great at creating vivid pictures of the New England country side. These poets were William Current Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russel Howell. These poets told great narrative poems and had very vivid lyrics. (Wilhem 210).

The oldest writer, WIlliam Current Bryant, was influenced mainly by English Romantic poets. He wrote a lot about wild life. He was the first to talk about the American landscape in words (Wilhelm 210). I find this very interesting. He gets a lot of credit for being the first to do this because a lot of people nowadays write about landscapes and about nature. Since he was the first, he was kind of the most creative for starting it. He started something that is still happening even today. I think that is pretty amazing.

The first writing we looked at was the Puritan writing style. This writing was based on a religion. Another writing we looked at was Rationalism. Rationalism was a time of logic and reasoning. The people in this time period seemed to focus more on the logical reasons of things instead of just blaming everything on religion. It was different than anything that has ever been before because it found logical reason for things. It took more effort to think of a scientific reason for something when you could just say it was because God wanted it to be that way. For example, when I was little my mom told me the sky was blue because that was the color that God picked it to be. Later in my life, I have learned in science classes the real reason why the sky is blue.

Another example involves Benjamin Franklin. Franklin seemed to use logic for everything instead of just blaming things on God. He tried to think of reasons for things, such as reasons for his life to be better (Franklin). He had thirteen virtues which were things that he wanted to improve on with his life. He wrote this and really thought about a plan to make them happen. I think that he truly believe that he would succeed with this because of how much thought he put into it. Even though he planned it out nicely, actually doing all of these virtues were harder than they were thought to be. For example, silence would be a hard virtue to succeed in (Franklin). In this day and age, quiet never happens. People like to talk and hate silence because it can sometimes be an awkward time. It would be hard to keep to yourself unless you are spoken to. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone wants that opinion to be heard. Since we live in a world where everyone's opinion is supposed to matter, silence is not virtued anymore.

The next period (the period after Rationalism) was the Romanticism period, which we are currently learning about. This time period really interests me. It seems to include logic, emotion, and interesting reasons to it. It doesn't just focus on scientific things. It is more of a deep time period. Instead of wanting freedom as a whole, people want more individual freedom.

Wilhelm, Jeffrey D., and Douglas Fisher. Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. 210-111. Web. 21 Nov. 2011.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Henry Altemus. 1895. Print.

Journal 18

Autumn is a great time of the year. Autumn has a lot of perfect days because of the nice weather. Beings that I hate wind, the perfect day would not have a lot of it. It would be a still day with colorful leaves everywhere. Leaves would be falling from the trees and I'd be crunching then as I walked. I would notice the nice weather more at a park, such as Washington park. I smell the scent of a burning fire, maybe someone was burning leaves in the neighborhood. I would hear laughter of all the children enjoying the beautiful day outside as dogs innocently barked. It would be a pretty quite, peaceful day. On a nice fall day, I might want to eat a nice apple from a local farmer's market. When I think of the perfect day, I also think of the perfect, fresh food. I would enjoy going to a local farmer's market and getting some fruit for the week on a nice day. I would see all the beautiful colors that autumn brings, but at the same time I would think of how ironic it was that the leaves were most beautiful when they were dying. Most things get old and brittle when they begin to die, but it turns out that they are at the most beautiful point. They have beautiful, bright colors that my eyes get lost in. I love Autumn. It is my favorite time of the year. It is also a lot of other people's favorite time of the year. The reason that a lot of people enjoy this time of the year is because it is peaceful. It is not too hot or too cold, it is just right. I love going for runs during a perfect day in Autumn because you can crunch the leaves and look at all the changes that nature brings.

journal 17

My family are huge campers. They have a huge RV and they go to random places across the country at least once a month. They have there favorite spots, but sometimes they just drive until they find a campsite that they think they would enjoy for the weekend.

When I was younger, I would join my family on these trips. We would go hiking, biking, and just hang out around the campfire. I would really enjoy it. As I got older, I got more bored with the trips. I found nature to be a little annoying and sometimes being without a telephone signal was hard. Being in the same place without being able to communicate with anyone besides your family for a week was not appealing to me anymore. That is why lately I have not joined my parents on these trips.

I did decide to go to one trip during the summer to Florida because my parents really wanted me to go and I decided the ocean would be nice to see again. While I was there, I went on the beach during a rain storm. It was pretty cool because I was the only one I could see on the beach. I just kind of stared out into the ocean and watched the waves get bigger and bigger. It made me think of how little I was to the rest of the world and how vast the world really was. I just stood there in water a couple inches above my ankles. I was the perfect temperature. It was a really great moment for me. I really enjoyed just being there and bonding with nature. It was calming. It was also a great time to think about life and just focus on what really matters. With everyone else hiding under a deck or back in their beach houses, I just stayed there and enjoyed the silence. I really enjoyed that moment and will be joining my family to Florida again next year.

Journal 15

There are a lot of different things people can do to communicate with other people in other ways than being in the same room with them. There are many social networking sites that enable people to communicate and become friends without even meeting.

One site that is very popular and nice for communicating is Facebook. Facebook has a chat setting which enables people to communicate. It also has video call. Video call is where two parties have a web cam and they see and hear each other through the computer. A lot of people use video call to communicate.

Another popular social networking tool to use would be email. Emailing was very popular a couple years ago, but lately the need for emailing has faded with texting and other social networking sites. Emailing is still used, but I don't think it as used as much now that there are more tools to use that are easier and involve less steps.

These days, long distance relationships mean a whole new thing. You can still see and talk with someone like they are in the same room. The only problem is that you can not physically touch the person. You can still communicate with talking and looking at the other person. This makes long distance relationships not as hard as they used to be.

In a partner needing project, it would obviously be easier to be in the same class as your partner. You would get to physically make sure that they are doing their share of the work. When you are working with someone as they are working right next to you, it usually keeps you on track more. You would have to keep up with your partner and the two of them would get work done together. When you are not physically with your partner, it would definitely be easier to get distracted. It would also be a lot easier for one partner to do all the work.