Reflection- Analyzing Two Poems

The two poems that I chose to do were "Autumn" by Longfellow, and "April" by John Greenleaf Whittier. These two stories are both about seasons and I thought to myself that it would be easier to do a blog about two things that have the same meaning rather than do two completely different things. Also I found out that it would be easier to compare and contrast.

I will start with the comparing part. So for "Autumn" it was about the season and how the harvest moon would shine and how the farmers are getting ready for their crops. Here is an example, "Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land, Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain" (Longfellow 6-9). The other poem "April" looks like this, "In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard; For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow, And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow; Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white, On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light, O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots; And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps; Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps," (Whittier). As you can probably see in both these poems they are both going into detail about nature. The Romanticism was a period of description and nature. Most of the poems in the Romanticism period had to do with nature and it being very descriptive. I find that one poem is definately more descriptive then the other. Anyway, another comparison between these two poems is the fact that they were in the Romanticism period. I know that that comparison is obvious, but it is one and it should be noted. The last comparison between these two is that they are both about seasons. One is about Autumn and the other is about April. Both go into great detail about each season and both were enjoyable to read.

Next is the contrasting part. Obviously the poem "Autumn" is about the season Autumn and "April" is more about the season April. The main differenc between these two is that "April" has more of a description with it and "Autumn" is more short and sweet. In the poem "April" it talks about how it can snow and how nice it can be like when it says, "Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and snow, All the way from the land of the wild Esquimau, Until all our dreams of the land of the blest, Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny southwest. O soul of the spring-time, its light and its breath, Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death;" (Whittier). The part that I would like to look at in this part of the poem is the last line. When he says, "Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death;" (Whittier) he is basically saying April is the season that the weather changes, and it brings the life out of people, when they are not so cold. I look at both these poems and they show great similarities and the differences are that one poem seems to have a lot more description than the other, but yet they are still in the same period of writing.

When I was reading this literary criticism about John Greenleaf Whittier I found this, "The chief inconvenience of the isolation imposed by blizzards like the one made famous by his poem Snow-Bound was that it kept his parents from their 16 mile round ride to the meetinghouse in Amesbury and back on Sundays" (Huff). I found this important because I think that where he lived had an impact on his writing style. With all the blizzards that he had during his life in Boston, he must have done his poetry on the weather he had had when he was a young boy. Overall these two poems have a lot of similarities and a lot of differences but altogther they are both good pieces of poetry for the Romanticism period.

Bibliography

Greenleaf, John. "April by John Greenleaf Whittier." Poem Hunter.Com-Thousands of Poems and Poets. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.

Longfellow, Henry. "Sonnets. Autumn. The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1893. Complete Poetical Works." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.

Huff, Randall. "Whittier, John Greenleaf." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Journal 20

I find that the poem Autumn that I just read basically the title speaks for itself. While reading this I was also putting into consideration the Romanticism period. While reading this I realized that he put a lot of description into this and the description was about nature and the farmers that are getting ready to get there crops. At one point in the poem he talks about the red sun which in my family and probably everyone else thinks it is also called the Harvest moon. I can relate to this poem because during Autumn there are farmers around my house all the time. It gets really annoying because when I head to school there are big farming equipment on the road and I get stuck behind them and for me it gets very annoying because I see it everyday. In the story it talks about farmers and them getting ready to farm there crop. The author talks how much of a beautiful time it is and how farmers are gearing up there oxes and getting ready to farm there crops. Like I said before during Autumn there are a lot of farmers out on the road and it can get really noisy. I actually have a friend that his dad is a farmer and whenever I go over there he is never there because during Autumn he is busy with getting his crops and making sure that he gets his field in shape for the coming winter. It said something in the poem that the farmers prayers attended, it is talking about or how I am interpreting this is that the farmers are praying for good weather and hope for a good season of growing crops. Overall this poem really does represent Romanticism with its very detailed and good coping with nature. It really does relate to my life and even though I do not like poetry that much I did enjoy reading this one.

Reflection- The Chambered Nautilus

The poem I read was "The Chambered Nautilus" by Oliver Wendell Holmes. At first I looked at this story as a shipwreck because I read the word Nautilus and thought Nautical which means out in the sea. Then I looked up Nautilus and it is "a shelled mollusk whose growth is only stopped by death" (Love). When I finally figured this out and I could understand this story. Also this story could be interpreted in so many different ways that not one person could be wrong. Which is very true while writing poetry.

In the first stanza of this story the author talks about how beautiful this nautilus shell is. He refers is to "This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign/The venturous bark that flings, On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings" (Holmes 1-4). This is an example as to how Holmes described this beautiful shell. Especially when he said "This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign," (Holmes 1), it's talking about the inside of the shell and how it is all shiny and how it is pretty. Which brings me to how this poem relates to Romanticism. Romanticism was a time of nature, and very good details. In this poem it shows a great example of description and nature. Like the lines I just showed you, they are talking about how beautiful this nautilus shell is. They are talking about how beautiful life can be just like the nautilus that used to live in this shell. Also I liked how Holmes went into a lot of detail about this shell.

I think that this poem also has a meaningful theme too it. That would be that just like this nautical shell, life will grow and change. People will change, nature will change, overall life will change. This shell according to the finder of it talks about different journey's that it went on. Like when he says that "Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:" (Holmes 26-28). This is basically saying that Triton, who was a mythology character, blew into this shell. Stuff like this is what makes Holmes a great example as to what the Romanticism period was all about. In my lines above which are located in the first stanza he puts in a lot of creativity into those first words which also makes him a writer of the Romanticism period because the period had a lot of creativity put into it.

In Huff's criticism he wrote, "The specimen before him has had its shell "rent" and "its sunsless crypt unsealed;" a metaphor inviting comparison with human architecture" (Huff). I find it interesting that he said that the metaphor in this poem was like human architecture. Which is true because of all the detail Holmes put in. Another important quote from Huff's criticism was "The moral is to keep growing spiritually"(Huff). To end this blog I find it interesting to see on how other people interpreted this poem.

Bibliography

Huff, Randall. "'The Chambered Nautilus'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Love, C. "'The Chambered Nautilus'." In Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Holmes, Oliver W. "801. The Chambered Nautilus. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 1909-14. English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman. The Harvard Classics." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.

Reflection-Irving

I just read the stories Rip Van Winkle and The Devil and Tom Walker. Both these stories had to deal a lot with the Romanticism period and nature. Just like Irving wrote in The Devil and Tom Walker, "On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises, on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size" (Irving 242). This shows how a great deal of his story he threw in a lot of detail about nature. When I was reading The Devil and Tom Walker I realized that Tom Walker is a greedy man. His reputation around town is that he is a greedy man. His wife is nothing but the same from him. They seem perfect for each other, but it's everything but love. They keep secrets from each other and do not tell each other anything. When Irving wrote, "The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name. Tom's wife was a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband, and his face sometimes showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words" (Irving 242). This just shows how much they do not like each other throughout this first part of the story. It turns out that the wife sells her soul for nothing and now Tom does not even care that she is gone. All Tom cares about is finding the treasures and valuables that his wife took with her. To find out about the treasures and valuables that his wife took with her he decides to make a deal with the devil. So he basically scams people his whole life and then in his twilight years he tries to beat the devil, but loses and gets taken away. Overall this books theme is about greedy. People being greedy these modern times are skyrocketing. People want more and more of something even if they have enough to satisfy themselves. That is what it seems like with Tom Walker. He and his wife are very greedy and they both get taken by the devil. Being greedy never gets you anywhere in life. Anyway, you can tell that this story was written in the Romanticism period because of all the great detail that was put in it. When Irving wrote in The Devil and Tom Walker, "It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake, where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire" (Irving 243). He is talking about the swamp that he passed and goes into great detail about it.

In reading D'Ammassa's literary criticism he says that, "despite his [or Rip Van Winkle's] willingness to work hard without pay to help others, he has never been able to make a financial success of his small farm or any other job" (D'Ammassa). This is completely different from Tom Walker because Tom Walker scams people and does not work basically. Rip Van Winkle on the other hand does work hard unlike Walker. Both these themes have to do with letting life go and live carefree. Rip Van Winkle brings in nature a lot better in the story because he has to get away from where he lives and get away from his wife in order to head into nature (Rip Van Winkle). I find that both these stories have some differences and then they have some similarities also.

Bibliography

D'Ammassa, Don. "Rip Van Winkle." Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Irving, Washington. "The Devil and Tom Walker." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 242-250. Print.

Matthews, Washington Irving. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.