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.