Monday, November 5, 2012

English III Thanatopsis Journal

What is the main theme/philosophy surrounding Thanatopsis,and what characteristics make it Romantic? Do you think Bryant's youth (he composed Thanatopsis at sixteen) plays a part in how he views mortality? How might he have written Thanatopsis 20-50 years later?

20 comments:

  1. one of the main themes in the poem is death. the poem pretty much says to live life but then again don't forget or resist death,for death will find you . when the poem mentions death it talks about how nature will claim the body and use the body the nourish the earth. the body becomes one with the earth. also that those that mourn death should not, for they will soon join that person in death and in the earth. another theme of the poem is nature. seeing this is a romantic poem nature is a huge theme. "Earth and her waters, and the depths of air Comes a still voice" this line is a good example of the undisturbed and quietness of nature. how when you go deep within nature you will find the sound of only nature. now the theme of nature can tie in with the theme of death. like i have mentioned before when a person dies their body is claimed by the earth and is now one with the earth. i believe that Bryants youth does contribute to his views on mortality because already at 16 he already accepted the fact that death is unavoidable and that nature is something you do overlook or under see. nature is all around us and that when he dies or the entire human race dies nature will still live on. if Bryant have written this poem 20-50 years later the poem would not be of that right now. the poem would compose of nature being overlooked and urban areas along with people not paying attention to nature

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  2. One of the main themes of Thanatopsis is death and how it is inevitable; that we should live life to the fullest but shouldn't forget what we are working towards, death; how when we die we leave but not really because while our physical bodies are in the ground we are floating around because there is no where else to go. Humans should not fear death, rather accept it and move on, not allowing it to plague our minds. The mention of death doesn't make it romantic but its approach towards death and the incorporation of nature makes it romantic. Bryant is saying that when we die, we never truly leave Earth, we are simply more connected to it than when we were living. We become one with Earth in death. When we leave our physical bodies, our souls will still exist because where else would it go while our bodies will stay behind and nourish the Earth and the next generation that lies on it. I do believe that Bryant's youth does contribute to his views because when you're sixteen the world as you know it is still new, fresh and unblemished. You haven't really experienced living yet and since you are so young you think you have accepted death and ,since it is a long ways away, you're not frightened by it.but as you age the more frightened you become of the thought. If he had written it twenty or thirty years later he might have had a very different outlook on death and life. He might have said enjoy life and don't dwell on the fact that you are going to die one day or he might have made the connection between death and nature a lot less morbid and depressing. Or nature as he knew it when he was sixteen might have changed drastically, thus causing him to have to change his philosophy on death and nature.

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  3. One of the main themes in Thanatopsis is Man and the Natural World. The poem tells us that man can be comforted by nature. The poem says that if we are ever scared about death we should go outside and listen to nature and let nature comfort us. Thanatopsis also talks about how we are part of everyone and all of nature. That when we die we are buried underground and become apart of nature. And while we're underground we decompose with the dirt and the other people that were buried there before us.
    This poem is romantic becasue it shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks out unspoiled nature. He never talked about civilization but focused more on the bonds of man with nature.
    I think Bryants youth played a part in his views on mortality because when you're young you try to do a lot of things in one day and you live like it's your last so I think that's why he was thinking about death. If he wrote it 20-50 years later I think he would have been a little too into technology so I don't hink he would have captured the beauty of nature the way he did.

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  4. the poem mainly talks about death and how you should except death because everyone has to go through it and if you dont except it you will just panic about dying pretty much your whole life and then you wont be able to enjoy life because you will always try to figure out when you are going to die and how. i think it does because everyone knows that they are going to die oneday. 20-50 years later i think he would have used technology and he would not have caught the beauty like he did before he would have used more of technology and it would have been boring and people would not have focused on having to die they would not have even cared.

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  5. In my opinion, the main theme is about life and how it goes on to an extent. It sounds joyful throughout the very beginning, but darkens further in the text. This poem can almost comfort you in the beginning because it talks about nature and how much you can enjoy it, but at the end, it makes you realize what life is actually about. I think that the poem becomes somber more at the end, and it makes it seem that life gets worse towards the end of it.
    In a nut shell, I believe that this poem is more about death than the beauty of life & nature. It's more realistic and lets you know what's up. It lets you know what's going to happen to you and how it will occur.
    This poem is romantic because it speaks about the real life. It gives you plenty of hints of life and how it will come to a conclusion. It doesn't tell you that you will live forever, because romanticism is based on nature and non-fiction subjects.
    I do believe that Bryant's age of 16 impacted his romantic poem because at the age of 16, teenagers start to wonder more. They start to study life a little bit more than usual and will try to come to a conclusion that they have figured life out. His age made this poem different because it seems dark, and I'm sure that it would be a lot more pleasant if he wrote it when he was 25 or 50.
    In the end, this poem lets you know what's real and what's not. It lets you know, in my opinion, that life has to be enjoyed because death will, and can meet you at the end of a day.

    Brandon Estrella. <3

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  6. The overall main idea of Thanatopsis was death, but it conveyed the message that because all living things are from nature, they will all eventually die and come back to it. It's almost like a mother, which nature is known to be, letting their child go. After the child has fulfilled his or her duties, they should know where they came from and go back to their mother, who gave them life. A subtopic is the fact that nature will still proceed with its business, and so will people. "Phantoms," in life won't be able to be taken to your grave. All that money and struggle you went through to get it? It won't matter because you really can't take it when you're six feet under. You reunite with those you once mourned over, since you all lay in the same place-- the ground. In the end, nature rules over, no matter if you were rich, poor, or even a hero. We all land in the same place.
    The poem is Romantic because it expresses adoration for nature, and speaks for the common man. Bryan expresses his appreciation of nature, and speaks of it as if he is in wonder. There's an abundance of imagination that went into the making in the poem (I'm guessing). Bryan's youth did contribute to the way that the poem was written. Like any other teenager, he was inquisitive, and curious. He could have wanted to find a reasoning to death, and to tell everybody something. Bryan wanted to convey the message that you should live to the fullest, but in the end, nature rules. Maybe he wanted to answer his own questions. Little did he know, the way that he explained the often feared idea of death would turn into a poem that is studied by students today.
    If he wrote Thanatopsis 20-50 years later, the whole idea may have been somewhat altered. Rather than talking about living for nature to take you, he might bring in factors such as occupations and political conflict such as war. Times would change, and the Romantic themes could start to fade. Rather than describing death as something natural, he might describe it as something that should be highly feared.

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  7. Aidan Aseron

    Thanatopsis's main theme or philosophy is the acceptance of death. It is inevitable that everything living on the earth and that has life is bound to die. It's almost as if we are all hanging by a string and at any moment can be cut down to end our life's journey. It also shows that nature has a higher power than it seems. Most people would say that God takes the dead, but in Thanatopsis, the earth is the one who will take you in. The earth is the almighty tomb and even though you are gone, you are reincarnated in some shape or form back into the earth.
    The characteristics that make Thanatopsis a Romantic is that it is about unspoiled nature. Urban civilization isn't touched upon, rather natural civilization is. Natural civilization meaning our bond with earth and where we will end up living when we die. It also shows man's bond with nature and how it is cycle between them.
    Even though Bryant wrote this poem when he was sixteen, I do not believe it has any affect on how the poem turns out. In fact, in my opinion was just a highly intelligent youth who was able to grasp the concept of death's cycle and tie into a Romantic poem about pure nature. If he were to write this poem 20-50 years later, it would ruin a poem because then he would have been exposed to factors that would have destroyed his communication with nature.

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  8. The main theme of the text is, generally, life and the beauty of the cycle. We are born like anyone else while the earth and nature will nurture us as we age. In my view, life and death are the theme, but more about the cycle of life as we grow and die, but are reunited with nature. We are built up from the nature around us, in our food, in our resources, and everything that has brought us here to where we are now. Those resources we used will progress us into the stage of death, but the text says we should not look at death negatively, since our life will be thrown into the cycle.
    In chemistry, there is this thing called Dalton's (modern) Atomic Theory, where matter cannot be created or destroyed, and more like recycled. The things that we are have been around since creation and we are but recycled stars. Our bodies are meant to become one with nature after we die, and I believe that is the true theme of this poem.
    The characteristics that make this a romantic poem is that it uses understanding to figure out life and it talks about nature, which is pretty straight forward, but true.
    I don't really think his youth really played a part in creating that poem, unless you compared him to that of a 6 year old or around there. At 16, you were already considered a man, and you've learned enough to understand life and its meaning. Bryant was just the smart one to put it in words. Now, if he were 4-9 more years older, I really don't think he could have thought deeper than that. His poem already defies the depth of today's writers. We barely have romantics in our society anymore, or just don't have the people to recognize romanticism enough. Of course, I also can't say he'd be any different because I've hardly seen romantics in our society and can't actually see the deepest poem created, but I believe it wouldn't make a difference if he were older.

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  9. Darren Nguyen,

    In my opinion i think the main theme of this poem was the views that Bryant had created on Life and Death. The ways that he was able to do that expanded on this topic was what made his poetry significant. How every living thing is bound to death and you cant escape but you just have to face it. And although death will come it isn't the end of the life cycle there is more beyond death and this is where it relates to Romanticism. It pushes you beyond your imaginations and puts faith in your inner experiences with life. I think this topic plays a big role in Bryant being young when he wrote this because many teenagers at this age should be thinking of this topic of death or once have but Bryant has expanded this topic to perfection. If Bryant were to wrote Thanatopsis 20-50 years from now i think it would be about how Nature is taken over by urbane areas. How land is being reformed into cities, trees are being cut down for resources, and technology that creates a pollution to the earth. Sorta like the movie Avatar.

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  10. The main theme of Thanatopsis is about death, he compares it to nature and how we basically are apart of it also. He makes a beauty image about life and later on it starts to become a dark image about it, just by thinking deeply as he is. Reading his poem made us think deeply about life itself and the value of life, basically live life to the fullest. The different characteristics that make this romantic poem, is how he uses figurative language and metaphors to make us understand and think about life itself and about nature, and how it's similar to each other. By the way he explains it and puts it in the story, it gets deeper and deeper and the thinking of it just gets stronger. If he was younger back then, he wouldn't have the same mentality then he had as a 16 year old, but as for him being much older, i don't think he could've think deeply as he did back when he was 16.

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  11. In Thanatopsis the main theme is death and nature and now its part of life. He says that you should be afraid of death and that you cant hide form it because everyone is going to go through it. He is connecting nature and death together an trying to say that its part of life and it is because nature dies to but it doesn’t mean it stops there. We are also part of nature because we need it and we go through it everyday. I think he views on mortality is like if its part of nature because it could come in any time with out you knowing. Also maybe because he have seen family members die and suffer in that moment then you should be afraid because u are going to go through the same thing. He also said that you life will move on when someone dies. You will cry in that moment but then in time you will move on with you life. This poem is a romantic poem because it highly emphasizes nature and death. Romanticism is not about love. It has nothing to do with love. It is a reaction against, spiritually, Nature, or and Agrarian lifestyle. For him as a sixteen to write such and incredible writing is amazing and if this writing would be written in 20-50 years later I think it wouldn’t have such an impact on it because you have such a creative minds when you’re a teen.

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  12. Steffon williams
    The main themes for Thanatopsis are the circle of life, death, and the natural world. It talks about how in a sense we never fully die and disappear. We always exist mostly in nature. For example we die, go into the earth’s soil and become plants, animals eat the plants and then we eat the animals, and that is the circle of life which explains our everlasting brings on earth.
    I think he had a very doll and grim youth. The things he talk about seems to be things that he really had to think about deeply at that age. I think that if he had waited 20-50 years later to write the Thanatopsis it would have been a lot different because of his life experiences. He would have been more knowledgeable and had more life experience.

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  13. Thanatopsis speaks about the connection between nature, life, death, mortality, and existence. It explains how we are all a part of one another, we are all connected because we are all a part of Earth, and we will be together after life on the same dirt, layer, and planet. We are born to die eventually, but that doesn't mean that we have to live with that in mind. Enjoy life because we have approximately 100 year (most likely less than that) to make of life whatever you want, to leave your mark, to enjoy the many juices, flavors, scents, and feelings that this world has to offer because regardless of your death, the world keeps spinning. Thanatopsis goes against civilization because it gathers it's inspiration from nature, the author wrote it while walking through a forest. He seeks a pristine piece of nature that is still pure and untouched by the hands of society. He distrusts progress and advancement in technology that only separates us from nature even more. I think that Bryant probably seeks this and views society like this because of his age and because he hasn't seen how much can be done in 100 years. Perhaps he just hasn't realized it because to write a poem that is so influential, inspiring, and well-recognized at 16 years of age is pretty amazing. If he wrote this at an older age, however, he probably would have written it in a more inspiring way, emphasizing more on motivation to the youth to appreciate and embrace these few years that we are lent. But, perhaps in doing so it would have lost some of it's power.

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  14. Thanatopsis's themes pertain to life, death, nature and mortality. All things come from nature, the food we eat, the air we breath, even the people we see every single day, they all come from nature. But, although life is created through nature, that life is also taken by nature. For as you die, or as any living being dies, the remnants get devoured by another creature or get absorbed back into the Earth from whence it came. And because those remnants were taken by another creature or the Earth, the nutrients from the corpse has provided for more beings to be brought into the world to continue this infinite circle of life.
    As people get older, they tend to lose their innocence to logic. As children, people have limited knowledge of their surroundings, so they observe, they observe everything around them and try to make sense of it through imagination. As an adult would see their surroundings and see it only as what they see, nothing deeper. As William Bryant was a teenager, some things were known to him while some things were still a mystery. He had understood that the world had functioned in a circle, with death not being the end, but actually a new beginning.

    -Zac B.

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  15. The main theme of Thanatopsis is death. He talks about how everyone is eventually going to face death and have to face it sometime in their life. We are basically born to die but it doesn't mean you have you think and worry about death. It's just something that will happen and you just have to go through it.He is also connecting nature with death how even if you die your body will be used to nourish the earth. Basically saying the body will become part of the earth somehow. The poem also talks about living life to the fullest. I think humans shouldn't fear death since everyone is bound to die one day. This poem is romantic because it talks about real life and maybe people can relate to it. I do think that Bryant's youth does contribute on how he views mortality. Since he was only 16 he didn't really experience life yet. He doesn't really fear death because it's a long way from when he was only a teen. Though as days go by and you get older I think you start to fear death more than when your young.

    -Angelo

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  16. Alexandra Barton

    The main idea in the text about Thanatopsis is life, the challenges and the beauty of the circle/cycle of life. In my opinion, life and death are the same because life is the beginning and death to me is the rebirth. Along the way we grow and when death comes we reunite with nature and by rebirth we open up to the world again. At the beginning we are built up from the nature around us. To me, I don’t think we should look at death negatively because after death there is a new chapter to life. This poem is romantic because it talks about real life and maybe people our age can relate to this because the text relates to real life situations and is based on our age group. I do think Bryant’s youth does contribute on how he views mortality. Since Bryant was only 16 when creating this poem, I don’t think he experienced life in a whole. I think he experienced life situations from before and maybe seen or heard about situations dealing with death from his peers or family members. Though as days go by and you get older I think you should take everything day by day and live life to the fullest. There is only one life and I don’t think us teens should fear death right now because we are still young and we still have to deal with life experiences. Unless you have witnessed death I feel you might be more scared and fear death at an early age.



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  17. The main theme of Thenatopsis is how every single particle on earh has the meaning, every atom is insignificant and every human being is made up of the same particles as the rest of earth's matter. it talks about death and how normal and part of a cycle it is, how insignficant we as living humans and how that wont change when we die only our form will, our wishes, our goal, they will all dissapear because they are just part of imagination which I think is just another dimesion if what he says is truth because what goes on inside our brains i find it more meaningful that what we can actually see and touch. He sees just the sad reality that at the moment humans die they become dirt, they become what we've hated, loved or what we've never even cosidered in their life because we go back to the same source we came from for the roots earth, nature owns us and no once can escape from it even if they tried because creating an identity will only create a fictional life of our own but we will never be different than the rest of nature, we are part of it and we will always be, we will always be made up of the same particles the stars, the earth, the grass and everything that inhabits this universe is made up of. It is a realistic way of viewing things and because Bryant was our age he was probably apthetic and saw life as meaningless but maybe if he wrote Thenatopsis 20 years later he would add to his poem more feeling, experiences, reasons of why life is more than that, reasons why humans are in a way different to the rest becaue we are non-conformitist and we like to belive we are better than the rest of nature. Our minds expand beyond my own understanding and we are capable of things other animals are not. He could of added some of that type of information his point would still made because at the end we do die, we do go back and be part of earth surface, and everything we once dreamed of will vanished and so will our bodies but we are never going to completly disapear from this earth we are just going to change forms and become something else.

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  18. The message William Bryant gives in Thanatopsis is about life. In the beginning of his writing he explains how each of us alive should cherish life. When you die Bryant says that we become one with our mother earth. William Bryant also doesn't want you wasting your chance to live because when you're gone the world will continue to spin, the next generation will continue to thrive, and you will continue to remain with nature. All the way throughout the idea of Bryant's view on life to death is expressed, hence the name "Thanatopsis".In Greek "thanatos" means death and "opsis" means sight or view. His use of nature & death shows why thus piece is categorized as Romanticism literature. Definitely Bryant's youth is what makes this writing unique. When people are young they aren't going to always have the same views they will when grow up, especially on life. Of course older people have experienced more of their lives, but no one can write someone else's story the way someone writes an autobiography. If Bryant was to write this 40 hers later, i guarantee that he would've used his experiences and write with analogies to show his writing skills he probably learn as he grew up.

    Marquis Corpuz

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  19. Emely Perez

    The main theme that I see in this poem is that love the earth because when you die you becomes part of the earth. Some characteristics that make this poem fall under romanticism is that he finds beauty and truth in exotic locals, the supernatural realm and the inner world of imagination. It also shuns the artificially of civilization and seeks out spoiled nature. I think that he has morality but does not really know how it will impact him. If he were to rewrite this twenty or even fifty years later I think his poem would be very different. It would be different because lots of things would have changed and he could have seen things in a different perspective.

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  20. Tianna Dillman

    The main theme that i see in this poem is that you cannot escape death.You need to accept that everyone has to die someday and that you can't run from it .
    Yes you may get sad that one of your loved ones died but they are still on earth in nature.Some characteristics that make this poem go under romanticism is that he sees nature in all kinds of places,in things you can't see and even imagination.
    I think his age did play a part in his views because at sixteen i think you already should have accepted the fact that death is apart of the cycle of life.Although i believe if he would have wrote his poem a few years later he would have a more in depth poem.If he wrote it 20-50 years later i think nature would not be a big factor of life because it is easily overlooked today.

    Written by:Tianna Dillman

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