1a. To what two moods does Nature respond? How does it respond differently to each one?
2a. With what pronoun in line 17 does Bryant introduce a new point of view?
3a. According to lines 33–37, what brings comfort at the thought of death?
4a. According to the speaker, why should dying be like lying down to "pleasant dreams"?
5a. Does "Thanatopsis" present an optimistic or a pessimistic view of death? Explain your answer.
1b. What is the "last bitter hour"? What images in lines 11–12 support this view?
2b. Who is the speaker up to line 17 of the poem? Who begins to speak in line 17?
3b. What does Nature tell those who fear their death will go "Unnoticed by the living"?
4b. In this poem, is Nature the same as the planet Earth? Is so, how? If not, how would you describe it?
5b. Consider how the biblical expression "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" might relate to the view of death expressed in the poem. Cite specific lines of the poem in your response.
Blank Verse. Copy the first five lines of "Thanatopsis" and mark the strongly stressed syllables with accent marks. Which line is least regular?
Elaboration. How does this poem make use of the technique of elaboration? What is the idea that is elaborated?
1. Imagining that you are a literary columnist for a newspaper, write a review of "Thanatopsis," telling your readers what they might experience reading it. Use your own paper as necessary.
2. Write four lines of blank verse for an environmental magazine that celebrates the beauty of nature.
3. The memento mori theme, which warned that death comes quickly and unexpectedly, is found in English and American literature throughout the centuries. Write rap lyrics with a memento mori theme to introduce "Thanatopsis" to contemporary high school students. Use your own paper as necessary.
Working With Prepositions. Read the Language Arts Survey 3.11, "Prepositions," then read the following sentences. Rewrite the following sentences. Bracket each prepositional phrase once and each preposition twice. Each sentence has two or three examples of prepositions and prepositional phrases.
1. "Thanatopsis," the best-known poem by William Cullen Bryant, draws its title from the Greek language.
2. In Greek, thanatopsis means "view of death"; no one could object to this phrase as a summary of the poem.
3. Despite Bryant's upbringing in the Calvinist tradition, the poem reflects toward its topic a Wordsworthian pantheism, or nature worship.
4. Bryant seems to have been strongly impressed by the ideas of several English poets grouped by the title "graveyard school."
5. Clearly, however, the major influence on Bryant was William Wordsworth, one of the greatest English Romantic poets, who wrote about Nature as a loving friend to humanity.
Writing Cullen's Obituary.Read several obituaries in your local newspaper and make a list of the information that is usually included. Then imagine that it is 1878 and William Cullen Bryant has just died. Write an obituary that includes his important literary contributions, as well as the information that you researched. In addition to researching obituaries, you will need to research appropriate details of Bryant's life, such as the family members he left behind.
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