Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Thanatopsis Questions (Brooke and Kristen)

1.  thanatos ("death") and opsis ("sight"). The poem is about death and seeing nature as something that needs to be protected.

2. Shroud- a burial sheet that covers the body, Pall- a cloth spread over a coffin, Narrow House- the grave, Sepulcher- a small room or monument, cut in rock or built of stone, in which a dead person is laid or buried. These words make you think of death, maybe even a funeral. They add a comforting feeling that comes with death because it is by nature.

3. This poem is about both life and death. Death is a part of everyday life. While overall it seems like it is more about death, but since death is a part of life this poem is about both.

4. The tone at the beginning is forbidding and then it shifts to being comforting when you get to line 30: "Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mold."

5. Elegy- a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. The conventions of the elegy is the shift from mournful to comfort.

6. Some images from the poem would be sad and depressing or dark and gloomy. Also it would have the setting in nature because the poem is related to the transcendentalist. 

7. This poem is an example of historical piece because it was made in the early 19th century. This is a romantic poem because it reflects on personal feelings and focuses on the supernatural and talks about death and gloom. This is a Calvinist poem because Bryant was in the Calvinist environment.

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