Entry 31: Comparing Poems

Compare and contrast the attitudes toward death in "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" and "The Cross of Snow." How important is it that one poem is about an unnamed traveler—probably standing for everyone—while the other is about a specific person? What is your opinion of the two attitudes toward death? Do you feel they are incompatible, or can they both be held simultaneously? In your own life, how do you feel about death? Write about what death as an abstract concept means to you, and compare/contrast that to what death means when it is up close and personal.

• I believe that the two poem's attitudes towards death contradict each other. Therefore, the two of them are incompatible. "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls" implies that one should keep on living even if someone dies, because they are strangers, and the world will continue to go on - it won't stop for you. The other poem, "The Cross of Snow", however, is a sonnet in memory of Longfellow's wife. Despite the former saying to continue on, the latter cannot go on and griefs for Longfellow's wife for eighteen years and even more. 
• Concerning death, I believe that everyone will eventually meet this situation - it's part of a cycle. Even though I don't want to die, there is nothing I can do about it, so why not just accept it and live on? I also believe that we have to appreciate our life and the fact that we are still alive, and live our lives to the fullest (meaning no suicides and self blaming, etc.). 
• Close deaths influence us more than the death of a stranger because when someone close dies, the limbic system (part of brain that is associated with emotions) is activated. This makes it harder for someone to cope with death of a close one compared to the death of a stranger.

Entry 30: Image of Grief

Romantic poets often use aspects of nature to express emotions that might be too painful or personal to state directly. In "The Cross of Snow," Longfellow takes a dramatic scene in nature and transforms it into a powerful image conveying intense grief. Why do you think he chose that particular scene? How does it represent his emotions? Think of an image from nature that you could use to describe or represent a feeling of great sorrow. Set up your comparison like a metaphor: "Grief is . . ." Then, explore how grief is like the image you have chosen.

• Longfellow chose the particular scene of the crossed shaped snow in the mountain to convey his intense grief because he wants to convey that his grief is extremely deep, and too cold to be melted by the heat and warmth of the sun. The deepness is represented by the "deep ravines" that are very deep down into the mountain and cannot be shone on by the sunlight. The coldness is of course represented by the snow itself. The cross shaped of the snow gives up a insight of Longfellow's opinions of his wife - he believes that she is someone that is very special and has even become a holy figure. This is a very smart way of representing his emotions, the grief cause by his wife's death. Great sorrow and grief can be conveyed by many different examples. Here are two. The first one is "Grief is raining like there's no tomorrow". This symbolizes (for religious people) that God is crying with them because of the tragedy. The second one is "Grief is like that falling of leaves and autumn enters winters". This represents that happiness is "falling away" and leaving people, and all that's left is to suffer.

Entry 29: Human Life: A Cycle?

Think of how nature repeats its cycles over and over again: Summer turns to winter and returns again; day follows night and returns again; the tide rises and falls and rises again. Then, think of individual human lives. Are our lives like these endlessly repeated cycles of the natural world, or is a human life different? How do you think of your own life, or the lives of people close to you? Is it any easier to think of death for you or your friends and family when you put it in the perspective of a natural cycle? Why or why not? If not, what makes it different?

• There are different levels of looking at cycles when talking about human life. On the small scale, human life is a continuous (and sometimes really boring) cycle. Here's an example: we wake up, we do our daily routine, we go to sleep, then we wake up again, we do our daily routine again, and we go to sleep again, and so on. On a scale that is a bit larger than the previous one, we can say that human life is linear instead of cyclical. When people die, they will just... die. It's their end. If we are being really scientific, we can say that there are no souls and that the physical body will just decompose back into the Earth. So it's linear. On an even larger scale compared to the previous one, human life is actually a repeating, continuous, and endless cycle (unless homo sapiens went extinct). People are born, then they live, and they give birth (some), and then they die. The cycle repeats itself again when the children who are given birth to live, and then give birth to their own children, and then they die. I believe that it may not be any easier, know that death is part of a natural cycle. But it's actually not any harder as well. I think that it's better to think that if we only have one life, we should live it to its fullest.

Entry 28: Thanksgiving

What are you thankful for?

• If I am to say that I am thankful for anything, then it would be the fact or the action that I was born into this world, especially the fact that I was born in a family that is quite well off, with enough money to have 3C technology as well as enough money to send two children to go to a very expensive American school. Now I think about it, I have a lot of privileges. I get to live in an extremely comfortable environment, I get enough food, I get enough water, I get medical aid, and I get people to care for and about me. Also, I even get to enjoy entertainment, something that would technically be impossible if I was given birth to in a third world or in a less developed country. Many people right now are dying from starvation, illness, genocide, and homicide, yet I am living here so comfortable, without knowing the hardships of living alone or the hardships of war. From this I learned that I should not take things for granted - anything should be treated as a privilege. I also learned that I should show gratitude to the things I have and to the people who provide me these things (namely my mom and dad and my other family members).

Entry 27: More Thanatopsis

In "Thanatopsis," Bryant expresses his views on both the process of life and the nature of individual lives. In the space below, write a paragraph describing Bryant's views on individual lives. Support your ideas with details from the poem. What connections can you find between Anne Bradstreet or Sor Juana's poems and "Thanatopsis" in regards to what is permanent, what is transient, and how human life fits into the overall scheme of the universe? What are your own view points on nature, mortality, and the universe?

• In his poem "Thanatopsis," Bryant describe the process of life saying that all people should not be said even if they know that they will die eventually, and that they will rejoined with the Earth and with the elements.  Bryant then goes on to further emphasize that no one is alone concerning the topic of death. There have been other people, the people in the past, as well as present, who have died and rejoined with the Earth and with the elements. I believe that one of the connections with Anne Bradstreet's poem is that both of them have the theme that material wealth is not that important, and they people will eventually lose it. In Bryant's poem, he implies that since human beings die and rejoin with the Earth, so does the material wealth that people own. In Bradstreet's poem, she states that material wealth is not important, that the only important thing is going to heave, the eternal house. Sor Juana's poem is similar with Bryant's poem in that both poems also talk about knowledge. The former says that knowledge is more important than material wealth, while the latter says that knowing this knowledge will make people feel better.

Entry 26: Thanatopsis

How does William Cullen Bryant's poem, "Thanatopsis," reveal the Romantic conviction that the universe, far from operating like a machine, is really a living organism that undergoes constant cyclical changes? How does the human speaker (the narrator) feel about this view of the universe? How do you feel about it? Describe your own view of the universe as it compares to the Romantics in general, and to Bryant's narrator in particular.

• The poem Thanatopsis shows Romantic conviction that the universe is really a living organism that undergoes constant cyclical changes by using nature as the theme, since nature is one of the most important characteristics of Romanticism. An example of this is that the poem refers to the rejoining of things, substances, and matter with the elements and the Earth (which is, in a sense, the universe). I believe that the narrator agrees with the view that people should not fear death, and that people should live happily and to their fullest and be ready to embrace death. He agrees that death is something that is good, or more specifically not necessarily bad, since it happens to everyone (no one is alone). I feel that his views in a way make sense, and may be true, but sometimes it depends on the situation to determine. My own view of the universe, as said above, is somewhat similar in that the universe is continuous. However, I cannot be that sure about the cyclical part because there are some contradicting things. For example, seasons and life cycles are cycles. However, what will happen when people actually die? Is there a thing such as reincarnation?

Entry 25: Natural Cycle

Romantic poets looked to nature for lessons - lessons that we too can learn by looking around us. One of the ever-present lessons of nature is the organic cycle of birth, growth, death, and rebirth. Think of some ways that nature reminds us of this recurring cycle. Do you find this aspect of nature disturbing or comforting? Explain.

• Nature has a lot of cycles that remind us of the organic cycles of birth, growth, death, and rebirth. For example, the changing of the seasons - spring, summer, autumn, and winter, as well as organisms' living continuous cycle of birth, growth, death, and rebirth. I believe that I find this aspect both comforting and also interesting. It is comforting because we know that life will continue to go on, instead of just stopping and ending. This is a very interesting phenomenon as well. Why has Earth come to its mechanisms in the present day? This is a very mystery that present day human beings will never find out. Another mystery is why is it cycles? Why is it not a linear line that ends after a while? Does the continuing of the cycles benefit organisms in any way? What are the advantages? I am actually very interested in this topic. However, I would not want to be in a job to search for the answers, because it would be an useless (at least in my opinion) attempt. Why, you ask? Because we have not concrete evidence since it has been so long. If I were given the chance to go back to the past and see exactly what happened, I would definitely take the chance.