A Timeless Reality

For the past two class meetings, my English professor has been sick. Because of this, we haven't had class, but instead we are required to post on an online discussion board. Today I decided to sit down and read the poems and post my thoughts so I could move on to studying for my Econ test. Here are some of my thoughts:

The poetry we read was four poems by William Cullen Bryant: Thanatopsis; The Yellow Violet; To Cole, The Painter, Departing For Europe; and The Prairies. These are good poems, some better than the rest. My favorite is Yellow Violet, then Thanatopsis, and the other two are tied for last (or third if you're an optimist).

In all of these poems, Bryant displays an amazing gift of description. The beginning of Prairies makes me feel as if I'm in Montana watching the clouds cast shadows on the plains below. When I read Thanatopsis, I could easily imagine Bryant walking on a path through the woods.

Thanatopsis is a Greek word meaning a meditation on death. Bryant's poem by this name is the most philosophical out of the four. He uses personification with regards to nature, and his reverance towards nature makes me think he had Pantheistic leanings. I find Bryant's tone throughout the poem interesting. At first he's thoughtful and melancholy, and at the end he sounds like a motivational speaker. The interesting thing is that the end-- the motivational part-- was written a few years after the rest. So that makes me wonder what happened in those years that so changed his attitude towards death?

Yellow Violet is my idea of a wonderful poem. It has beautiful description of a spring scene and Bryant uses this to draw a parallel between flowers and people. He describes how the violet is the first flower to come up in the spring, sometimes even when snow is still on the ground. This makes me think of how resilient people can be. Just like a flower blooming in the snow, people can thrive in the midst of strife.

Bryant more specifically discusses how the violet seems so beautiful at first, but it's beauty is quickly surpassed when the other larger flowers bloom. He draws a harsh contrast to how when people become rich and/or famous, they quickly forget their old friends. Bryant confesses that he has done this, but he now regrets it. The bitterness that can be heard in Bryant's voice at this point made me actually stop and read back to see how he so swiftly got from an innocent flower to the cold world we live in. (And this was written in the 19th century!) Bryant then just as quickly switches back to talking about a flower. I find it amazing that Bryant could so masterfully use a yellow violet to make a point.

And yes, there really is such a thing as a yellow violet.