Our assignment this time was to read two poems that were written by Fireside poets and compare and contrast them. Both poems that I chose to read were by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He is my favorite fireside poet because I think his poems are the easiest to understand and they aren't too lengthy. The first poem I read was Excelisor by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem is about a man who ends up dying, but after he sees all these things both happy and sad he always yells excelisor. I was not sure what excilisor meant so I looked it up in the dictionary and it turns out it meant somethign similair to excellent. After all these things happen in the poem such as night fall which is sad and seeing these happy homes all lit up which is a happy time he always yells excillisor. I think this is a typical trait of the romanticism period because the romanticism period is sort of unrational. The unrational thing to do would be to say excellent when something is just not so exellent. Another trait of the Romanticism period is a youthful innocence. In the poem excoliser it says "
THE SHADES of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!"( Wadsworth Excelisor). The man ends up dying in the end of the poem so you know he is not youthful, but it says there that he is a youth. That is a characteristic of the romanticism period. Also another characteristic of the Romanticism is non concrete ideas, otherwise known as abstract ideas. When reading the literary criticism of the piece I found that this was said "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's study of self-sacrifice takes the phenomenon to its logical conclusion, self-immolation, in response to a completely abstract ideal"(Huff-Excolisor). Longfellow was using an abstract idea in his poem which had something to do with death I believe.
Usually poems and other pieces from the Romanticism period have something to do with nature in them because that is a common theme or characteristic. The poem excoliser did not have anything to do with nature, but the other poem I read did. The other poem that I chose to analyze, also by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was title Aftermath. Aftermath was a lot about nature. It was however about the icky and sad parts of nature, winter. I completely agree with what he says about winter being the aftermath of all the other fun seasons per say. I also read a literary criticism about this piece, and in this criticism it said At 66 years of age when he wrote this poem, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had seen many summers come and go. In its seventh line the poem states that its title refers to the gleanings of a single year's last mowing, the poet also may have been thinking of his life after he reached retirement age, the so-called golden years(Huff Aftermath). I think that the poem was not meant to be taken this analytical, but more in a literal sense of actually being about winter with all the dead crops and dead lives and bitter wind and cold. It says Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,(Longellow Aftermath). It is comparing winter to summer and how summer is much better than winter because of the new flowers and grass, instead of the dead crops of winter.
Huff, Randall. "'Aftermath'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0010&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 7, 2011).
Huff, Randall. "'Excelsior'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0122&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 14, 2011).
"62. Excelsior. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Yale Book of American Verse." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More.
Longfellow, Henry W. "Aftermath." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Journal #20
You can tell that this a Romanticism piece just from the title. The title is autumn and autumn has to do with nature. One of the main characteristics of the Romanticism period is that nature is a common theme. The poem is talking about Autumn and the good things about autumn such as the golden leaves. We have read many other poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I have read poems that he wrote about pretty much every season. I read O perfect Day which was about the perfect days of summer. I also read another one that was about winter and the gloom of winter and now this one is about Autumn and how pretty it is with the golden leaves. I agree with his views on all of the seasons. I love summer and I think that it is filled with perfect warm days that he spoke of. The best part of summer is that you can sleep in if you want. Then the poem that I read about Winter was about how gloomy it was because all the good things about nature was over and the bitter coldness was just around the corner. I hate that part of year where all the leaves are dead and it is just bitter frigid cold. Then in this poem Autumn I think that he likes Autumn and enjoys it. I agree the weather for Autumn is sometimes just perfect. Not too hot and not too cold and it is also filled with beautiful leaves that are red, orange, yellow, sometimes still green, golden, and every shade in between. My favorite of the three is summer, but closely followed by Autumn and then the least favorite just like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is winter. I like him as a poet because his poems are easy to understand but still contain all the characteristics a romanticism style piece should contain. I love all seasons at times but there is also bad times about each as well.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Reflection Fireside Poem
The poem I chose to analyze and reflect on was Aftermath by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I chose to analyze this poem because it was short and I thought starting simple would be nice, and also I can relate to what the poem is talking about. The poem is about the time of year when summer has ended and the good part of fall is just coming to a close. It is that gloomy part of the year where plants are no longer pretty, there is no more pretty leaves on the trees, they are now dead on the ground, the weather is bitter, all the birds have migrated, and all that is left is the fields to harvest. It is a pretty gloomy part of the year for me, because it means that cold frigid winter is coming up. The poem is very short and it goes like this, "When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom. "(Longfellow). This basically just means everything that is left from summer is gone including the birds, the leaves, the fields, there is no sweet grass or flowers. All that is left is weeds, dead plants, and snow is coming. Everyone is just in silence and gloom. I completely agree with Longfellow because this is an extremely gloomy part of the year, and here in central Illinois all of these things occur.
You can tell this is a Romanticism piece because the theme of the poem is a nature. It is about what nature does at a certain part of the year. It also uses many discription words such as dry leaves, sweet with flowrs, upland clover bloom. Both nature and being discriptive are two characteristics of a Romanticism piece. At 66 years of age when he wrote this poem, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had seen many summers come and go. In its seventh line the poem states that its title refers to the gleanings of a single year's last mowing, the poet also may have been thinking of his life after he reached retirement age, the so-called golden years(Huff). Both the time of the year, and the timing in his life would have been gloomy at that point. I think however that Longfellow is probably writing about the time of the year more, I may just think this because I am young and do not know what that part of life would be like and I can easily relate to the part of the year aspect, but I have also read some of his other poems, and one was about the perfect summer days. They were written very closely together and he was not gloomy in the least bit in the other one, because the weather was perfect and none of those changes he mentioned in this poem were occuring which is why I think it is more about the time of the year because if he is happy in the other one where he is the same age but has nice weather then it has to be more about the nature and weather more than the time of his life.
Huff, Randall. "'Aftermath'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0010&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 7, 2011).
Longfellow, Henry W. "Aftermath." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom. "(Longfellow). This basically just means everything that is left from summer is gone including the birds, the leaves, the fields, there is no sweet grass or flowers. All that is left is weeds, dead plants, and snow is coming. Everyone is just in silence and gloom. I completely agree with Longfellow because this is an extremely gloomy part of the year, and here in central Illinois all of these things occur.
You can tell this is a Romanticism piece because the theme of the poem is a nature. It is about what nature does at a certain part of the year. It also uses many discription words such as dry leaves, sweet with flowrs, upland clover bloom. Both nature and being discriptive are two characteristics of a Romanticism piece. At 66 years of age when he wrote this poem, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had seen many summers come and go. In its seventh line the poem states that its title refers to the gleanings of a single year's last mowing, the poet also may have been thinking of his life after he reached retirement age, the so-called golden years(Huff). Both the time of the year, and the timing in his life would have been gloomy at that point. I think however that Longfellow is probably writing about the time of the year more, I may just think this because I am young and do not know what that part of life would be like and I can easily relate to the part of the year aspect, but I have also read some of his other poems, and one was about the perfect summer days. They were written very closely together and he was not gloomy in the least bit in the other one, because the weather was perfect and none of those changes he mentioned in this poem were occuring which is why I think it is more about the time of the year because if he is happy in the other one where he is the same age but has nice weather then it has to be more about the nature and weather more than the time of his life.
Huff, Randall. "'Aftermath'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0010&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 7, 2011).
Longfellow, Henry W. "Aftermath." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.
The Devil and Tom Walker Reflection
For our reflection today we had to read two literary pieces from the romanticism period. The two pieces were titld The Devil and Tom Walker and Rip Van Winkle. After reading these two pieces and also all the other romanticism pieces I had read previously I saw that the two pieces were pretty similair. Washington Irving was a non fiction writer of short stories. In his stories I think he uses a lot of creativity and imagination. He does this by being extremely descriptive with his writing. Being descriptive is also a characteristic of a romanticism piece, so it does not really come to a surprise that he does so. The story The Devil and Tom Walker is actually a pretty simple story that probably would not of been too long if it was not so descriptive. But because it was so descriptive it took him about ten pages to tell the story. This is an example of Irving writing with a lot of discription, a classic characteristic of a Romanticism writer. I am not a huge fan of a lot of discription, but Irving does make it a lot easier for a reader to get the scene and setting pretty clear in your head. You can just picture it a lot better. An example of this from the story is when Irving is describing the remains that are left at the Indian fort, he says, "“Nothing remained of the old Indian fort but a few embankments, gradually sinking to the level of the earth, and already overgrown in part by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp. (Irving 243)” This was very wordy and could of simply been said as there was nothing left but a few remains that were sinking into the ground. All of his writing was pretty drawn out and lengthy to give more discription.
The story Rip Van Winkle was about a man who wakes up after takinga twenty year "nap" i guess you could call it, and then he realizes that everything has changed(Watts). Obviously everything has changed, it has been twenty years...There is a whole new setting after the twenty years and Washington Irving writes about the setting also in a very descriptive wordy way. Irving writes, “On awaking, he found himself on the green knoll from whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes—it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft and breasting the pure mountain breeze. “Surely,” thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.’” Irving pretty much shares everything that Rip could have been seeing. This much like the other story is very descriptive, but that is how the literature of this time period is supposed to be. He was very descriptive, which is why he is classified as a romanticism writer.
Irving, Washington. "The Devil and Tom Walker." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 240-250. Print.
Matthews, Washington Irving. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 05 Dec. 2011.
Watts, Linda S. "'Rip Van Winkle'." Encyclopedia of American Folklore. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
Both pieces we read I think exemplified the Romanticism period quite well. They were extremely discriptive, a little too discriptive at times, and there was a youthful tie into also there was talk of nature as a mentioned previously talking of the indian remains sinking into the ground.
The story Rip Van Winkle was about a man who wakes up after takinga twenty year "nap" i guess you could call it, and then he realizes that everything has changed(Watts). Obviously everything has changed, it has been twenty years...There is a whole new setting after the twenty years and Washington Irving writes about the setting also in a very descriptive wordy way. Irving writes, “On awaking, he found himself on the green knoll from whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes—it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft and breasting the pure mountain breeze. “Surely,” thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.’” Irving pretty much shares everything that Rip could have been seeing. This much like the other story is very descriptive, but that is how the literature of this time period is supposed to be. He was very descriptive, which is why he is classified as a romanticism writer.
Irving, Washington. "The Devil and Tom Walker." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 240-250. Print.
Matthews, Washington Irving. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 05 Dec. 2011.
Watts, Linda S. "'Rip Van Winkle'." Encyclopedia of American Folklore. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
Both pieces we read I think exemplified the Romanticism period quite well. They were extremely discriptive, a little too discriptive at times, and there was a youthful tie into also there was talk of nature as a mentioned previously talking of the indian remains sinking into the ground.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)