Dickinson and William Cullen Bryant, " Contemplation of Death"
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Contemplation of Death Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the world paid witness to an intellectual and philosophical revolution that forever changed the perception of life itself. The Great Awakening caused people to become more in tune with their spiritual self, and the Great Enlightenment caused people to question, to think, and to pursue the unknown. This new wave of thinking, helped writers of the Romantic and Transcendent era, such as William Cullen Bryant, and Emily Dickinson, express their feelings of life.” Thanatopsis”, by William Cullen Bryant, and “Because I could Not Stop for Death”, by Emily Dickinson, both exemplify the indisputable facts, that death is an inevitable, natural part of life, and there is no reason to be afraid of death. Even though the two poems both share the same underlying themes, they are presented in different ways.
William Cullen Bryant and Emily Dickinson both perpetuated their belief that death is inevitable, but in very different ways. In “Thanatopsis”, by William Cullen Bryant, he expresses that death inevitable, by explaining that eventually, everyone dies, and that it is essentially part of a “life cycle”. Death is inevitable no matter whom you are, and everyone will die. He accentuates this idea when he says, “Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world – with kings, the powerful of the earth, the wise the good...” (Lines 33- 35). Cullen uses this line to say that no matter who you are, everyone has the same fate. We all end up the same, as he says in lines 25-28, “Thine individual being, shalt though go, to mix forever with the elements, to be a brother of the insensible rock”. Dickinson, however, presents her belief that death is natural in a completely different way. Dickinson believed that death was a part of the cycle of death. In lines 9-12, Dickinson stated, “We passed the School, where Children strove, at Recess- in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Grazing Grain – We passed the
Contemplation of Death Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the world paid witness to an intellectual and philosophical revolution that forever changed the perception of life itself. The Great Awakening caused people to become more in tune with their spiritual self, and the Great Enlightenment caused people to question, to think, and to pursue the unknown. This new wave of thinking, helped writers of the Romantic and Transcendent era, such as William Cullen Bryant, and Emily Dickinson, express their feelings of life.” Thanatopsis”, by William Cullen Bryant, and “Because I could Not Stop for Death”, by Emily Dickinson, both exemplify the indisputable facts, that death is an inevitable, natural part of life, and there is no reason to be afraid of death. Even though the two poems both share the same underlying themes, they are presented in different ways.
William Cullen Bryant and Emily Dickinson both perpetuated their belief that death is inevitable, but in very different ways. In “Thanatopsis”, by William Cullen Bryant, he expresses that death inevitable, by explaining that eventually, everyone dies, and that it is essentially part of a “life cycle”. Death is inevitable no matter whom you are, and everyone will die. He accentuates this idea when he says, “Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world – with kings, the powerful of the earth, the wise the good...” (Lines 33- 35). Cullen uses this line to say that no matter who you are, everyone has the same fate. We all end up the same, as he says in lines 25-28, “Thine individual being, shalt though go, to mix forever with the elements, to be a brother of the insensible rock”. Dickinson, however, presents her belief that death is natural in a completely different way. Dickinson believed that death was a part of the cycle of death. In lines 9-12, Dickinson stated, “We passed the School, where Children strove, at Recess- in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Grazing Grain – We passed the