Greenleaf Whittier Snowbound

Beautiful Chaos
In “Snowbound”, a romantic poem about childhood snowstorm memories, John Greenleaf Whittier employs the romantic features of the past and nature to convey a description of a New England household shut in by a snowstorm. The past was an important element for the fireside poets as they tried to implement a sentimental tone in their poems to encourage their audience to consider the issues on more personal terms. Whittier’s inspiration for “Snowbound” were his childhood memories, vivid images, and the speech and lives of the people who had lived during this time. He portrays the past when he explains the nightly chores that have been done as, “Brought in the wood from out of doors,/Littered the stalls, and from the mows/Raked down the herd’s-grass for the

Since the inspiration for the poem are his childhood memories, Whittier tried to have the speaker in the poem do the same actions, demonstrating the romantic view of the past throughout the poem because it related to his past life. Another example of the past is when he describes a family gathering around a fire, “And, for the winter fireside mett,/Between the andirons’ straddling feet,/The mug of cider simmered slow,” (80-83). By portraying the family in this way, Whittier emphasizes the lives of the people within the home. He presents the romantic view of the past by connecting the lives of the people within the home in the poem, to the people who were in the home he was in, in the past. Another element of Romantic literature that is applied in Whittier’s “Snowbound” is nature. During the American Romantic Era, nature was an important feature in Romantic literature, because the poets were greatly inspired by it. Whittier grew up around nature since he was raised on a farm, and views it as symbols for