Idealism And Romanticism In Thanatopsis Written By William Cullen Bryant

American Literature found its own voice during the early 1800’s. This was known as Romantic Literature. There are very many aspects that the authors of this time wrote about. Some of them being nature-worship, individualism, philosophic idealism, religious mysticism, opposition to political authority and social convention, and a continuing interest in the supernatural. It was a literary movement that began in Europe and spread quickly to other parts of the world. Puritanism and Romanticism were two very different things. The Colonial period came first. During this time, people were more tied down and there were stricter rules. They still had fun and were happy, but it was just a very different setting than that of the Romantic period. The kids would make up games and play games that are still played to this day, such as hopscotch and tennis. Families had to work hard, long hours in order to pay for food and clothes. They usually had larger families and they would sometimes share their houses with aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. Romanticism was a very different lifestyle. Some aspects were the same like the whole money issue, but there were also some

In this poem, it talks a lot about the love of nature and describes the sheer beauty and mystery in it. In the passage, Bryant talks about the way someone views nature, “To him who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language; for his gayer hours she has a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty”. Even without knowing that this poem was written during Romanticism, one could assume that this was the case by using context clues from the text and just by reading the first sentences from the poem above. It talks about the “smile and eloquence of beauty” when describing nature. This way of appreciating nature was never really used in writing