Thanatopsis

1. Thanatopsis By William Cullen Bryant

2. Thanatopsis: Literary Focus: Theme • The theme of a poem is what the poet is saying about life. • Usually poets do not state their themes directly. • Instead, you have to think about what all the words, images, and figures of speech say to you. • The subject of “Thanatopsis” is what happens to people when they die. • What the poem says about this subject is its theme.

3. Thanatopsis: Reading Skill: Inverted Sentences • William Cullen Bryant often makes use of inversion, a rearrangement of the usual word order in sentences. • The usual order of words in Standard English sentences is subject, then verb, and then object: Reika kicked the ball. • An inverted order might be: The ball Reika kicked. • If you have trouble understanding sentences in the poem, try rearranging the words.

4. William Cullen Bryant • William Cullen Bryant was a Romantic Poet. • In his time that title did not refer to a person who writes poetry about love. • Instead, it referred to a poet who shows an emotional response to life. • Romantic poets placed feelings above thought. • They valued poetry and rural life above science and the city life. • They believed that studying nature outdoors could bring as much truth to humans as doing scientific experiments. • “Thanatopsis” is a nature poem in which Bryant presents his view (opsis, in Greek) of death (thanatos).

5. Thanatopsis: Poetic Form • The poetic form that Bryant uses for “Thanatopsis” is blank verse. • If you look at the lines of the poem, you will see that the lines do not rhyme. • Most lines have the same number of syllables and a regular rhythm.

6. Thanatopsis: Into the Poem • William Cullen Bryant was in his late teens when he wrote his first draft of “Thanatopsis.” • He was looking for answers to how to accept death. • He finds his answers in nature. • He observes that when we die, we become a part of nature, along with everyone else who has already died and everyone who will die.