Fireside poet analysis Reflection blog

The Fireside poets were major influences during the Romanticism period and shaped the way that the writing style of that time period was influenced. The Romantic period was very nature oriented and descriptive like in the poems Autumn and Flower-de-Luce. These poems are attractive to there readers by there descriptive language that transports their readers into the world of the poem and its characters. The poem Autumn is about the harvest and the fall. "Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended/ So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging eaves;/  Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;" (Longfellow 9). The in depth description of the moon and the importance of it to the farmer and his livelihood. The farmer depends on nature for his income and food to feed his family and enough to sell in the market. The nature described in the story is depended on the farmer. The rain, oxen, leaves and the moon all help the farmer with his work. The Romanticism period was influenced by nature and during this time nature play a big part of some people's lives like the farmer who need a good harvest.

               The poem Flower-de-Luce was another poem written by a Fireside Poets and just like the other writers in the Romanticism period were influence by nature and described the beauty of the nature they saw around them. "His tales initially seem to draw our focus to a narrator who introduces characters and events. But Hawthorne's stories begin much earlier, in fact, commencing with landscape descriptions that set our goose bumps in motion"(Johanyak).  This statement is true for most writers of the Romanticism period because they treat the landscape just like the character and take the extra time to develop it into a living breathing thing just like the characters that live on the that land.

 "How beautiful it was, that one bright day/ In the long week of rain!/ Though all its splendor could not chase away/ The omnipresent pain"( Hawthorne 1).

This is an example of how Hawthorne uses the landscape as a character. He describes the day in depth much like an author would discuss the life of character and how they act. Again later on he describes the meadow and the river as if they were just as much as part of the story as the characters that they are about.  The poem also adds in some mythology that has been previously seen in other stories we have read the tale of Aladdin and his tower is presented in the final stanza and the mention of how the widow was never finished and that is how it will remain. This is saying that the hole in Aladdin's tower is like the man's hole in his heart from the lose of his friend it will never be filled. Both of these poems are great examples of the Romantic style of writing.

 Johanyak, Debra. "Romanticism's Fallen Edens: The Malignant Contribution of Hawthorne's Literary Landscapes." CLA Journal 42, no. 3 (March 1999). Quoted as "Romanticism's Fallen Edens: The Malignant Contribution of Hawthorne's Literary Landscapes" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Young Goodman Brown, Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts on File, Inc.


"Sonnets. Autumn. The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1893. Complete Poetical Works." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.


"Hawthorne. Flower-de-Luce. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1893. Complete Poetical Works." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.  

Journal 20

The poem Autumn is a way descriptive poem that is a great example of the Romantic period writing. The poem is about the farmers and the people getting ready for autumn and the harvest. The poem also focuses on the beauty of nature during autumn and the adjectives that they use to describe the beauty of nature is beautiful and that is what the Romanticism writes about. "Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand"( Longfellow 6). This bridge of gold could be the grain that that would save the people because it feeds them. The royal hand is the farmer and how he is the king of his farm and he is rich because he can feed his family.

"Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
So long beneath the heaven’s o’erhanging eaves;" (Longfellow 9).
This Longfellow quote is an example of the descriptiveness of the Romanticism period they could have just called it a moon but instead it is the red harvest moon suspended beneath the heavens. This detailed description about nature involves both the elements in the Romanticism period that are important.

" Thy steps are by the farmer’s prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;"( Longfellow 11).

This statement expresses the the farmer's desire for a good harvest and a good money for the crops he had grown. The leaves turn color and glow like fire and this way of describing the leaves is very interesting. The shine of the leaves in the light of the harvest moon is very descriptive and this beauty could mean a great harvest and good crop.

I think this is an awesome poem and very descriptive and related to the Romanticism period. The farm related sense is related to the the area that we will live and could be used to describe what goes on around the harvest time near us or any farm land area. Erob took charge of the classroom and it is semi controlled so glad it s Friday. I really want to go home.

Longfellow. "Sonnets. Autumn. The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1893. Complete Poetical Works." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 08 Dec. 2011..

The Chambered Nautilus Reflection

"A nautilus is a shelled mollusk whose growth is only stopped by death" ( Love). The Chambered Nautilus is the description of the shell of the nautilus and the tale of everywhere they think that shell might have been. The Chambered Nautilus is extremely descriptive and uses older Greek mythology creatures in the story to give the nautilus shell a long with a past that is unknown. The first stanza describes a boat sailing in the sea with the sails carrying it along the gulf and the coral reefs where the sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. The nautilus shell could have seen and swam along these same seas and lived with the mermaids and the sirens. The shell of the nautilus is empty but the finder can discover how old it is by the number of rings along its back and the person does not have the actual animal and this leads his imagination to create a story for this shell. "In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,/ And coral reefs lie bare,/ Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair " (Holmes 5). This is one of the adventures that the finders believe that the shell could have gone on. The mythology that the author uses is very neat in joining to different and adds a neat twist to this Romanticism piece of writing. Another piece of mythology that was interesting was the tale that they had King Triton using the nautilus shell as a horn ( Huff).

The descriptive language that the author uses a big reason why it belongs in the Romanticism period. "This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,/ Sails the unshadowed main,-/ The venturous bark that flings/ On the sweet summer wind it purpled wings"( Holmes 1). The descriptive adjectives used in the opening of the poem really show the great use of words to make the story more interesting and exciting to reader. The childlikeness of the stories about where the shell and the nautilus himself has traveled. This is another element of the Romanticism period that is seen in most of the writings of the Romanticism period. "Year after year beheld the silent toil/ That spread his lustrous coil;/ Still, as the spiral grew,/ He left the past year's dwelling for the new," (Holmes 15). This quote is like a life cycle and year after year we gain more life and just like the shell of the nautilus we hold on to the memories of years past and eventually we feel the weight of our shell in our old age. The nautilus's shell tells his age like the tombstone tells ours but we leave memories with others and we have to make up the stories of the nautilus. "Let each new temple, nobler than the last,/ Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,/ Till thou at length art free,/ Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!" (Holmes 33). This ending quote about new temples and making them better than before is saying that do your best and have fun in your life trying to make it more rewarding and exciting than the last. These men wanted to live their lives out and sea and become like the nautilus shell left to travel the ocean floor exploring new things everyday.

"801. The Chambered Nautilus. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 1909-14. English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman. The Harvard Classics." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 07 Dec.

Huff, Randall. "'The Chambered Nautilus'." 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.

Love, C. "'The Chambered Nautilus'." In Barney, Brett, and Lisa Paddock, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature: The Age of Romanticism and Realism, 1816–1895, vol. 2, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Tom Walker and Van Winkle Reflection

The story of Tom Walker and Rip Van Winkle are both the tales of men who still cling childhood and seem to have wives that nag a lot but they only do so because they are stuck in this childhood state that is common in the Romanticism writing. "However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife, so he flatly refused, out of the mere spirit of contradiction"( Irving 246). This quote gives an example of the childish ways of Tom just like a teenager he does the exact opposite of what he is told. In the tale of Rip Van Winkle Washington Irving also presents a man who does not have great work ethic and again believes that he is still a child. This element of childhood is one the characteristics that separates the Romanticism period from the others. " The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghost, witches, and Indians" (Irving). The fact that Rip Van Winkle does not do more important busy and instead spends his time playing with the children shows that he has not grown up yet and wants to be one of the kids."Rip is driven from his home and later away from his friends thanks to the intercession of his wife, who is constantly berating him to make more of himself. His final refuge is to take to the woods, hunting with his dog Wolf and enjoying the peace and quiet as he stalks squirrels and other small game (D'Ammassa). His wife needs him to do more and work a little harder she hears about all the things he does during the day for others but when it comes to his home and family he does not help and that causes the nagging he gets from his wife. Both Rip Van Winkle and Tom lived in a child like state for Tom this costed him his wife and himself because he never wanted to become the person that worked in that counting house ruining peoples lives.

Washington Irving uses great detail in both the tale of Rip Van Winkle and Tom Walker and the Devil the descriptions that go into the characters and the scenes is a new element that was started in the Romanticism period. "At the foot of these fairy mountains the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village whose shingles roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape"(Irving). This dramatic and beautiful description of the scenery helps the reader get a clearer picture in the writing and makes the writing of the Romanticism so much more interesting to reader than some of the older writing because you want a clear picture of where everything is happening and what everyone looks like. " A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet, winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove, on the opposite side the land rise abruptly from the water's edge into a high ridge, on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size" (Irving 242). This description from The Devil and Tom Walker is another example on how the stories are both very similar to each other and the Romanticism era.

D'Ammassa, Don. "'Rip Van Winkle'." Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

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. 06 Dec. 2011.

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. 242-250. Print.