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.