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.