Journal Assignment #7
William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” (p.151) and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (p.181)
Read the selections and write a detailed response to the following:
- Compare/contrast the different views of nature that are being presented in the poems. Refer to the list of classical and romantic characteristics and provide specific examples from the poems to support your analysis.
There are two different views of nature in the two poems. In Romanticism it is more concentrated on emotion and feelings towards everything. It is about the individual. Neo-Classical is more about logical feelings on ideas and it more universal.
The tone of The Raven is dark, gloomy, depressing, and dreary while the tone of the Waterfall is calm, peaceful, and optimistic. The Waterfall makes the reader feel good about them and the Raven makes the reader feel depressed. In the Raven nature is indifferent, torturing, and hostile. In the Waterfall when he sees the duck he thinks it stands for God knowing what will happen to him and allows him to think about his life in a good way.
The Raven is ornate in that it is very descriptive and the Waterfall is plain. The Raven is unclear and confusing as to what the meaning of the poem is. The Waterfall is straight forward and readers know exactly what is going on. There is a clear cut answer where in the Raven it is unclear and there is no real answer.
The settings are different because in the Raven it takes place during winter where it is cold and dreary and at midnight. The bird flies into his house and he isn’t even looking at the nature of it. The Waterfall is during sunset where it is pretty and happy. He is outside watching the bird in nature.
The speaker of the Raven is grief stricken, depressed and possibly crazy. If the speaker of the Raven were to be watching the sunset he would probably find something bad and gloomy about it. The speaker in the Waterfall is thoughtful, open-minded, and content.
The speaker in the Raven has a definite conflict because he is grieving over Lenore. He is aggravated and upset over the death of his wife and can’t seem to move on from it. He is having an internal conflict and in the end only feels worse. The speaker of the Waterfall doesn’t really have a personal problem. His biggest problem is his curiosity towards how the birds migrate and how they know where to go. He starts with a question and ends with an answer involving God leading you to where you want to be.
The imagery in the Raven is all dark, ghastly, dreary, weak, and fire. It all depicts sadness. In the Waterfall it is a rosy day and all leads to happiness. Each speaker makes his own symbolism. The Waterfall symbolizes God and God’s power and guidance. In life we will guided in life by him and he will tell us where to go. In the Raven it is all negative when he constantly says “nevermore.” He tried to finds answers but is only told he will never be re-united, he will never go to heaven.
The purposes are completely different in that in the Waterfall he ends happy and there is always going to be someone there to guide him to where he needs to be. The Raven’s purpose is that his spirit will never be lifted and things will never be better.
They also have some things that are the same because they are both about a bird and a person. The bird in both has a sign for the person. The both have direct interaction with the bird. The two poems have a similar purpose in that they both are having an interaction with the bird and uses it towards a meaning in his life.
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