Whittier Reflection

For this reflection, I chose "A Sea Dream" by John Greenleaf Whittier. I thought this poem was amazing. The poem is broken down into three parts to help with cohesion. The first part describes the scenery that the speaker sees. It is apparent that he is closely familiar with it, as the words give several indicators that the speaker has watched time pass there. The scene he describes begins to feel like a small village on a cliff that overlooks the ocean because the poet mentions that a "rail car brought its daily crowds" and that he hears a song but it's hard to make out over the noise of children and other voices.

The second part is the song the speaker hears from afar. This is my favorite stanza in the whole poem: "The waves are glad in breeze and sun; the rocks are fringed with foam; I walk once more a haunted shore, a stranger, yet at home, a land of dreams I roam." (Whittier). I love the imagery in this stanza. This whole section of the poem was really beautiful in my opinion. Its flow and word usage really embody Romanticism as far as the style go. The message also goes with Romanticism because it features a young person observing nature while reflecting on how his love made him feel.

The third part goes back to focusing on the speaker and how it made him feel. This also hints rather heavily at Romanticism. My second favorite stanza was definitely the last one: "No word betrayed the mystery fine, That trembled on the singer's tongue; He came and went, and left no sign Behind him save the song he sung." (Whittier). I took this to mean that even though the people in the town can't really remember the man singing, the song he sings is still with them throughout their day. This poem was fantastic in my opinion.

Whittier, John G. "A Sea Dream by John Greenleaf Whittier." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. Web. 03 Nov. 2010. .

Journal #18: Romanticism Poem

One good friend for another,
A wilting rose in a vase.
My feelings threaten to smother
me with their tight embrace.
To get away from all the noise in my mind
(my thoughts, my family, and you)
I close my eyes and find
myself in a field of midnight blue.
I am among the stars, and what I see
calms the turmoil as I explore.
I awake from my soothing fantasy
and find myself at your door.
You know why I've come- it's in your eyes.
And as you walk away, it's myself I despise.

Thanatopsis Reflection

In true Romanticism style, I will start out this reflection by stating how this poem made me feel and the general impressions that I formed while reading it. I liked this poem. It made me feel kind of "Zen" while I read it because, to me, it was saying that everything and everyone must die at some point but that it's okay because its a natural occurrence in the grand scheme of things. Literally speaking, this poem was written for people who followed the Romanticism school of thought. It begins by stating "To him who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms" (Bryant), so you know that he is addressing the Romantics who loved Nature. Then he goes on to say how noble it is to die when it's your time because he says that you return to the earth and help it grow even as your body decays. While that is kind of gruesome, he states it in such a way that the words themselves sound pretty, even if the literal meaning leaves something to be desired in that department. Bryant's use of imagery to evoke emotion in his readers is one of the most common poetic devices that he uses in "Thanatopsis". He uses it very often and effectively. My favorite use of imagery was when he was describing the celestial bodies and how they watch over the earth and the dead that lie in it. He also uses personification to make Nature posses human qualities. My favorite part of this poem was in the ending stanza. "The innumerable caravan which moves to that mysterious realm" (Bryant) sounded really cool to me, and I really liked how Bryant put together his words, not just in that part, but throughout the whole poem.


Bryant, William. "16. Thanatopsis. William Cullen Bryant. Yale Book of American Verse." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 01 Nov. 2010. .

Journal #17: Nature Bonding

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Amy. She lived in the middle of a small forest with her family and their many pets. One day while she was out taking pictures of the fall foliage, she tripped and hit her head on a rock the was inconveniently placed directly in her path. She was dazed for about five minutes until she sat up and felt the back of her head. Thankfully there was no blood, but she did have one heck of a bump. Shaking it off, she got up and proceeded to head back to her house. She almost tripped again when she came across a squirrel in the middle of the path. Instead of tripping, however, she managed to step on it's tail. It let out a shrill cry of pain, then turned to her angrily shouting "Hey! Watch where you're walking!" Amy jumped back, startled. Satisfied that its message had gotten through, the squirrel scampered off in search of food to store for the upcoming winter. "That was weird. Note to self: have Mom check for possible concussion when I get home." Amy made it home without further incident and proceeded to tell her mom about her possible concussion. Her mom brushed off her concerns, giving her some Tylenol and telling her to finish her homework. Dinnertime came around, which meant that Amy's family ate at the table in the kitchen and their pets hovered around them, just in case any food happened to spill on the floor. Dinner was its usual silent affair, until someone grumbled under the table that no one had fed him anything for a good ten minutes. Amy started laughing until she realised that her parents were looking at her funny. They were used to her randomly laughing though, so they went back to their meals. After dinner, she went back out to the woods where she figured out that she could talk to the animals after having a chat with a raccoon about its friend who always made it braid her hair. Her thought process was something like this: "OMG, I can talk to animals! This is so cool! I'm like Dr. Doolittle except female and not the one played by Eddie Murphy because he's annoying." She stayed out in the woods for a few more hours, chatting with all the little woodland creatures about anything and everything. They all became friends and lived happily ever after. The End.

Journal # 16: My Favorite Place

The Traveling Carnival

As I step out on to the grass of the midway, thousands of sights, sounds, and smells assault my senses. I see an old man tossing a ball at empty milk jars. He knocks them down and hands the prize to his wife next to him, like they were back on their first date all these years later. I smell the food from the food stalls, a salty-sweet combination of popcorn, caramel apples, and countless deep-fried foods on sticks. I hear the laughter of children, the shouts of the carnies coercing customers into their stalls, and the whir of the rides on the grass farther down the track. Above me, lights are strewn between the stalls on either side of the main aisle, creating a sea of twinkling lights that can almost put the stars to shame.
Walking down the midway, everything looks as if it's sparkling, despite the carnival's general shabbiness. Stopping only to buy some cotton candy, I continue down the aisle. I pass by the fortune-teller's booth, laughing at the thought that anyone could head her warnings for the future in such an enchanting atmosphere. All problems seem to disappear here.

To my right a bird trainer releases a dove. I watch as it soars above our heads, it's wings a dazzling white in the glow of the million tiny lights above it. Across from him a magician performs tricks for a group of small children and their parents. The children are enthralled with each new trick, and, though they try to hide it, the adults are dazzled as well.

I watch the whimsy going on all around me and take in the simple, relaxed happiness on all the faces present.

In the distance I hear the delicate chimes of a music box, it's notes the perfect soundtrack to the scene around me. The music grows louder and I am jolted out of my fantasy and back to my room where I hold the music box gently in my hands. As the song finishes I grab my book bag and head outside into the rain. As I walk along the rain falls down on my head, but I'm not there to feel it. The wind blows past, but I can't hear it over the music and laughter of the carnival in my dreams.

Journal # 15: Logic and Reason

Today's topic is to tell where I use logic and reason. First off, let me just say that logic and reason are skippitty-dippity. Seriously though, they're fantastic. More people should use logic and reasoning in their everyday lives. Something tells me that the world would run much more smoothly that way.
Anyway, I use logic and reason pretty much all day every day. A person kind of has to when they go to school and take as many advanced classes as I and a lot of my classmates do.
I remember in elementary school, there were classes called Discovery and Enrichment. Our teachers for both of those classes was Mrs. Henderson. She was awesome, but that's not necessarily important in this blog. Enrichment was just a fun little class that everyone went to sometime during the week. Discovery was the class for the gifted kids that was held once a week or something. Anyway, the point of this little side note is that both classes were focused on logic and deductive reasoning. And they were both totally awesome. Mrs. Henderson used to give us these logic puzzles that no one could figure out, but everyone thought they were fun. I kind of miss that class. Same with Discovery. One time in Discovery, Mrs. Henderson set up a fake crime scene for us to look at. I think the crime was a stolen lunch box or something like that. We got to play detective and find out who took the lunch box. That's probably where my semi-obsession with spies and detectives came from. If only Mrs. Henderson knew what she started that day.
Speaking of spies and detectives, I'm going to switch and talk about ninjas to eat up my remaining word length. Ninjas are cool. They totally pwn pirates. No offense Mr. Langley: it's just a fact of life. I would totally be a ninja if there was actually a way to make that possible. Sadly, I have not discovered one yet.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense Reflection

From what I've read of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, I can tell that he really put a lot of thought into his writing. The reader can tell that he is obviously writing in the style of the Rationalism literary period based on the way he goes about presenting his points-of-view. While other political writers of the time often presented their opinions and propaganda as facts, Thomas Paine does not often give into that kind of unsophisticated writing. While you can tell that his writing is fueled by his emotions and opinions, you can also see that he does not let himself get carried away or swept up in his own justified political frustration. As far as I could see, he did not wander off topic either. He sticks to his points and defenses without any unnecessary interruptions. This makes the writing flow a lot better and keeps the reader interested for a longer period of time.
Another thing I noticed while reading this and listening to my classmates' summaries of various sections of the text is how Paine uses religious stories to his advantage. One of my classmates mentioned a story about Sampson in their section of Common Sense. I think that Thomas Paine was very clever in his use of biblical stories. Though his writing would have generally been written for upper-class white males, the use of biblical stories as references ensures that his work could reach a broader audience, if he wanted it to. The other benefit to using the Bible as a reference to make his points is that it gives the reader an example they are likely to be familiar with. Since the main religions of colonial and revolutionary America were forms of Christianity, most of the population was likely to have read or listened to the Bible in church at some point in time. It also probably appealed to the Rationalists that Paine used the Bible more as a reference in his work instead of using it for religious purposes, such as in this passage:

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings. All anti-monarchial parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchial governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form.

The writing style for this work is very to the point, though, at some times, it is easy to see where Paine got worked up and began to rant and ramble. Thankfully, he seems to catch himself before we as the audience lose interest. There are also times when he seems to make fun of and insult the people who willingly follow a monarchial government such as when he says "However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right, if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass and lion, and welcome." (Paine).
Though this isn't the kind of thing I usually go for, I enjoyed reading this and seeing how Paine called out the monarchial system of government.


Paine, Thomas. "Thomas Paine's Common Sense - Text Version." Archiving Early America: Primary Source Material from 18th Century America. Web. 17 Oct. 2010. .