BEFORE BELL
• Please take out your vocab books and a sheet of paper!
• Take out your outline, works cited page, and the grad
paper timeline!
WARM UP
Completing the Sentence 11-20
Fireside Poet Intro
• Video
On your note sheet reflect on the video with the following questions:
What do you think happens to us in the afterlife?
What is most important living a good life or living a long life?
What is the legacy you hope your generation leaves behind?
• http://youtu.be/72NELwSeafk
William Cullen Bryant Fireside Poets
THANATOPSIS
BEFORE WE READ POETRY LET’S
REVIEW LITERARY TERMS
• Metaphor: comparing two things without like or as (Books are the mirrors of
the soul.)
• Simile: Comparing two things with like or as (Your is smile like the sun.)
• Hyperbole: Gross exaggeration of something (I am so hungry I could eat a
horse!)
• Personification: Giving something not living human qualities
• Apostrophe: Talking to something/someone that is not with you (Twinkle
Twinkle little star!)
• Oxymoron: juxtaposition of two opposite terms/idea (jumbo shrimp)
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
ROMANTICS USED!
• Imagery: Words that evoke reaction from the five senses
• Allusion: Reference to another famous thing in literature
• Syntax: The arrangement of words and phrases in sentences
• Diction: The word choices an author makes
• Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds
• Tone: Writer’s attitude to subject matter
• The Greek root thanatos
means death.
THANATOPSIS
•The Greek word opsis
means sight.
• So what is the title telling us?
ROMANTICISM
• William Cullen Bryant: YOLO. Really. That’s about it.
• Though written at the age of 17, WCB edited the poem 10
years later, adding the final 9 lines.
• Do you think his youth is part of how he is viewing death at
17? How do you account for the change? How might he
have rewritten it 20 or 50 years later?
BLANK VERSE
• Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter.
• Each line has five iambic feet, a pattern consisting of an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
• Poets who write in blank verse sometimes vary this rhythm,
using loose iambic pentameter to add a conversational
tone.
STRUCTURE
• In poetry, structure is the arrangement of words and lines
to produce a desired effect.
• Summarize each section to understand the content
and central ideas.
• Look for details and word choices that convey mood
and tone.
Section
Idea
Mood
1st
Death comes
to everyone
Bleak
Diction
Tone
ANALYZE TOGETHER
To Him who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts a
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee shudder, and grow sick at heart’ –
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
PARTNER WORK
• In your group, annotate for each section
and for the figurative language found in the
poem.
• This will be placed on your assignment
tracker!
CLOSURE QUIZ: “THANATOPSIS”
1. According to the poem, what the power to make you "shudder, and grow sick at heart"
("Thanatopsis" 13)?
a. Thinking about the afterlife
b. Realizing that there is no heaven
c. A good friend's death
d. The sad images associated with death
2. How are you like "the insensible rock" ("Thanatopsis" 27)?
a. Both are made by God
b. Both come from the earth
c. Rocks, like people, have feelings
d. You should throw rocks or people
3. Why do you not "retire alone" ("Thanatopsis" 32) when you die?
a. Heaven is full of people!
c. Your thoughts will accompany you
b. The earth is full of the dead
d. You will not be forgotten
4. What is the "infinite host of heaven" ("Thanatopsis" 46)?
a. Souls in heaven
b. Bodies in the ground
c. Stars in the sky
d. Rocks on the earth
5. Which of the following best explains the theme of this poem?
a. "be a brother to the insensible rock/And to the sluggish clod"
("Thanatopsis" 27-28)
b. "Yet not to thine eternal resting-place/Shalt thou retire alone"
("Thanatopsis" 31-32)
c. "Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,--/Are but the solemn
decorations" ("Thanatopsis" 43-44)
d. "Approach thy grave,/Like one who . . . lies down to pleasant dreams"
("Thanatopsis" 80-81)
CLOSURE
• With which of the following statements
would Bryant agree?
• Worship should only take place inside a
church.
• City life is superior to country life.
• Humanity lost something vital as it
moved to an industrialized world.
• Evidence of a divine being can be found
in nature.
• Homework:
• Vocab Quiz
Tomorrow!
• Start working on
Rough Draft