The poets and writers of the Romanticism period in American literature are definitely different in the style in which they write their stories or poems. The Puritan writers during the great awakening focused mostly on how God had done something in their lives or about how God had affected something that had happened in the world, basically no matter how bad or good it was, it was always God’s doing.
Then, when the time came closer to the American Revolutionary War, people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry. These new thinkers brought new religious ideas like Deism, and they also brought the writing style of Rationalism into popularity. They focused more upon rational thought and facts rather than religious explanations.
Then the Fireside Poets and their Romantic writing style came along. These poets were smart people like the writers if the Rationalism period, but they were not focused so much on facts and things about learning. They focused more on things like nature and emotions. They wrote about the values that people should have. Most of these values were ones that they took from ordinary people. Values like courage, patriotism, loving nature, working hard and respecting the various members of one’s family. These values were thought to be what people should strive to attain.
The best way, I think, to exemplify the differences between the three writing styles would be to present a situation and show what each style of writer would write about it.
The first situation that would show the differences in the writing styles would be when the United States was going to scrap out the USS Constitution for the iron in its hull. The Puritan would most likely write about how it should be destroyed because of all the lives it took in the Revolutionary War. They might say that God had told them to destroy it for some reason. The Rationalism writer would probably support the idea of scraping the war ship because it would be useful for the country if they could use the iron in the ship because the ship was no longer needed. Then there’s the Romantic writer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote about the USS Constitution. He said that it should not be scraped in his poem Old Ironsides. He talks of how it was a very good ship and it felt the knee of many “vanquished foes” (Holmes 10). He goes on to say that it would be “better that her shattered hulk should sink beneath the wave” than be scraped for her metal (Holmes 17). This shows that even though there is no more need for the ship, they should not scrap it for the metal because it was such an important war ship and that “her thunders shook the mighty deep, and there should be her grave” (Holmes 19-20). It also says that “The harpies of the shore shall pluck the eagle of the sea!” (Holmes 15-16). This both shows that poets of the Romanticism period included mythology (harpies) and that they disliked the Rationalists by calling them harpies and calling the ship an eagle.
Holmes, Oliver. Old Ironsides. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 211. Print.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Daily Journal #18
The perfect autumn day would be the best day in the year, better than the best spring day, better than the best summer day, and most definitely better than the best winter day. It would be around seventy degrees outside, but it would feel a little bit colder due to the light breeze sweeping through the forests. This little bit of wind would be enough to kick up the rustling leaves on the ground. You would be able to walk outside and hear the distant sounds of someone using a leaf blower to round up the fluttering leaves into a pile so that his children could play in them. You could smell the distinct smell of a fire burning old logs for a bonfire. You could also smell, mixed in with the light smoke, a stronger smell of a charcoal fire; someone is starting up a family cookout. You could hear dogs barking and children laughing as they played fetch and the children jumping into the piles of leaves that their fathers had made them shortly before. You could hear the rustling of the dead leaves still on the trees as the tops of the trees swayed with the wind. Even with all of the noises and the smells, it still feels calm and serene. You can almost feel the trees preparing for their long slumber through the cold and harsh winter, but they do not seem to resent it nor fight it, they just accept it as the way things go. You can also see, in the trees and on the ground, the various animals who are also preparing for the winter. The squirrels are collecting and hiding their acorns and they are also building their new houses in the trees for their families. The flocks upon flocks are flying south to escape the cold clutches of winters grip, and we are bundling up and watching everything around us happen in quiet attentiveness.
Daily Journal #17
There have many times that I can remember where I bonded with nature. When I was a bit younger, maybe somewhere back in the early 2000’s, I was in the boy scouts. As you probably already know, boy scouts go out all the time to go camping and go hiking and things like that. The main point of doing those things was that we were able to bond with nature and see the beauty in just natual, untoughed nature.
We went camping all the time at different places. I enjoyed camping very much because it gave me a chance to relax and enjoy the simple thing in life. Nature has a very calming effect, and it is hard not to feel bonded to nature when you are sleeping outside. I think that this has to do with people in the modern world connecting sleeping outside or in tents with people who came before us, like the Native Americans. Most people, or at least it seems like most people do this, connect the Native Americans and people like them to having a very deep and spiritual connection with nature. Their religions were based off of nature and they used it for everything they wanted and needed. They tried to be as nice as possible to it because they realized the importance of trying to keep nature as pure as possible. Then the Europeans came along and we started to tear down forests to make way for our cities. Now, when the forests of the world and the untouched wilderness’ dwindling, people are trying to hold on to the last bit of true nature that we still have.
The writers of the romanticism period could see the kind of path that we were going down and they wanted to stop it before it progressed too far, but now it is obvious that it did not go as they had wanted.
We went camping all the time at different places. I enjoyed camping very much because it gave me a chance to relax and enjoy the simple thing in life. Nature has a very calming effect, and it is hard not to feel bonded to nature when you are sleeping outside. I think that this has to do with people in the modern world connecting sleeping outside or in tents with people who came before us, like the Native Americans. Most people, or at least it seems like most people do this, connect the Native Americans and people like them to having a very deep and spiritual connection with nature. Their religions were based off of nature and they used it for everything they wanted and needed. They tried to be as nice as possible to it because they realized the importance of trying to keep nature as pure as possible. Then the Europeans came along and we started to tear down forests to make way for our cities. Now, when the forests of the world and the untouched wilderness’ dwindling, people are trying to hold on to the last bit of true nature that we still have.
The writers of the romanticism period could see the kind of path that we were going down and they wanted to stop it before it progressed too far, but now it is obvious that it did not go as they had wanted.
Daily Journal #16
There are many different kinds of media available to people in modern society due to the fact that almost everybody now has computers. This fact opens up many different channels through which people can communicate with other people. It used to be that people separated by great distances could not communicate other than letters or a phone call, but now, with the help of computers, there are now many different kinds of long distance communication that greatly improve efficiency.
One of the most popular ways that people communicate now is through text messaging each other. If they have a question they need to ask their research partner, they just text them and they get a response right away. Another very useful tool and one that is increasing in popularity is skype, or any kind of web cam chatting program. This allows people to meet face to face, no matter how far apart they are, as long as they both have computers. They can talk and chat, which allows the exchange of ideas to flow faster, and they can also send each other links to websites that would be helpful with their project or they could send them a document like a powerpoint presentation or a word document so that the other person gets it right away, not just when they check their email next.
I think that advances in technology have expanded the area that people that someone would be able to work with. If there were a person in your research group in England, it would be no problem. You could communicate with them as if they were your next door neighbor. This project on Franklin’s virtues will let us get a taste of what we might have to do once we get into college and we will be prepared and skilled at communicating efficiently with people over a long distance.
One of the most popular ways that people communicate now is through text messaging each other. If they have a question they need to ask their research partner, they just text them and they get a response right away. Another very useful tool and one that is increasing in popularity is skype, or any kind of web cam chatting program. This allows people to meet face to face, no matter how far apart they are, as long as they both have computers. They can talk and chat, which allows the exchange of ideas to flow faster, and they can also send each other links to websites that would be helpful with their project or they could send them a document like a powerpoint presentation or a word document so that the other person gets it right away, not just when they check their email next.
I think that advances in technology have expanded the area that people that someone would be able to work with. If there were a person in your research group in England, it would be no problem. You could communicate with them as if they were your next door neighbor. This project on Franklin’s virtues will let us get a taste of what we might have to do once we get into college and we will be prepared and skilled at communicating efficiently with people over a long distance.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Reflection: The Character of Franklin
In the first lines of Henry T. Tuckerman’s “The Character of Benjamin Franklin,” Tuckerman says
The first phrase of “mortal remains of Benjamin Franklin” gives the sense that Henry T. Tuckerman liked Benjamin Franklin because he the word using the phrase “mortal remains” instead of just saying “Benjamin Franklin was buried.” It gives the reader the sense that Henry Tuckerman thinks that Benjamin Franklin’s body may have been buried, but his ideas, his legacy, lives on. It is also clear that Tuckerman admires Ben Franklin because at the end of the quote he says “a name as illustrious as it was endeared.”
He follows up that passage with
Bloom, Harold, ed. "The Character of Franklin." Benjamin Franklin, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
Franklin, Benjamin, and Leonard Woods Labaree. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.
“Sixty – six years have elapsed since the mortal remains of Benjamin Franklin were placed beneath a tablet in the Friends’ Cemetery in Philadelphia; the granite obelisk which marks the last resting-place of his parents is a familiar object to all who walk the streets of his native city; but these graves, thus humbly designated, were, until a few days since, the only visible monuments of a name as illustrious as it was endeared.”
The first phrase of “mortal remains of Benjamin Franklin” gives the sense that Henry T. Tuckerman liked Benjamin Franklin because he the word using the phrase “mortal remains” instead of just saying “Benjamin Franklin was buried.” It gives the reader the sense that Henry Tuckerman thinks that Benjamin Franklin’s body may have been buried, but his ideas, his legacy, lives on. It is also clear that Tuckerman admires Ben Franklin because at the end of the quote he says “a name as illustrious as it was endeared.”
He follows up that passage with
“Its fame, however, had become so thoroughly identified with American institutions and life, that an artistic memorial is far more important as a tribute of gratitude and reverence, than as a method of keeping his example before our minds or his image in our hearts.”
It sounds to me that this guy Tuckerman has a crush on Franklin. In the very first paragraph of his work, he has already talked about how much of a great example Ben Franklin was; how important and loved he was in American society. It is easy to see why though; Ben Franklin was one of the most influential people of the time period. He had his hands in things from the French helping the Americans in the Revolutionary War, to the writing of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was like a more popular, more politically important Steve Jobs.
In Franklin’s autobiography, he says tells the story of how a man once wanted his axe as shiny as the edge was, so the blacksmith said he would do it if the man would turn the grinding wheel (Franklin 158). It took a very long time to even start making the axe shiny, and the man was exhausted and when the blacksmith told him to keep going because the axe was only speckled, the man replied “Yes, but I think I like a speckled axe best.” Franklin compared the story to virtues because
In Franklin’s autobiography, he says tells the story of how a man once wanted his axe as shiny as the edge was, so the blacksmith said he would do it if the man would turn the grinding wheel (Franklin 158). It took a very long time to even start making the axe shiny, and the man was exhausted and when the blacksmith told him to keep going because the axe was only speckled, the man replied “Yes, but I think I like a speckled axe best.” Franklin compared the story to virtues because
“this may have been the case with many, who, having for want of some such means as I employed found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that ‘a speckled axe is best.’" (Franklin 158)
I think that the main thing that Franklin took away from this was humbleness. He saw that it is very hard to keep a strict moral life, and he says on page 159,
“I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been, if I had not attempted it.”
Bloom, Harold, ed. "The Character of Franklin." Benjamin Franklin, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
Franklin, Benjamin, and Leonard Woods Labaree. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.
Daily Journal #15
There are many problems that arise when working with people over a long distance. It will be a challenge working with the kids from Farmington for our Franklin virtue project. There is a possibility for many different kinds of communication issues.
There was this one project in my freshman year in introduction to engineering taught by Mr. Andrew Stevenson (I miss him). We were tasked with working with another school, whose name escapes me at the moment, in creating a new kind of locker shelf. We had to discuss different ideas that we thought would work, decide what we wanted to do, and then we had to come up with our final idea. One person in our group had to draw up our final product in Autodesk Inventor and then we had to have a final project where we presented it to our classes. This project is very similar to the one that we are doing now because we have to collaborate with another school over using any kind of media that we could.
Also, let’s be honest, you and I both know that I am turning this blog post in late, and I apologize. One good thing about doing this particular blog late is that I now know what kind of problems that arose during my project. The only real problem that I noticed was that some people did not check their emails that often, so it was hard to stay in touch with them the entire time. One of the best ways that I found to stay in touch with most of my group members was facebook. Whether it is a good thing or not, people tend to check their facebook all the time. If it is somewhere in plain sight, it is usually the best way to communicate with people, which is now facebook or some other kind of social media.
There was this one project in my freshman year in introduction to engineering taught by Mr. Andrew Stevenson (I miss him). We were tasked with working with another school, whose name escapes me at the moment, in creating a new kind of locker shelf. We had to discuss different ideas that we thought would work, decide what we wanted to do, and then we had to come up with our final idea. One person in our group had to draw up our final product in Autodesk Inventor and then we had to have a final project where we presented it to our classes. This project is very similar to the one that we are doing now because we have to collaborate with another school over using any kind of media that we could.
Also, let’s be honest, you and I both know that I am turning this blog post in late, and I apologize. One good thing about doing this particular blog late is that I now know what kind of problems that arose during my project. The only real problem that I noticed was that some people did not check their emails that often, so it was hard to stay in touch with them the entire time. One of the best ways that I found to stay in touch with most of my group members was facebook. Whether it is a good thing or not, people tend to check their facebook all the time. If it is somewhere in plain sight, it is usually the best way to communicate with people, which is now facebook or some other kind of social media.
Daily Journal #14
If I were alive during Franklin’s time period, it would be much different than what my life is like now. There was no indoor plumbing, cars, or electricity. If I were to be alive during the time period I would want to be the apprentice of Benjamin Franklin. This is because I am the type of person that likes science, and Benjamin Franklin was a very notable scholar and inventor. He invented many things from a popular stove to lightning rods. He also just seems like a very enjoyable person to be around. From his writing, I can tell that he is not that mean of a person and he has a good sense of humor, which would make it easier to be his apprentice.
My typical day would probably be getting up early (because it seems to me that everybody got up early then, then I would go to school. I think that if Benjamin Franklin were to actually have an apprentice, I would think that he would want one that could read, write, and one that would be good at problem solving as to help Benjamin when he needed some help on something. After getting out of school, I would go help Benjamin Franklin at his printing house for the remainder of my day, except for some time to go home and study what I learned in school today.
It is hard to imagine what life was like back then. To us, it seems very strange, but to them, it seems perfectly normal; they do not know any other life than the one that they were living then. I bet if they came to the future, to our time, they would think it was just as weird as we think theirs is. It is all about the perspective.
My typical day would probably be getting up early (because it seems to me that everybody got up early then, then I would go to school. I think that if Benjamin Franklin were to actually have an apprentice, I would think that he would want one that could read, write, and one that would be good at problem solving as to help Benjamin when he needed some help on something. After getting out of school, I would go help Benjamin Franklin at his printing house for the remainder of my day, except for some time to go home and study what I learned in school today.
It is hard to imagine what life was like back then. To us, it seems very strange, but to them, it seems perfectly normal; they do not know any other life than the one that they were living then. I bet if they came to the future, to our time, they would think it was just as weird as we think theirs is. It is all about the perspective.
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