A Comparison of Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant and Poem 712 by Emily Dickinson - Essay Example

Poem 712 by Emily Dickinson personifies death, suggesting that it is a person who is a friend to Dickinson, rather than an event that will happen in her life. She also suggests the cycles of life as they ride together in a carriage looking at the school full of children. She also makes reference to the growth of grain, providing more evidence of the cycle of life. In comparing the poems written by Bryant and Dickinson, one can see two different concepts of death as they are framed similarly.

The poem Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant personifies nature in the first section of the work. Similarly to Dickinson, Bryant creates a pattern of speaking about nature that suggests that she is a female entity, He states “To Him who in the love of nature holds/Communion with her visible forms, she speaks/ a various language” (Bryant lines 1-3). This suggests that the concept of nature has an intent, a driven purpose that is founded in a sentient being that makes choices about what will and what will not happen. In this, there is a will to what happens, a sense that there is a higher purpose and meaning. This is a common theme within the human discourse about elements of life that have no independent thought but hold power over the course of life. Nature has a power that must be dealt with and in personifying it, that power is contained with meaning and purpose that is necessary to explain the tragedies that occur.

Dickinson does the same thing with death, giving it an intent through personification and creating a meaning through which the application of death is made. She states in her opening lines “Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me” (Dickinson Lines 1-2). If death is someone who is a friend, then what he does is done with reason, the sorrow felt lessoned because clearly there was a reason that death comes to enact his purpose. Personification provides solace so that meaning and intent are provided through sentient purposes of those powers that are greater than mankind can control. Both death and nature fall into this category.

Bryant, however, discusses death without personification, but as an extension of nature. He imbues in the dead a power that coincides, at the least, with nature. He states “Old Oceans gray and melancholy waste - /Are but the solemn decorations all/Of the great tomb of man” (Bryant lines 43-45). In this, he is suggesting that not only is nature a woman, but her purpose is to provide a place of rest for the dying human beings that are not a part of her, but are the monarchy of the space. While he does not put her in thrall to humans, he does suggest that humans reign over the space in which she exists. He states “In their sleep - the dead reign there alone” (Bryant line 47). This gives them power over the space of death, planted within the Earthly sphere of existence.

The language of Bryant’s poem is not broken evenly into stanzas but is designed with one long stanza that makes his argument about death, and a shorter, nine-line stanza that brings his point across. He suggests that one should live life fully and take advantage of all that it has to offer so that when death comes one is ready to rest. He does not say but suggests that life is one chance of experience, and when the time comes to leave, it should not be with regret for the chains that have held one back, but for the way in which life has been lived to its fullest. Death should be at a time of readiness.

Dickinson divides her poem into six, four-line stanzas that are done in such a way to make a statement of thought within each verse. The poem has no rhyming, as the Bryant does not rhyme, but both poems pick up a rhythm so that the intended concepts become more clear through the nature of that rhythm. Dickinson speaks of immortality and that once that time comes, all that was on Earth is a sentimental memory, but without sorrow. Rather than focusing on life as Bryant does, her poem focuses on the afterlife as Death escorts her through her immortality. She says in her last verse “Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each/Feels shorter than the day/I first surmised the horses' heads/Were toward Eternity” (Dickinson lines 21-24). The end of life, for Dickinson, is the beginning of a long eternity of immortality, where Bryant discusses the end as a rest where eternity is Earthbound and through being buried within her, the individual has dominion. Read More