Journal 8

Journal 8 - Emerson’s Aphorisms

Write a one paragraph personal response based on three of the following aphorisms. Your responses should address the point Emerson is making as well as your thoughts/feelings about what he is saying.

4. We boil at different degrees.

Emerson is using this aphorism to say that each person is different and more specifically that each person is different in what it takes to get someone upset. To me, I think this aphorism is accurate in saying each person has a different level of tolerance for certain things. Some people can get mad or upset at something that seems unimportant to someone else. Each person is different in their views, personality, and tolerance levels.

7. When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

The aphorism is saying that Nature and God work through people. I think this aphorism is saying that each person is on earth for a reason. We all have work to do. We were all sent by something greater for a specific purpose. This aphorism is meaningful in telling that no life should be wasted or taken for granted. We are each made a genius to make a difference and make changes in the world.

11. What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

Emerson is using this aphorism to state that the challenges in life are not impossible. We have what it takes within us to make it through anything that comes to us in life. I think this aphorism is motivational in that it is a positive message of reassurance that no task or challenge is too great to be accomplished. God makes each one of us with more power within us to make it through the matters we face in life.

Journal 7

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:

1. 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.

The two poems had similarities and differences. The Waterfowl poem was written in a rational voice. The Raven was the opposite in that it was irrational. The narrator was dependent on a bird to tell him whether or not he would ever be reconnected with his love that had died. It is irrational for a bird to tell a person anything, much less talk on a topic that is extremely abstract and emotion based. One difference between the Waterfowl and the Raven is that the Waterfowl takes place in nature but the Raven has to do with a bird but takes place inside the narrator’s house. Both authors use rhyming to create the tone for the poem, so the writing styles are similar; however, Poe is more structured and formal in his writing where as the author of the Waterfowl uses a more chaotic technique. The Raven has a distinct conflict of the narrator grieving the loss of his love, Lenore. The Waterfowl does not have a definite conflict but rather an inner curiosity of what happened to the bird. The Waterfowl’s conflict is in the end resolved where as in the Raven the conflict instead makes the narrator more angry and more hurt and saddened by his loss. The imagery and symbolism in the Raven is dark and gloomy, depicting the darkness that is overshadowing the narrator. The Raven itself is a supernatural symbol for evil. The raven tells the narrator that there is no afterlife and that life is pointless and painful and that there is no hope for being reconnected with lost loved ones. The Waterfowl says the exact opposite of life in that, the Waterfowl poem is filled with hope and power. Both poems have a similar purpose. The waterfowl is teaching a lesson and the Raven, doing the opposite, is saying that life is irrational and meaningless.