Reflection Blog: Thanatopsis

“Thanatopsis,” as Randall Huff says, is not a very inviting title. It is something hard to pronounce and not a word in the English language. It is Greek for “Meditation on Death” or “View on Death” (Huff). It is really an appropriate title once it is translated to English because that is exactly what the poem is about. It is the expression of death and a personification of nature with their relationship to each other. Everyone has to come to the realization that death is inevitable, and the poem says that when a person dies they are basically becoming a part of nature just as everyone else has done before. Huff analyzes this thusly “once dead you eventually will be on terms of total equality with the richest, wisest, and most beautiful people who ever lived, and the whole earth in all its glory can be viewed as your collective crypt” (Huff). This is shown in the poem when Bryant says “Yet not to thine eternal resting-place shalt thou retire alone… Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world, --with kings…” (Bryant). When a person dies it is not supposed to be a sad occasion, although it is not exactly a happy one either, but it is an inevitability that maybe just deserves attention and understanding.

The poem’s first several lines are really just personifying nature such as “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” (Bryant). Then it goes on to explain the event of death and its relativity to nature. It says “Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to Earth again, and, lost each human trace, surrendering up thine individual being, shalt thou go to forever mix with the elements” (Bryant). Bryant says that Earth fundamentally created people, and when they die they go back to being part of Earth. Then it says that the dead become “brothers” both to the composing pieces of nature and the people who have already died. The poem states that the oceans, brooks, woods, rocks and various other elements are “but the solemn decorations all of the great tomb of man” (Bryant). Then it says that for the people who think they die alone, with others living and laughing next to them, everyone will join the same fate and simply be together in the end. This is represented by the statement “yet all these shall leave their mirth and their employments, and shall come and make their bed with thee” (Bryant). Finally it concludes with “By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams” (Bryant). This can probably all be summed up by saying that everyone came from nature, so everyone has a tie with each other; everyone will eventually die and go back to nature; and that we should make the time worthwhile and embrace the inescapable end.

Bryant, William Cullen. "16. Thanatopsis." Bartleby.com. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

Huff, Randall. "'Thanatopsis'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0402&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 28, 2011).