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Thanatopsis
By William Cullen Bryant
Thanatopsis: Literary Focus:
Theme
 The theme of a poem is what the poet is saying
about life.
 Usually poets do not state their themes directly.
– Instead, you have to think about what all the words,
images, and figures of speech say to you.
– The subject of “Thanatopsis” is what happens to people
when they die.
– What the poem says about this subject is its theme.
Thanatopsis: Reading Skill: Inverted
Sentences
 William Cullen Bryant often makes use of
inversion, a rearrangement of the usual word
order in sentences.
 The usual order of words in Standard English
sentences is subject, then verb, and then
object: Reika kicked the ball.
 An inverted order might be: The ball Reika kicked.
 If you have trouble understanding sentences in the
poem, try rearranging the words.
William Cullen Bryant
 William Cullen Bryant was a Romantic Poet.
 In his time that title did not refer to a person who writes
poetry about love.
– Instead, it referred to a poet who shows an emotional response to
life.
– Romantic poets placed feelings above thought.
– They valued poetry and rural life above science and the city life.
– They believed that studying nature outdoors could bring as much
truth to humans as doing scientific experiments.
– “Thanatopsis” is a nature poem in which Bryant presents his view
(opsis, in Greek) of death (thanatos).
Thanatopsis: Poetic Form
 The poetic form that Bryant uses for
“Thanatopsis” is blank verse.
 If you look at the lines of the poem, you will
see that the lines do not rhyme.
 Most lines have the same number of
syllables and a regular rhythm.
Thanatopsis: Into the Poem
 William Cullen Bryant was in his late teens when
he wrote his first draft of “Thanatopsis.”
 He was looking for answers to how to accept
death.
 He finds his answers in nature.
 He observes that when we die, we become a part
of nature, along with everyone else who has
already died and everyone who will die.