Thanatopsis

For other uses, see Thanatopsis (disambiguation).

"Thanatopsis" is a poem by the American poet William Cullen Bryant.

Background

A painting of William Cullen Bryant from 1878

William Cullen Bryant was born in 1794 in Cummington, Massachusetts. Bryant grew up in a Puritan home with his father, Peter Bryant, a prominent doctor. William Cullen Bryant's early education came from his father. In his early life Bryant would spend a great deal of time in the woods surrounding his family's New England home, and read of the extensive personal library his father had. Bryant's first published poem was "The Embargo; or, Sketches of the Times", a satirical work concerning Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807. It was released in a Boston newspaper in 1808. In 1810 Bryant was forced to leave Williams College for lack of money. Instead of a formal education, he started studying law, and began learning an eclectic mix of poetry, such as the works of as Isaac Watts and Henry Kirke White, and verses like William Cowper's "The Task" and Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene".

When and where Bryant wrote "Thanatopsis" is unclear, and Bryant himself could not remember when he wrote the verse. According to Parke Godwin, Bryant's friend, Bryant wrote the poem when he was seventeen years old in mid-1811, just after he had left Williams College. In History of American Literature, two dates are stated for the authoring of "Thanatopsis", 1811 and 1816. Bryant's inspiration for "Thanatopsis" came after reading William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, as well as Robert Blair's "The Grave", Beilby Porteus's "Death" and Kirke White's "Time". After Bryant had left Cummington to begin his law studies, his father discovered a manuscript in Bryant's desk drawer, that contained "Thanatopsis" and a fragment of a poem, which would be published under the title "The Fragment", and later titled "An Inscription upon the Entrance to a Wood". He sent the two poems to the editors at the North American Review, where they were published in September 1817.

Thanatopsis

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
5. And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
10. Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
15. To Nature’s teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—

Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
20. In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
25. And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
30. Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
35. With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
40. Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
45. Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
50. The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
55. Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
60. In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
65. His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
70. In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
75. The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
80. By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Critical reception

Due to the unusual quality of the verse and Bryant's age, Richard Henry Dana, Sr., then associate editor at the Review, initially doubted its authenticity, saying to another editor, "No one, on this side of the Atlantic, is capable of writing such verses."

"Thanatopsis" remains a milestone in American literary history. It was republished in 1821 as the lead poem of Thanatopsis and Other Poems, which was considered by many to be the first major book of American poetry. Nevertheless, over five years, it earned Bryant only $14.92. Poet and literary critic Thomas Holley Chivers, who often accused other writers of stealing poems, said that the only thing Bryant "ever wrote that may be called Poetry is 'Thanatopsis,' which he stole line for line from the Spanish."

Appearances in popular culture

Advertisement for 1922 screening of Bryant's "Thanatopsis" at the Modern and Beacon cinemas, Boston; part of Great American Authors film series

In The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, Clarice Starling reveals to Hannibal Lecter one detail of her father's last days in a hospital: an elderly neighbour reading to him the last lines of "Thanatopsis." In Sinclair Lewis' novel Main Street, the women's study club of Gopher Prairie is the Thanatopsis club.

The experimental band Thanatopsis was named after this poem. The band's first album, Thanatopsis, was also named after this poem. The electronic artist Daedalus named the last song on the album Exquisite Corpse after the poem.

The Avant Garde film-maker Ed Emshwiller's 1962 short film Thanatopsis was inspired by the poem. In the episode "Terminal" of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, a portion of the poem is set to sappy folk music and sung by Dave Willis.

In the 1942 film Grand Central Murder, the private railway car where the showgirl is murdered is named Thanatopsis.

In T.C. Boyle's 1990 novel East Is East, the writer's colony on the fictitious Georgia sea island of Tupelo (near Darien) is called Thanatopsis House. Each of the artists in the colony have their own private studio cabin to work in during the day. Each studio cabin is named after a famous suicide (example: Hart Crane).

The Acacia Fraternity adopted the last stanza as their code.

American progressive rock band Kansas' 2000 studio album Somewhere to Elsewhere features a song called The Coming Dawn (Thanatopsis). The lyrics are a reflection on a life at its end.

Further reading

• Max Cavitch, American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). Includes a chapter on the poem. ISBN 0-8166-4893-X
• Connie Willis, Ado (Asimov's Science Fiction, 1988) A short story about political correctness and religious vigilance run amok on campus mentions this poem.
• Acacia International Fraternity

External links

• Works related to Thanatopsis at Wikisource