Name: __________________________________ Class Period: ____ Date: _____________________

Transcendentalist Poetry Analysis

Christopher McCandless was a strong believer in transcendentalism, a philosophical and social movement that developed in the mid-1800s. Rotate around to 4 of the transcendentalist poems in our gallery walk. Provide both literal and poetic observations, as well as connections to the tenets of transcendentalism, listed below.

Believed in living closer to nature Believed in the dignity of manual labor Saw the need for constant intellectual growth and interests Emphasized the need for minimalist living Proposed an importance on self-reliance Believed in democracy and individualism Insisted on a complete break with tradition and custom

Title of Poem One: _______________________________

What is literally happening in the poem?

List at least two poetic devices/techniques the poet uses, as well as the effect they create.

What tenet(s) of transcendentalism does this poem ascribe to?

Title of Poem Two: _______________________________

What is literally happening in the poem?

List at least two poetic devices/techniques the poet uses, as well as the effect they create. What tenet(s) of transcendentalism does this poem ascribe to?

Title of Poem Three: _______________________________

What is literally happening in the poem?

List at least two poetic devices/techniques the poet uses, as well as the effect they create. What tenet(s) of transcendentalism does this poem ascribe to?

Title of Poem Four: _______________________________

What is literally happening in the poem?

List at least two poetic devices/techniques the poet uses, as well as the effect they create. What tenet(s) of transcendentalism does this poem ascribe to?

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

© Mary Oliver

The Summer Day

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

© Mary Oliver

When Death Comes

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox; when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

© Mary Oliver

I Taught Myself to Live Simply Anna Akhmatova

I taught myself to live simply and wisely, to look at the sky and pray to God, and to wander long before evening to tire my superfluous worries. When the burdocks rustle in the ravine and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops I compose happy verses about life's decay, decay and beauty. I come back. The fluffy cat licks my palm, purrs so sweetly and the fire flares bright on the saw-mill turret by the lake. Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof occasionally breaks the silence. If you knock on my door I may not even hear.

Walt Whitman

WHY! who makes much of a miracle? As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at table at dinner with my mother, Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring; Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers, Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to the opera, Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery, Or behold children at their sports, Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, Or my own eyes and figure in the glass; These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring—yet each distinct, and in its place. To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every foot of the interior swarms with the same; Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them, All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. To me the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships, with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?

Fable Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mountain and the squirrel Had a quarrel, And the former called the latter, "little *prig": **Bun replied, “You are doubtless very big, But all sorts of things and weather Must be taken in together To make up a year, And a sphere. And I think it no disgrace To occupy my place. If I'm not so large as you, You are not so small as I, And not half so spry: I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.” *Prig = Killjoy, snob **Bun = the name of the squirrel