Romanticism: Entrance To A Wood Essay, Research Paper

Essay-Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood

Romanticism is a revolt against rationalism. The poets and authors of this time wrote about God, religion, and Beauty in nature. The romantics held a conviction that imagination and emotion are superior to reason. One such author is William Cullen Bryant, he wrote the poem Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood. This poem uses many literary devices, and has a strong message to portray to the reader.

The poem Inscription for the Entrance to a Woods is to show how nature is the answer. Nature will help solve your problems. An example of this is at the end of the poem when it says how the cool wind shall come to thee and give its light embrace. Bryant calls out to “stranger”, meaning everybody. In addition, telling us that the world is a miserable place filled with crimes, and by looking to nature; the woods, you can escape the realities. In this poem, there is a conflict. It is between man and himself. The thing that can solve the conflict is the woods. The woods are the answer to his problems.

This poem is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It is blank verse. Although it doesn’t rhyme, each line relates to the one before it. The tone of the poet changes throughout he poem. At first it is sad. Bryant uses words such as guilt, misery, sorrow, and crimes to explain the world. Than when he begins explaining how the woods are the answer to your problems, the tone becomes happy. In the middle of the poem, Bryant talks about birds singing, breezes, and happy, soft, nice things that can happen if one uses the woods as a playground, and finds comfort in them.

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood, uses many literary devices. The most common used throughout is imagery. Using guilt and sorrows to describe the world draws you a picture of what the author feels like. There is also a simile, where it compares the “cool wind” to “one that loves thee nor will let thee pass unrejected.” The metaphor in the poem is using the “pale tormenter” to describe misery. One of the other literary devices the poet uses is literary allusion. It discusses the “Primal Curse,” referring back to the first sin, The sin of Adam and Eve when they ate the apple in the Garden of Eden. It contrasts it with the “Unsinning Earth,” meaning that us, humans are sinful and guilty, but the earth; nature, is clean and “Unsinning.”

In closing, the poem Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood, by William Cullen Bryant, is a great example of American Romanticism. It uses many literary devices. This poem portrays the beauty of nature, and its healing powers to man. This is a topic widely used with the romantic poets. It is very important to pay close attention to the tone, format, conflict and literary devices used, so the reader can have a better understanding of the poem, an enjoy it.