Thenatopsis

On Dictionary.com, The word thanatopsis is defined as "a view or
contemplation of death".

The poem "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant is a poem that is about
death and the circle of life and how death and nature exist together. It is kind
of a weird poem, because it talks about death so much. I think that the poem is
showing you that you should not fear death, because it is natural and it happens
to everyone.

"Their
sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour
come like a blight 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"
(Bryant ).

This passage in the poem makes death seem very dark and scary.
It talks about how people view death as sad and full of agony. "Breathless
darkness" were two words that really stuck out to me in this passage. When I
think of breathless darkness I think of the bottom of the ocean. I do not think
that that is probably the image that the author was trying to get across, but
that is one thing that pops in my mind when I hear that phrase. At the end of
this passage, William Cullen Bryant says that when people think of death, they
"grow sick at heart" This is another phrase that is very strong and shows how
much people really hate death.





"Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,


And, lost each human trace, surrendering up


Thine individual being, shalt thou go

25

To mix forever with the elements;


To be a brother to the insensible rock,


And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain


Turns with his share, and treads upon."This
passage in the poem is a much lighter passage. It talks about how when you die,
you return to the earth. It makes death seem like it is not as bad as a lot of
people believe it to be. I think that by writing this in his
poem,

Benjamin Franklin & Henry Tuckerman

"Sixty-six years have elapsed since the mortal remains
of Benjamin Franklin were placed beneath a tablet in the Friends' Cemetery in
Philadelphia; the granite obelisk which marks the last resting-place of his
parents is a familiar object to all who walk the streets of his native city; but
these graves, thus humbly designated, were, until a few days since, the only
visible monuments of a name as illustrious as it is endeared"
(Tuckerman)

This
is the opening of Henry Tuckerman's literary criticism titled "The Character Of
Franklin". When I read this passage, it makes me think that Henry Tuckerman is
probably a fan of Benjamin Franklin. The part where Henry Tuckerman says that it
has been sixty six years since the "mortal remains" of Benjamin Franklin have
been buried, it makes me think that Tuckerman believes that only the mortal
remains had been put to rest, and his writings and beliefs had all survived.
This means that Tuckerman probably thought that Benjamin Franklin had a lot of
good ideas and beliefs that Tuckerman probably shared with
him.

The
next part of this passage where it says "these graves, thus humbly designated,
were, until a few days since, the only visible monuments of a names as
illustrious as it is endeared." (Tuckerman).

The words that Tuckerman
uses in this passage proves my point even more that he was probably a fan of
Franklin. Two words that popped out to me in this passage were "illustrious" and
"endeared". These words show that Tuckerman was fond of Franklin. According to
dictionary.com, the word "illustrious"means "highly
distinguished; renowned; famous". The word "endeared" means "to make dear,
esteemed, or beloved" Tuckerman shows that he likes and respects Franklin and
his writing when he uses these words.




"For the intangible aims
of the metaphysician, the vagaries of the imaginative, the "airy
bubble—reputation," he exhibited no concern; but the application of truth to the
facts of nature and of life,—the discovery of material laws and their conversion
to human welfare,—the actual influence of morals, economy, politics, and
education upon civil society and individual deportment,—were problems upon which
he never failed to think, read, talk, write, and experiment"
(Tuckerman)




This
passage from Henry Tuckerman's literary criticism is talking about how Franklin
always found himself concerned with morals, economy, politics, and education and
how they effected people. He says that Franklin wrote about these subjects a lot
meaning that he really cared about them. I think that these topics were
important to Benjamin Franklin because he cared about people and society. I
think that he cared about people and society and just being a good person in
general because he created a whole list of thirteen virtues that he thought
would make him a better person. He created these virtues and practiced them and
he perfected the virtues to cover all the aspects of his life. I think that
Franklin created these virtues not just to make himself better but to also
improve society. If more people in his time and even in our current time now
used and practiced these virtues that Franklin created in their daily lives,
society would improve a lot.




Bloom,
Harold, ed. "The Character of Franklin." Benjamin
Franklin, Classic Critical Views. New York:
Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On
File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin=
CCVBF019&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 14, 2011).




Franklin,
Benjamin, and Leonard Woods Labaree. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New
Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.

Two Fireside Poems

The two fireside poems that I read were “The Cross of Snow” by Henry Longfellow Wadsworth, and “The Future Life” by William Cullen Bryant.

“The Cross of Snow” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poem that was about him seeing his wife’s ghost in the night time. In the literary criticism that I read written by Randall Huff, he explains how Longfellow’s wife died and how it relates to the poem, “Her dress caught fire as she was sealing a locket of her daughter's hair (a far more popular keepsake in the 19th century than later), and Longfellow was severely burned as he put out the flames but failed to save her life.” (Huff Par. 2). This proves that the poem was probably about his wife because in line six the poem says, “Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose” (Longfellow line 6). The “martyrdom of fire” refers to the fire that caused his wife to pass away. In the poem, He says that she lived a benedight life which means that she lived a very blessed life. He also says that his wife has not changed since the day that she died which I think means that even though Longfellow’s wife had been dead for eighteen years, he still remembers her how she was when she was alive.

The other poem that I read, “The Future Life”, by William Cullen Bryant is a poem about love and if love still exists after life. I think that this poem is about someone that Bryant loved that had died. I think that Bryant is wondering whether that person still loves him even though she is in heaven and he is still on Earth. In one line of the poem, he asks:

“The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?”

In these lines, the author writes about how him and this person that he loved had been through a lot of bad times together and they made it through it together and still loved each other after it all, but now that she has died, he does not know if she will still love him.

Both of these poems were written during the romanticism time period and exemplify characteristics of romanticism writing. In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Cross of Snow”, there are many characteristics of romanticism writing that I found. One theme of this poem that is common in romanticism writing is love. I found this theme in the poem because he writes about his wife who even though she passed away, she still cared about her husband because she watched over him as he was sleeping. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow also used religion and nature in his poem when he wrote about the cross of snow that he saw on the mountains. Religion and nature are two common subjects written about in many pieces of romanticism writing. In the poem, “The Future Life” by William Cullen Bryant, the characteristics of the romanticism time period are love and religion. These two themes are used a lot in this poem because it is all about Bryant wondering if the person that he loved still loves him even though she is not alive any more. He talks about her being in heaven and wondering if she stopped loving him when her life ended.

Bibliography:

"The Cross of Snow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. 1 Jan. 2004. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. .

"The Future Life by William Cullen Bryant." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. 10 Apr. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.

Huff, Randall. "'The Cross of Snow'." 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= CPAP0091&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 11, 2011).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- "Autumn" Journal

The poem, “Autumn”, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is a short poem that describes Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s views of autumn. I think that he really likes the season autumn because of the way he describes the season. He compares the season to an emperor named Charlemagne.

“Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,

Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand

Outstretched with benedictions o’er the land,

Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!” ( Longfellow 5 – 8 )

He describes Autumn as an emperor standing on a bridge of gold, blessing the farms that are in its domain. I think that he says this because in the autumn, the leaves change colors and turn golden so that could be what Longfellow meant as “a bridge of gold”. Another thing that happens in the autumn that Longfellow referenced in this poem is how all the plants grow and all the crops are harvested. “Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain” means that when autumn comes, the farms are blessed because they are harvested. The line “Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne” describes autumn standing like an emperor. I think that since Longfellow described autumn in this way that it means that he probably really likes autumn.

Fireside poetry #2

The poem that I read today was by the fireside poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem was called “The Children’s Hour”. When analyzing this poem for its literal meaning, this poem sounds really creepy. If you look at it literally, it talks about an hour where children devour you with kisses and tie you up with hugs and then you capture them in a dungeon that is in your heart until your dungeon crumbles. It sounds really weird when you interpret it like that, but when you look at it figuratively, the poem sounds a lot better. The “Children’s Hour” that the poem talks about I am assuming, is when the children are about to go to bed and the narrator of the poem gets interrupted from his work by his children saying goodnight to him. His children are very young and energetic. I know this because in the 6th line the poem says “The patter of little feet” (Longfellow 6) and in lines 17 through 20, it says

“A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

They enter my castle wall!” (Longfellow 17 - 20)

The children enter into the room where the narrator is working very energetically pretending to attack him. They attack him with hugs and kisses. The narrator says that when the children are attacking him, he is reminded of the Bingham of Bishop. The narrator talks about the Bingham of Bishop and his mouse tower. According to the literary criticism that I read which was written by Randall Huff, the poem is referring to a story of a man who collected a bunch of grain until everyone in the town except for him starved. So he collected all the grain and lived by himself until eventually some mice got in his tower and ate all the grain, which is why his tower is called the mouse tower (Huff par. 1). I think that the poem talks about this because the children were a lot smaller than the guy so he felt like they were just little mice crawling on him.

In the literary criticism, Huff says that Longfellow the names Edith, Alice, and Allegra, the names that Longfellow used for the children in the poem, are the names of his own children. I think that this poem shows how Longfellow feels about his children. I think that he really loves his children and that although he probably works very hard, he enjoys the time that he is able to spend with his children. You can tell that he enjoys joking around with his children daughters because he plays along with them when they attack him. He pretends that they are bandits,

“Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!” (Longfellow 29-32)

Longfellow shows that he loves his daughters very much in lines 34 – 40:

“And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!” (Longfellow 34-40)

He threatens to capture them and lock them up, but instead of a scary dungeon he describes “the round tower of my heart”. He says that he will keep them there “forever and a day” meaning that he will always love them.

This poem contains the common romanticism characteristic of youthful innocence. The narrator in this poem starts out as being very serious but towards the end, when the children arrive, he becomes more youthful and innocent when he plays along with them. It also has the theme of love and family which is common in a lot of the fireside poems.

"Children's Hour, The by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. 31 Dec. 2002. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.

Huff, Randall. "'The Children's Hour'." 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. (accessed December 7, 2011).

The Devil And Tom Walker

“The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, is a tale written in the romanticism period. It displays many characteristics of romanticism. In a lot of writings during this time period, nature is a big theme. It was important in this time and you can tell by how much it is displayed in their writing. For example, in “The Devil and Tom Walker”, when Tom first ventures out into the forest, the author uses great detail to describe the appearance of the forest. “The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday… It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black, smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake, where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire.” (Irving 242). I like all the details that authors use in this time period to describe nature, it makes the writing a lot more interesting and better to read.

When comparing “The Devil and Tom Walker” to “Rip Van Winkle”, I found a lot of similarities between the two of Washington Irving’s stories. They are both a type of legend. “The Devil and Tom Walker” is a legend that takes place in Boston, Massachusetts. “Rip Van Winkle” took place in New York. Both of these stories have the theme of the nagging wife. In “The Devil and Tom Walker”, Tom’s wife nags him about taking the devil’s deal because she is very selfish and she wants all the money for herself. The only reason that Tom does not take the Devil’s deal in the first place is because he refuses to listen to his wife. Only after she disappears does he decide to go after the Devil and take the deal. In “Rip Van Winkle”, Rip is described as a “henpecked husband” or one who is constantly nagged by his wife and is very obedient to her. Rip goes into the mountains because he wanted to get away from his wife, and that is how he ended up getting into the situation that he got into. I think that Washington Irving had kind of a messed up view of women since he keeps depicting them as nagging trouble makers.

“The Devil and Tom Walker” and “Rip Van Winkle” showed a writing style of the romanticism period. They both used a lot of detail in describing things and they also had a lot of nature themes in them. I found these tales to be a lot more interesting than any of the other things that we have been reading in this class in a while because they were a lot easier to understand than the poems of the fireside poets and they are also much more entertaining and interesting than the poems and writings of the puritan and rationalism writings.

Matthews, Washington Irving. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Bartleby.com, Apr. 2011. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. .

Cycle of Life and Death

Nature and spirituality play a very large role in the cycle of life and death. If you think about it, pretty much your whole life you live around nature. Nature is everywhere you look. It is there when you are born and it is there when you die. Nature's role in the circle of life is very important. The circle of life is the cycle that everyone goes through of being born, living your life, and then dying. When you are born, it is a natural process. You live your life and all around you there is nature. Man tries to separate from nature a lot in life, but it is not possible to completely separate your self from nature because it is literally everywhere. As soon as you walk out side of your house, you are back in nature. I enjoy spending time outside and in nature so a lot of my life is spent with nature. When you die, you return back to nature. You are buried in the ground and therefore, you return back to nature. In my environmental science class, we are learning about the circle of life and how when an animal dies, it provides food for other animals. When an animal dies in the forest, part of their body can be eaten by other animals or decomposers and the other part of the animal's body goes into the ground to become a part of the soil which provides food for trees and other plants. The trees and plants then provide food for other animals.I think that this is a good example of nature playing its role in the circle of life. I think that humans try very hard to detach themselves from nature all throughout their life, by living in houses with air conditioning and couches and televisions and indoor plumbing instead of outside in nature, but I think that in the end, we all return back to nature when we die and are buried in the ground. I think that nature is always present in the circle of life.

Romanticism

The writing style of the romanticism period is very different from the writing styles of the other periods. The writing style used in the romanticism period and in the writing of the fireside poets is very detailed. They use a lot of colorful words that add a lot to their writing. When you read these poems you have to read them a lot slower than you would read the writing of the puritan time period or of the rationalism writing. You have to think about what you are reading a lot more and you have to really analyze everything. A lot of the poetry could be analyzed differently by different people and mean different things to everyone. There were five different fireside poets. They are called fireside poets because families would sit around a fire and recite their poems. These poets told stories with their poetry and used very descriptive language to describe the New England countryside in their poetry.

One poem that I found by the fireside poet James Russell Lowell is called "The Captive". It was kind of hard for me to understand the poem and what was happening in it because it used a lot of words that I am not familiar with. The writing style of this poem was completely different than that of the rational time periods. When you compare the two, the fireside poetry of the romanticism time period uses a lot more descriptive words than the writings that we read from the rational time period. In the rational time period, a lot of thought and logic and science were used and reflected into their writings, in the poetry from the romanticism period, they did not talk about science and logic, they talked more about nature and religion. Nature was mentioned in the poem that I read more than anything. James Russell Lowell talked about and described nature a lot in his poem, "The Captive". For example, in one part of his poem, he uses an entire verse to describe how the moon was glowing on the woods and the hilltop. He uses so much descriptions that it takes up a whole verse.

"Then the great moon on a suddenOminous, and red as blood, Startling as a new creation, O'er the eastern hilltop stood, Casting deep and deeper shadows Through the mystery of the wood."

You can tell that they valued nature during the romanticism period because they talk about it a lot in their poetry. In the writings that we read from the Puritan time, you can tell that unlike the logical writings style of the rational time period and the importance of nature in the romanticism time period, they valued religion a lot. Everything that happened to them, they would bring it back to God and say how he had something to do with it. For example, in Anne Bradstreet's poem "Upon the Burning of Our House", her house burns down and she relates it back to God. She could have complained and mourned the loss of all of her earthly belongings and her home, but she does not. Instead, she says that it is not important because the things she lost were all just earthly things that did not really matter. She said that they were not her own things, but God's so it was fair that God took them away from her.

"And when I could no longer look,
I blest His name that gave and took,
That laid my goods now in the dust.
Yea, so it was and so 'twas just.
It was His own, it was not mine,
Far be it that I should repine"

This poem is a very religious poem, which is very different from the writing of the romanticism style and the fireside poets.

"James Russell Lowell's Poem: The Captive." Read Book Online: Literature Books,novels,short Stories,fiction,non-fiction, Poems,essays,plays,Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize. 2011. Web. 02 Dec. 2011. .

Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Co, 2009. 91. Print.

Benjamin Franklin's Apprentice

I think that being Benjamin Franklin's apprentice would be a very interesting job. Benjamin Franklin was obviously very smart and he came up with a lot of good ideas, and so I think that it would be pretty cool to be his apprentice. I would probably wake up early in the morning, because I would not want to waste any time. Then, I would shower and clean my room, because cleanliness was very important to Mr. Franklin. After that I would eat breakfast with Mr. Franklin and discuss sciency, rational type things. We would not eat too much food or more than we need because we would want to be practicing his first virtue, temperance, meaning we would not want to eat ourselves to dullness. While we are having our morning conversation over breakfast, we would have to be careful not to speak trifling conversation, because according to his second virtue, silence, we would not want to speak of anything that would not benefit ourselves or others. During breakfast, if one of us were to spill our drink, or drop a utensil on the floor or something, we would not freak out or get upset because as Franklin said in his eleventh virtue, tranquility, we would not want to become upset or disturbed at trifles or accidents common and unavoidable. We would be careful while we are eating that we do not waste any food because Franklin was all about frugality and not wasting anything as his fifth virtue would suggest. For the rest of the day we would do whatever experiment or activity that Franklin wanted to do. It would probably include a lot of logical and rational things but I am sure that it would all be very interesting. I think Franklin would be a really cool guy to work with because his virtues make him a good person in my opinion. He seems like a pretty chill guy who does not sweat the small stuff and I would enjoy being his apprentice.

Overcoming The Challenge of Long Distance

It is going to be very difficult to finish the Franklin's Virtues project with people who are not in the same area as us because it is going to be very difficult to communicate with these people. For example, it is already a challenge for me to talk to my partners just to see what part of the project each person wants to do. I have 6 people in my group. Out of the six people who are in my group, one of them gave an email address that is not valid, and out of the five others, only one emailed me back. The emails that I have received have also not been very helpful. The project is due tomorrow and none of my group members seem too concerned that we have not even started on the video. I do not want to end up doing this whole project by myself, because that is not the point of the project and also because that would be a lot of work for me to do all by myself and that is unfair to me. If my group members do not step up, I really do not know what I am going to do. So, so far the biggest challenge of this project and having partners who are a long distance away from here is being able to communicate with my partners not only their assignments and what each person needs to do in order to complete this project, but also being able to communicate to my partners that this project is important and that we need to get started on it. I am going to email my partners tonight and hope that they all realize that we really need to get to working on this project. I knew from the beginning when this project was first assigned that working with long distance partners was going to be a new and interesting challenge, but I had no idea of how frustrating and annoying it would actually end up being. I don't blame my partners that they really are not doing anything because I know that they do not have computers in their everyday classroom so that makes it a bit more difficult for them to do, but on the other hand, I know that most people have access to the internet either at home on a computer or even on their cell phones and I do not think that it is that big of a deal to just email me back and give me some ideas instead of making me come up with the whole project by myself.

Journal- A Time When I Bonded With Nature

Once upon a time I was in Florida with my friends. It was a beautiful day on the Panama City Beach. I decided to spend that day bonding with nature. I woke up early that morning with my friend Mackenzie and we went for a morning jog on the beach. It was around 6 am and we were both very tired. We almost decided to give up on our idea of a morning jog on the beach, but we overcame our tiredness and got out of bed. When we went outside, it was a beautiful morning. The sun was rising and the temperature on the beach was perfect. The beach was very empty when we got there. Usually the beach would be very crowded, but at 6 in the morning, it was just us and the beach. Our morning run turned into more of a morning walk on the beach. We walked into the ocean just a little bit. We picked up some interesting shells that we found and continued to walk along the beach. The sun was barely rising and it was very beautiful. After our morning walk, we went to breakfast. By this time, everybody was awake and either eating breakfast or out on the beach. It was weird to think that just a couple hours earlier, Mackenzie and I were the only people on the beach. Later that day, I continued my bonding with nature. I spent most of the day on the beach and it was a very good day. I spent a lot of time swimming in the ocean with all my friends and laying on the beach. I enjoyed spending time with nature. It turned out to be a really good day and maybe even one of my favorite days of the trip.

Communicating with Partners

It is going to be very difficult for us to communicate with our partners for our Franklin's virtues project. It will be easy for us to communicate with some of them, the ones that are from Plains, but it is going to be a challenge for us to communicate with the partners that are in Farmington. I think that emailing and texting and facebook would all be good ways of communicating with people from Farmington. When I did the flat classroom project last year in speech, I had a hard time communicating with the other people involved in the project. It was difficult because in the group projects that we are all used to, we are used to sitting with our partners and talking about the project. We are used to being able to discuss the problems involved with the project face to face with our partners. In the flat classroom project, it was more difficult to communicate with our partners because they were far away. The only ways for us to communicate was online. I think since I have experience with this challenge of long distance communication, that it will make it easier for me to do this project. I will be mainly communicating with my partners via email, and facebook. These will be the easiest ways to communicate with them because these are things that I will be using daily. I look at my email almost every day, and all of my partners have email, so that will be the main way of communicating with them. Another way of communicating with my partners would be facebook. This is not my first choice of communicating with them because first of all, they might not all have a facebook, also, facebook is blocked on a lot of the computers at school. Facebook would be a good way of communicating with my partners outside of school, however, because my partners are probably more likely to check their facebook after school than their email.

Propaganda in the Declaration of Independance

The Declaration of Independence is a document that is extremely important to the history of The United States of America. It is the document that was written to declare our freedom, or independence, from England. The colonists from England who came to the United States were annoyed with all the taxes and laws from the king that they were forced to follow. They thought that it was outrageous that they were being forced to follow these laws when they lived so far away from England and they were basically their own established country. This is when they decided to write the Declaration of Independence. Five people came up with the Declaration of Independence, but Thomas Jefferson was the one that was chosen to write it all out. Although the Declaration of Independence poses a very strong argument against England, there are some problems with it's argument. The Declaration of Independence uses a lot of propaganda. One type of propaganda that the Declaration of Independence contains is name calling. Name calling is used when the author is trying to avoid supporting their opinion with actual facts. In The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson uses a lot of name calling against the King of England. "The history of the present Kind of Great Britian is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states." (Jefferson 122). In this passage, Jefferson is accusing the king of repeatedly making mistakes and messing up and not being a good leader. He uses the word "usurpation" meaning that he does not think that the king deserves or is qualified to be the king. By using this kind of propaganda, Jefferson kind of puts holes in his argument. Jefferson uses this name calling technique many times throughout the Declaration of Independence. He continuously tries to make the king look bad. "He had abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation" (Jefferson 124). Here, Jefferson is accusing the king of doing a lot of very bad things to the people of America. He says that the king is destroying their lives and ruining their homes and towns and now he is waging a war with them. He wants to convince the people of his country to go against the king and be independent of Britain. He uses the technique of name calling to make the people think that the king is bad. This technique may help him a bit, but it could also be a bad strategy for Jefferson because it could make his argument faulty.

Bibliography

Jefferson, Thomas. The Declaration of Independence. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 120-124. Print.

Dspsweb@cuesta.edu. "Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking--Academic Support." Print.

Speech to the Second Virginia Convention Reflection

In Speech to The Second Virginia Convention, the writing style is very different than the writing styles of those stories that we have been reading in this class. The writings that we have been reading have all been Puritan style writings. In Speech to The Second Virginia Convention, the writing style is different. The Puritan writings that we have been used to reading have been focused on God and religion. They have been more about staying true to your religion inside and also outside of the church. The writings that we have been reading have shown the characters or authors blaming everything, good or bad, on God. Everything that happens to them in their life, they think has to do with God. They show their religious beliefs all through their writing and they show how they relate everything to God. Speech to The Second Virginia, However, is different. It is less focused on religion and more focused on the logical side of things. Instead of automatically blaming everything on God or their religion, they think about it more and come up with a more logical approach. This style of writing is called rationalism. Rationalism is defined in the Merrium Webster dictionary as "A theory that reason is in itself a source of knowledge superior to and independent of sense perceptions. It means that they use reason to solve a problem or when thinking about things in general. One passage from Speech to The Second Virginia that I believe to be a very good example of rationalism is, "The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field; Why do we stand here idle?" (Henry 118). This passage shows Henry's rational way of thinking because you can tell that he has thought it through a lot and that he is using logical thinking to come to the conclusion that they should go to war as soon as they can because it will benefit them in the end. This passage is basically saying that Henry knows that their enemies are going to begin a war with them and if they do not do something, they will be caught by surprise so it will be more beneficial to them if they started the war and caught their enemies by surprise. This is a rational way of thinking because Henry uses logic in saying that it will help them to start a war rather than to wait for their enemies to start a war against them.
He knows that either way, the enemies are going to try to start a war with them and he thinks that it would be a better idea to be prepared instead of just waiting around for it to happen. There are many examples of rational thinking in Speech To The Second Virginia Convention, which is what makes me believe that this story is a very good example of the rational writing style of that time.

Bibliography

Henry, Patrick. "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention." Glencoe Literature. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. 114-119. Print.