One of the most prominent poets from the Romanticism era, William Cullen Bryant is responsible for translating the messages of English Romanticism into something new and American. He gave Romantic poems a new voice. This is clearly evident in one of his many works, "Thanatopsis." This poem illustrates many Romantic qualities: it shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature, it contemplates nature's beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development, and it finds beauty and truth within exotic locales.
             In "Thanatopsis," Bryant is looking to nature for a lesson about life and death. He tells the reader "When thoughts/Of the last bitter hour come like a blight... Go forth, under the open sky, and list/To Nature's teachings..." He believes nature will help guide its listener to an understanding of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Bryant is thus telling the reader to shun civilization and pay attention to the teachings of nature.
             While Bryant wants the reader to listen to nature's teachings, he also wants him to contemplate nature's beauty. By contemplating his surroundings, the reader is able to develop both spiritually and morally. The reader is able to see that everything returns from whence it came, and that he must live his life to its fullest so he does not have any regrets when he dies. Bryant offers comfort to the reader in that he is not dying alone ("Thou shalt lie down with... Kings... the wise, the good...") and that everyone is going to die eventually. The reader is able to learn this fact by contemplating nature's beauty. The reader is able to gain a better understanding of life and death.
             So, by listening to nature's teachings and contemplating them, the reader quite obviously is able to gain important spiritual and moral truths. The reader learns these truths from unspoiled nature, in an exotic location: under the open sky, in the beauty of nature. Thus, by using his surroundings, the r
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