Journal #7 William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” (p.151) and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (p.181)

Read the selections and write a detailed response to the following:

1. Compare/contrast the different views of nature that are being presented in the poems. Refer to the list of classical and romantic characteristics and provide specific examples from the poems to support your analysis.


William Cullen Bryant’s “To a Waterfowl” poem portrays the view of nature in ways that mostly reflect the views and thoughts of the writers of the Neo-Classical era. Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Raven”, portrays the view of nature while reflecting the thoughts and writings of other Romanticism writers. “To a Waterfowl” portrays more transcendentalism than the Raven. The waterfowl is intuitive and majestic. The raven is irrational, evil, and weird.

The tone of “To a Waterfowl is calm and serene. Characteristics of Neo-Classical writing include harmony, balance, and order. These describe the style of the poem. The poem reflects the typical state of nature. Nature is sometimes unpredictable and unbalanced, but when nature is viewed in the Classical way, it is viewed as the Garden of Eden. Lines 2 and 3 of the poem state “while glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue”. The lines demonstrate the neo-classical era writing style. The author portrays the setting as a sunset which is classical, beautiful nature. The world is in perfect balance when the sun sets.

The tone of “The Raven” and its setting is opposite of the tone and setting of “To A Waterfowl”. The Raven is dark, horrid, and gloomy compared to the peacefulness and serenity of the waterfowl. The Romantic style of writing is emotional, imaginative, and irrational. Every aspect of the raven seems to be irrational, such as when the raven flies into the home of the narrator and perches itself on the ledge and the speaker begins to talk to the bird. The repetitiveness of the words “nevermore” shows home gloomy and irrational this poem and story is. The tone of the poem is dull, bleak, and overall scary. The very first line, “once upon a midnight dreary…”, sets the tone perfectly because the rest of the poem connotes death and dreadfulness. The setting of the poem is in the speaker’s house, not outside enjoying nature like “To A Waterfowl”.

Despite the many differences between the two poems such as the gloomy, ghastly view of life and nature in “The Raven” compared to the happy, peaceful view of life and nature in “To A Waterfowl”, there are some similarities. In both poems, the message is the same. The speakers are searching for meaning. They are hoping to be guided. They are searching for guidance that will be them a better idea of what life and nature are truly about. Both birds are symbolic and have specific meanings. The speakers yearn to take the birds’ messages into consideration and apply them to their life. Overall, these poem display different views on nature and a different style of writing, but they ultimately share the same message.