Thanatopsis

An analysis of this poem must begin with its title. “Thanatopsis” is a Greek word meaning “a view of death.” The poem is therefore a philosophical meditation on the nature of death and mortality. By referencing Ancient Greek tradition, the title is implying that the poem will take a rationalist view of death—which is in keeping with Bryant’s connection to Deism, an 18th century version of Christianity that emphasized finding the divine in reason and nature.

The poem opens with a celebration of nature and all that it can do for humans in times of gladness and despair. Nature is described as particularly attuned to people—knowing when to reflect their happiness back to them, and when to distract them from their sadness. The poem personifies nature (or, gives human qualities to an inanimate idea) as a female being that embodies the ideal 19th century woman: pliant, decorative, supportive, and asking nothing in return for her emotional labor:

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides  

Into his darker musings, with a mild  

And healing sympathy (Lines 4-7)

The poem then shifts to apostrophe, the literary device of directly addressing the reader. The poem’s speaker uses this technique to more intimately share the poem’s message about death. At this time, the speaker personifies nature differently—as a great teacher, establishing it as a dominant force who can instruct the reader on how to deal with doubts or fears. Nature explains to those who listen to think of her as a maternal figure, who was there during your birth and will again be there after your death: “Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim / Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again” (Lines 23-24). In other words, the ground that feeds us will hold our bodies when we die. When you are inevitably faced with “surrendering up / Thine individual being” (Lines 25-26), you will become one with the earth “To mix for ever with the elements” (Line 27). Nature reveals that after death, we will rejoin the fundamental building blocks of life rather than existing as a solitary being. So little will the even the basic biological distinctions matter, that your dead body will easily be “a brother to the insensible rock / And to the sluggish clod” of dirt (Lines 28-29).

The poem then offers solace to the reader, who should find comfort in the fact that although death seems like an individual tragedy, in reality, it is the beginning of a communal existence: “not to thine eternal resting-place / Shalt thou retire alone” (Lines 32-33). Rather, on the luxurious bed of death, you will join all who have come and gone before you. Here, the poem once again picks up the theme that death offers a respite from categorization. While in life, socio-economic status, national identity, station in life, and other human division matter a great deal, death is the great equalizer: Once you die, you will keep company “With patriarchs […] with kings, / The powerful of the earth” (Lines 35-36). Knowing that death is thus a unifying force that brings solidarity should make those who fear it feel better.

Returning to the theme of nature as something that exists specifically to tend to human needs, the speaker points out that because everyone who is dead ends up in the ground, however poor your actual grave, after death, the whole planet will keep all of humankind “in one mighty sepulchre” (Line 38), or lavish burial monument. This means that all that exists in nature—woods, rivers, meadows, and oceans—“Are but the solemn decorations all / Of the great tomb of man” (Lines 45-46). The heavenly bodies that reign in the sky also shine “on the sad abodes of death” (Line 48). Everything that isn’t human is ultimately there to buttress the idea that humans are the most important creatures on the planet—even in death, when they cannot perceive the adornments around them, all of nature will still only exist as a testament to how supreme people are.

To justify this way of seeing nature, the poem considers how deceptive the seeming emptiness of wild space is: you can be so far from civilization that you “lose thyself in the continuous woods / Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound” (Lines 53-54) of other people, what you don’t realize in that moment is that actually even this uninhabited space is already full—“the dead are there” (Line 55) since all who currently walk the earth “are but a handful to the tribes / That slumber in its bosom” (Lines 50-51). However, there is a problem with this categorization of American land into either populated areas or uninhabited wilderness—this vision leaves out the many Native people who live in the forests that Bryant describes as wild, empty places. As is clear from his assumption that land not settled by Europeans contains “no sound,” the poem, which often uses superficially inclusive language, still very much centers white, Christian, and European experience.

The speaker then returns to his repeated theme that “All that breathe / Will share thy destiny” (Lines 61-62)—a shared fate that should be a comfort because it unites us all. Based on this view of mortality, the poem recommends that its addressee live fully—this way, when you are summoned to “the silent halls of death” (Line 77), you will go “sustained and soothed / By an unfaltering trust” (Lines 79-80) that you have made the most of your time in the world and are ready to face the next step of existence. Approaching the grave this way will feel wrapping yourself in a blanket to lie “down to pleasant dreams” (Lines 81-82). In other words, if you adopt the speaker’s suggested attitude towards mortality, you will be able to calmly euphemize death—a technique of talking around an obscene or otherwise upsetting subject by using polite, obfuscating language. In this case, rather than fixating on “the silent halls of death”—a nightmarish image—you will ready yourself for “pleasant dreams.”