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Showing posts from October, 2009

'The legend of Sleepy Hollow'

'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' is a classic story that most of us have heard of or even read at some point in childhood. Upon reading 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', a piece that was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, readers can expect their imaginations to have had a "work out". While reading this piece, the author describes his subjects so clearly, a reader can visualize graphically the stories foundation and setting. The author also used metaphors throughout his work that aided in the visual descriptions that he provides. The quote below is a piece that contains the authors extensive descriptions along with metaphors to further describe the setting. "The school house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard

Emersons' Nature

Ralph Waldo Emerson is a clever writer forcing his readers to be deep thinkers and readers. When studying Emersons ‘Nature’, the reader is forced to decipher and interpret step by step many of his statements and questions. This leads the reader into a depth that isnt normally met with routine standard textbook or novel reading. His work has great depth and complexity. Emerson does a lot of question asking and list making, similar to Walt Whitmans works. In this quote listed below, is from Emersons' 'Nature' part VI titled 'Idealism'; “ The relations of parts and the end of the whole remaining the same, what is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and worlds revolve and intermingle without number or end, -deep yawning under deep, and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout absolute space, -or whether, without relations of time and space, the same appearances are inscribed in the constant faith of man?” The next quote is from Emersons' 'Nature' par

Walden by Thoreau

'Walden', by Henry Thoreau is narrative depicting two years of Thoreaus' life that he spent in his own captivity. Thoreau purposely withdrew himself from the routine life of the 1840's, and lived in a modest cabin in the woods with the absolute bare minimum to survive. While reading through the numerous chapters, a flood of egotistic presentations were identified. Thoreau was on an arrogant rampage to claim that the rest of society was inept at sustaining their own lives in a satisfactory way. Below is an example of his egotistical depictions. Thoreau was talking about reading and its importance and stated this: "I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men than this our Concord soil has produced, whose names are hardly known here". " It is not all books that are as dull as their readers. There are probably words addressed to our condition exactly, which, if we could really hear and understand.....". The feelings that flow from his words are that o