Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:
- Textbook: Chapter 7, 8
- Lesson
- Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook – for historical/political influences)
Initial Post Instructions
Choose one of the literary movements that you read about this week and at least one work from that movement. Movements, authors, and famous works are discussed in the lesson as well. You do not have to choose authors or works discussed in the lesson, but you may. For your initial post, address one of the following:
Option 1: Examine the movement and specific work in relation to historical and political influences of the movement. Include a one paragraph summary of the plot before moving on to the examination of the work in relation to the movement.
Option 2: Examine a specific artwork influenced by a literary work and how the artist captured the subject or story. Here are a few examples, but you are not restricted to this list:
- Asher B. Durand’s Thanatopsis (influenced by William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis”)
- John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott (influenced by Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”)
- Sir John Everett Millais’s Ophelia (influenced by Shakespeare’s Ophelia from Hamlet)
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne or The Rape of Prosperina (influenced by ancient myths)
- Ancient Greek vase painting (influenced by various ancient myths)
ANSWER
For this week, I will be working with Option 2. Among the given items, I was most intrigued by Asher B. Durand’s Thanatopsis. The 1 00.3 x 154.9 cm oil on canvas painting was inspired by a poem by William Cullen Bryant, which was also called Thanatopsis. If one does not know the Greek meaning of the title of the poem, it is very simple to mistake the painting for yet another landscape painting. On the contrary, it has a more profound meaning. The word Thanatopsis is a Greek word that is translated to mean ‘contemplation of death’ (Beebe, 2018). In the poem, Bryant contemplated the connection… To access full answer, click the purchase button below.