To A Waterfowl And John Constable's The Hay W

The American Romanticism Era brought about a new way of viewing life and the world around us. America as a whole was now stronger. The economy was booming and the population was growing. People began to explore the world around them and invent now products to make their lives easier. They started to see that everything was not just black and white. The people of this era began to value imagination and individualism over rational thinking. This becomes present when looking at the William Cullen Bryant’s poem “To a Waterfowl” and John Constable’s painting “The Hay Wain.” These works illustrate the characteristics of the Romantic Era by focusing on the celebration of the individual, an interest in the distance, and an awe of nature.

First, Bryant’s poem highlights the celebration of the individual by focusing on one waterfowl and one man. The single bird is sorrowing high above the narrator as he wonders what is to become of this bird. The waterfowl is described as “lone wandering, but not lost” (l. 12). He is traveling

This characteristic is also present in Constable’s painting. In Bryant’s poem, the narrator is thinking about what is to become of the waterfowl. He questions “dost thou pursue thy solitary way?” (l. 3-4). He wonders if the bird, “Seek'st thou the plashy brink of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, or where the rocking billows rise and sink on the chafed ocean-side?” (l. 9-12). The narrator imagines what is to happen as the bird flies away into a place unseen by his own eyes. In Constable’s painting, the forest continues on into the distance out of sight to the viewer. He allows the spectator to figure out for himself what is beyond the forest. One person could imagine a city while another pictures a field of wild daisies. No one knows what exactly what lies beyond the forest, it is all dependent on how the observer sees the