Research Paper on:
William Cullen Bryant's 'The Prairies' and 'To a Waterfowl'

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
poems Bryant produced during his life were few and far between. However, like the pure artist, the poems that he did produce told of many things; despair, love and triumph.  And, like the work of many artists, the poems that Bryant produced reflected his own life and commentary on his own existence.  The purpose of paper is to compare and contrast nature in William Cullen Bryants two poems, "To a Waterfowl" and "The Prairies." Although both poems are, in appearance, quite different  in terms of form and subject matter, both share with the reader the narrators comparisons of his own loneliness with that of natures. By using nature as a metaphor, Bryant  was able to get across the idea to the reader that his own life was, in many ways, devoid of the meaning and goals that he had for it. Bryant  background In order to better understand Bryants love for nature and his own frustration with the hand that fate dealt him, its  helpful to understand his background. Born to a physician who attempted to push his son toward law as a profession, Bryant published his first poem when he was 10 years  old and his first book at age 13 (Yarborough). In short, he was a prodigy who might have been destined for greater things, had he been born to the right  family, in short, a more artistic family (although to all intents and purposes, Bryants father did help his son become published). Although  Bryant did begin his career practicing law, he eventually became assistant editor to the New York Evening Post, although his prose there was more journalistic rather than poetic (Yarborough). Still,