Henry Wadsworth Longfellow incorporates religious themes into his poetical work. His religious beliefs were in favor of his Christian faith, unlike others who found all the negative aspects of Catholicism. His poetical works such as "Christus", "The Divine Tragedy" and "The Bells of San Blas" show his positivity toward the Catholic church. In Longfellow 's life, he went through periods of depression as a reaction to his wives ' deaths. During these times of sorrow, Longfellow turned to his faith which helped him move through the mourning process. In Longfellow 's pre-poet days, he served as a priest and went to college attending a religious class. Longfellow took his religion seriously, and expressed his fealty through his work. …show more content…
Stanza two in "God 's-Acre" insinuates how sacred the name "God 's Acre" is and how the deceased are comfortable in their graves knowing that they are going toward heaven. In "Blind Bartimeus", Longfellow inserts religion throughout the whole poem. For example line four " 'It is Christ of Nazareth! '" exclaims the coming of Christ. This poem tells the tale of Christ curing the blind. Longfellow shows his faith through this poem telling about a common bible story. Longfellow 's recoil from several aspects of the contemporary religious scheme cause him to lose much of his professional hope for the future.
Another work of Longfellow that included his faith was entitled "The Divine Tragedy". A character in "The Divine Tragedy" named Martha says, "Lord, dost thou care not that my sister Mary hath left me thus to wait on thee alone? I pray thee, bid her help me." Longfellow shows Jesus 's superiority through this character. Jesus always helped people in need, and throughout the epic, Longfellow uses characters to ask for help from Christ in order to show his divine trait and the helper of all in need. This play was composed in three acts and was based on the biblical account of Christ 's life. Longfellow intended to be a treatment of Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism is the religion of Jewish people who practice based on the Old Testament and the Talmud, and Hellenism is the principle and ideals associated with classical Greek civilization. The plot of this
` Vonnegut often compares science and religion in Cat's Cradle. He characterizes science as a form of discovering truth, and he characterizes religion as a form of creating lies. Despite this negative depiction of religion, the characters none the less follow them. Vonnegut's criticisms are for science and its goal of discovering truth. Vonnegut attacks the idea that truth is innately desirable and good.
An ardent Catholic as she was, Flannery O’Connor astonishes and puzzles the readers of her most frequently compiled work, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. It is the violence, carnage, injustice and dark nooks of Christian beliefs of the characters that they consider so interesting yet shocking at the same time. The story abounds in Christian motifs, both easy and complicated to decipher. We do not find it conclusive that the world is governed by inevitable predestination or evil incorporated, though. A deeper meaning needs to be discovered in the text. The most astonishing passages in the story are those when the Grandmother is left face to face with the Misfit and they both discuss serious religious matters. But at the same time it is the
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the leaders believe that God is obsolete. Morality does not come from religion in the novel it comes from brainwashing. The leaders do not visualize religion as a necessity in a world where science is the basis of everything. If a society has no evident religion, somehow someone will find a form of religion or a Christ figure to praise and believe in. Real societies cannot survive without religion or science. Regardless of what the leaders in Brave New World promote, there is room for both science and religion in society; it’s a necessity.
As days went by in the concentration camp, many begin to lose their faith in religion just like Elie. The book, Night is written by Elie Wiesel, a winner of the Nobel Peace prize. In the book Night, Elie is the main character who is very religious at first. It begins with his family and him traveling to Auschwitz which his little sister and mother die. With only his father and him, they went through many hardships and moving from camp to camp. Unfortunately, Elie father did not survive the Holocaust but Elie did. By the end of the story, Elie did entirely lose his faith in God because he did not celebrate the important holidays, questioned God and his justice, and tries to forget his existence.
Religion is an attempt for solace with the things unknown; a way for humans to explain the metaphysical world in a way that is simple to comprehend. It gives people a sense of purpose, a sense of hope. This new found hope and purpose creates a concept of fate, that people were born on this Earth to do a specific task or undergo a specific set of events. Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses religion to create this sense of fate within his novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Marquez uses religious images created by allusions to the bible, the foreshadowing of Santiago’s death, and symbols to emphasize the role of fate.
Who among us has not been shaped to some degree by our life experiences and religious or moral beliefs? The main character in the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neal Hurston is no exception to this rule, and Hurston demonstrates this very effectively throughout the story with the use of symbolism. The deeply religious, hard-working Delia seems cursed with the burden of a lazy and morally bankrupt husband, however she is able to persevere through the trials of her everyday life because of the strong influence of religion on her life. Hurston shows that Delia is shaped and grows stronger due to her religious beliefs time and time again throughout the story; not only through the biblical references made throughout, such as referring to
Religion is sold to the masses daily. In 1925 it was sold to the masses in the form of printed material by Bruce Barton. In 1960 it was sold to the masses by way of a film entitled Elmer Gantry. Bruce Barton sold a different idea of Jesus than most people were familiar with. In the film, Elmer Gantry sold religion with bravado and arrogance which was not the typical way of selling religion either. In each work, religion is being sold but Elmer is a more exciting and relatable character than Bruce Barton’s Jesus. Elmer Gantry sold religion in a similar way to Barton’s Jesus but did so in a more relatable manner.
Both Gerald Manley Hopkins and William Blake explore the conflicts between one’s opinions and the faith which they devoutly believe. The poems The Garden of Love and Hopkins’ Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord each show the persona doubting the philosophical qualms of life surrounding Catholicism and whether spending “life upon thy cause,” is meaningful. As a child, Blake read the Bible to enhance his reading skills, however developed views correlating to the Swedenborgian church which holds the Catholic church’s views without the institutionalised feeling which Blake despised of in Catholicism. The Garden of Love intertwines his beliefs into the poetry, as depicted with the strong imagery between the vibrant childhood memory of the surroundings in comparison to the older man’s views. However,
Early American literature is filled with an obvious expression of religion and its redeeming power as well as an acknowledgment of its strength to help human beings bear adversity and triumph in difficult situations. The power of religion, as expressed in early American literature deals more with a sense of
Church and Religion in the Songs of Innocence and Experience Throughout “Innocence” and “Experience,” many poems incorporate religious views and imagery. Blake presents many contradicting views on the Church and religion, the contrast being particularly clear between “Innocence” and “Experience.” Within the “Songs of Innocence” a child-like portrayal of Church and religion is portrayed.
Religious Barriers In Allen Ginsberg’s poem, HOWL, he shows his true feelings throughout the poem. With an obvious love and hate relationship to the idea the “institutions” of the world we live in. But what led to his expression of the institutions? Hatred, aggression, compassion, and empathy are all notable themes displayed throughout the poem as well.
The modernist sentiments throughout Long Days Journey into Night, by Eugene O'Neill, are apparent in many different ways. Among the methods he used was the portrayal of America's withdrawal from traditional religion and modes of behavior. He used his immigrant Irish family, the Tyrones, as a pedestal for this idea by highlighting their departure from traditional Irish beliefs and their struggle to form new, uniquely American, ones. O'Neill did this by repeatedly evoking a drastic difference between his character's conduct and their Irish Catholic counterparts. He replaced the
The role of religion played a major role in early American literature. Many different authors form a variety of time period's incorporate religious ideas and philosophies into their writings. A few authors from different time periods that did this were Johnathan Edwards, Anne Bradstreet, and Henry David Thoreau.
To understand what is being said in such poems as "THE GARDEN OF LOVE" and "The Little Vagabond" one must consider the poet's religious, or shall I say spiritual, position. William Blake considered himself to be a monistic Gnostic. That is, he believed what saved a person's soul was not faith but knowledge. Faith, he felt, was a term that was abused by those who thought spending every Sunday in a church would grant them eternal salvation regardless of what actions they exhibited outside the walls of the church. Church ceremonies were also dry, emotionless and meaningless, according to Blake. Church was evil, as Blake would have put it.
By repeating “O” throughout the elegy, it creates a sense of rhythm throughout the free verse without creating a constant structure. The repetition of “O” emphasizes the importance of the word, and enacts Whitman’s misery on death. The sound “O” also resembles the sound of wails from grief, correlating to Whitman’s first notion of death, questioning his relationship with it. Because it is a pastoral elegy, Whitman incorporates a thematic imagery of death to address his own grief. One important element he uses is the image of the coffin. It is decorated with “Blossoms and branches green” (Whitman 47), which