Anthology

Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne give an insightful coverage of the myths of the American society. They gave ideas which traced the development of the Americans right from the time of its occupation until after independence. Most of their claims were inspired by the puritans of the New England who had segregated the society into the liberated and the sinful.

Hawthorne writes about how the life of the Americans was controlled by the Dark Romanticism. He reports that this belief held that evil, sin and guilt are the most inherent natural traits of man.  All these authors focused on morality and liberation as the major theme of their works. They write about the struggles of the Americans to liberate themselves from the oppressive colonial masters who had subjected them to lots of miseries. However, they strongly condemn oppression because, in their point of view, everyone should be treated equally.

The Puritan beliefs should not have been used in America. It would sub divide people into different social classes. In their opinion, this would be so unfair because it would propagate oppression. As they report, it is this belief that made the European colonialists regards the Native Americans as second class citizens. Hence, they were denied an opportunity to access quality education and other privileges. Unlike the Europeans, they could not participate in any electoral process either as voters or contestants.

Surprisingly, this segregation took another turn after independence when The Native Americans turned against the immigrant groups from Africa, Mexico and other parts of the world. They were denied basic rights and could not freely speak, move and socialize. This is a great job. I agree with Edgar Poe for commending them for doing such a great work. Actually, they deserved this complement. Their contribution in the reconstruction of American history is worth praising.

Surely, Phillis Wheatley, Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allan Poe are legendary poets. They made an imminent contribution in the development of literature. The brilliant ideas they had were quite exceptional. They gave out clear information that would critically address the prevailing life conditions then.

Despite all this success, I would like to say that the ideologies of these three poets can not appeal to the contemporary society. This is because their ideas were based on the classical superstitious beliefs that characterized life in the past centuries. Even if they were praised for producing pieces on mysteries, classism, hierophantic solar worship amongst others, their ideas do not represent modern culture because they put a lot of focus on the aspects of life of the past.

At the same time, the literary styled adopted by these poets made their works be more interesting to their readers. However, this can not apply today because of the changing scenarios. While contemporary poets dwell on stylistic devices like alliteration, repetition and assonance, these classical authors emphasized on the use of paradoxes, satires and hoaxes. Theses aspects have now made their work to be obsolete in the eyes of the present readers. They were intertwined in the Ancient Romanticism and transcendentalism genres.

Life has changed today. Therefore, when writing any poem or any other literary work, it is recommended that they must reflect the society. After all, Literature is a mirror of the society that must be used to address all the issues of concern. Even if people have diverse needs, it can be appealing if poets focus on topics such as abortion, gender equity, democracy, terrorism and hunger. If this is done, readers will be challenged to think out of the box and take the necessary steps to change their surrounding.