Who wrote Thanatopsis?

Who wrote Thanatopsis?

• A. John Keats
• B. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• C. William Cullen Bryant
• D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Answer: (C)

Authorship of Thanatopsis is being tested. Thanatopsis is a meditation on death and the cycles of nature, a hallmark of American Romantic poetry, written by William Cullen Bryant. Bryant, an American poet who helped establish the Romantic movement in the United States, published this poem in the early 19th century and it remains one of his best-known works. The other poets listed did not write Thanatopsis: John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are English Romantic poets, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote different American poems. So, William Cullen Bryant is the correct author.

Authorship of Thanatopsis is being tested. Thanatopsis is a meditation on death and the cycles of nature, a hallmark of American Romantic poetry, written by William Cullen Bryant. Bryant, an American poet who helped establish the Romantic movement in the United States, published this poem in the early 19th century and it remains one of his best-known works. The other poets listed did not write Thanatopsis: John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are English Romantic poets, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote different American poems. So, William Cullen Bryant is the correct author.