During the Romantic period writers shared common themes which they used in their stories and poems. They all generally believed in moral enthusiasm, the value of individuality, intuitive perception, and the idea that society corrupts and nature is good. .
Many of the poems written during the Romantic period showed how nature is good and is in control. In William Cullen Bryant's poem, "To a Waterfowl," he illustrated how life's path is nature's path and some higher "Power" is the power of the human itself. He mentioned this in the poem when he wrote "There is a Power whose care/Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-/The desert and illimitable air,-/Lone wandering, but not lost" (13-16). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow also chose to show how nature is in control. In his poem, "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls," he compared a traveler's life to the manner of the waves. Just as the waves come in and break on the sand then recede, washing away footprints, a person's life can wash away meaning that their life has ended or they have gone done another path.
In the short story, "The Big Bear of Arkansas," many themes are explored. One of these is that the thought of the individual is important. It also goes back to the idea that nature is big and beautiful. The character known as the "big Bar of Arkansaw" told tall tales to other people expressing these themes. He talked about how everything in Arkansas was big and beautiful, even the mosquitoes and dying turkeys. The "big Bar" says " the ting was so fat that he couldn't fly far, and hen he fell out of thee tree, after I shot him, on striking the ground he bust open behind, and the way the pound gobs of tallow rolled out of the opening was perfectly beautiful" (Thorpe 307). He showed how .
nature had no faults and that it had the plan and we are a part of it.
From the aforementioned examples the themes of Romanticism and how they are illustrated in some short stories and poems become more visible.
