"Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven "

1675
[1601]
Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven –
For what, he is presumed to know –
The Crime, from us, is hidden –
Immured the whole of Life
Within a magic Prison
We reprimand the Happiness
That too competes with Heaven –

My Translation

We ask God for one favor, and it is to be forgiven
Although he already knows what we need forgiveness for
The sins that we’ve committed are forgotten and have become hidden to us
Confined throughout our whole life
Which becomes a magic prison during life
We reprove the sins with happiness
That competes with us getting into Heaven

When reading, “Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven”, I can tell that the overall meaning of the poem is judgment day or the day we face God. I believe Dickinson is summing up what people will do when these days arrives because we must ask God to forgive us for all the sins we committed throughout our lifetime, as evident in the first line of the poem, “Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven.” As the poem continues Dickinson states in lines 2 and 3, “for what, he is presumed to know,” meaning that although we may ask for his forgiveness he already knows that we are asking and what the crime we’ve committed is.

When reading the poem, I got the overall message to live a good life with or without sin, but one day you must face God and ask him for forgiveness before you go to Heaven. Another message that I got from lines 6 and 7, “We reprimand the Happiness That too competes with Heaven – “ is that we sin in life to make us happy but in the end it conflicts with facing God and getting into Heaven. I think Dickinson wrote about these conflicts because her family is religious and she may have committed a sin and thought about what her judgment day will be like when it arrives.

**Reference: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol.8, (P.2593)

“The angel must hang”

Billy Budd’s shipmates considered him the “handsome sailor” and everyone enjoyed his company. He was a good-natured person who saw no evil in people, as described in the following quote, “With no perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the offhand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the spontaneous homage of his shipmates.”(2469) Billy was a good sailor and Captain Vere enjoyed him because he brought spirit and hard work to the ship, which his fellow shipmates caught onto. He is overall perfection to most people he knew and may even be considered an “angel”, which is why the following quote in important in the text.

Captain Vere’s quote during Billy’s trial, “Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!”(2504) is a significant quote to relate to the overall text because Billy was considered an angel by his fellow shipmates and no one would have believed that he was planning a mutiny against Captain Vere. I think the quote is very ironic because Captain Vere is talking about Billy as an angel, someone who is kind and heavenly, but is announcing that he will die.

Although Captain Vere is obligated to kill Billy because Claggart made him believe that Billy is planning a mutiny, I don’t think that he truly believes that Billy is guilty, as shown in Vere’s hesitation during the trial, “Captain Vere was now motionless, standing absorbed in thought.” Throughout the text of Billy Budd, I believe this quote has been greatly significant in explaining how Captain Vere felt about Billy and the mistake he made. Aside from the text, the quote is also significant in the allegory of Adam or Jesus.

**Reference: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol.8

Allegory of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I believe that Ichabod Crane represents the industrialization that was occurring the time that Irving’s literary work was written and Brom Bones represents the American people. These characters represent these to me because the American people were not sure about the new industrialization and expansion that was happening throughout the country because it was something new and unknown. Ichabod Crane represents the new lifestyle to me because he arrives at Sleepy Hollow and begins to want things that other people have, for example, Katrina Van Tassel. In response to Ichabod wanting to marry Katrina for her wealth, Brom Bones, who represents the American people, is not happy about this newcomer in town.

Another representation that Ichabod Crane can be is immigrants that come to America and Brom Bones is still the American people who are skeptical about the new people who are coming to their land to take the wealth that they have to make it their own. I believe both these representations can be possible because America was expanding at this time and new ideas were presented but the America people may have not been ready for them.

I think reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and looking for the allegory is an advantage if someone were interested in life during the time period of Washington Irving because they can research how different the country was becoming and how people during this time were responding to it. I also think reading the story this way can be a disadvantage because it is not easy to find the allegory hidden in the story unless you are looking for one. Either way The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is enjoyable in itself without any allegories.

**No resources were used.

How Early Literature Compares to America Today.

Based on all the readings that were studied throughout the first half of the semester, I think there are many similarities and differences in the values that were strong back then and in comparison to values that are still strong now. The most important value that I think has been kept throughout a long period of time is religion and beliefs. This value is important because it began with the belief of how people were created in the Creation Stories of the Pima people to the Puritans that believe solely in God for everything in their lives. This is a similarity because people today still believe in God and how they were created by him and are blessed because of him. Although there are people who believe in God in today’s society, there are also people who do not believe in God. I think that is a difference from the values in the early days because it was not normal for people to not believe in God. Beliefs have changed in today’s society because people are exposed to science and create their own values and beliefs that are not based on God.

Besides the values of religion that are similar to society today, I believe religion is a strong concept that has lasted from the beginning. Religion has lasted a long time and will continue to because of the faith and dedication that people put into it. As history is looked backed upon and events such as wars and natural disasters have occurred, people have nothing else to help them believe that a life full of hope and joy is still possible. For example, in William Bradford’s, Of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford tells tales of the voyage to the new land and the storms that they endured. Although this was devastation, Bradford and the Puritans believe that God has helped them through the horrid weather conditions and had brought them to their new land. Overall, I believe that religion is the most important concept that has truly survived and is still strong today.

Studying early texts can help people understand American life today in many ways. From early texts such as The First Thanksgiving, which includes traditions that are still practiced today when people celebrate Thanksgiving to the draft of the Declaration of Independence which was written by Thomas Jefferson and gives us an American holiday such as the 4^th of July to celebrate. These early texts are important to study because readers can get a first hand experience from the author who wrote these documents to further understand what they were thinking when they wrote it.

Reference: The Norton Anthology of American Literature

Anne Bradstreet, "To Her Father with Some Verses"

In Anne Bradstreet's poem, "To Her Father with Some Verses", the language and metaphors are used to explain the role that her father had and how she saw him in the Puritan society.

In the beginning of the poem, it is apparent that Bradstreet loves her father and believes that he is an honorable man. This is evident as the first line is, "Most truly honored, and as truly dear." As the poem progresses, Bradstreet speaks of the many things that her father did for her so she does not know how to pay him back. This is supported by lines 7 and 8, "My stock's so small I know not how to pay, My bond remains in force unto this day;" Further along in the poem, Bradstreet states that she is in debt to her father and she will try to pay him back until she passes. This is supported by lines 12 through 14; "But as I can, I'll pay it while I live; Such is my bond, none can discharge but I, Yet paying is not paid until I die."

Based on Bradstreet's poem to her father, I believe that he was a good father to her because she wants to repay him for the opportunities that he'd given her. I think this is true because she feels so in debt to him that she will be paying it back until her death. By reading the poem, I feel that the men in the Puritan culture have important roles because they are the people who support the family and provide for them.

**Note: All literary texts are from The Norton Anthology of American Literature; Vol. A; Page 195**

The Explorers: Christopher Columbus, John Smith, and Alver Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue...and that's how the lecture about Columbus started in elementary school. The teacher talked about how great he was for “discovering” America then we would make his three ships out of marshmallows and toothpicks stuck to miniature flags labeling them. Christopher Columbus was always told to be the noble man who sailed to America and worked alongside the Indians that he encountered to bring back different foods and spices to Spain. Little did I know, he really wasn’t. Now that I’m in college, I have found out the truth about this greedy explorer who cared of nothing but his success, which was inexistent after his first voyage. According to literary texts in The Norton Anthology of American Literature Vol. A, Columbus failed in his mission for King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and did nothing but cause distress for the Indians he encountered.

As for John Smith, my introduction to him was through Disney's Pocahontas. In the cartoon, John Smith was portrayed as the courageous explorer who fell in love with chief Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas. Other then this phony love story that I thought was true, I did not know much about Smith at all. As I now study Smith’s voyages I have found out that he exaggerated his story about Pocahontas and invaded Indian land as he pleased.

Although Columbus and Smith are the most talked about explorers, there is another explorer who I believe is more respectable. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca is a respectable explorer because of the experiences he went through alongside the Indians he encountered. Unlike Columbus and Smith who saw themselves as lords over the Indians, Cabeza de Vaca saw himself as one of them. He struggled with them in their time of distress and experienced everything first hand as he describes in his literary text in The Norton Anthology of American Literature Vol. A, “Six out of eight months we dwelled with these people we endured acute hunger; for fish are not found where they are either.” (P.44)

Furthermore, from Columbus, Smith, and Cabeza de Vaca, I believe the noblest bringer of light is Cabeza de Vaca for all the hardship he endured to exist with groups of people he never met before.

Literature

Why study literature?

Besides the boredom that studying literature produces and the money saved on purchasing books for literature classes, life without literature would be quite boring. If literature was not studied, I think that people would be clueless about the different cultures and life experiences that people have been in that can be studied by reading literature. For example, if the letters written by Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca were never published then we would not know what it was like for an explorer to meet and live alongside the indians that they encountered. Another example would be Elie Wiesel's Night. This literary work is important because he tells his story about his life and his experiences when he was in the comcentation camp Auschwitz. It is one thing to learn about these historic events and study them, but it is another to read someone's story first hand. A negative consequence that not reading literature is the lack of vocabulary that will be seen by the next generations. Reading literature is important because it helps expand peoples' vocabulary which may result in better communication.

A real world application that studying literature will help is critical reading, thinking, and writing. Literature can help people in the real world with this because reading literature will help people pay attention to the details that are presented in a literary piece. Literature can help with critical thinking because the reader can analyze what the writer has written and think about the piece. Lastly, literature helps critical writing because the more literature read, the more the reader becomes familiarized with sentence structure and composition which can help when writing.

Another real world application that literature can be used for is the contribution that it has to a culture. This is important because different pieces are presented depending on the culture that the author may come from. For example, literature from an author who lives in Italy by the seaside would be different than literature from an author who lives in Harlem, New York.

Overall, I think studying literature will always be important now and in the future.