Last Leaf

Many people of our time question American Literature and how it ever came about. American literature refers to written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and Colonial America. Poetry is said to be the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling and is one of the most important parts of American Literature. When poetry is now looked upon it is always honored due to the Fire Side Poets who were also known as the Household Poets. This group of men were the great poets of the 19th century; the group consisted of Henry Longfellow, William Bryant, John Whittier, James Lowell and Oliver Holmes. These five men were the first American poets whose fame was a competitor of British poets. The poetry of the great Oliver Wendell Holmes truly expresses all of the influential feelings in which this group of men withheld. The work of all the poets would be too much to fit into this analysis but one of the most preferred Fire Side Poets; Oliver Holmes was chosen to better explain the true meaning of poetry. The poem "The Last Leaf" by Holmes utilizes elements from nature as a general metaphor for life, which in a way gives off another meaning that the reader may confuse the true connotation based on what they interrupt the poem to be. Even though most believe this poem to be one of his most renowned, I believe it to be one of his less effective works in the eyes of a reader; I will use information and facts found from research to prove my belief of this.

The Fireside poets wrote in the literary period of Romanticism. Romanticism was an inventive and logical movement in time, this originated in the late 18th century in Western Europe. According to Small in Oliver Wendell Holmes (1962) "This then placed an innovative accent on such emotions as apprehension, horror, and the fearfulness experienced in the confronting the sublimity of nature." (Small, 1962) As the Romanticism era opened it was a movement that spread throughout Europe. In reaction to 18th century rationalism, the great Industrial Revolution came into play. There was also a substantial literary productivity during the 19th century, whom became some of the most famous poets known today.

Oliver Wendell Holmes joined in the literary arena by penning the poem "The Last Leaf." In this narrative poem Holmes uses the life of Major Thomas Melville who was the last of the cocked hats. Melville symbolizes the season expressed in the poem, in which he still holds on to his life of an older generation, who have now all passed. Oliver Holmes expresses that Melville holds on to life as if he were the last leaf on a tree during the season of spring in which it seems to be the same situation that Holmes himself is experiencing. He portrays Melville in a new generation which now sets him out from the rest and he now becomes out of place, just as Holmes was when all of his beloved friends passed away. Major Thomas is also symbolized as a black rose in a patch or newly blossomed roses. The old man which was the leaf truly has