ADAMS>>>

I actually liked this part of the text! I felt as though Adam’s writing style evolved throughout the course of his book, and in the end it was very clear how well-educated he truly was. It makes more sense now, why Adam’s started the book as he did, writing as though growing up and going to prestigious schools did not provide him with good education. I really liked his point that he makes evident in the end that people are constantly learning and improving upon previous generations. For instance, Bill Gates may have seemed like a super genius when he first shared his revolutionary ideas in technology, but the pace of improvements in our society is so great and so rapid that a century from now, who knows what will be invented, easily overshadowing Gates’ discoveries! Some parts in the end really confused me, especially when Adams was talking about all of those scientific notions. Like the historical contexts, I felt like these scientific references required somewhat previous understanding in order to take out Adam’s fullest intentions of the text. However, all of those scientific references and such really made me see how well-educated Adams did become during his lifetime.

The Fall in Richmond...

Melville’s, The March into VA, Ending in the First Manassas, stuck out to me the most. I thought that the poem was extremely straight forward and in a way shines a light on how ignorance and innocence can have a very detrimental result. I was really impressed by the speaker’s tone and they way in which he says exactly how he feels . For me, the poem represented the young soldiers who weren’t in the least ready for what was to come. They believed that it was going to be a joy ride and that victory would easily be theirs. However, as Melville writes here, these young men were soon defeated. My favorite section is the third section that describes the merriment of the soldiers, and how they were chatting and laughing, happy as they could be, when little to their knowledge, the “battle’s unknown mysteries” would soon reveal defeat. The speaker presents this poem in such a way that belittles the innocence of the young soldiers. In the third line, Melville refers to the trust and cheer in which he relates to being the results of both the young soldiers and their ignorance. I thought this was a fairly easy poem to decipher. I love how it is choppy and straight to the point.