William Wordsworth was an English poet from the late 1700s to his death in 1850 whose main concentration were love poems. He was known for his pieces The Prelude and The Lucy Poems which were popular in the United Kingdom and brought up themes such as love, nature, beauty, and death. These themes were prominent throughout his work, and the idea of death was one that was used in his poem A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal written in 1798. The poem is eight lines that are broken up into two stanzas with four lines in each that follows an ABAB rhythm scheme (seal and feel in lines 1 and 3, fears years in 2 and 4, force and course in 5 and 7, and sees and trees in lines 6 and 8). Although this may be the case, Wordsworth was able to make his poem centered …show more content…
Along with the lines saying she could not feel the touch of earthly years, I developed a few theories for what it could mean. I originally imagined that the women was cast in a deep sleep which reminded me of the tale Sleeping Beauty where the woman did not experience any changes as the years went by. My other idea was that the woman was blind and deaf, so she was unaffected by what was going on around her, and after reading the lines, “No motion has she now, no force / She neither hears nor sees from the second stanza” (5-6). These were rash assumptions that did have much evidence to support them, so I stepped back and examined the stanza again, and I came to the conclusion that the woman was dead since the deceased are not affected by time. I also figured that the woman must have been dead for an extended period of time after analyzing the second stanza and found that since she rolled, “round in earth 's diurnal course / With rocks, and stones, and trees” (7-8) she could have decomposed and become a part of nature …show more content…
He was able to draw a connection between woman and the rocks, stones, and trees for the reader to pick up as death. I interpreted the last line as she was being compared to the materials found in nature, because she stayed still and was unaffected by time. I was able to pick this up because the author mentioned rocks and stones, which are very similar and found it odd he used both. I also saw the last sentence as Wordsworth describing a cemetery, where the trees were present and the rocks and stones described the ground and also the tombstone left in memory of the woman. Once I read the last line, I was able to picture the scene that Wordsworth vividly described. This made it easier for me to understand the poem and I found it to have romanticized the idea of being
Time is equated with constant decay throughout the entire poem, which is primarily shown in the speaker’s comparison of the concept of eternity to a desert. Love, and other concepts felt in life, are subject to this negative force of deconstruction over time, and are vanquished in death; this idea can be seen in the witty commentary at the end of the second stanza, “the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace”
Through the progression of the poem the speaker goes from ignoring Death to realizing only through Death can immortality can be obtained. She does not see Death as the blessing that it is, she was all too happy to go about her life toiling away and never paying it any mind. Once she decided to go in a carriage ride with Death and Immortality she saw all the stages of life and through it all Death has the power to give one the ability to live forever.
The entire poem is about the interaction between nature and man. Wordsworth is clearly not happy about the things that man has done to the world. He describes Nature in detail in the second and third stanzas when he personifies the periwinkle and the flowers. He is thinking about the bad things that man has done to nature and he wants the reader to sit back and think about the fact that there used to be something so beautiful and alive, and because of man's ignorance and impatience, there is not a lot left. He also wants him to go sit in his own grove and actually see what is living and breathing and whether or not he enjoys it. Wordsworth makes it seem appealing to want to go and do this through his descriptions and thoughts, so that you get a feeling of what is there and what is being lost. He makes the reader want to go and see if those things, the budding twigs, the hopping birds, and the trailing periwinkle, really do exist and if they really are as alive as he says.
... soul then replies that there is no "golden underground" or any heavenly things to dream of that are not right here on Earth. And just as "April's green endures" so will everything else in nature. The woman in the poem is no different than so many people. The fear that we will not always have the comforts from our Earthly pleasures is common. However, the woman's doubts seem to diminish when she says "But in contentment I still feel the need of some imperishable bliss" and her soul replies "Death is the mother of beauty."
William Wordsworth, like Blake, was linked with Romanticism. In fact, he was one of the very founders of Romanticism. He wrote poems are about nature, freedom and emotion. He was open about how he felt about life and what his life was like. Also, Wordsworth wrote poems about the events going on around him ? for instance the French Revolution. Mainly, Wordsworth wrote about nature, however, rarely used simple descriptions in his work. Instead, Wordsworth wrote complexly, for example in his poem ?Daffodils?.
Death, like ink dropped in a glass of water, taints one's perception of life by coloring every experience with a sad shade of grief. In his poem, "Surprised by Joy," William Wordsworth relates how a moment of joy caused him to remember the death of his four-year-old daughter, Catharine. The memory effectively crushed any positive feelings he had during his encounter with joy and replaced them with quilt and sadness. This sonnet, though Italian in rhyme scheme, abandons the typical conflict-to-resolution form of argument for one which begins with the desired end-result and progresses towards the heart of the problem. Throughout the sonnet, Wordsworth shifts from expressing raw emotions of joy and grief, to realizing his loss, and finally, to accepting her death on a very removed and intellectual level. This originality of sonnet form combines with carefully placed sound effects to express the intense grief that embitters Wordsworth's experience of joy.
Each encounter he describes is in unison with a time period of his life, the first being when he says, “Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, / That on a wild secluded scene impress” (5-6). The relationship between nature and the structure can be recognized here by how Wordsworth introduces this scene as a past image he has so long recollected, as well as introducing the structure of past to present time periods. His use of vivid imagery can also be observed in this quote as well as be seen throughout the poem such as when he says, “Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, / And the round ocean, and the living air, / And the blue sky, and the mind of man” (99-101). Which creates such a vivid scene for the reader that they can’t help but put themselves in the setting of the poem and begin to observe what Wordsworth sees in a new light.
Several things, major and minor, about this poem may strike the reader as atypical of Wordsworth's work. The very first stanza of the poem gives us only the general setting: "'Tis eight o'clock, -- a clear March night, / The moon is up -- the sky is blue [...]" (ll. 1-2). Wordsworth's poems frequently begin on a more general scale, and narrow in for a few stanzas on a very specific location. Here we are given a sketchy background and left at that.
Wordsworth deviates from his course of democratic poetry in "Ode to Duty" by exercising a classical form, the ode, and manipulating the elevated language it affords the poet. Even the opening quote is from a Greek source, Seneca, which foreshadows the poem's anachronistic call to duty. The poem is divided into seven tetrameter octets, of which the final line is Alexandrine. The French origins of the Alexandrine line further confuse the poem's miscegenational heritage, and conspire with the "missing" eighth stanza (were the poem to have an orderly arrangement of eight syllables per line, eight lines per stanza, eight stanzas total) to cast an ambiguous shadow over Wordsworth's conception of duty. As suggested by the allusion to Seneca and the ode form, it is one of poetic duty without ever calling attention to the act of writing poetry.
Throughout the poem, the poet presents an overall meaning. The main meaning is that nature can bring happiness when it’s needed and that its beauty should be appreciated. The speaker of this poem makes a heaven out of a windy day and a bunch of daffodils. When he felt lonely, the daffodils around him, gave him a boost of joy. The poet is implying that people have become blind to the beauty of nature that is easily accessed, which is why he focused on the visual descriptions of the daffodils. Wordsworth wanted to emphasize the importance of
There were two particular events that helped to give William a newfound sense of direction in his work and career. In January of 1795, a close friend of William died and in his will, he granted Wordsworth a legacy of 900 pounds; this money helped him to devote more time to his poetry. That same August, he met S.T. Coleridge and they quickly became close friends. In July of 1797, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxden House, which was only a few miles from Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey. Speaking of Coleridge, himself and Dorothy, Wordsworth said, "we were three persons with one soul" (Hanley). Each day, Wordsworth and Coleridge would work on their poetry, discuss their ideas o...
In the sestet he tells us of his personal responses to the scene. The poem uses an alternate line rhyming to create the effect of order. It is written in a sonnet using iambic pentameter. This device brings attention and emphasizes the meanings of the words. Wordsworth's shows his feelings for London in a figurative way.
Moreover, searching for the different mechanics in each of these poems makes it easier for the reader to analysis and interpret them. To begin, in “The World is Too Much with Us” the way the punctuation is fit into the poem is different since there are many semicolons between each line and one period suggesting that the poem is actually one long sentence. Then I believe the speaker to be someone who acknowledges that he too has lost connection with nature since he’s been preoccupied with other things in the world. This is proven throughout the whole poem since he talks in first person using the word “I.” The tone of this poem is angry, frustrated, and dissatisfied because of how the world has changed. The rhyme scheme is also another appealing mechanic here too since Wordsworth only uses fou...
Losing a loved one is one of the hardest experiences every person must go through. The experience does not end with the loss though, but begins with it. The loss of a dear person leads those left behind into a downward spiral of emotions and memories. A poem entitled “Lucy Gray” by William Wordsworth focuses on that loss and the emotions that follow it. By reading the poem one can objectively experience both the grief that Lucy Gray’s death brings on but also her parents’ acceptance of her death.
William Wordsworth has respect and has great admiration for nature. This is quite evident in all three of his poems; the Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey and Michael in that, his philosophy on the divinity, immortality and innocence of humans are elucidated in his connection with nature. For Wordsworth, himself, nature has a spirit, a soul of its own, and to know is to experience nature with all of your senses. In all three of his poems there are many references to seeing, hearing and feeling his surroundings. He speaks of hills, the woods, the rivers and streams, and the fields. Wordsworth comprehends, in each of us, that there is a natural resemblance to ourselves and the background of nature.