The Romantic Period brought a significant gentleness to literature in a strong reaction to the Enlightenment era. William Wordsworth displays this eloquently in his poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” by quickly putting the reader in touch with nature as his visit confirms his memory of “[hearing] these waters, rolling from their mountain-springs / With a soft inland murmur” (3-4). Describing the sounds, rather than just the scene, bring to mind a quiet, calm, tranquil like setting. The reader understands that this tranquil location is held dear as Wordsworth recollects: Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, …………………………………………………….. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines Of sportive wood run wild (4-5, 4-16). Tender emotion can be felt by the fact that this scene is described as beholden to Wordsworth. “Secluded” (6), “quiet” (8), “unripe” (12), and “green” (16) are all adjectives used to describe this serene setting thereby bringing the reader back to the ra...
During the Romantic Era drastic events changed the way people lived. One major change came with the Industrial Revolution, many job opportunities began to arise and people started to change their living lifestyle. Many people went to live in the cities and left behind the breathtaking countryside. The British Culture became better because they had more resources and its economy increased rapidly, however people lost the tranquility of nature with their movement into the emerging cities. Another important event that had a significant effect on the British culture and Literature was the French revolution; poets like William Wordsworth were devastated to see the horrible changes the revolution had caused. The revolution was one of the major reasons why poets focused more on the theme of nature. The poem “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” written by William Wordsworth expresses the power of nature. The author uses his memories from past experiences to illustrate the importance of nature in a person’s life. In the poem he describes nature’s strong healing power. Wordsworth communicate...
Kroeber, Karl. Romantic Landscape Vision: Constable and Wordsworth. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975.
Percy Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” (1816) and William Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” (1805), both tell the story of the individuals meetings with an impressively, beautiful mountain landscape. In Mont Blanc, Shelley describes the icy glacial capped peaks of the Swiss Alp’s, whereas in The Prelude, Wordsworth describes his meetings with nature and his interactions with the landscape. Both these poems focus on the beauty of the landscape, and thrive off their own personal experiences which they have had with nature. These poems however have a strong representation of the sublime and the effects this theory has on them personally and sensually. Beauty is also present in these poems; however there is a difference as beauty indulges in the aesthetic experience of equilibrium and synchronization, whereas the sublime focuses on the senses such as your mind and imagination. Leighton (1984) believes you can see the difference as, ‘the picturesque world would be exemplified by variety, the beautiful by smoothness and the sublime by magnitude’, showing just how differentiated they are. Both these poems both have different meanings and morals, and both authors have different beliefs
Besides the emotional aspect, this poem also shows what this time period entailed in literary terms. Artists and authors would often base some of their work on surrounding nature since their bond with the natural world and nature was stronger than a connection they formed with a person. This poem helps us understand the components to Romantic writing in this poem.
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” (John Muir). Both John Muir and William Wordsworth demonstrate this through their use of language as they describe nature scenes. John Muir studies nature and in his essay about locating the Calypso Borealis he uses scientific descriptions to grab his reader’s attention and to portray his excitement at finding the rare flower. William Wordsworth on the other hand shows his appreciation for the beauty of nature and its effect on a person’s emotions in the vivid visual descriptions that he gives of the daffodils in his poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud.’ Wordsworth with his appreciation of beauty and Muir through scientific descriptions provide an indication of the influence that nature has had on them as they capture their reader’s attention both emotionally and visually through their personal and unique use of tone, diction, syntax and vocabulary.
In “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” we find the purest expression of Wordsworth’s fascination with friendship.
William Wordsworth is easily understood as a main author whom expresses the element of nature within his work. Wordsworth’s writings unravel the combination of the creation of beauty and sublime within the minds of man, as well as the receiver through naturalism. Wordsworth is known to be self-conscious of his immediate surroundings in the natural world, and to create his experience with it through imagination. It is common to point out Wordsworth speaking with, to, and for nature. Wordsworth had a strong sense of passion of finding ourselves as the individuals that we truly are through nature. Three poems which best agree with Wordsworth’s fascination with nature are: I Wandered as a Lonely Cloud, My Heart leaps up, and Composed upon Westminster Bridge. In I Wandered as a Lonely Cloud, Wordsworth claims that he would rather die than be without nature, because life isn’t life without it, and would be without the true happiness and pleasure nature brings to man. “So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me
William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey As students, we are taught that William Wordsworth's basic tenets of poetry are succinct: the use of common language as a medium, common man as a subject, and organic form as an inherent style. Yet beyond these rudimentary teachings, it should be considered that it was the intimacy with nature that was imperative to the realization of Wordsworth's goals set forth in the "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads. In his "Preface," Wordsworth states, "Poetry is the image of man and nature" (Norton 247). A study of "Tintern Abbey," the intended finale and last impression of the Lyrical Ballads, reveals Wordsworth's conviction that the role of nature is the force and connection that binds mankind not only to the past and the future, but to other human beings as well. Regardless of the language employed, the subject used, or the method of delivery, it was the primal connection with nature that fueled Wordsworth's poetic genius.
Primarily in Lines composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey the mortality of creativeness and imagination is expressed by Wordsworth. This is a poem about the beauty of an old cathedral called Tintern Abbey. He hasn’t been there in five years and he brought his sister along. Even though imagination isn’t immortal, there is a way to reclaim it, “That time is past, / and all its aching joys are ...
Both Shelley, in "Ode to the West Wind," and Wordsworth, in "Intimations of Immortality," are very similar in their use of nature to describe the life and death of the human spirit. As they both describe nature these two poets use the comparison of how the Earth and all its life is the same as our own human life. I feel that Shelley uses the seasons as a way of portraying the human life during reincarnation. Wordsworth seems to concentrate more on the stages that a person goes through during life. Shelley compares himself to such things as clouds, leaves, and waves. He is writing the poem as if he were an object of the earth, and what it is like to once live and then die only to be reborn. On the other hand, Wordsworth takes images like meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being what ever a person needs to move on, and with out those objects can't have life. Wordsworth does not compare himself to these things like Shelley, but instead uses them as an example of how he feels about the stages of living. Starting from an infant to a young boy into a man, a man who knows death is coming and can do nothing about it because it's part of life.
In "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," William Wordsworth explains the impact of Nature from Tintern Abbey in his every day life. "Tintern Abbey" shows the great importance of nature to Wordsworth in his writings, love for life, and religion. The memories he has of Tintern Abbey make even the darkest days full of light.
The poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth is about the poet’s mental journey in nature where he remembers the daffodils that give him joy when he is lonely and bored. The poet is overwhelmed by nature’s beauty where he thought of it while lying alone on his couch. The poem shows the relationship between nature and the poet, and how nature’s motion and beauty influences the poet’s feelings and behaviors for the good. Moreover, the process that the speaker goes through is recollected that shows that he isolated from society, and is mentally in nature while he is physically lying on his couch. Therefore, William Wordsworth uses figurative language and syntax and form throughout the poem to express to the readers the peace and beauty of nature, and to symbolize the adventures that occurred in his mental journey.
Through the poems of Blake and Wordsworth, the meaning of nature expands far beyond the earlier century's definition of nature. "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." The passion and imagination portrayal manifest this period unquestionably, as the Romantic Era. Nature is a place of solace where the imagination is free to roam. Wordsworth contrasts the material world to the innocent beauty of nature that is easily forgotten, or overlooked due to our insensitivities by our complete devotion to the trivial world. “But yet I know, where’er I go, that there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Wordsworth had two simple ideas that he put into his writing of poetry. One was that “poetry was the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” The second idea was that poets should describe simple scenes of nature in the everyday words, which in turn would create an atmosphere through the use of imagination (Compton 2).
His poem recognizes the ordinary and turns it into a spectacular recollection, whose ordinary characteristics are his principal models for Nature. As Geoffrey H. Hartman notes in his “Wordsworth’s poetry 1787-1814”, “Anything in nature stirs [Wordsworth] and renews in turn his sense of nature” (Hartman 29). “The Poetry of William Wordsworth” recalls a quote from the Prelude to Wordsworth’s 1802 edition of Lyrical ballads where they said “[he] believed his fellow poets should "choose incidents and situations from common life and to relate or describe them.in a selection of language really used by men” (Poetry). In the shallowest sense, Wordsworth is using his view of the Tintern Abbey as a platform or recollection, however, this ordinary act of recollection stirs within him a deeper understanding.