Wordsworth suffers solitude, even as he celebrates it. Alone, the poet can explore his own consciousness; it exists at both poles of the notion of ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’, and is the dominant developmental mode of Wordsworth’s childhood as depicted in The Prelude (1805). Independence is what is exalted in his introduction to that poem: he greets the ‘gentle breeze’ as a ‘captive… set free’ from the ‘vast city’ which has been as a ‘prison’ to his spirit. The oppression of city living is alleviated in this opening reacquisition of isolation; the relief is evident: ‘I breathe again’, ‘that burthen of my own unnatural self [is shaken off], /The heavy weight of many a weary day/ Not mine, and such as were not made for me’. In this, …show more content…
This is evident in Wordsworth’s subsequent associative imagining of his sister alone (conceived egotistically in terms of himself) - ‘If I should be, where I no more can hear/ Thy voice’ – and the attendant confusion of anxieties robed as optimisms and felicities. ‘Nor… wilt thou then forget’ is a formulation repeated twice, creating a cumulative weight of negativity – negative because inflected by these anxieties of decay and loss. ‘If solitude, or fear or pain, or grief, /Should be thy portion’ is a dissonant subjunctive, even if proposed so as to be comforted by the memory of the overt blisses of the present state. And it treats of a different solitude to that of her ‘solitary walk’ eight lines earlier; it is a solitude divested of pleasurable interaction with the self, because the self has decayed to be lonely in its own company, betrayed by nature. His hope that she will not forget that they ‘stood together’ in the Wye valley is already coloured by the unease of its negative, tentative (‘perchance’) mode; and by its very proposition he undermines the bliss of his present tense – since his apprehension of the valley is not being enjoyed fully, but is overlaid with imaginings of future states. The loss of intimacy with nature is not just being anxiously intimated in, but is being performed by, this apostrophe: …show more content…
In his late note on the Immortality Ode, he describes his childhood solipsism: "I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality." This is consistent with the recollections of childhood recorded in the first Prelude of 1798-99, which either take place alone, or seem to take place alone. In the rowing boat episode, the ‘spectacle’ of the ‘peak, black and huge’ that ‘towered up between me and the stars, and… strode after me’ enhances his consciousness of solitude and self: his
(ll. 19-24) Wordsworth’s famous and simple poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” expresses the Romantic Age’s appreciation for the beauty and truth that can be found in a setting as ordinary as a field of daffodils. With this final stanza, Wordsworth writes of the mind’s ability to carry those memories of nature’s beauty into any setting, whether city or country. His belief in the power of the imagination and the effect it can have on nature, and vice a versa, is evident in most of his work. This small
By concurring to the Italian sonnet’s rules and exploiting the room he was left to utilize, not only does Wordsworth create a poem that is both coherent and clever, he leaves the reader with a sense of communion, that he isn’t alone in the world. A brief moment of solace is sometimes all one asks for, and “Nuns Fret Not” has shown us how it’s obtained.
Despite his position, Wordsworth can hear the “soft island murmur” of the mountain springs. As “five long winters” suggests, Wordsworth is cold and dreary—London, we must remember, is a bitter place. He longs for the islands: the sand, sun, and warm waters that those murmurs suggest. The coldness of winter could be brought about by Rebecca’s distance from her brother; they had been, at the time of the poem’s writing, separate for five long years. But he can hear reconciliation coming just at the edge of hearing: he can spot the horizon of friendship. But no sooner does friendship appear in the poem than it is thwarted by these lines:
During the 18th century, two great companion; William Wordsworth collaborated together to create Lyrical Ballad; one of the greatest works of the Romantic period. The two major poems of Lyrical Ballad are Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight.” Even though these two poems contain different experiences of the two speakers, upon close reading of these poems, the similarities are found in their use of language, the tone, the use of illustrative imagery to fascinate the reader’s visual sense and the message to their loved ones.
It is not only the language of Tennyson’s poem that reveals how these portrayals of both feminine and masculine bring meaning to the poem’s characters, but prominent symbols of the poem such as the mirror, the river and the Lady’s death which emphasise the nature of these binaries being conveyed. Let us first draw our attention to the mirror which from the Lady’s introduction in Part II, seems to be her connection to the outside world. The mirror is where “Shadows of the world appear” (48) and is how the Lady looks upon “Camelot” (50) from her isolated tower. Loneliness and isolation is thought to be a prominent theme of Tennyson’s poem, and how the concept of the Lady being “nameless” (Colley 370) is what leads her to a “shadow-less realm”
Wordsworth visualized scenes while he was away, a way for him to feel a spiritual connection until he was able to return. Wordsworth states, “As a landscape to a blind man’s eye: But opt, in lonely rooms, and mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them” (Wordsworth 25-27). Wordsworth gives a sense of conformity and loneliness while being in the towns and cities. That he had his memories of when he was younger to keep him hopeful to return to nature and all the memories he had grasped the memories of. As the society today focuses merely on what they can profit from cities, Wordsworth understood the true meaning of memories. Memories today are mostly captured through social media, and in return being taken for granted. Wordsworth had nostalgic bliss as he replayed his memories, and knowing that in the future he could look back on that day and have the same feeling again. Social media today is destroying our memories and what we can relive in our minds as memories. We can know that when things are posted within social media it will get likes and be shared. However, there are not many people in society today that will remember the true essence of what nature has given to
‘It is often suggested that the source for many of William Wordsworth’s poems lies in the pages of Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal. Quite frequently, Dorothy describes an incident in her journal, and William writes a poem about the same incident, often around two years later.’ It is a common observation that whilst Dorothy is a recorder – ‘her face was excessively brown’ – William is a transformer – ‘Her skin was of Egyptian brown’ . The intertextuality between The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals and ‘I wandered lonely as a Cloud’ allows both Dorothy and William to write about the same event, being equally as descriptive, but in very differing ways. Dorothy writes in a realist ‘log-book’ like style, whereas William writes in a romantic ballad style. This can be very misleading, as it gives William’s work more emotional attachment even though his work is drawn upon Dorothy’s diary, which in its turn is very detached, including little personal revelation. When read in conjunction with William’s poetry, Dorothy’s journal seems to be a set of notes written especially for him by her. In fact, from the very beginning of the journals Dorothy has made it quite clear that she was writing them for William’s ‘pleasure’ . This ties in with many of the diary entries in which she has described taking care of William in a physical sense. In a way this depicts the manner in which William uses his sister’s journal to acquire the subject of his poetry, which makes it seem as though Dorothy is his inspiration.
The poetry of William Wordsworth initiated the Romantic Era by emphasizing emotion, intuition, and pleasure rather than form and affectation. His poems set the stage for John Keats, a central figure in early 19th century Romanticism. The fundamental themes in the works of both poets include: the beauty of nature; the consanguinity of dreams/visions and reality and yet the tendency of dreams to mask reality; the intense emotions brought about by beauty and/or suffering; and the transience of both sensation and human life. Although William Wordsworth and John Keats wrote poetry with entirely different senses of purpose, they came together in the worship of a song that each found in nature. Both Wordsworth and Keats were able to internalize their own experience and then re-externalize it in a piece of poetry – “The Solitary Reaper” and “Ode to a Nightingale” respectively – describing the effect of a stirring song each encountered in a natural setting.
Peters, John G. “Wordsworth’s TINTERN ABBEY” The Explicator(Washington) , Winter 2003, Vol. 61, Iss. 2, pg. 77 : eLibrary. Web 05 Mar 2002
In the latter part of the romantic period, Wordsworth, as a part of his lyrical ballads, wrote “A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal.” Although not initially intended, the poem eventually became part of a series labeled as the “Lucy Poems.” The five poems, in some way or another, address loss, separation, and their connection to nature. Recent analyses have yielded interesting results in interpreting the poem. Because of the ambiguity present within the lines, varying interpretations have emerged. As it turns out, “A slumber did my spirit seal” is not just a poem, as most people would have it, of a male speaker lamenting the loss of his love Lucy. WHAT IS MY THESIS!
William Wordsworth. “Lucy Gray.” English Romantic Poetry .Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. New York: Dover Publications, 1996. 33 – 4.
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.
Durrant, Geoffrey. Wordsworth and the Great System, A Study of Wordsworth’s Poetic Universe. Cambridge: University Printing House, 1970.
"The Poetry of William Wordsworth." SIRS Renaissance 20 May 2004: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 06 February 2010.