The poets who belong to the Romantic time period largely focus their poetry on nature. Mainly, their focus is to criticize the new society and their loss of respect for nature. These poets have a great appreciation for nature and would like to move away from advancing technology and go back to the simple ways of life were simple things are more greatly appreciated by society. In an article the following is stated, “What we have to be aware of is the literal level of truth that Romantic poets are trying to tell. Wordsworth wanted to see into the life of things. Things, even the lowliest, had life” (Tom O’Brien, James Allen). These poets had a great respect for even the smallest things in nature that most of the time that go unnoticed daily. Their main concern became the rapid shift in lifestyle during their lives; this rapid shift is well known as the industrial revolution. The Industrial Revolution began in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, societies within Europe and then American then shifted from rural to urban: this industrialization shifted to special-purpose machinery, large factories and of course, mass production (History Staff, Industrial Revolution). Life then became suddenly racing toward a different style moving away from things like farming, to working in factories and living in urban areas. Many romantic poets wrote about their deep dislike of this shift in lifestyle and its negative effects on the appreciation of nature. Their messages in the poetry they write were closely related to society’s disrespect of nature, and by reading their poetry no reader is able to escape this observation. In The World is Too Much with Us by William Wordsworth, Wordsworth identifies three messages with correlation to nature; the ma...
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O'Brien, Tom; Allen, James Sloan. "Wordsworth and the End of the Arts." Heldref Publications. 1 nov. 2003: 27. Web. 26 May 2014. . Intro Paragraph
Staff, History. "Industrial Revolution." History Channel. N.p., 2009. Web. 26 May 2014. .
Warsh, Lewis. "Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)." Literature Resources from Gale. N.p., 2002. Web. 27 May 2014. .
Wordsworth, William. “The Thorn.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Vol. 2B. Ed. David Damrosch, et al. New York: Longman, 1999. 319-325.
Throughout On Reading Wordsworth's Lines on Peele Castle, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley has provided a minor attitude of resentment towards the direction of her attention. More overpoweringly though, is her immeasurable regard of William Wordsworth in terms of poetic hierarchy. It is apparent to her audience that she respects Wordsworth, especially at the height of his career.
Wordsworth, William. “Preface to Lyrical Ballads.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. 7th ed. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000. 238-251.
By again experiencing now what he did five years ago, Wordsworth’s imagination is able to bring together both of these experiences. Therein, Wordsworth is operating on another level within his imagination: “Almost suspended, we are laid asleep / In body, and become a living soul / While with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy / We see into the life of things” (NAEL, D, 289, ll.47-49). Here, his revisiting of Tintern Abbey stirs in him an explicitly greater understanding of the world. In thinking on the “body” and “living soul”, Wordsworth perceives the “deep power of joy” in this oneness of the universe. At the heart of this oneness, Wordsworth describes nature as “the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse / the guide, the guardian of my heart, and the soul / Of all my moral being” (NAEL, D, 291, ll.109-111). Through his journey into the imagination, Wordsworth claims nature to be his moral compass. He delves into the Romantic imagination through nature and finds a greater understanding of the world and his place in
Wordsworth, William. Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. M. H. Abrams Gen. ed. New York, London: Norton. 2 vols. 1993.
Peters, John G. “Wordsworth’s TINTERN ABBEY” The Explicator(Washington) , Winter 2003, Vol. 61, Iss. 2, pg. 77 : eLibrary. Web 05 Mar 2002
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 poem is a statement about conflict between nature and humanity. The symbolism in his poem gives the reader a sense of the conviction and deep feelings Wordsworth had. Wordsworth longs for a much simpler time when the progress of humanity was tempered by the restrictions nature imposed.
During the industrial revolution of England, humans engaged in monotonous work and lost harmonious unity with nature. In the nineteenth century, when the poet William Wordsworth wrote his sonnet “The world is too much with us,” the aspects of industrialized society had changed a factory worker’s life, leaving no time or the desire to enjoy and take part in nature. In his Petrarchan sonnet, Wordsworth criticizes humans for losing their hearts to materialism and longs for a world where nature is divine.
Written in 1798, “Above Tintern Abbey” is an account of Wordsworth’s travels “to the southern Welsh county of Monmouthshire” ("Lines written a few miles," n.d, para. 1). Five years prior, Wordsworth departed from Calais, France. The remnants of his passion and fervor were abandoned within the small town, in the form of Annette and Caroline Vallon. His return to England left “the fever of the word, hung upon the beatings of (his) heart” (Wordsworth, 1798, lines 53-54). A stodgy England conceived France as a “landscape to a blind man’s eye” (Wordsworth, 1798, line 51), and five years later on the banks of the Wye, Wordsworth chronicles th...
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.
Jones, John. The Egotistical Sublime, A History of Wordsworth’s Imagination. London: Chatto & Windus, 1960.
"The Poetry of William Wordsworth." SIRS Renaissance 20 May 2004: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 06 February 2010.
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.