Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Nature in poetry
nature is english poetry essay
the role of imagination in Coleridge's poetry
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Nature in poetry
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was known for being a big hearted man. In his poem “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” Coleridge proves this legacy by caring for his dear friend Charles. In his own discontentment, Coleridge sits in his garden and wishes his friend could enjoy the luxuries of nature daily. His situation that summer in 1797 provided him the opportunity to emotionally express this simple appreciation of nature in three brilliant stanzas.
Initially, the situation of Coleridge’s circumstances and the story are vital in dissecting this poem. The Wordsworth’s and Charles Lamb came to visit Coleridge in June of 1797. Earlier that morning, he unfortunately underwent an accident preventing him from moving for the duration of their visit. (Bansal) It has been said that his wife had accidentally poured boiling milk onto his foot, laming him for days. (Hill) While Coleridge’s friends were visiting they decided to take a walk through the sites to enjoy nature. Coleridge expresses two focuses, his inability to walk with his friends and sympathy for his dear friend Charles who doesn’t have the opportunity to relish in the beauty of nature every day. (Bansal)
These ideas both play a major role in the tone of the entire poem. The initial tone of the poem is overly depressing. Coleridge sulks in the fact that he cannot partake in the nature walk. The first stanza presents the feeling of loneliness, “Friends, whom I never more may meet again”. Coleridge simply refuses to free himself of his mental prison and accept the beauty around him. Transitioning into the second stanza, Coleridge becomes like a wide-eyed dreamer, vicariously living through his friends. Sharing the sights they see through the mere images of his mind. Finally, the third s...
... middle of paper ...
... life and weaving them into profound poetry. All too often, we overlook our surroundings. Wishing we were a part of something perceived to be greater. Coleridge expressed to his dear friend Charles, to open his eyes to the beauty of nature. And in turn, communicated this concept to the world. Samuel Taylor Coleridge will go down in history as the poet who was simply lonely by a lime-tree, however we now know the true meaning and how it meant so much more.
Works Cited
Bansal, Siddharth. "A Literary Guide to Southwest England." Kenyon College, 2007. Web. 2
Apr 2011. .
Hill, John. "A Coleridge Companion." University of Georgia, n.d. Web. 5 Apr 2011.
.
McGrath, Jarra. Taking IT Global. Paranorma, 1-5-2003. Web. 3 March 2011.
.
"Themes." Shmoop. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr 2011. .
Furthermore, Wordsworth’s assertion of feelings as the effects of an action or a situation, which means that actions should influence the emotions of the character and not the other way around, is dissimilar to The Raven’s character’s feeling of desperation in which he succumbed to his distress. However, the lesson derived from the bizarre workings of the human mind in preferring more devotion to the pain for the sake of “preserving the memory,” as “The Raven” illustrates, exposes to us how a particular person behaves towards grief. The statement thus proves in relation to Coleridge’s statement of the readers’ elicitation of the poem is more significant than the poem itself (in reference to his emphasis on the importance of the “Return”). Another variation between Wordsworth and Coleridge is that the former claims that the writer must bring the language near to the language of men, whilst the latter believes that the language of poetry should beautiful and elevated. “The Raven” in this case
Romantics produced texts which were humble and natural rather than sophisticated. These texts shifted the art world’s audience from upper class, highly educated individuals to the common people. Humble texts with simpler ideas, celebrating the common person became more common and dominant in Romantic texts. ‘Frost at Midnight’, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a humble, reflective text regarding a persona, alone in their home reflecting on their life and the life they want for their sleeping child. ‘Frost at Midnight’ is a humble text as it is focused on one person, in a small unknown village. The persona is not depicted as someone of great social class or status, rather a common worker or villager. Coleridge’s description of the home as being surrounded by ‘sea, hill and wood’ emphasizes the universality of the location and the persona – the poem is not bound to those near the sea or who live isolated in forests. The repetition of this phrase places further emphasis on the lack of a set location. The poem itself is written ‘conversational’ style. The choices of diction are basic and the structure is relaxed. There is no set rhyming scheme thus meaning the reader can read the poem as
Throughout life, we have all experienced the loneliness of being excluded at some point or another. In “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge shows how his experience with this resentful jealousy matured into a selfless brotherly love and the acceptance of the beneficial effects some amount of denial can have. Each of the poem’s three stanzas demonstrates a separate step in this transition, showing Coleridge’s gradual progression from envy to appreciation. The pervading theme of Nature and the fluctuating diction are used to convey these, while the colloquial tone parallels the message’s universal applications. The poem culminates to show the reader that being deprived of something in life is not always to be regretted, but rather to be welcomed as an opportunity to “smell the roses,” so to speak, and appreciate the blessings we often take for granted.
Robert Frost’s intricate meanings are stated in such a way that the reader must dwell so much deeper into the poem than one does when one just reads the poem. The poet has a major theme in all of his poems and that theme is nature. Nature is something that Frost could always relate to. In nature Frost sees life, people, and situations in life. In the poem “After Apple-Picking”, he uses the situation of a man picking an apple as another lesson on life. Picking apples is tedious work where one must observe and pick the ripest apples...
...This is probably my favorite poem that I’ve ever read. It has such influence on so many popular ideas today. It talks about loving and respecting nature, which I agree with completely. When I hear of people killing animals just for fun, it makes me mad. It’s hard to make me mad, but one thing that never fails is total lack of respect for nature, or anything, for that matter. I think we should all take a good hard look at a certain stanza of this poem again. “He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.” If everyone understood these lines, and took them to heart, Coleridge would be very pleased, and the mariner’s penance would have not been served in vain. The world would be a better place. Man and nature would no longer be “out of tune.” This is the romantic poem of romantic poems.
When she feels sad or lonely, he wants her to remember what he told her about nature because he believes that if his sister where to recall him, he will gain eternal life. The idea of “Lines composed of a few miles above Tintern Abbey” expresses Wordsworth sensational admiration for nature and feels a deep power of delight in natural things. He exclaims how at a moment of sadness, he turns to the nature for peace of mind and inspiration. As he becomes serious about the nature, it gives him courage and spirit enough to stand there with a sense of delight and pleasure. He lets the reader know that even though his boyish days are gone, he doesn’t ponder on it or mourn for its loss.
In 1797, Coleridge published "Poems" which was well liked. This excited him because he thought that this would begin his road to success. One year later, Wordsworth and Coleridge had their famous "Lyrical Ballads" published. Coleridge's "The Ancient Mariner," opens the book. Many people believe that the work the two men did together greatly contributed to the creation of the Romantic Period. It was chosen to open the book because of its powerful descriptions about remorse. This, combined with the element of psychological obsession, may have had a lot to do with his younger years. In several ways, Coleridge's life experiences seem to have a lot to do with his poem, "Frost at Midnight."
Despite the Romantics valuing of nature, the direct threat to the natural habitat marked by the presence of soot around steel manufacturing towns due to the Industrial Revolution catalysed increased support in Pantheism which valued the unity between man, God and nature. A Pantheist himself, Coleridge’s This Lime Tree Bower My Prison (1816) follows the persona’s wishes to accompany his colleagues upon an expedition after suffering a scald. The persona’s initial exclamation “This lime-tree bower my prison!” which metaphorically accentuates his physical constraints contrasts with his affectionate tone after a period of reflection in “This little lime-tree bower” exploring the transformative capabilities of imaginative contemplation with regards to changing perceptions of physical boundaries within nature. Furthermore, the Biblical annotations in the descriptions “Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!” and “the many steepled-tract magnificent / Of hilly fields and meadows” elevates nature to an equal status as God reflecting Pantheist values and the vivid imagery explores the impact of imagination in transcending physical constraints and enabling the individual to explore nature. Hence, through the power of imagination, one is able to transcend the physical
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
Moreover, these various fragments all combine to instill a sense of ambiguity throughout the poem. In a sense, as the poem progresses, the audience discovers further and more troublesome questions regarding its message and its implications. The audience, perhaps, even begins to wonder if there are indeed absolute answers or whether Coleridge consciously intended to create an unresolved poem. Amid this unsettling tumult of questions, one is left to dedicatedly follow Coleridge’s journey in a sequential manner in an attempt to consider and ponder these ambiguities as they arise. Inevitably, however, lingering questions will ...
Robert Frost’s nature poetry occupies a significant place in the poetic arts; however, it is likely Frost’s use of nature is the most misunderstood aspect of his poetry. While nature is always present in Frost’s writing, it is primarily used in a “pastoral sense” (Lynen 1). This makes sense as Frost did consider himself to be a shepherd.
Magnuson, Paul. "The Gang: Coleridge, the Hutchinsons & The Wordsworths in 1802." Criticism 4(2001):451. eLibrary. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
While Coleridge describes the process of creating Romantic poetry and encourages poets to use the combination of nature and imagination in this process, Keats is more focused on reality and is well aware of the limitations of the Grecian urn. With the poets’ admiration of nature present in both poems …… to be completed.
To conclude, William Wordsworth uses form and syntax and figurative language to stress on his mental journey, and to symbolize the importance of the beauty and peace of nature. In my opinion, the poet might have written this poem to show his appreciation towards nature. The poem has a happy mood especially when the poet is discussing the daffodils. In this poem the daffodils are characterized as more than flowers, but as humans “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (line 6). In addition, the poet mentioned himself to be part of nature since nature inspires him to write and think. Therefore, the reason that the poet wrote this poem was to express the feeling of happiness in his mental journey in nature.
Many poets are inspired by the impressive persona that exists in nature to influence their style of poetry. The awesome power of nature can bring about thought and provoke certain feelings the poet has towards the natural surroundings.