How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary tradition
of Romanticism?
Q. How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary
tradition of Romanticism?
A. Romantic poetry was an artistic movement of the late 18th and early
19th century. It dealt with nature, human imagination, childhood and
the ability to recall emotional memories of both happiness and
sadness. Before Wordsworth began writing his revolutionary new style
of poetry, all preceding poetry had a very different style.
The reason these poems were classed as revolutionary was because he
believed that romantic poetry should describe "incidents of common
life" and ordinary people and were written in deliberately plain
words. It was what Wordsworth called "The real language of men".
Before this style of writing, all poems were about important things
and people. They were written about Kings, Queens and Gods. All poems
were of a formal nature and of epic proportions. Before Wordsworth,
poets didn't believe that "common people" were good enough to have a
poem written about them.
We see Wordsworth's Romantic style and the inclusion of memories,
imagination, human feelings and ordinary people. One such poem is "The
Reverie of Poor Susan".
In this poem, we are told of Susan who is a woman from the country who
is living and working in the city. As she passes by a bird singing in
a cage, she seems to be saddened. Wordsworth wonders why this is, as
he says the bird's song is very beautiful
" Tis a note of enchantment. What ails her?"
We then see that the reason for this is that Susan is very homesick
and longs to be back in the country. She imagines the streets of
London turning into hills and green pastures. She also...
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...p between me
and the stars"
"with trembling oars I turned"
This shows human emotion and how easily the power of your imagination
can work against you. It shows how scared you can actually make
yourself.
Wordsworth then goes on to say how he didn't return to normal for days
after and if he still remembered it by the time he wrote this, it must
have been very emotional and traumatic for him.
"There hung a darkness remained no pleasant image and were a trouble
to my dreams"
In conclusion, the reason Wordsworth's poetry fits into the literary
tradition of Romantic Poetry is that he complies with and uses all
aspects of Romanticism in his poetry. He believed what he wrote was
important and he had a great love for nature, which is why I think his
poetry was so powerful. He was a revolutionary and new poet who could
reach out to the ordinary people.
can be traced by to his grandmother who provided him with a powerful moral and
He helped raise his family and had an effect on sibling and how they were brought up. His two
...ecomes evident that his life and the important parts vary from those of an average person.
what others thought of him. His life symbolized what a lot of people have gone
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.
William Wordsworth poem 'Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey'; was included as the last item in his Lyrical Ballads. The general meaning of the poem relates to his having lost the inspiration nature provided him in childhood. Nature seems to have made Wordsworth human.The significance of the abbey is Wordsworth's love of nature. Tintern Abbey representes a safe haven for Wordsworth that perhaps symbolizes a everlasting connection that man will share with it's surroundings. Wordsworth would also remember it for bringing out the part of him that makes him a 'A worshipper of Nature'; (Line 153).
In his poem, 'Lines Written in the Early Spring,' William Wordsworth gives us insight into his views of the destruction of nature. Using personification, he makes nature seem to be full of life and happy to be living. Yet, man still is destroying what he sees as 'Nature's holy plan'; (8).
Perhaps one of the more notable aspects of his writing is his fondness of nature,
Aristotle’s Poetics is not one of his major works, although it has exercised a great deal of influence upon subsequent literary studies and criticism. In this work Aristotle outlines and discusses many basic elements that an author should adhere to in order to write a great tragedies and/or poetry. Two important topics that Aristotle addresses and believes to be crucial to the art work is the mimesis, or imitation of life, and that the audience has an emotional response from the work, or a catharsis. Both William Wordsworth and William Shakespeare were believers in Aristotle’s philosophy concerning tragedies and poetry, and employed these two elements within their works.
Analysis of Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, The Prelude, The World is Too Much with Us, and London, 1802
.... People wanted to hear what he had to say. People respected him as a person and his knowledge so much that Queen Christina of Sweden wanted to know what he knew. Sadly she wanted the study sessions to be held at five a.m. These study sessions eventually led to his death in 1650 of pneumonia. He probably could’ve lived a lot longer and had a bigger influence of more people if he didn’t die in 1650. As a mathematician he invented and perfected analytical geometry. As a scientist he told everyone about light reflection and refraction. He also talked about space, the moon, the stars and Earth. As a philosopher he inspired people he never even knew with his wise sayings. He gave people a new view on how everything worked. He described the mind being separate from matter simply because it could think. He was truly a great thinker and a great influence to everyone today.
In William Wordsworth’s poems, the role of nature plays a more reassuring and pivotal r ole within them. To Wordsworth’s poetry, interacting with nature represents the forces of the natural world. Throughout the three poems, Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey, and Michael, which will be discussed in this essay, nature is seen prominently as an everlasting- individual figure, which gives his audience as well as Wordsworth, himself, a sense of console. In all three poems, Wordsworth views nature and human beings as complementary elements of a sum of a whole, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature. Therefore, looking at the world as a soothing being of which he is a part of, Wordsworth looks at nature and sees the benevolence of the divinity aspects behind them. For Wordsworth, the world itself, in all its glory, can be a place of suffering, which surely occurs within the world; Wordsworth is still comforted with the belief that all things happen by the hands of the divinity and the just and divine order of nature, itself.
William Wordsworth was known as the poet of nature. He devoted his life to poetry and used his feeling for nature to express him self and how he evolved.
William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” is an ideal example of romantic poetry. As the web page “Wordsworth Tintern Abbey” notes, this recollection was added to the end of his book Lyrical Ballads, as a spontaneous poem that formed upon revisiting Wye Valley with his sister (Wordsworth Tintern Abbey). His writing style incorporated all of the romantic perceptions, such as nature, the ordinary, the individual, the imagination, and distance, which he used to his most creative extent to create distinctive recollections of nature and emotion, centered on striking descriptions of his individual reactions to these every day, ordinary things.