When reading “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways,” I experienced many emotions starting from the title. At first it confused me because I interpreted it in a way that did not make much sense. What really confused me were the words “dwelt” and “untrodden.” You would not think to put those two words in the same sentence much less make them the title of a poem. I know that “dwelt” means either living on a certain area or mulling over a particular thought. When I saw the word “untrodden,” I knew that it meant an area not walked upon. Since you cannot walk on a thought, it is not possible for you to not walk on one. Then I thought that the use of “untrodden” could just be exaggerating the fact that this woman or girl lived in a secluded area. From this, I could figure out that she is most-likely lonely. This made me want to know more about her life and why she is lonely. Though there are times when I need to be alone, the thought of living away from society makes me feel disconnected from the world. She must have known somebody. Somebody must have thought she meant something to them. Wanting to know more about her, I read on and found that William Wordsworth’s poem will have readers thinking about all the little things in life and the meaning they have, whether it is small or big. Wordsworth’s poem brings forth the idea that few people see the importance and beauty in those unknown and the difference they make when they are gone.
In the first stanza, the speaker lets us know a few things about the girl. The first line being the same as the title, I figured she was a lonely person. She resides specifically “Beside the springs of Dove” (2). It is said that this is near the home where Wordsworth lived. This information had me wondering i...
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... life and that she is not forgotten.
In conclusion, I believe Wordsworth’s poem proves that beauty never has to be in a specific place to make an impact on someone’s life. It can survive in many unknown places where it has yet to be discovered and even when it is gone, it is not forgotten. Whether Wordsworth knew Lucy or not, channeling his grief through poetry lets people know that everyone deals with it in their own way. Lucy may be gone physically, but Wordsworth’s poem still keeps her beauty alive. Not only does his poem remind us that beauty resides in the unknown, but it reminds us to have a better appreciation for that beauty, because we may never see how truly special it is until it is gone.
Works Cited
Wordsworth, William. “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways.” The Norton Introduction to
Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2013. 714. Print
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
Mistakes do lead to discovery. Without mistakes, scientists would not know what they have to fix in their research or what they are doing wrong. A chocolate bar melting in Percy Spencer’s pocket led to the invention of the microwave. He made the mistake of leaving the chocolate bar in his pocket near the Magnetron, but it lead to the invention of the microwave! So, I believe that mistakes lead to discovery of new things.
Beauty is always in nature. It is express in many ways. In the poem “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman express the beauty in the stars. Just looking up in space gave him peace. Walt writes about the fascination of the stars. How the night sky can transform a situation. He writes experiencing this phenomenon first hand is better than having it told. In most cases, the real is better than the copy. The beauty of the experience is needed, and to see the real thing than what is told. Whitman express how the night sky was all he needed and his feelings. In the poem “The World Is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth, the premise is like Whitman poem. It is the beauty in nature, and how people are not looking for nature to inspire. People are just looking less of nature. Both works show the worldly influence in people’s life. In both pieces, Whitman and Wordsworth showing how nature brings true beauty.
In his novel, Dark Star, Alan Furst creates an atmosphere that supports the depressed and beat down setting surrounding Europe before the onset of World War II. He is able to capture our attention by immediately creating anxiety in the depressed and broken down country of Belgium. Furst is able to draw us into the mind of Andre Szara as he enters Ostend, Belgium, describing the atmosphere as unpleasant and anxiety-driven. He presents this atmosphere through the old and rusted freighter, Nicaea, the setting in Ostend, and the assignments that Szara must complete while staying in Ostend.
This poem helps us to recognize and appreciate beauty through its dream sequence and symbolism. The poem opens with the Dreamer describing this
Written on the banks of the Lye, this beautiful lyric has been said by critic Robert Chinchilla to “pose the question of friendship in a way more central, more profound, than any other poem of Wordsworth’s since ‘The Aeolian Harp’ of 1799” (245). Wordsworth is writing the poem to his sister Rebecca as a way of healing their former estrangement.
He explains how nature has never betrayed his heart and that is why he has lived a life full of joy. Therefore, he wishes her sister to indulge the nature and be a part of it. That way, she will be able to enjoy and understand life and conquer the displeasure of living in a cruel human society. 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 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. He has simply gained something in return; looking at nature, not in thoughtless ways but seeing its true meaning and beauty; hearing the sad music of
"Tintern Abbey"'s opening lines prepare the reader for a reunion, notable in tone not only for the sense of anticipation with which the poet apprehends this moment, but equally so for the poignancy which immediately inflects the poem's proceedings. My reading of "Tintern Abbey" takes as its most prominent concern the sense in which Wordsworth's "Revisiting the Banks of the Wye" represents a haven-seeking of sorts. Since his visit to the Wye in 1793, much has happened to Wordsworth: he has found, and relinquished, his first romantic love in Annette Vallon. As a young would-be radical, sympathetic to the ideals of the French Revolution, he finds himself at odds with London's entrenched conservatism. In 1795, after well over a decade of only intermittent contact with his sister, Wordsworth and his beloved Dorothy are reunited at Racedown, at about the same time that they make the acquaintance of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Within two years of this happy occasion, the two Wordsworths will move to Alfoxden to be near Coleridge. The ensuing years of intense friendship and creative discourse will yield, by 1798, the collaborative Lyrical Ballads, to which "Tintern Abbey" belongs. As we consider the tumult and activity that have characterized this period of his life, we might well speculate upon the nature of the thoughts going through Wordsworth's mind as he surveys the Abbey from his vantage on the riverbank; my own temptation is to equate the quietly reflective tone of the poem with the Taoist notion of hsü.
William Wordsworth wrote the poem “The Ruined Cottage” which was written in 1797. Wordsworth explained through poetry, how many mothers who lost a husband began to drive them insane due to the fact that during this time women had limited options of work; they usually spun fabric or sowed. These women eventually passed away from lack of nourishment and sadness from losing their children. Wordsworth wanted others to know that the sorrow and grief given to the ones who suffered should not be seen by an unworthy eye, meaning do not be hastened to judge others, but to understand everyone’s
Death, like ink dropped in a glass of water, taints one's perception of life by coloring every experience with a sad shade of grief. In his poem, "Surprised by Joy," William Wordsworth relates how a moment of joy caused him to remember the death of his four-year-old daughter, Catharine. The memory effectively crushed any positive feelings he had during his encounter with joy and replaced them with quilt and sadness. This sonnet, though Italian in rhyme scheme, abandons the typical conflict-to-resolution form of argument for one which begins with the desired end-result and progresses towards the heart of the problem. Throughout the sonnet, Wordsworth shifts from expressing raw emotions of joy and grief, to realizing his loss, and finally, to accepting her death on a very removed and intellectual level. This originality of sonnet form combines with carefully placed sound effects to express the intense grief that embitters Wordsworth's experience of joy.
Orphaned and turned out of her home at the age of eight, Dorothy Wordsworth was preoccupied with the idea of home. Her journals mostly chronicle the lives of downtrodden women. Her empathy towards these women arises especially because they represent in corporeal form her fears of displacement. These fears are amplified by the courtship of her dearly beloved brother William and her longtime friend Mary Hutchinson, taking place when Dorothy begins the Grasmere journals. For her, William is home and home is best. As such, her life and her journal entries exemplify her desire to create an ideal home and community in Grasmere.
Losing a loved one is one of the hardest experiences every person must go through. The experience does not end with the loss though, but begins with it. The loss of a dear person leads those left behind into a downward spiral of emotions and memories. A poem entitled “Lucy Gray” by William Wordsworth focuses on that loss and the emotions that follow it. By reading the poem one can objectively experience both the grief that Lucy Gray’s death brings on but also her parents’ acceptance of her death.
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 of meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being whatever a person needs to move on, and without those objects, they 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 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.
During Wordsworth time as a poet he made it his mission to have poetry be read by not only the aristocrats but also now the common man something that has never been done. In both poems Wordsworth makes his poems relatable by incorporating themes that everyone can relate to even if they haven’t personally had that experience, although both poems do differ when it comes down to structure and form but also when trying to convey a message, these poems are important because these ideas have never been done before and now even the average Joe can finally participate in a conversation about poetry and this brings two world together.