William Wordsworth

1186 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: William wordsworth influence on romanticism

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born April 7, 1770, at Cockermouth in Cumberland, England. His poetry, and especially his poems on solitude, must have been heavily influenced by the death of his mother and the splitting up of his family when he was only eight (Kilvert 1). At that time, fate sent him to live in Hawkshead, England, where his teacher started him writing poetry. Wordsworth got his higher education at Cambridge, his memories of which play a part in his later poetry (Noyes 201). Fate again stepped in when, as a young man, he received an inheritance, which gave him the freedom to study literature. One might guess that this is when he first became part of the Romantic movement, (Pinion, 21).

The poetry of William Wordsworth beautifully displays the characteristic themes of English Romanticism. Wordsworth's poems express basic feelings and soaring emotions, idealize the simplicity of rural life, portray the glories of nature, and give flight to the imagination, with bold symbols, colorful imagery and high ideals. It is perhaps, the simple expression of feelings which most clearly underlies Romanticism (Pinion 22). Nowhere is raw, uncomplicated feeling better put in words than in Wordsworth's poems. There developed what has been called his "visionary imagination." His collections of poetry include "Lyrical Ballads," "The Prelude," and "The Excursion." The beautiful poetry of Wordsworth is a good example of English Romanticism. Four characteristics of romantic poetry are: putting strong feelings into words (Abrams,145); using the power of imagination (Pinion, 142ff); showing the joy of solitude (Abrams, 74); and giving a sense of the supernatural or the strange (Bush, 44). I have chosen to discuss a poem ...

... middle of paper ...

...ur past happiness, rather than feeling sad. Happy memories make being alone a joy. We have only to close our eyes and think of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen. It is noteworthy that the golden daffodils are seen as gleeful and are "jocund company." They bring joy and happiness to the lonely poet, and it is the happiness that he remembers. With the gift of memory, his heart may even "dance" with the flowers. Now, his solitude is not just bearable, but full of pleasure.

Thus, Wordsworth's poems show characteristics of romantic poetry, in general. Two of the themes almost come together into one-- the joy of solitude and the power of imagination. The third theme of the super natural gives a strange quality to some of the poems. However, the fourth theme, the strong expression of feeling, is most important and, in a way, includes all of the other themes.

Show More
Related

  • Lennie Relationship

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the beginning of the story, the dynamic of George and Lennie’s relationship is introduced, one that is uncommon and presents a fatherly vibe. The readers are thrown into the novel at the height of the great depression, an economic catastrophe that shook the world. Within these dark time, an unlikely friendship is in full blossom and we are meet by Lennie and George setting up camp for the night by a riverbed. After the duo’s personalities are expressed, they begin to set up the idea of a commonly shared dream which exists according to Lennie “Because... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you” (Steinbeck 14). Lennie is seen as a quite simple minded and extremely dim-witted character from just the first

    Read More

  • Comparing Individuality and Transcendence in Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Joyce

    2258 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Norton Anthology English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: WW Norton, 2000. 238-50 Wordsworth, William. "

    Read More

  • Cold Mountain Essay

    3131 Words  | 7 Pages

    G. Ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Romantic Period. New York: Norton, 2000. Barth, Robert J. Romanticism and transcendence: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the Religious Imagination. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003.

    Read More

  • Self-Discovery Through Relationship in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lennie’s presence in George’s life causes George to learn about his friendship. An example of this is when George talks to a friend about his relationship with Lennie. He says that “Lennie just come along with me out workin’. Got kinda used to each other after a little while” (Steinbeck, 89). George implies that Lennie is different from others, however their relationship grows despite this. It is shown that as George spends with Lennie it causes him to experience friendship and to accept Lennie’s differences. It is proven that Lennie’s presence in George’s life causes George to realize that he is a friend to Lennie. Another example that proves how George’s relationship with Lennie promotes their friendship is when George is talking to Candy about his old dog. “Well-hell! I had him so long. Had him since he was a pup. I herded sheep with him…You wouldn’t think it to look at him now, but he was the best damn sheep dog I ever seen” (Steinbeck, 44). Candy talks about the friendship between him and his old dog and how the time they had together assisted their bonding. George relates this to Lennie, and believes that the longer that they are together the better friends that they will become. It is shown that George sees his relationship with Lennie when he relates it to Candy and his dog. This proves that Lennie causes George to realize that he can be a friend.

    Read More

  • Romantic Era The Romantic Period

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in Cumberland. Wordsworth was privileged to have a happy childhood and he had access to the beautiful scenery in Cumberland as well as a full education. Some authors that impressed him were Milton, Crabbe, and Ossian. Wordsworth was privileged to travel to France, Switzerland, and Italy.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Percy Shelley And The Sublime/Beautiful

    1126 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Literature and the Industrial Revolution

    349 Words  | 1 Pages

    William Wordsworth, like Blake, was linked with Romanticism. In fact, he was one of the very founders of Romanticism. He wrote poems are about nature, freedom and emotion. He was open about how he felt about life and what his life was like. Also, Wordsworth wrote poems about the events going on around him ? for instance the French Revolution. Mainly, Wordsworth wrote about nature, however, rarely used simple descriptions in his work. Instead, Wordsworth wrote complexly, for example in his poem ?Daffodils?.

    Read More

  • Divinity in It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

    515 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the late 17th and early 18th centuries the style of poetry changed drastically. Poets shifted their focus away from the audience and concentrated on the internal self. This created the expressive, lyric poetry we now recognize as typical of Romanticism. William Wordsworth is one of the most famous of the Romantics, as well as author of "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free." Written in 1807 after a trip to France to visit his daughter, "It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" focuses on Wordsworth's view of nature and childhood as essentially divine.

    Read More

  • William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey

    916 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey As students, we are taught that William Wordsworth's basic tenets of poetry are succinct: the use of common language as a medium, common man as a subject, and organic form as an inherent style. Yet beyond these rudimentary teachings, it should be considered that it was the intimacy with nature that was imperative to the realization of Wordsworth's goals set forth in the "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads. In his "Preface," Wordsworth states, "Poetry is the image of man and nature" (Norton 247). A study of "Tintern Abbey," the intended finale and last impression of the Lyrical Ballads, reveals Wordsworth's conviction that the role of nature is the force and connection that binds mankind not only to the past and the future, but to other human beings as well. Regardless of the language employed, the subject used, or the method of delivery, it was the primal connection with nature that fueled Wordsworth's poetic genius.

    Read More

  • Analyzing The Idiot Boy

    1056 Words  | 3 Pages

    Several things, major and minor, about this poem may strike the reader as atypical of Wordsworth's work. The very first stanza of the poem gives us only the general setting: "'Tis eight o'clock, -- a clear March night, / The moon is up -- the sky is blue [...]" (ll. 1-2). Wordsworth's poems frequently begin on a more general scale, and narrow in for a few stanzas on a very specific location. Here we are given a sketchy background and left at that.

    Read More

  • Wordsworth's Poetry

    1494 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wordsworth's Poetry A lot of literature has been written about motherhood. Wordsworth is a well known English poet who mentions motherhood and female strength in several of his poems, including the Mad Mother, The Thorn, and The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman. This leads some critics to assume that these poems reflect Wordsworth's view of females. Wordsworth portrays women as dependent on motherhood for happiness, yet he also emphasizes female strength.

    Read More

  • Close critical analysis of Coleridges Frost at Midnight

    1692 Words  | 4 Pages

    In his introduction to the Norton Anthology of English Literature, M. H. Abrams attempts to overcome these difficulties by identifying the 'five cardinal elements' of Romantic poetry. According to Abrams, Romantic poetry is distinguished by the belief that poetry is not an "imitation of nature" but a "representation of the poet's internal emotions". Secondly, that the writing of poetry should be "an effortless expression" and not an "arduous exercise". The prevalence of nature in Romantic poetry and what Abrams calls "the glorification of the ordinary and the outcast" are identified as two further common elements, as is the sense of a "supernatural" or "satanic presence" (Abrams, 2000, pp. 7-11).

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    2505 Words  | 6 Pages

    There were two particular events that helped to give William a newfound sense of direction in his work and career. In January of 1795, a close friend of William died and in his will, he granted Wordsworth a legacy of 900 pounds; this money helped him to devote more time to his poetry. That same August, he met S.T. Coleridge and they quickly became close friends. In July of 1797, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved to Alfoxden House, which was only a few miles from Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey. Speaking of Coleridge, himself and Dorothy, Wordsworth said, "we were three persons with one soul" (Hanley). Each day, Wordsworth and Coleridge would work on their poetry, discuss their ideas o...

    Read More

  • The Role of Nature in the poetry of William Wordsworth

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Comparison Of Tintern Abbey And Preface To Lyrical Ballads

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...eople that are from two different classes could talk about one poem and how they feel about it. This really changed the how poetry was viewed considering Wordsworth was one of the best of his time other poets look at what he was doing and responded to his actions and thoughts. Wordsworth explores common themes of the romantic era and makes them apparent to his readers by finding something important to the common man and using common diction.

    Read More

More about William Wordsworth

Open Document