Words with Hidden Values
Words can be used for many things such as describing, depicting, or disguising a person’s thoughts or ideas. In a lyrical ballad called Strange fits of passion have I known by William Wordsworth, he does a great job of using different words to give out many thoughts and ideas. This is why poetry is used as a freedom of expression. Any poet can use wordplay to create and inspire readers to think, and dig deep for a certain meaning or purpose.
Wordsworth , I thought was very good a using words to create a different meaning than what the words actually meant. His words if looked at closely could have meant a million and one different things.
But in the Lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befel.(Wordsworth 3,4)
These few lines in the first stanza of his poem are pretty basic and do not give much to think about. They do give the start to the poem and the basic tone or idea. Line three could represent some sort of secret that only one would tell to someone they really love or trust. With line four it states that he was the one trusted with some sort of secret.
The lines of stanza two become a little more creative and give some good starting ideas.
When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon. (Wordsworth 5-8)
These lines are were the reader can now start becoming creative and coming up with possible ideas of what Wordsworth is trying to say. It is pretty obvious the first two lines are talking about how beautiful this girl is that Wordsworth is in love with. Then the next two lines are interesting to me. The idea I came up with is that Wordsworth was away from his lover doing something, but suddenly for some reason had to drop what he was doing and go to her. I was able to think of these because “I to her cottage bent my way” means that he had to change what he was doing. Then with “Beneath an evening moon” could mean he was in a rush since he is traveling at night and could not wait for morning to come about.
With stanza four I became a little more creative with Wordsworth’s wordplay.
The first two stanzas focus on his relationship with nature and society. Stanza one focuses primarily on his relationship with nature. The first
The first thing that strikes me about this poem is the structure. The poem is very ordered written with 4 lines a stanza and a total of 6 stanza’s. This looks like a professional poem created by an adult, showing experience right away. The syllables are normally 7 per line but there are exceptions to this rule as all of stanza 5 has 8 syllables a line. The first stanza and the last stanza are nearly the same apart from the last line of each differing by a word. This poem uses many poetic devices well to create a vivid picture in the readers mind. There are rhyming couplets, alliteration, repetition, rhetorical questions as well as many biblical and egotistical references to the artist and poet himself. Now we will look at the poems meanings.
These poems are not as complex when compared to other poems, and with that being said they do not take an abundance of inference to determine the theme of the poem. Because they are not as complex as others all 3 of these poems are capable of being paraphrased to better understand the main idea of the poem. When putting the poem into different words, one can
,“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity" as William Wordsworth, the English Romantic poet, stated. Poetry is a way to express vast emotions and feelings in a way which is unique to the poet. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses.
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
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman all use different varieties of themes, mood, structure and literary devices throughout their poetry. Poetry uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language. Poetry has been around for years, even back in the early 1900’s.
Wordsworth has been considered to be one of the most significant romantic writers in history. The romantic period was one of the most influential time periods of British literature and was referred to as incidents of life. Romanticism followed little of the same old boring rules and left authors free to write as they felt. Most literature from this period was based on love, fascinations, obsessions, myths, and nature, these and other such emotions or areas of interest are what changed the eighteenth-century ideas of poetry forever. Wordsworth is considered a romantic poet, because his writings were very imaginative, emotional, and visionary. A majority of Wordsworth’s literature expressed his obsession with nature. He had many literary works, some on nature and some on humanist topics. Although Wordsworth considered himself to be a humanist writer, most of his readers still consider him to be more of a writer on nature. Once a reader has begun to read some of Wordsworth’s poetry they soon realized he is a naturalist romantic.
Although there had been a 'long absence'; from the abbey, the memories of his hurried time in the Wye had consoled him ' 'mid the din of towns and cities'; (lines 26-27). 'With tranquil restoration'; Wordsworth has changed from the state of observing to the state of recalling his 'unremembered pleasures[s]'; (31). He had many times returned in spirit to the Wye, to escape the 'fever of the world'; (53). These memories have produced emotions beyond his understanding; enlightening him and relieving his frustrations. It is the abbey, 'in which the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world, is lightened'; and makes him become a 'living soul';. (40-49) Wordsworth was claiming th...
Moreover, searching for the different mechanics in each of these poems makes it easier for the reader to analysis and interpret them. To begin, in “The World is Too Much with Us” the way the punctuation is fit into the poem is different since there are many semicolons between each line and one period suggesting that the poem is actually one long sentence. Then I believe the speaker to be someone who acknowledges that he too has lost connection with nature since he’s been preoccupied with other things in the world. This is proven throughout the whole poem since he talks in first person using the word “I.” The tone of this poem is angry, frustrated, and dissatisfied because of how the world has changed. The rhyme scheme is also another appealing mechanic here too since Wordsworth only uses fou...
Wordsworths “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” is his ideas on how he is going to be writing his poetry. In the “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” The Principal Object of the Poems. Humble and Rustic Life (Wordsworth 434) he discusses how in his poems he wants to create a situation in common life and have all different kinds of people relate them to a personal experience they once had in a common language,“ To throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mid in an unsual way; and ,further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing them truly through not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.” by saying this in this stanza one can directly relate it to how he then writes “Tintern Abbey”. In “Tintern Abbey” Wordsworth uses this imagination to make things like walking through a abbey with your sister can become a magical incident that sends...
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.
Wordsworth had two simple ideas that he put into his writing of poetry. One was that “poetry was the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” The second idea was that poets should describe simple scenes of nature in the everyday words, which in turn would create an atmosphere through the use of imagination (Compton 2).
"The Poetry of William Wordsworth." SIRS Renaissance 20 May 2004: n.p. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 06 February 2010.
In the second stanza the poet describes the things while he was praying for his daughter. He walks for an hour and notices the "sea-wind scream upon the tower", "under the arches of the bridge", "in the elms above the flooded stream." They probably represent the dreaming of the human beings and they are decisive. They are all about the present things and they block people from thinking about the future events. The last four lines of the second stanza clearly explain this idea:
The poem begins with Wordsworth instructing the reader through the use of apostrophe to look upon the “solitary Highland Lass” (2) who is “Reaping and singing by herself” (3). Calling the solitary reaper a “lass”, Wordsworth brings into focus the image of a girl who is young, yet experienced and mature due to the hardships of the rural countryside. As the solitary girl “cuts and binds the grain” (5) by herself, ostensibly unaware of her surroundings, Wordsworth commands people who encounter her to “Stop here, or gently pass” (4). Demanding others to “Stop here” (4), Wordsworth reveals his belief that the lass’s melody is alluring and worthy enough to be heard and acknowledged by all bystanders. Yet Wordsworth does not force people to listen to the reaper’s song as he also gives those passing by the option to “gently pass” (4). Not wanting anything to disturb the highland lass from both her labors and her singing, Wordsworth seemingly beseeches s...