The poem Incidents upon Salisbury Plain (otherwise known as Guilt and Sorrow) is a prime example of Wordsworth’s political visions of revolution for social equality, being weaved into his poetry. In the poem, Wordsworth writes of a society wrought with war and the misery experienced by a vagrant woman and wandering soldier. The poem captures a sense of despair, loneliness and disillusionment - no doubt a poetic representation of how it felt to live in a time of civil unrest. It could be said that the wanderer is comparable to the lower class, displaced without care, constantly searching for a sense of belonging. Wordsworth effectively exposes the isolation and despondency of the working class in the sense of dejection portrayed by the protagonists. …show more content…
Shelley himself is mostly praised, in a modern day context, for his poetic lyricism. However, when he was alive, most publishers refused to publish his work, fearing that they would themselves be accused of blasphemy or sedition. Though he came from an upper class background - his father was the Whig Member of Parliament for Horsham - Shelley was always preoccupied by visions of “a virtuous enthusiasm for those doctrines of liberty and justice” for mankind. Shelley wrote a number of poems that were intended to evoke thoughts of revolution. However, his desire for revolution was not one based on violence; in fact he believed that “faith and hope in something good” is something that “neither violence nor misrepresentation nor prejudice can ever totally …show more content…
He argues that the poet is a benefactor to humanity and should therefore support social advancement as opposed to repression. Literature, he says, contributes indirectly to moral improvement, and moreover that poetry “awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought.” Shelley adds that the social betterment of man is reliant upon the exercising of the “organ of the moral nature of man”13, otherwise referred to as imagination. In addition to this, Shelley contends that literature acts in response to the social climate; it thrives in periods of prosperity and political reform which endorse creativity. There is clearly a recognised correlation between poetry and politics, but it seems ambiguous as to whether revolutionary literature is actually a precursor of revolution or not. Furthermore, the lines are blurred between that of a rebellious social leader, and a mere social outcast. J. Drummond Bone argues, that “social exile is virtually a precondition of rebelliousness or rebellious social criticism”14
The poem Ozymandias tells of a king who was very powerful, people feared him. He created statues of himself for people to admire. Now all that remains of his power are remains. What remains of him are memories that are now long forgotten and that the wind carries away. Sand that stretches for miles and miles until it
While he does succeed, his plans go awry, and his life ends in ruin, due only to his hubris. Similarly, Ozymandias succeeds at what he sets out to do, but cannot foresee that his power will not be eternal due to his hubris. In both works, the main character tries and fails at defying nature, something which should never be attempted. Both authors, being Romantics, strongly believed in the sanctity of nature, and this showed through in their works. Through the fates of their characters, they show that the defiance of nature is futile, and that one should never attempt to be above
In this poem, Shelley uses symbols, imagery, incidents, and contrasts to establish the harmful effects of pride and overconfidence. Shelley’s utilization of symbols establishes the harmful effects of Ozymandias’ pride and overconfidence. Shelley uses the symbol of “the colossal wreck” to represent the enormity and intensity of his self-promotion. Through this reference, Shelly demonstrates Ozymandias’ high view of himself in believing that he was the greatest. Shelly further establishes the connection between his pride and the abrupt ending of his empire, and establishes the necessity for humility.
In the poem, Wordsworth describes, “Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie...All bright in glittering in the smokeless air (Wordsworth 6).” The town advanced greatly and in the moment, there isn’t smoke to cloud the beauty of achievement, there isn’t smoke filling the air because the factories hadn’t begun working when he wrote the poem. Even though the morning time is ideal, Wordsworth avoids the harsh reality of the harm the factories are causing. Charles Dickens describes the town as, “unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage (Document A)”. The town had fallen far enough to make people think the worst of the condition (Document A). Alexis de Tocqueville mentions that, “man has turned back almost into a savage.” Civilians have done the same as the towns, and are letting go of the standards they once set (Document B). The connotation of the word savage is significant of the fact that entire cities and its people are reverting back to times of ignorance and loss of connection to their world. In the poem, Wordsworth describes that, “Earth has not anything to show more fair (Wordsworth 1),” in the thought of people only have one planet and that people have done enough damage and taking away the beauty of the
In his poem “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley depicts an incongruous scene in which a colossal stone relic lays in ruins among a vast, empty landscape. Though on the surface, the piece has a simple meaning, the ironies and tensions hidden in the lyrics and meter are often overlooked (Martin 65). In his peculiar sonnet, Shelley uses the image of an ancient Egyptian sculpture to make a statement about the relationship between an artist, their subject, and the effects of time on both.
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous sonnet “Ozymandias” creates a very clear image in my mind of what type of man pharaoh Ozymandias was. I believe that pharaoh Ozymandias was an extremely unique and powerful leader, looking at lines 4-5 the speaker mentions the disintegrated statues facial expressions which the speaker noticed first even though the statue was shattered. The speaker could clearly see “..frown, and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command” which in my opinion suggests that the king looked down on other people, thought that he was better by curling up his lip. His “frown” indicates that he intimidated people to ensure that everybody was aware of the great king and his power. “Cold command” in line 5 suggests that Ozymandias was everything but a warm loving Pharaoh and he would demand anything he wanted no matter how cruel or vicious it was. In line 10 carved on the pedestal “My name is Ozymandias, King of kings”, proves to us how egotistical and arrogant pharaoh Ozymandias was. His “works” quoted in plural form demonstrates that the pharaoh had more than enough and...
Five different situations are suggested in "Lines" each divided into separate sections. The first section details the landscape around the abbey, as Wordsworth remembers it from five years ago. The second section describes the five-year lapse between visits to the abbey, during which he has thought often of his experience there. The third section specifies Wordsworth's attempt to use nature to see inside his inner self. The fourth section shows Wordsworth exerting his efforts from the preceding stanza to the landscape, discovering and remembering the refined state of mind the abbey provided him with. In the final section, Wordsworth searches for a means by which he can carry the experiences with him and maintain himself and his love for nature. .
Primarily in Lines composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey the mortality of creativeness and imagination is expressed by Wordsworth. This is a poem about the beauty of an old cathedral called Tintern Abbey. He hasn’t been there in five years and he brought his sister along. Even though imagination isn’t immortal, there is a way to reclaim it, “That time is past, / and all its aching joys are ...
This poem describes a story told you by a passing traveler of a ruined statue of a king, Ozymandias, seemingly in a desolate desert. On the statue in is inscribed, “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’/Nothing beside remain” (“Ozymandias” 10-12). Upon examination of the surrounding land, we realize that the once vast kingdom around the statue has been taken back by the desert, leaving the ironic message on the statue. This poem shows Shelley’s ideas of how all is temporary, especially mankind and our achievements. Showing romantic values, Shelley believed nature is much greater than man and no matter how big your kingdom, mather nature will always take back what was always
It is nature that destroys humankind when the sun disappears and the volcano erupts in “Darkness” and in “Ozymandias,” it is the sand and wind that causes the statue to fall. In Byron’s poem, humans lose the fight for their lives, and in Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias’s statue is powerless because it is lifeless, emphasizing the importance of the themes of life and death to the shared topic of destruction. Although they explore destruction using different language, they share the use of ideas about the destruction of civilization, and the fall of humankind because of nature, life and
Words like “half sunk” and “shattered” signifies that King Ozymandias is no longer precious and the reign he had has declined. The image of a shattered statue in a vacant desert, delivers the message of the king being abandoned and insignificant. Thus, Ozymandias” is a satiric and mocking poem. Furthermore, the shift in line 10 and 11of the poem, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” exemplifies that the king embodied himself as a noble and important individual. However, the tourist describes the statue as a “colossal wreck,” to show his decline in supremacy. The two different viewpoints of the traveler and the king let the reader connect to the overall theme. The poet left the reader to understand that everlasting sense of pride and superiority an individual possesses (King Ozymandias) is only true for a certain period of time. To demonstrate this, Percy Bysshe Shelley uses incredible imagery to form the king’s mentality about himself, as well the traveler’s opinion about
‘It is often suggested that the source for many of William Wordsworth’s poems lies in the pages of Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal. Quite frequently, Dorothy describes an incident in her journal, and William writes a poem about the same incident, often around two years later.’ It is a common observation that whilst Dorothy is a recorder – ‘her face was excessively brown’ – William is a transformer – ‘Her skin was of Egyptian brown’ . The intertextuality between The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals and ‘I wandered lonely as a Cloud’ allows both Dorothy and William to write about the same event, being equally as descriptive, but in very differing ways. Dorothy writes in a realist ‘log-book’ like style, whereas William writes in a romantic ballad style. This can be very misleading, as it gives William’s work more emotional attachment even though his work is drawn upon Dorothy’s diary, which in its turn is very detached, including little personal revelation. When read in conjunction with William’s poetry, Dorothy’s journal seems to be a set of notes written especially for him by her. In fact, from the very beginning of the journals Dorothy has made it quite clear that she was writing them for William’s ‘pleasure’ . This ties in with many of the diary entries in which she has described taking care of William in a physical sense. In a way this depicts the manner in which William uses his sister’s journal to acquire the subject of his poetry, which makes it seem as though Dorothy is his inspiration.
In "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," William Wordsworth explains the impact of Nature from Tintern Abbey in his every day life. "Tintern Abbey" shows the great importance of nature to Wordsworth in his writings, love for life, and religion. The memories he has of Tintern Abbey make even the darkest days full of light.
Despite his position, Wordsworth can hear the “soft island murmur” of the mountain springs. As “five long winters” suggests, Wordsworth is cold and dreary—London, we must remember, is a bitter place. He longs for the islands: the sand, sun, and warm waters that those murmurs suggest. The coldness of winter could be brought about by Rebecca’s distance from her brother; they had been, at the time of the poem’s writing, separate for five long years. But he can hear reconciliation coming just at the edge of hearing: he can spot the horizon of friendship. But no sooner does friendship appear in the poem than it is thwarted by these lines:
...which Wordsworth praises music and how through its beauty, manages to connect person-to-person, place-to-place. Written as a lyric, “The Solitary Reaper” illustrates the harmonious song the girl sings as the poem itself flows with numerous euphonious words. With short lines and rhymes, the poem has a quick pace, creating a musical rhythm, further asserting the underlying theme of music. Permitting readers to feel Wordsworth’s experience and awe, the lyric poem exists as evidence that the lingering effects of music endure through time, passing history down from one generation to the next.