A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, By William Wordsworth And On First Looking Into Chapman 's Homer

By contrasting Barbauld's “A Summer Evening's Meditation” and Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey” – known as “Lines”, but here referred to by an abbreviation of its subtitle – it becomes clear that these poems convey two different approaches towards the concept of the sublime, which are characteristic of both authors. In these poems, both speakers describe a sublime experience, which through analysis can be perceived as a comment on the value of the sublime for society. Where “Tintern Abbey” focusses on the intrinsic value of the sublime, interpreting it as a school for inevitable personal growth, “A Summer Evening's Mediation”

The famous Greek historian Plutarch once said: “Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks”. He couldn’t have been more astute. By analysing poetry, we are not just appreciating the soul of the poet and what drove him/her, but we also come to comprehend the spirit of the period that the poet was writing.

Edmund Burke a theorist stated in his works that, "…Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger; that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime" [2] . The critic attempts to assemble an authoritative definition of the sublime here.

Wordsworth’s poetry lectures on nature while Keats’ poetry playfully frolics in the meadow. “The Eve of St. Agnes” stimulates intensity and personal connection because the fragrances, flavors, and feel of the scene come alive. The night is “honeyed,” the fair virgins are “lilly white” (VI), and the air resounds with “timbrels” and “faery fancy” (VIII). Madeline admires the “languid moon” and her interests spring to life as a “full-blown rose” (528). Objects in nature represent human characteristics. Renaissance folklore inspires the lines: “While legioned faeries paced the coverlet/And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed” (XIX). Mystic revelry and description allows the reader to feel apart of Keats’ poem.

Various poems project vividness by the specific descriptive words that are written by the poets. These simple words not only create vivid scenes, but also have a lively breathe. From a bombing, to a glimpse of faith, to a rather strange situation, the words written in these poems will make the reader want to hold their breath. The mood in the poems “Ballad of Birmingham, “Since there’s no help,” and “When my love swears that she is made of truth” robustly reveal author’s purpose on the topics of fear, hope, and contentment, which embody the three most essential emotions that describe human nature.

Lastly, de Botton discusses the sublime in terms of its ability to call attention to the duality of pain and happiness. He includes several pictures in this chapter of vast landscapes that express the contrast of light and dark far more evidently than in other pictures throughout the book. The inclusion of these pictures serves to prompt the reader to recognize the stark contrast yet intimate relationship between light and dark. Likewise, De Botton’s description of the sublime is often in opposition to itself; he describes the sublime as “to do with feelings of weakness”, “threatening”, “can provoke anger and resentment” and “a defiance to man’s will” (de Botton 164).

Nature is very important to romantics; it is a departure from the enlightened ideals of study and the “classroom” environment. Dr. Victor Frankenstein shows a great appreciation of nature through diction, especially through Edmund Burke’s idea of the sublime. Burke’s article, On the Sublime, defines sublimity in relation to nature, “astonishing [...] with a degree of horror”, which is a feeling Dr. Frankenstein frequently describes when he is in nature. In one passage, Frankenstein uses the words, “troubled”, “awful majesty”, “wonderful and stupendous”, “vast” and “glittering” (Shelley 101). These words resemble the “sublime” by combining the beauty of nature and the terror it’s vastness brings, just as Burke illustrates. Shelley also uses imagery. Imagery portrays the beauty that the character’s see in nature to the reader. One instance of

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) pioneered the development of the sublime as a concept in his “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756).” Burke identified the effects of beauty as an aesthetic pleasure. Sublime is different from beauty, he argued, because it provokes passion, fear, power, obscurity, pain, suddenness, and danger as effects. Burke pointed to specific components of the sublime such as vastness, infinity, and the magnitude of buildings. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), in analyzing Burke’s concept, argued that an object or phenomenon cannot be sublime. “The wide ocean disturbed by the storm cannot be sublime. Its aspect is horrible.” According to Kant,

Burke's sublime is separated into distinct categories. He categorizes objects of experience by the way in which they impact the senses. Burke associates qualities of "balance," "smoothness," "delicacy" and "color" with the beautiful, while he speaks of the sublime in terms such as "vastness" and "terror" (Burke, 325). Instead Kant dissevers the sublime into the mathematical and the dynamical, where in the mathematical aesthetical comprehension are not a consciousness of a mere more preponderant unit, but the notion of absolute greatness not inhibited with conceptions of constraints. The dynamically sublime is nature considered in an aesthetic judgment as might that has no ascendancy over us and an object can engender a fearfulness without

He experiences an expanse that has obscure and terrifying qualities which evoke the sublime (Burke 35-37). Many instances of sublimity are in events and characters throughout the poem. For instance, the storm that blew the ship about “like Chaff” (I. 48), is an event, which is terrifying. The ice figures that are many and varied portray the obscurity of the sublime (I. 55). Ice surrounds the Marinere’s ship showing the power that nature constantly maintains over man, “The Ice was here, the Ice was there,/

In "Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey", Wordsworth uses imagination to help him and others to live in the physical world peacefully. He recalls playing in Tintern Abbey, a forest nearby there and played in it when he was young. Now he comes back for different reasons. He escapes the world which is individualism and goes to the forest to get away from all the burden. He tells his young sister that she can always come here to get away from her problems as well. In the poem, Wordsworth uses nature to solve problems in life.

During the 18th century, two great poets; William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge started the Romantic Movement. These two were also good companion and collaborated together to create “Lyrical Ballad”, which was considered one of the greatest works of the Romantic period. Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” are the two major poems of “Lyrical Ballad.” Even though these two poems contain different experiences of the two speakers, the similarities are found in the message of the two poems, the language, the tone and the use of illustrative imagery to fascinate the reader’s visual sense. Upon close consideration and reading of these poems, it becomes clearer that they are basically similar poems.

The boundlessness and overwhelming quality that is the Sublime is represented throughout each artwork and provides the cohesion of the exhibition. However, each artwork represents different themes and concepts related to the specific cultural background that the artist has come from or is representing.

In aesthetics, the sublime is defined as “the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual, or artistic.” The term is used to describe greatness beyond any possibility of quantification, imitation, or containment. The sublime has been a topic in philosophical discussions since Ancient times, first studied by Longinus. Since then, many great philosophers such as Edmund Burke, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Immanuel Kant have pressed the concept further, distinguishing beauty and the sublime as separate entities. Kant’s sublime exists in oscillation between pleasure and fear, beauty that might frighten you to death. Where, if anywhere, is there an overlap between the beautiful and the sublime?

In accordance with the Romantics, in order to experience the Sublime, we are to be out and about amongst nature. The Sublime will be referred to as a proper adjective in this essay as it will be referring to a specific occurrence of its general definition within the context of nature and outer body emotion. It is when, and only when, we discover and surrender to an emotion greater that ourselves. One that which we find ourselves incapable of defining or explaining. In moments like these we find ourselves uplifted and terrified, yet lacking any desire to impede or halt the feeling. For centuries authors have battled to depict such an awe-invoking time in their lives. Some of the most ever-striking battles towards a clear depiction of such moments is displayed through various works written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Wordsworth; both of which, though opposed in their own personal views, are true advocates for the power that the Sublime holds. The Sublime is an unparalleled dimension that is attainable only when powerful emotions and being in the presence of awe-inspiring grandeur unite with an overwhelming sense of being at one with nature. Within the words written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and William Wordsworth there are similarities and differences regarding the perception of the Sublime. Both writers demonstrate, through their work, an immense amount of appreciation for the Sublime’s accordance with the natural world, their own radical views and the power found