Author Background: Born April 7th 1770 in Cockermouth, England, William Wordsworth grew up without his mother after the age of 8, and he grew to love poetry at the Hawkshead Grammar School. Wordsworth revolutionized literature with his philosophy that humans become more corrupt as they get older, losing their naivete in their perception of the world and nature around them. Wordsworth was one of the most influential nature poets in England, and he worshipped nature in his poems as a more superior entity for humans to learn from and look up to. Paraphrase: The world is too overwhelming for us to appreciate. We waste our powers on earning and spending and we overlook the value of nature. We have sold our hearts away and see nothing in …show more content…
Structure: This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, and while it also consists of 14 lines, unlike a Shakespearean sonnet, a Petrarchan sonnet consist of an octave (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines). While there is no official rhyme scheme for a Petrarchan sonnet, this poem has a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA in the octave and CDCDCD in the sestet. The octave in this poem identifies a greater issue with the faults in people’s obsession with materialism, and it shifts in focus to the sestet, in which he declares his own actions of giving up on humanity. The rhyme scheme of the poem puts emphasis on words ending in an -oon sound, which creates a rhythm and bridge between all his examples of how humans are losing touch in nature. This rhythm is further enhanced by the parallelism comparing “This Sea” to “The winds” and between Proteus and Triton, which are all references to nature. Lines 1-8 of the first octave introduce the issue of this disconnection with nature, suggesting his hopelessness in humanity, and he conveys this tone of helplessness through words such as “lay waste” and “howling”. During this octave, he emphasizes the sea, winds, and flowers of nature in order to emphasize the things people have began to neglect. The tone shifts when it reaches 9-14 of the sestet to less emphasis on nature and more on his personal conflict, accepting the outcome of humanity, and he uses this section as closure for himself, resolving his own
Nature is first described in a peaceful and confident mood as something majestic, with the sun as the powerful being which controls this nature. However, by the end of the first stanza, “The hawk comes”. This phrase is said as if the narrator is afraid of the hawk and its presence is going to change the mood of the rest of the poem. The next stanza suddenly uses sharp diction, such as “scythes”, “honed”, and “steel-edge”, to illustrate the hawk’s stunning motions and the powerful aura of the hawk that is felt just from its existence, causing the mood of the poem to slowly transition to fearful, yet respectable. The narrator adores this change the hawk is causing on nature, and describes the scene with the hawk in awe, showing how the poet finds the changing of nature attractive.
In the poem there is also an idea of man verses nature, this relates to the survival of the fittest. John Foulcher shows this through the use of first person point of view. For example in the second stanza “Then above me the sound drops” this again possesses sensory imagery creating a deeper human aura throughout the poem. Foulcher further uses a human aura to build a sense of natural imagery for example in the last stanza : “I pick up these twigs and leave them” adding closure
John Muir and William Wordsworth are great examples of this theory. Throughout their stories, both men give great insight to how the harmony of nature impacts their lives in a way that can make them forget about all the sorrow and depression they have following behind them; Wordsworth and Muir’s stories include syntax and diction to verbalize their passionate relationship towards nature. William Wordsworth’s poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” excellently shows how the power of beauty can changes one's once depressed, sad day into joy and blissfulness. In Wordsworth's story, he exploits his experience of how nature changed his mood of depression and sorrow to grateful and glee when he stumbles across a bed of beautiful golden daffodils dancing in the breeze. Wordsworth writes: “A poet could not be but gay, in such a jocund company” (stanza 3). In this passage, Wordsworth shows his change of heart when in the presence of something so beautiful and alluring. Wordsworth also shows how nature impacts his mood from the quote: “They flash upon the inward eye, and my heart with pleasure fills” (stanza 4). In this final quote, Wordsworth explains that even when he is apart from the beautiful golden daffodils, it is the memory that keeps his spirits alive. While Wordsworth's experience with nature
Throughout the poem the tone and harmony is showing many different moods including shyness, anger and calmness. An example of shyness is at the start of the poem “softy, silently it swishes”, an example of anger is in the middle of the poem “it thumps, it sprays it rips at shores, its ozone spray”, and finally at the end of the poem calmness is shown, “it spends its strength, it sings, it sighs. The wave recedes”. One aspect of the poem I find intriguing is the alliteration and personification. For example, “it sighs, it sings, it seeks”.
In the poem “Unholy sonnet 5,” Mark Jarman shows us a philosophical reflection about what is worth to do in this life based on a repetition of some patters during the poem. The structure of this poem make it a Petrarchan sonnet. This kind of sonnet is composed by two arguments, the first consist on two octaves with a rhyme ABBA and ABBA. Denoting repetition of the words have, hive, mean and men; highlighting these as significant to found sense to the first argument of the sonnet. In a deeper reading of the poem, this first argument is centered in questioning que purpose and meaning of life for human beings, coinciding with the pattern of rhymes and sounds. Following this structure of a Petrarchan sonnet, the second argument is composed by a sestet. This means that the sonnet has a rhyme CDECDE, denoting repetition of the words joy, death and forget; highlighting these as significant to found sense to the second argument of the sonnet. Also, the second argument of the poem centered on a practical analysis of what is worth to do in life (enjoying) before the death, coinciding with the pattern of rhymes and sounds.
First, the poet uses metre, a style that emphasizes the use of a specific structure, which is an appropriate way of presenting poems with positive themes such as love. In this case, the poet achieves metre through the use of a uniform number of syllables in every line of the first stanza (10 syllables per line). This approach not only makes the poem memorable in recitation and listening but also relaxes the listener which is important in understanding the subject matter. Petrach uses a qualitative metre, which concentrates on the use of uniform syllabic arrangement. As a result, he creates an aesthetic euphony thus making the listener and the reciter to enjoy the presentation of the poem. The technique is appropriate in the presentation of a love sonnet. Equally, the first two stanzas have four lines each, but the last two stanzas have three lines each. This aspect aligns with the two perspectives presented in the poem, the first being his great affection for Laura, and the second is an expression of the pain he experiences as a result of the unreciprocated love. Furthermore, he has been unable to express his feelings to her, which compounds his pain evident in the words “I had love's tinder in my breast unburned, was it a wonder if it kindled there?” (Lines 8 – 9).
William Wordsworth existed in a time when society and its functions were beginning to rapidly pick up. The poem that he 'Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye', gave him a chance to reflect upon his quick paced life by taking a moment to slow down and absorb the beauty of nature that allows one to 'see into the life of things'; (line 49). Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey'; takes you on a series of emotional states by trying to sway 'readers and himself, that the loss of innocence and intensity over time is compensated by an accumulation of knowledge and insight.'; Wordsworth accomplishes to prove that although time was lost along with his innocence, he
During the Industrial Revolution there was a dramatic change in Britain, which instigated social and economic problems Throughout Britain. During the Industrial Revolution, romantic poets such as William Wordsworth, along with other romantic artists, inflicted a positive aspect on the Industrial Revolution due to creating images that revealed everything as being beautiful and expressed the simple life. William Wordsworth illustrates an abundance of romanticism to deal with social and economic problems in the Industrial Revolution and to express the true beauty of nature.
The second and final work I am critiquing is from a book entitled, ‘The Life of William Wordsworth: A Critical Biography’ written by John Worthen. I have selected a chapter which pairs nicely with article mentioned above. The chapter features both Wordsworth and Coleridge as well. However, it is not as critical as the article, it is more biographical and informational which is to be expected in a biography. The chapter focuses on the years 1806 to 1807. It begins with the mention of the death of Wordsworth’s brother, John. According to Worthen, this deeply effected Wordsworth and he had little success with the poetry he was writing during this time. Worthen then, points to ‘Elegiac Stanzas’ which confronts his late brother’s death, displays a new sense of reality, and again redeems him as a poet. Worthen states, “The poem makes the narrator 's youthful state of ecstatic, thoughtless love for the natural world — ‘of lasting ease, / Elysian quiet, without toil or strife’ — utterly unreal, in contrast with the realities of life as he now knows them. A ‘fond delusion of my heart’ he calls that old love, ‘to be pitied’ not believed in” (328). The author implies that the death of his brother drastically changed his worldview. The bleak reality of a world without his brother led to Wordsworth becoming more mature and wise after experiencing loss. The author then shifts to discussing ‘Tintern Abbey’ and his reflections during a time of youth. I believe that the author mentions the
William Wordsworth was born in 1770. His mother died when he was eight years old, and his father died five years after. Wordsworth went to school in Hawkshead, a place he and Coleridge would eventually transform into one of the “poetic centers of England” (Greenblatt 124). Wordsworth wrote conversational poems, that tackled themes such as memory, wisdom, and imagination. He argued that poems should be written without what is generally considered to be “poetic language,” and that they should be written as if they were being spoken, with conversational language.
The structure of this sonnet corresponds to a Petrarchan sonnet. This is identified by the rhyming scheme “abba abba cde cde”. The sonnet is constructed by an octave, which are two quatrains combined then a sestet following after that.
Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than
The friendship of Coleridge and Wordsworth is one of the most literary, productive relationships among the poets of the Romantic Period. Coleridge and Wordsworth were “together on daily basis since July 1797” (Matlak 72). Wordsworth’s poetic career was “reconstructed, if not entirely created through the process of a poetic exchange that made his earlier importance an affective power” (73). At the same time, Wordsworth contributed similarly to Coleridge’s literary career. For example, many of Rime of the Ancient Mariner’s imagery and narrative events were suggested by Wordsworth (Matlak 83.) An early important example of their literary partnership was their Lyrical Ballads. As this friendship lasted until the death of Coleridge, many of the
How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism? Q. How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism? A. Romantic poetry was an artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th century. It dealt with nature, human imagination, childhood and the ability to recall emotional memories of both happiness and sadness.
William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, West Cumberland in the year 1770. Many years later he died at the age of 80 on April 23, 1850. Wordsworth lived a life full of struggles and pain but many accomplishments. He lost his mother at the age of 8 and was sent to a school in Hawkshead. In 1791 after he graduated with a degree at Cambridge University, he became an avid supporter of the French Revolution which seemed to him to promise a “glorious renovation” of society. He then married a French woman named Annette Vallon and had a daughter Caroline. Soon after Caroline’s birth Wordsworth had an emotional breakdown because the lack of money he had forced him to return to England. Years later he remarried a childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson, and had five children in which only three survived. In 1805, his favorite brother drowned and in 1810 his sister Dorothy's physical and mental state declined however, with the agony he grew up with underlied many of his greatest poems. He remained famous, as he was