LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY. BRIEF SUMMARY In this poem the author gives the reader a very descriptive view of how he feels after five years have past in his life. The poem seems to be of the memories of a bitter sweet time. THESIS STATEMENT Past , Present , and Future an Analysis of Memory in William Wordsworth s Lines unruffled a hardly a(pronominal) Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey. THEME AND TONE "Tintern Abbey" is a little bit different in that it's about the poet himself, but it is still representative of a lot of the changes Wordsworth wanted to make to the way poetry was written. It's written about common things (enjoying nature during a walk around a ruined abbey with his sister), and it uses a very conversational style with relatively simple vocabulary. It also introduces the idea that Nature can influence, sustain, and heal the mind of the poet. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AND POETIC DEVICES This is why the speaker still considers himself a "lover" of nature. It's because he's figured out that the "presence" (a.k.a. the "something" or the "motion" or the "spirit") connects everything. So the speaker is saying that he loves what his "eyes and ears" "half create" (106) as well as "what [they] perceive" (107). "Nature" with a capital "N" (122). "he loved" (72). The "sounding cataract" (76), Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods. POEM INTERPRETATION By sifting through his memories, the speaker moves back and forth in time and imaginatively goes back to "towns and cities" . So even though the poem takes place entirely on the banks of the Wye on July 13, 1798, his earlier visit (probably in 1793, five years earlier) and his memories of living in "towns and cities" are also important to the setting. In "Tintern Abbey," the speaker's reaction to nature is one of awe. He finds the view from the banks of the river Wye to be jaw-dropping-ly, breathtakingly, almost indescribably beautiful. His breath, at one point, is actually taken away. And once he has his epiphany about the divine "presence" in all of nature, his awe is turned to a kind of piety. He becomes a devout worshipper of Mother Nature. CONCLUSION He's visited a place called Tintern Abbey before, but not for five years. He remembers almost every detail: the sound of the "mountain-springs," He looks back on the past five years that have gone by since his first visit to the place, and remembers how much the memory of this scene meant to him when he was cooped up in the city. WORKS CITED http://www.shmoop.com/tintern-abbey http://www.gradesaver.com/wordsworths-poetical-works/study- guide/section5/