Lecture Notes - Overview of Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (1798)
STANZA 1: poem opens in 1st-person voice, emphasizing time/memory (“Five years
have past” [l. 1]), reflection and hypnosis (water and murmuring [ll. 2-3]), and mountain
scenery as bridge to seclusion (“steep and lofty cliffs” [l. 5]; cf. in opposition to pastoral
scenery in 17th and 18th cents., former considered wild, untamed, dangerous, etc.);
speaker thinks of “deeper seclusion” but landscape optimistically treated (since all
linked “with the quite of the sky” [l. 8]); finishes with near-spiritual contextualization of
“some Hermit” (l. 21) who introduced via “wreaths of smoke / Sent up, in silence” (ll.
17-8) and “sits alone” (l. 22); perhaps speaker equates himself with this hermit who
seems to have spiritual significance?
STANZA 2: contrast of living/powerful nature of previous stanza with sterility and disjointedness of urban sophistication (“lonely rooms” [l. 25]); remembering nature brings
speaker “tranquil restoration” (l. 30) while he amid “din / Of towns and cities” (ll. 25-6);
commentary follows reminiscent of “simple annals of the poor” of Thomas Gray’s
“Elegy” (1751; see Harbrace), here transformed into “unremembered pleasure” (l. 31) of
“a good man’s life, / His little, nameless, unremembered, acts” (ll. 33-4); l. 37 gives “sublime; that blessed mood” for first time; concludes with what reads like advocation of
daydreaming, where we’re “laid asleep / In body, and become a living soul” (ll. 45-6), to
“see into the life of things” (l. 49)
STANZA 3: brief moment but pivotal since speaker turns to river (“sylvan Wye!” [l. 56]), it
personified as sage (wise man) to which his spirit often turns, this “wanderer thro’ the
woods” ([l. 56]; referring to river but equally so to speaker)
STANZA 4: revival of memory (l. 61) that may also be path to future (ll. 64-5), and thus,
even though no longer child he still “dare[s] to hope, / Though changed” (ll. 65-6);
emphasis follows on nature as “all in all” (l. 75), and how depth and gloom of mountain
scenery (“sounding cataract” and “tall rock” [ll. 76-7]; cf. Carl Grosse’s def’n. of sublime)
is form of love (l. 80) to him; 2nd emphasis on memory/time (l. 83), that speaker, no
longer youth, reads nature as more, as “still, sad music of humanity” (l. 91) that brings
2nd reference to “a sense sublime” (l. 95), def’nd. in ll. 96-102 as “motion” and “spirit”
that “rolls through all things” (cf. pantheism); finishes with commentary that speaker’s
not just lover of nature but also of “mighty world / Of eye, and ear” (ll. 105-6), world (of
necessary fictions [prof.’s add.]) that both creates and perceives things (ll. 106-7)
STANZA 5: shifts into 2nd-person voice and addresses “dearest Friend” ([l. 115];
speaker’s sister); stanza tells woman to nurture her mind as place for “lovely forms” (l.
140) and remember speaker and this poem, “these [his] exhortations! [things he urges
strongly]” (l. 146); continues emphasizing his holy love of nature (l. 155) and its even
greater significance because of his memory of sister’s once being there (l. 159); maybe
specific nature of silent listener (i.e., sister) excludes readers to some extent?; perhaps shift
into 2nd-person establishes “Tintern” more as nostalgic statement than immediate celebration of nature, betraying its supposed, initial optimism?
Prof. S. Sucur <ssucur@ualberta.ca>