1/28/13 Theresa Thompson English 3120 Spring 2013 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, “LINES COMPOSED
A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY”
W. Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”
Subject and Aim Poetry • Use “incidents and situations from common life” (122) • Add to these a “colouring of imagination” • Use “language of these men” • “Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings…recollected in tranquility” (127) Style • Plain, as straightforward as possible. Poet’s stance • “a man speaking to men” (125) • “the Poet speaks to us in his own person and character” (126) Prosody Elements
Iambic pentameter • Natural rhythm of English conversation Litotes • A figure of speech in which understatement is used with negation to express a positive attribute. • “…have not been to me / As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:” (Lines 25-­‐37). Spots of Time: Specificity of time locks image into the memory • Memory may fade, but revisiting the spot renews memory & revives his spirit and provides for future revivals. • “The picture of the mind revives again: / While here I stand,…” (Lines 64—68) Romantic Meditative Ode • the description of a particularized outer natural scene; • an extended meditation, which the scene stimulates,; • the occurrence of an insight or vision, a resolution or decision, which signals a return to the scene originally described, but with a new perspective created by the intervening meditation. 1 1/28/13 1791-­‐1794: Annette Vallon and France’s “Reign of Terror” In 1793, WW came to Tintern Abbey “…more like a man / Flying from something that he dreads, …” (lines 74-­‐88). J. R. Watson: “Wordsworth”
W. W. is “…concerned [in “Tintern Abbey”] to explore the effects of memory, time, and the landscape itself upon the human heart.” • “records the developing power of a mind and heart that are affected by nature.” Poem moves from moments of vision to commonplaces of human affection for landscape • 19th-­‐c. example of self-­‐discovery & celebration Doubling of words (lines 1-­‐15) • Effect of abundance matching sense of “overflowing” beneficence in poet’s mind. Watson: “Poem is utterance of joy &
celebration.”
Diction: “joy,” “blessings,” “blessed,” “genial,” “sweet” Would bestow nature’s blessing on his sister (lines 120-­‐163) Joy in his physical survival & in his spirit of love. • frantic escape of 1793 (lines 65-­‐84) • 1798 gratitude (89-­‐96) 2 1/28/13 The Ode’s Meditation
Meditation: Effect nature has on moral actions. This meditation relies on a three-­‐part structure • Crescendo: Signifies “blessed mood” which grows stronger through the double “in which.” (37-­‐44) • Amplification: “that serene and blessed mood” & the complex suspension that follows it. (45-­‐48) • Diminuendo: Gradual quietening in simple description of inner eye, followed by daring “We see into the life of things.” (49-­‐51) The Ode’s Meditation
Repeats pattern in the central climax of the poem. • “a presence … a sense sublime” that “rolls through all things” (97-­‐105) Amplification & Diminuendo • presence of “something” moves everything back to the poet himself: “therefore am I…” (105-­‐114) Work Cited
J. R. Watson • Wordsworth's Vital Soul: The Sacred and Profane in Wordsworth's Poetry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. Print. 3 1/28/13 W. Wordsworth’s “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”
Organic sensibility
(123) “The subject is
indeed
important!” (124)
•  “the feeling therein developed gives importance to the action…” (123). •  “a multitude of causes … acting with a combined
force to blunt the discriminating powers of the
mind,…” (124).
“little falsehood of
description.” Little
personification of abstract
ideas (124).
•  Little poetic diction. Language fitted to
importance of subject, and demands of meter.
(124)
No essential difference
between language of wellwritten prose and poetry.
(125)
•  “verse will be read a hundred
times…” (128).
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