NOTES ON WORDSWORTH’S POEMS
Lyrical Ballads
• “Declaration of independence” of Romanticism
• Created by Wordsworth and Coleridge as preface for 1800 edition of LB
• Famous quotes:
∙ “Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”
∙ “Emotions recollected in tranquility”
“We Are Seven”
• Dialogue between adult (probably Wordsworth) and a little girl
• First stanza was written by Coleridge
• In this dialogue, Wordsworth shows how clear-minded the little girl is
• Shows that children are divine, spiritual, sensible, able to see more than adults
• Summary:
∙ Girl is 8 and he asks her how many siblings she has
∙ The girl says 7 and looks at him oddly and tells him where they are
∙ Mother and girl are the only ones living in a small, humble, church-affiliated dwelling
∙ He questions her math and she explains again, in more detail
∙ 2 siblings are buried under a tree (tree = everlastingness, eternal life)
∙ He tells her that because 2 are dead that she only has 5 siblings
∙ She tells him that their graves are green (soil recently upturned?) and that they are 12 steps from her
mother’s door (she has actually counted, several times)
∙ She spends lots of time at the graves and includes her siblings in her activities (knits, sings, eats, etc.)
∙ Her sister, Jane, died first and then her brother John
∙ The girl has more lines in the poem, also has the last words—“wins” the argument
∙ She also has left the adult dumbfounded
• It is Romantic because it exalts the child in a state of innocence and employs simple language that an 8-yearold would probably use
“Tintern Abbey”
• Tintern Abbey (an abbey is the home of abbots, a kind of monk)
• It is on the border of Wales and England
• In a state of ruin, but owned by the Crown
• Henry VIII needed money so he taxed the monasteries
• If they couldn’t pay he pillaged the monasteries and took anything of value
• This is what happened to Tintern Abbey (took lead from stained glass windows, lead roof)
• Wordsworth visits Tintern Abbey in 1793
• He is struck by previous visit to Stonehenge—gets him thinking historically, philosophically, and spiritually
• Comes back 5 years later in 1798 and thinks about the passage of time
• Poem moves through moods
• Poem has several possible themes and meanings (mentions religion, memory, city, landscape, etc.)
• “Spots of time” are moments in our lives when there is the convergence of the past, present, and future
“Tintern Abbey”—line upon line, precept upon precept . . .
Lines 1-8:
Line 9:
Lines 10-18:
Lines 19-22:
Lines 23-50:
Passage of time, sense impressions—sounds and sight
Repose—double meaning
See poet’s imagination—hedgerows, wreaths of smoke
Significant title: the ruined abbey now has “vagrant dwellers” and “hermits” as its spiritual
people
Memories of memories that have a subtle influence
Line 48:
Lines 51-59:
Lines 60-67:
Lines 68-85:
Lines 86-104:
Lines 105-109:
Eye is the self-reflective mind
Speaker doubts himself, religious meditation again, Wye is source of inspiration
Spiritual experiences provide sustenance in following years
Nature used to be more animal-like, coarser, five years ago
No regret over passage of time, passions have calmed
Mind “half-creates” the world; the mind changes things and only the things which in reality
have changed are noticed
Lines 110-113: Nature has become his religion, his moral guide, providing a deep and lasting spirituality
Lines 114-136: Misses his youth and wishes to see it in his sister’s eyes
Lines 137-162: Effect of nature on memory, thought and behavior is recounted, the self conveys the natural
world, especially through poetic powers; human mind is powerful and fluid, new religion;
poem written above the abbey literally (upstream from the abbey) and figuratively (poem
replaces the abbey as a place for the spirit to dwell)
“Ode: Intimations of Immorality”
• Begun in 1802, published in 1807
• Poem seems extremely bleak, but things get better
• The poem was inspired by a fear of loss of creative powers
• Explores the evolution of the soul
• Uses emotion rather than logic to explore vision
• Examines transition from childhood innocence to loss of vision and glory in adulthood
• In older age we can still grasp at wonder and vision present in childhood
• We may not derive the same childlike ecstasy from nature, but we can still find gladness
• Nature and man may exist in accordance with one another
• Many scholars believe that Wordsworth’s idea of immortality refers to consciousness rather than life itself
• Children are given momentary access to Heaven
• The divine spiritual light dims eventually and can be extinguished
• When the veil parts we can see something much larger
• When you are young you enjoy nature a lot more
• When you get older you have this need to create
Stanza I
• Childlike sense of wonder
• Narrator seems to have lost it
• “The child is father to the man”—famous phrase
Stanza II
• “There hath past away a glory from the earth”
• Narrator can no longer feel the joy of nature
Stanza III
• Something intervenes: “a timely utterance”
• He finds joy in nature once more
Stanza IV
• Makes reference to a particular day in May
• The tone changes again in line 52
• “Where is the glory and the dream?”
Stanzas V-VIII
• Trying to discover where the glory of childhood goes
• Children are forced to become adults too quickly
• Waxes philosophical and abstract, but still paints a picture to aid the reader
Stanza IX
• Thankful for humanity’s connection to nature
• Our childhood memories lift us up in hard times
Stanzas X-XI
• Joyous feelings return
• There is a difference in poet, who is changed by reflections
• Now ready to accept pains and pleasures
“Michael”
• Pastoral: a common poetic convention to use pasture as the landscape background in love poems
• Primary characters are often shepherds/sheepherders, who have lots of time to think and romanticize
• Wordsworth appropriates the form
• Framed poem, opens (and closes) with narrator as “tour guide”
• To get to Green-head Ghyll you have to walk up a little rocky path; you get to the top of a mundane hill and
then behold a ridge with a beautiful valley—and sheep
• Rock walls are made of stacked rocks (no mortar), needs repairs often
• Isabel is his wife; they have one son in their old age, like Abraham
• Surprised and excited she’s going to have a baby: Mike finally has an heir
• Michael is fatherly, tender, watchful, anxious for his son to grow up; he takes Luke with him everyday
• Michael’s proud of his son, connections between shearing the sheep and the growth of Luke
• Michael represents Abraham, Luke represents Jacob
• Mike also represents biblical Jacob, Luke also represents prodigal son
• Nephew defaults on loan
• The night before Luke leaves for the big city, they have a deep conversation between father and son
• While talking they begin construction of a sheepfold (a protective corral for sheep)
• Michael hopes that what they start together Luke will eventually finish and pass on generationally
• Luke disappears, never returns
• No one wants to outlive children
• Michael is the Wordsworthian hero: tied to nature, respects it, humble, non-aristocratic
• Wordsworth thought all men should aspire to be like Mike