Lecture One of Book Two
The Romantic Period;
William Wordsworth
I. Introduction
• Romanticism:
• literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th century.
• a rejection of the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance,
idealization, and rationality that typified classicism in general and
late 18th-century neoclassicism in particular.
• a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century
rationalism and physical materialism in general.
• Inspired in part by the libertarian ideals of the French Revolution,
• believed in a return to nature and in the innate goodness of humans,
as expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau;emphasized the individual,
the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the
spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.
• interest in the medieval, exotic, primitive, and nationalistic.
• From William Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in
1798 to the death of Sir Walter Scott and the passage of the first
reform bill in the Parliament in 1832.
II. Background knowledge of
Romanticism
• 1. Historical background
• (1) Romanticism as a literary movement appeared in England from
the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 to the death of Sir Walter
Scott and the passage of the first reform bill in the Parliament in
1832.
• (2) The American and French revolutions greatly inspired the
English people fighting for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
• (3) The Industrial Revolution brought great wealth to the rich but
worsened the working and living conditions of the poor, which gave
rise to sharp conflicts between capital and labor.
• (4) In England the primarily agricultural society was replaced by a
modern industrialized one.
• (5) Political reforms and mass demonstrations shook the foundation
of aristocratic rule in Britain.
• 2. Cultural background
• Inspiration for the romantic approach initially came from two great
shapers of thought, French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau
and German writer Johann Wolfgang yon Goethe. It is Rousseau
who established the cult of the individual and championed the
freedom of the human spirit; his famous announcement was "I felt
before I thought". Goethe and his compatriots extolled the romantic
spirit as manifested in German folk songs, Gothic architecture, and
the plays of English playwright William Shakespeare.
• (2) The Romantic Movement expressed a more or less negative
attitude toward the existing social and political conditions, for the
romantics saw both the corruption and injustice of the feudal
societies and the fundamental inhumanity of the economic, social
and political forces of capitalism.
• (3) Romanticism constitutes a change of direction from attention to
the outer world of social activities to the inner world of the human
spirit, tending to see the individual as the very center of all life and
all experience.
• (4) In literature, the romantics shifted their emphasis from reason,
which was a dominant mode of thinking among the 18th-century
writers and philosophers, to instinct and emotion, which made
literature most valuable as an expression of an individual's unique
feelings.
• 3. Features of the romantic literature
• (1) Expressiveness: Instead of regarding poetry as "a mirror to
nature", the romantics hold that the object of the artist should be the
expression of the artist's emotions, impressions, or beliefs.
• The role of instinct, intuition, and the feelings of "the heart" is
stressed instead of "neoclassicists" emphasis on "the head", on
regularity, uniformity, decorum, and imitation of the classical writers.
poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings".
• (2) Imagination: emphasis on the creative function of the imagination,
seeing art as a formulation of intuitive, imaginative perceptions.
• (3) Singularity: a strong love for the remote, the unusual, the strange,
the supernatural, the mysterious, the splendid, the picturesque, and
the illogical.
• (4) Worship of nature: Romantic poets see in nature a revelation of
Truth, the "living garment of God". nature to them is a source of
mental cleanness and spiritual understanding.
• (5) Simplicity: turn to the humble people and the everyday life for
subjects, employing the commonplace, the natural and the simple as
their materials; take to using everyday language spoken by the
rustic people as opposed to the poetic diction used by neoclassic
writers.
• (6) The romantic period is an age of poetry with Blake, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats as the major poets.
III. William Wordsworth
• William Wordsworth.
• the representative poet of the early romanticism
• born in 1770 in a lawyer's family at
Cockermouth, Cumberland.
• His mother died when he was only eight. His
father followed her six years later.
• The orphan was taken in charge by relatives,
who sent him to school at Hawkshead in the
beautiful lake district in Northwestern England.
• the unroofed school of nature attracted him
more than the classroom, and he learned more
eagerly from flowers and hills and stars than
from his books.
• He studied at Cambridge from 1787 to 1791.
While at university, he associated with those
young Republicans roused by the French
Revolution.
• In the year 1790-1792 he twice visited France.
On his second visit he became acquainted with
Beaupuy, an army officer of the new-born
Republic of France, who kindled the heart of the
young English man with a spirit of revolt against
all social iniquities and a sympathy for the poor,
humble folk.
• In 1795, Wordsworth settled, with his sister
Dorothy, at Racedown in Somersetshire. They
lived a frugal life and Dorothy, as his confidante
and inspirer, made him turn his eyes to ' the face
of nature' and take an interest in the peasants
living in their neighbourhood.
• In 1797 be made friends with Coleridge. Then
they lived together in the Quantock Hills,
Somerset, devoting their time to writing of poetry.
• In 1798 they jointly published the “Lyrical
Ballads”. Coleridge’ s contribution was his
masterpiece ' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'.
The majority of poems in this collection, however,
were written by Wordsworth.
• The publication of the ' Lyrical Ballads' marked
the break with the conventional poetical tradition
of the l8th century, i.e. with classicism, and the
beginning of the Romantic revival in England.
• In the Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads', Wordsworth set forth his
principles of poetry.
• "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling.'
individual sensations, i.e. pleasure, excitement and enjoyment, as
the foundation in the creation and appreciation of poetry.
• Poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."
• A poet's emotion extends from human affairs to nature. Tranquil
contemplation of an emotional experience matures the feeling and
sensation.
• The function of poetry lies in its power to give an unexpected
splendour to familiar and commonplace things, to incidents and
situations from common life just as a prism can give a ray of
commonplace sunlight the manifold miracle of colour.
• Ordinary peasants, children, even outcasts, all may be used as
subjects in poetical creation.
• As to the language used in poetry, Wordsworth "endeavoured to
bring his language near to the real language of men”.
• The Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” as the manifesto of the English
Romanticism.
• Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey have often been mentioned as
the “Lake Poets” because they lived in the lake district in the
northwestern part of England. The three traversed the same path in
politics and in poetry, beginning as radicals and closing as
conservatives.
• Wordsworth lived a long life and wrote a lot of poems. He was at his
best in descriptions of mountains and rivers, flowers and birds,
children and peasants, and reminiscences of his own childhood and
youth. As a great poet of nature, he was the first to find words for the
most elementary sensations of man face to face with natural
phenomena. These sensations are universal and old but, once
expressed in his poetry, become charmingly beautiful and new.
• His deep love for nature run through such short lyrics as Lines
Written in Early Spring". “To the Cuckoo” “ I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud” .” My Heart Leaps Up”, Intimations of Immortality' and - Lines
Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey'. The last is called his
"lyrical hymn of thanks to nature:
• Wordsworth was also a masterhand in searching and
revealing the feelings of the common people.
• The themes of many of his poems were drawn from rural
life: and his characters belong to the lower classes in the
English countryside. This is so because he was
intimately acquainted with rural life and believed that in
rural conditions man's elementary feelings find a better
soil than in town life and can be better cultivated and
strengthened in constant association with nature.
• (' The Solitary Reaper' ). in depicting the naivety of
simple peasant children (' We Are Seven' ) and in
delineating with deep sympathy the sufferings of the poor.
humble peasants ("Michael'," The Ruined Cottage'.
"Simon Lee", and "The Old Cumberland Beggar' ).
• His "Lucy" poems are a series of short pathetic lyrics on
the theme of harmony between humanity and nature.
• Wordsworth's poetry is distinguished by the simplicity
and purity of his language. "His theory and practice in
poetical creation started from a dissatisfaction With the
social reality under capitalism, and hinted at the thought
of' back to nature ' and back to the patriarchal system of
the old time"
• "The Prelude" is Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem, in
14 books, which was written in 1799-1805 but not
published until 1850. it is the spiritual record of the poet's
mind, honestly recording his own intimate mental
experiences which cover his childhood, school days,
years at Cambridge, his first impressions of London, his
first visit to France, his residence in France during the
Revolution, and his reaction to these various
experiences, showing the development of his own
thought and sentiment.
Points of view
• (1) Politically Wordsworth was a radical democrat in the early days,
attracted to the slogans of liberty, equality and fraternity but became
a conservative in his later years. However, in his whole life, he held
a critical attitude towards the government and the upper class. He
was strongly against the Industrial Revolution which, he believed,
had caused the miseries of the poor people and destroyed the quiet
simple life of the country people. He had great sympathy for the poor
and regarded them as the victims of the fortune-hunting capitalists.
• (2) Literarily, he was strongly against the neoclassical poetry,
especially that of Dryden, Pope and Johnson, and tried to restore
the tradition of Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. He was the
leading figure of the English romantic poetry. He thought the source
of poetic truth was the direct experience of the senses. Poetry, he
asserted, originated from "emotion recollected in tranquility". He
maintained that the scenes and events of everyday life and the
speech of ordinary people were the raw material of which poetry
could and should be made. The most important contribution he hag
made is that he has not only started the modern poetry, the poetry of
the growing inner self, but also Changed the course of English
poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating
a return to nature.
2. Major works
• Tintern Abbey
Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks Of The
Wye During A Tour. July 13, 1798.
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FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. -- Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
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Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
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These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
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With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: -- that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on, -Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
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If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft -In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart -How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
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Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. -- I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. -- That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
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And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
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From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear, -- both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
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Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
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Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
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Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance -If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence -- wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love -- oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
She Dwelt Among Untrodden Ways
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She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
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A violet by a mosy tone
Half hidden from the eye!
---Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
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She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
I traveled among unknown men
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I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
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'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.
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Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.
• Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
• The bowers where Lucy played;
• And thine too is the last green field
• That Lucy's eyes surveyed.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
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That That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils:
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
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Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
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The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay;
In such a jocund company;
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
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For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Sonnet: Composed upon Westminster Bridge,
September 3, 1802
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Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
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Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Sonnet: London,1802
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Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
The Solitary Reaper
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BEHOLD her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
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No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
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Will no one tell me what she sings?-Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
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Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;――
I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
• (1) Lyrical Ballads (1798)
• the landmark in English literature, for it started a poetical revolution
by using the common, simple and colloquial language in poetry. The
poems were written in the spirit and in the pattern of the early
storytelling ballads. They are simple tales about simple life told in
simple style and simple language to express the simple emotions in
simple lyricism.
• (2) Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802)
• The Preface deserts, its reputation as a manifesto in the theory of
poetry. Most discussions of the Preface focused on his assertions
about the valid language of poetry, that is, "all good poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." He attributed to
imaginative literature the primary role in keeping man emotionally
alive and morally sensitive, i. e. keeping him essentially human, in
the face of the pressures of a technological and increasingly urban
society. He claimed that the great subjects of poetry were "the
essential passions of the heart" and "the great and simple
affections" as these qualities interact with "the beautiful and
permanent forms of nature" and are expressed in a "naked and
simple" language that is "adapted to interest mankind permanently."
• (3) Prelude, or Growth of a poet's Mind(1850)
• The Prelude is Wordsworth's masterpiece, the greatest
and most original long poem since Milton's Paradise Lost.
It is a personal history which turns on a mental crisis and
recovery, and for such a narrative design the chief
prototype is not the classical or Christian epic, but the
spiritual autobiography of crisis. The recurrent metaphor
is that of journey, whose end is its beginning, and in
which it turns out that the end of the journey is "to arrive
where we started / And know the place for the first time".
The journey goes through the poet's personal history,
carrying the metaphorical meaning of his interior journey
and questing for his lost early self and the proper
spiritual home. The poem charts this growth from infancy
to manhood. We are shown the development 0f human
consciousness under the sway of an imagination united
to the grandeur of nature.
• 3. Special features
• (1) best at the truthful presentation of nature. He not only sees
clearly and describes accurately, but penetrates to the heart of
things and always finds some exquisite meaning that is not written
on the surface. He gives the reader the very life of nature and the
impression of some personal spirit.
• (2) The theme is about incidents and situations of common life
(generally "low and rustic"). Wordsworth considers that man is not
apart from nature, but is the very "life of her life". So he thinks the
common life is the only subject of literary interest.
• (3) Wordsworth advocates a return to nature. According to him,
society and the crowded unnatural life of cities tend to weaken and
pervert humanity; and a return to nature and simple living is the only
remedy for human wretchedness. He Shows sympathy to the
common people.
• (4)The language used in his poetry is a selection of language really
used by men. In other words, he uses simple, colloquial language in
poetry.
• "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
• (A) Main idea
• The poem is crystal clear and lucid. By recounting a little
episode, the poet gives a description of the scene and of
the feelings that match it. Then he abstracts the total
emotional value of the experience and concludes by
summing that up. Below the immediate surface, we find
that all the realistic details of the flowers, the trees, the
waves, the wind, and all the accompanying sensations of
active joy, are absorbed into an over-all concrete
metaphor, the recurrent image of the dance, which
appears in every stanza. The flowers, the stars, the
waves are units in this dancing pattern of order in
diversity, of linked eternal harmony and vitality. Through
the revelation and recognition of his kinship with nature,
the poet himself becomes as it were a part of the whole
cosmic dance.
• (B) Comprehension notes
• (a) "I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o'er vales and
hills": While the poet was taking a walk in the woods, he felt lonely
and detached from earthly fellowship just like a lonely cloud,
wandering and floating in the sky.
• (b) "When all at once I saw a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils... ";
Suddenly the poet sees the host of dancing daffodils. The daffodils
remind him of the stars at night in brightness and multitude; they
match the waves in radiance and gaiety. In a flash, the poet's
loneliness is transformed into fellowship; he becomes a part of all
this "jocund company".
• (c) "Fluttering and dancing in the breeze": The dancing image (such
as fluttering, dancing, shining, twinkling, sparkling and tossing)
recurs in every stanza of the poem, revealing a sense of joy and
unity and continuity in the natural elements of air, water and earth.
• (d) "What wealth the show to me had brought": The moment of
vision is a revelation, an intuition of a vital union between him and
the forces around him, which enriches his life forever.
• (e) "They flash upon that inward eye": Through that "inward eye" of
memory, other moods of loneliness, and listlessness can be
animated with the sense of fulfillment which was captured on that
first spring morning. It is an intensely personal poem. It creates a
purely subjective experience. The poet tells us about the daffodils in
order to tell us something about himself.
• (f) In the last two stanzas, we notice that the speaker uses in
succession five words denoting joy ("glee", "gay", "jocund", "bliss",
and "pleasure") in a crescendo that suggests the intensity of the
speaker's happiness. Although Wordsworth uses various words to
indicate joy, he occasionally repeats rather than varies his diction.
The repetitions of the words for seeing ("saw", "gazed") inaugurate
and sustain the imagery of vision that is Central to the poem's
meaning; the forms of the verb to dance ("dancing", "dance", and
"dances") suggest both that the various elements of nature are in
harmony with one another and that nature is also in harmony with
man. The poet conveys this by bringing the elements of nature
together in pairs: daffodils and wind (stanza 1); daffodils and stars
(stanza 2); water and wind (stanza 3). Nature and man come
together explicitly in stanza 4 when the speaker says that his heart
dances with the daffodils. A different kind of repetition appears in the
movement from the "loneliness" of line one to the "solitude" or line
22.
• Both words denote an alone-ness, but they suggest a radical
difference in the solitary person's attitude to his state of being alone.
The poem moves from the sadly alienated separation felt by the
speaker in the beginning to his joy in recollecting the natural scene,
a movement framed by the words "lone" and "solitude". An
analogous movement is suggested within the final stanza by words
"vacant" and "fills". The emptiness of speaker's spirit is transformed
into a fullness of feeling as he remembers the daffodils.
• (2) "Composed upon Westminster Bridge" (September3,
1802)
• (A) Main idea
• The poem is a kind of dramatic monologue, in the
present tense, to express immediate pleasure in the eye
and ear and to celebrate qualities of a particular personal
experience. The tone is solemn but not heavy. The first 8
lines present a very beautiful picture of London in the
early morning, with its "ships, towers, domes, theatres,
and temples" glittering "in the smokeless air". By linking
the city buildings with the open fields and the sky, the
speaker tries to put the stress to the scenes of the whole
country in which the city is only a part. In doing so, the
speaker intends to connect the valley, rock and hill and
river in the next few lines to present the natural beauty.
• (B) Comprehension notes
• (a) "This City now doth, like a garment, wear / The beauty of the
morning": The poet chose the word "wear" to say that the city wears
its beauty just like people wearing a garment. Generally people wear
something for two purposes: one is to keep them warm; the other is
to cover up something ugly. The beauty of the morning might be the
calm and the quiet of the city. Thus, the speaker would observe the
city in such a way that his eyes as if went on tiptoe over the scene,
anxious not to awaken the city into the ugliness and confusion of
noisy activities he hated.
• (b) "All bright and glittering in the smokeless air": The air of London
was severely polluted during the early Industrial Revolution in the
19th century. Smokeless air could only be seen in the early morning.
• (c) "The river glideth at his own sweet will": The river runs freely, for
there is no barges or steamers to hinder its running in the early
morning. Here the river is personified so that it has its own will.
• (3) "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways"
• (A) Main idea
• This is One of the five well-known "Lucy poems"
by Wordsworth. It tells us that since Lucy lived
remote from the great world, her death passed
unnoticed. Few people knew her, and the few
simple, unlettered folk who knew her lacked the
means to set forth to the world the tributes due
to her. Yet, though Lucy's passing made no
difference to the great world, it has made all the
difference to her lover, who speaks the poem.
The poem is written with rare elusive beauty of
simple lyricism and haunting rhythm.
• (B) Comprehension notes
• (a) "She dwelt among the untrodden ways": The speaker tries to say
that the lowly country girl led her simple life of obscurity far away
from "the madding crowd".
• (b) "A violet by a mossy stone / Half hidden from the eye! /--Fair as a
star, when only one / Is shining in the sky": By using a metaphor and
a simile, the poet compares Lucy with a Violet, a wild flower growing
by a mossy stone, and a fair star, shining in the sky. The two
comparisons are meant to enhance Lucy's charm by associating her
with such attractive objects as flowers and stars. Lucy's natural
charm, like that of the violet, was derived from her modesty; She,
too, was "half-hidden from the eye", obscure and unnoticed. Though
Lucy was, to the world, as completely obscure as the modest flower
in the shadow of the mossy stone, to the eye of her lover she was
the only star in his heaven, shining like the planet of love itself.
• (c) "The difference to me": This phrase reveals the speaker's strong
love-for Lucy. Although others may be indifferent to her whether
dead or alive, he still loves her and her beauty. And her fine qualities
are also living in his memory.
• (4) "The Solitary Reaper"
• (A) Main idea
• This is a deceptively simple poem, in which
Wordsworth describes vividly and
sympathetically a young peasant girl working in
the fields and singing as she works. The plot of
the little incident is told rather straightforwardly.
Wordsworth did not experience the incident
himself; it was suggested by a passage in his
friend Thomas Wilkinson's Tour of Scotland. Yet
the short lyric is an admirable poem of a simple
peasant girl who obviously enjoys her work and
whose plaintive song leaves strong and lasting
impression upon the chance listener.
• (B) Comprehension notes
• (a) "Nightingale", "Cuckoo bird": By using both images as metaphors,
the poet compares the beautiful song, sung by the peasant girt with
those by the birds. On hearing a bird sing, we sometimes feel that
we are heating the voice of nature itself. In the similar way, we could,
in overhearing the girl's song (under the circumstances described),
feel that we were overhearing the voice of human nature itself.
• (b) "Will no one tell me what she sings": The traveler cannot make
out the words of the song, because, presumably, they are in Gaelic,
the native language of the Scottish Highlands.
• (c) "Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, /That has been, and may be
again": Sorrows, losses and pains are the common sufferings the
poor people had in the past and may have again in their future.
• (d) "The music in my heart I bore, / Long after it was heard no more":
The music, which is both lovely and sad, touches the poet so greatly
that he can hardly forget it. With mixture of happiness and sorrow,
the poet celebrates the beautiful rural life and expresses his
sympathy for the suffering of the peasants.