| Place of Residence/Importance: | The Lake District of England. Also traveledto France and Germany. |
| School/Period | Romantic period, first generation of Romantic poets, along with Coleridge, his collaborator and friend. |
| Techniques or Genres. | Mostly
poetry, though his "Preface" is a very important and influential document
for the other Romantics. One of the best Romantic sonneteers. He
described a new, revolutionary kind of poem that would eschew (gesundheit!)
the late eighteenth century's poetry, marked by emphasis on elevated, unnatural
diction and artifice, on careful planning and execution that is under strong
control of the educated artist, also due to these elements these Enlightenment
writers were very conventional in their themes, topics, and style. See
the Preface page for more. |
| Themes | Purity
of Nature compared with the artifice of city life. Value of nature
compared to "barren leaves" of books. Revolution. |
| Topics of the poems. | The growth of his own mind; Nature and the thoughts that Nature brings to
mind. Comparing his past self with his present viewpoint. Nature versus
urbanized life. Humble country folk, sometimes even deranged people. |
| Major "List" Works (Click on the name of the work in this box to see the original text, in most cases!) |
"Lines" (Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey) [notes] "Preface" (to Lyrical Ballads) The Lucy Poems:
"The Ruined Cottage" [notes] I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud [notes] Ode: Intimations of Immortality [notes] Sonnets: Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 [notes] It Is a Beauteous Evening [notes] |
|
Major Non-list Works |
Lucy Gray, Two April Mornings (Matthew), Nutting, Elegaic Stanzas |
| Notable Quote | |
| Comment |
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Bio Details
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Life details can be seen on Get Lit's chronology
pages. When young, he defied nature and treated it like a substitute
for God. His brother John died, a ship captain, at sea; his 1807 "Elegiac
Stanzas" is his response to a wild storm painted by his patron Sir Geo. Beaumont.
Because his beloved brother had died at sea, the stormy scene, with
a foundering ship, is not much fun for W. He says that "I have submitted to a new control: / A power is gone, which nothing can restore; / A deep distress has humanized my Soul.. . .The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old. . . Farewell, the heart that lives alone / Housed in a dream. . .Such happiness, . . .is to be pitied, for 'tis surely blind. / But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer. . .Not without hope we suffer and we mourn." (218) As he felt his power of poetry and imagination declining, he thought that perhaps Nature and his joy in it was lost to him forever. In 1804 he wrote "Ode to Duty," which is a change in attitude for him. Instead of raptures of beauty, he started to think of the supreme power as moral law, and adapted a Kantian or Senecan stoic attitude, considering that self-control can lead to serenity. As he became less inspired, he became more conservative and accepted orthodox Christian views. He became, after Southey, the poet Laureate in 1843. He died in 1850, after which The Prelude was published posthumously by his executors. |
Wordsworth's Complete Texts On Line!
"We Are Seven"
A sweet poem about the naivity
of little kids who don't understand death as adults do. Wordsworth
uses the girl who still accepts the presence and relevance of her dead siblings
to assert the purity of "natural" people (usually country people who are
not "refined" by artifice and sophistication, and so have purer feelings
and are closer to nature).
"Lines" (Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey)
This is one of Wordsworth's most
famous poems, a nature poem that demonstrates his maxim about having a "spontaneous
flow of emotion. . .recollected in tranquillity". Typically, according
to Norton Brit Lit 2 5th Ed p.143, "Some object or event in the present triggers
a sudden renewal of feelings he had experienced in youth; the result is a
poem exhibiting the sharp discrepancy between what Wordsorth called "two
consciousnesses": himself now and himself as he once was." So
this is a very characteristic poem for him. Directed to his sister,
his poem describes the contrast between his early trip to Tintern abbey at
23, and his feelings at returning at the age of 28. This was published
in 1798's first ed. of LB as the last work. Blank verse.
These
are love songs of a sort, for a girl called Lucy, but regretful. "Slumber"
does not actually mention Lucy's name but people will include it anyhow in
these groups. Not the same girl as Lucy Gray. What a girl. Remember
the root word lux which means light.
"Strange Fits
of Passion Have I Known"
Ballad stanzas. abab, iambic
4/3/4/3. This poem describes Wordsworth's periodic moods of intense
grief. He describes one such event, where foolish Bill was riding his
horse to visit Lucy's cottage. He was riding along and watching the
moon, which dropped nearer and nearer Lucy's home, and he took it into his
head that this was some type of omen, for he was scared that Lucy would be
dead. The end of this anecdote is not concluded, but we know from other
poems that Lucy did indeed die; that's good, for if she were still alive
she'd be nearly 200 by now.
"She Dwelt
among the Untrodden Ways"
Hi there. Ballad meter again.
Lucy was beloved by Bill and that's good because no one else would
have, she being kind of in the boonies, despite her starry good looks. Now
she's stuck in her grave and that makes a big differ'nce to W.
"Three Years
She Grew"
Represents Lucy as the darling
of Nature, starting when Lucy was three years old, and kept loving her till
she was mature. Good and unusual verse, aabccb, iambic 443443. Nature,
personified as a woman, wants to bless Lucy with lots of natural attributes,
such as being "sportive as the fawn" and the willow will bend for her, and
beauty that is born of rivulets' beauty will pass into her face. Now
W is still there where she and Nature lived, but Lucy is dead, and W can
only remember "what has been, / and never more will be."
"A Slumber
Did My Spirit Steal"
Slumbering is not literal here;
it means that W was kind of in a lover's trance because she was so cute.
So he had no fears; this is contrasted with now, when she has no motion or
force or senses, and just is the same as rocks and trees, rolling around
on the globe.
"I Travelled Among Unknown Men"
He is talking about his trip to
Germany, where he was lonesome. He swears, falsely, that he will never
leave England again. Part of what he likes about England is the fact
that it was Lucy's place when she was alive.
"The Ruined Cottage"
(Part I of The
Excursion)
Yeah, this is good. Blank verse. The narrator is walking in the woods and comes across a ruined house, with his aged friend, a peddler named Armytage, sleeping there. Margaret,
who used to live there, treated the peddler like a father, and he loved her
as a daughter. She had been a good person, greeting strangers kindly
with warmth and food. She had had two infants. Her "industrious"
husband, Robert, had had a bad year due to blights, and so they became poor,
and found no work or income, and Robert grew moody. The story stops
here for a while, and Armytage seems bittersweet. In part two, Wordsworth
asks the old man to continue. He says that after the first part, Armytage
had gone away for a while, and when he got back, Margaret told him tearfully
that Robert had run away, leaving a purse of gold that was his reward for
joining the militia. The old man cheered her up and left, and came
back again later. She was not at home, so he waited a while. Her
eldest kid was dead, and the other still an infant cried. She wanders
daily, hopelessly. He leaves, and returns yet again. Well, to
make a long story short, each time he comes back, she has deteriorated still
more. The infant dies, the farm dies, and she dies. But though
W is saddened, the old man tells him that "enough to sorrow have you given."
She is sleeping tranquilly. The sadness "appeared an idle dream
that cannot live / Where meditation was. I turned away / and walked
along my road in happiness." So they look at the cottage once more,
and then go to an inn. A strange way to end it.
The
narrator addresses himself to the reader directly, as a tour book might,
to call the reader's attention to "a straggling heap of unhewn stones!" It
is found in a lonesome, hidden valley. OK, briefly, the family of peasants--Michael,
the old father; Isabel the old mother; Luke the son--have a happy life until
money troubles come. The line has worked this land long, so the old
man doesn't want to give it up; he sends Luke out to work with a kinsman
and earn money so he can be master of the land next. Before he goes,
Michael asks his beloved son and former playmate to lay the first stone of
a sheep-cot, which he does. However, though he does well with the relative
at first, Luke gets slack and is led into a life of dissipation; he flees
the country at last, and lonely Michael sometimes builds the wall of th'
sheep-cot, and sometimes just broods there. Finally the farm is sold
after the parents' deaths and the "EVENING STAR, the nickname for their always-lit
cottage, is bulldozed. The incomplete sheep-cot is all that's left,
besides an elm tree. Bummer!
"I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud"
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality"
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"
"Surprised
by Joy"
He is surprised because he felt
joy and seemingly had forgotten that his daughter Catherine was dead (having
died in 1812, "long after her death") when he wanted to share his excited
feelings with her. At discovering his mistake, guiltily, he felt "the
worst pang that sorrow ever bore, / Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,"
after her death and knowing that he couldn't ever see her again.
The Prelude: Books 1 & 12 (1850)