Lecture Notes, Wordsworth:

 

1.  William Wordsworth, 1770-1850, brief bio.

 

• Born in the Lake District.
• Lived at Dove Cottage, starting 1799, for eight of his most productive years.
• Along with Coleridge, published Lyrical Ballads, 1789, in order to present innovative verse, breaking with neoclassical traditions.
• Poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling.”
• The Prelude, 1850, a long autobiographical poem, outlining the “growth of a poet’s mind.”
• In his later years, Wordsworth’s Tory and Anglican sentiments hardened.

 

3.  General inquiries to consider while reading.

 

ü      Explore how memory and childhood reverberate throughout Wordsworth’s work.

ü      In “Tintern Abbey,” how does Wordsworth portray the city?

ü      Define sublime, in context of the poems.

ü      Why does Wordsworth want to recollect early childhood? What is the special status of “childhood”? What is lost when childhood ends?

ü      Do the themes of “Tintern Abbey” repeat in “Immortality”? What are the themes?

ü      Why is the notion of human development so important?

 

3.  Discussion quotes.

 

“Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”

 

“Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire/ The Hermit sits alone” (21-2).

 

“But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din/ Of towns and cities, I have owed to them” (25-6).

 

“With tranquil restoration” (30).

 

“Of all this unintelligible world” (40).

 

“That in this moment there is life and food/ For future years” (64-5).

 

“Wherever nature led me” (70).

 

“That time is past” (83).

 

“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” (89-90).

 

“And what perceive; well pleased to recognize/ 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” (107-12).

 

“Knowing that Nature never did betray/ The heart that loved her” (121-2).

 

“The dreary intercourse of daily life” (131).

 

“Thy memory be as a dwelling-place/ For all sweet sounds and harmonies” (141-2).

 

 

“Ode on Intimations of Immortality”

 

From the epigraph: “The Child is father of the Man.”

 

“The things which I have seen I now can see no more” (9).

 

“Whither is fled the visionary gleam?/ Where is it now, the glory and the dream?” (57-8).

 

“Shades of the prison-house begin to close/ Upon the growing Boy” (67-8).

 

“The years to bring the inevitable yoke” (128).

 

“Delight and liberty, the simple creed/ Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest” (141-2).

 

“Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!” (173).

 

 

“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”

 

“Earth has not anything to show more fair” (1).

 

“This City now doth, like a garment, wear/ The beauty of the morning; silent, bare” (5).

 

 

“The World is Too Much with Us”

 

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,/ Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (1-2).

 

“We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” (4).

 

“For this, for everything, we are out of tune” (8).