Wordsworth in the
The Poetry of William (1770-1850)
and Dorothy (1771-1855) Wordsworth
Read the introduction to Wordsworth
in your Norton text or peruse the information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth. Be sure that you click on the link to Dorothy, whose
journals and poetry her brother mined for his own work and who lovingly served
as both his poetic partner and his muse.
For a review of Romanticism, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism. For information on Kant, a philosophic source
for Romanticism, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant. For a taste of
Romantic art, see the visual art of Delacroix at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Delacroix.
Read “My heart leaps up” (http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~ridge/local/mhlu.html)
as a preface to the great “Intimations of Immortality” Ode (http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html). What is the paradox
in the little poem? Note the structure
of “Intimations of Immortality” (see “ode” in the literary handbook on the
website under tools). The strophe or first part of the ode
(verses 1-4) details what the poet has lost now that he is no longer a child
and close to nature. What does he mean
when he asks, “Whither is fled the visionary gleam?” Verses 5-8 are the antistrophe of the ode, where he attempts to answer the question he
has posed. What is his response concerning
the loss of the “glory and the dream”?
The epode (verses 9-11)
details the compensation that comes
to us with age. What verse in particular
details what we gain when we lose youth?
How is the poem an expression of Neo-Platonic
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_idealism)
and Transcendental philosophy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_idealism)?
Read “It Is a Beauteous Evening” (http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/ww/pva258.html); what type of poem is this?
Note the critical questions that follow the poem as you discern the
poem’s meaning; who is the child referred to in the poem? Read
“Mutability” (http://www.webooks.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Wordsworth/Mutability.htm).
This poem posits a typical Romantic theme; explain.
Note the introduction of The Prelude at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prelude.
Read books 1, 5 (lines 45-110),
6(lines 524-641), and 14 of The Prelude (click
on those selections from the link above).
As you read, note
the incident in Book 1 of
Wordsworth’s taking the boat tied to the Willow; what does the event teach him
about morality, about nature; how important was growing up in the Lake District
for the development of the poet? How would you connect this part of
Wordsworth’s life to Rousseau? What does
his dream about the Arab signify in Book
5; what do the stone and the shell represent for the poet? Read carefully the story of Wordsworth’s
getting lost while traveling through
The
With the publication
of Lyrical Ballads (1798), English literature formally broke away
from the chains of Neoclassical poetry.
The "Preface" of the 1800 edition definitively set down the
tenets of Romanticism, though one must note that young Wordsworth picked up
most of his ideas from Mary
Wollstonecraft (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft),
when he was a young man frequenting the bookstore of Joseph Johnson, the avant-garde publisher/printer. Wollstonecraft's
"On Poetry" came out in 1797, though her ideas were
thoroughly discussed in the years prior and Wordsworth had access to those
ideas through his connection with Wollstonecraft and Johnson (see S. Bailey
Shurbutt. "Mary Wollstonecraft: An
Eighteenth-Century Romantic." The
1.
New Definition of Poetry =
"poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings . . . recollected
in tranquility."
2.
New Poetic Language, Diction, and Verse = language of common man,
rather than artificial diction of neoclassical poetry and blank verse rather
than the closed couplet.
3.
New Subject Matter = a.
Nature;
b. Simple folk and country life;
c. The supernatural and products of the
imagination (Coleridge’s contribution).
The story of the
After graduation and a time spent in
In 1795, at Racedown, Dorothy and William met and became friends with Samuel
Taylor Coleridge (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge), the erratic young
genius who complemented the broad, clear intellect and feeling of
Wordsworth. Together, the three of
them—Dorothy, William, and Coleridge—inspired each other and brought to fruition
British Romanticism. After the
publication of Lyrical Ballads, the
three young poets traveled to