William Wordsworth Flashcards
1770
born in West Cumberland (in Lake District)
1787
enters Cambridge University
1790
spends summer vacation hiking through France and the Alps; exposed to French revolution and the anniversary of the fall of Bastille
1791-92
spends year in France and becomes fervent supporter of French Revolution
1795
moves in w/ sister Dorothy in Dorsetshire; befriends Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1798
Lyrical Ballads (co-written w/ Coleridge) anonymously published
1800
published 2nd edition of Lyrical Ballads w/ Preface (drafted in consultation w/ Coleridge)
-believed he wrote the Preface himself
-authored by one person but theorized by 2 people
1810
quarrels w/ Coleridge (renews friendship in 1830)
1843
elected poet Laureate of Great Britain
- huge advocate for working class, democracy
1850
passes away
- The Prelude published (first written in 1799, then expanded in 1805, and revised until 1840s)
Lyrical Ballads
- founding text of British Romanticism
- preface: manifesto regarding poetry, the poet, and the imagination
- begins w/ Coleridge’s Rime of Ancient Mariner
- ends w/ “Tintern Abbey”
Lyrical Ballads a new type of poetry
“Several of my friends…theory upon which the poems were written” (304)
- defensive tone of genre/style => both knew they were doing something different
- gives reader a chance to theorize
- reinventing poetry in general
defending the merits of Lyrical Ballads
“They who have been accustomed…prevents him from performing it” (305)
- he and Coleridge have failed to live up to politics
- neoclassical: “neo” = new
lyric
a poem in which the speaker expresses his or her thoughts using first person perspective rather than an explicit dramatic or narrative plot
- foregrounds emotions and sentiment
- almost like a dramatic monologue in the poems
ballad
a song or poem that narrates a story, usually in sparse, informal language
- descended from folk tradition: typically anonymous and passed down orally
- using ballads in literature
depicting “common life”
“The principal object…associate ideas in a state of excitement” (305-06)
- defamiliarizing with the common => how we associate ideas in the state of excitement
- more elevated, religious the better => show off how well read you are
“Low and rustic…permanent forms of nature”
- folks more connected to nature
- rise in industrialization/urbanization
- lose rustic simplicity of the working class/common folk => reclaim and preserve history in these elementary feelings
“The language…unelaborated expressions”
- what do you lose when you go higher up in society? => more like you’re watching a play than living your own life, more artificial and stilted, lack empathy/sympathy on behalf of other people, isolating themselves w/ people who fit their like-minds
“Accordingly…of their own creation”
- people who are narcissistic and sealed from the world => removes you from common folk
- somehow more philosophical to gain from poems => how emotions and human mind works
“I have said that poetry..in a state of enjoyment” (314)
- poetry is spontaneous, can’t predict where it goes or the emotions that come up
- have to recollect it in tranquility => have to distance from original effect
- poetry recreating sense of overpowering feeling => poet has ability to make you feel something artificial
The purpose of Lyrical Ballads
“This purpose will be found…simple affections of our nature” (306-07)
- “fluxes and refluxes of the mind” = mind is not always rational and logical in the way we want it to be
- understanding marks romantic poets apart from society => mythologize romanticism
the poet known for emotions
“I ask what is meant by the word…without immediate external excitement” (310)
- tortured poet who can think and feel a lot
- can people cultivate this quality in themselves? => Marianne
- closed off from society so they have a sense of how humans work
- nostalgic, fantasy of nature may not have existed => made it a destination readers can go, can relate to them but can’t be them
Expostulation and Reply
Reading and idleness
“Why, William, on that old grey stone…and dream your time away?” (lines 1-4)
- romantic idea of young boy dreaming his time away: what is the value? => in his creativity, squandering time. art isn’t necessarily about time
- child sits alone, isolated from people in society => he’s not thinking his time away but succumbing to his imagination
“One morning thus…in a wise passiveness” (lines 13-24)
- how Marianne feels with the world
- tension b/twn human will and body’s own atonomy => human will doesn’t make a difference: out body will feel with or without us
- “impress” => children’s minds are blank states that are impressed by surroundings
- “wise passiveness” => how to let things be impressed upon us but have to be wise about it
- something about wise passiveness that children can teach us => children can teach us something that we, ourselves, lose
The Tables Turned
“Up, up…that watches and receives”
- more wisdom to be gained in nature than in books
- “leaves” = pages of a book
- “ a heart that watches and receives” = the wise passivity
- if you want to study the world, go into the world => “may teach you more of man, or more evil and of good”
- nature can teach you how to be receptive to the world, how to be impressed upon => humans fail to teach that
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the wye during a tour AND Composed upon Westminister Bridge
- both poems about the relationship b/twn city/country or urban/natural environment
- romantic poet as a visionary => able to keep in mind the past and peer into the heart of life
What’s the relationship b/twn nature and the imagination? How can nature prompt of inspire us?
when you look at nature => inspire emotions
“Tintern Abbey”
- refers to the ruins of a medieval abbey
- passage of time and role of nostalgia
- the ruins of the abbey similar to the poet’s imagination and memory?
Lines 1-22
“Five years have past…the Hermit sits alone”
- present tense takes over: the past has taken over present
- power/sovereignty that nature has that keeps going
- no rhyme scheme => more about the vibe, not much narrative happening (literally painting a scene)
- romantic poet cut off from society, something about solitude and nature => communion is w/ nature, animals, landscape
remembering the country while in the city
“These beauteous forms…we see into the life of things” (lines 22-48)
- “the breath of this corporeal frame” => draws distinction b/twn living soul and body => transcending our corporeal bodies and becoming a living soul (soul not tied to entity) => harmony w/ nature
- “sensations sweet, felt in the blood, and felt along the heart” => merging body and soul
- romanticizing and remembering nature, trying to get back to nature
pastoral
- literary genre depicting a romanticized and idealized country life, typically characterized by fertility, abundance, leisure, and livestock
- environment is far removed fr. urban contemporary sphere - a nostalgic fantasy of the past
- where family, livestock, farms are in union together (harmony)
- Wordsworth engaging pastoral
nature as pastoral innocence and childlike freedom
“And now..and all its dizzy raptures” (lines 58-85)
- roe = deer
- compared himself to deer => innocence, some kind of affinity (running around in nature) => also thinking back in time when he was running around like a deer
- what does it imply about being an adult? => deer are scared away really easily so he has a fragile relationship w/ nature, losing quality of innocence the older you get
- adult’s fantasy of childhood
- more similar to animals as a child and learn to be human the older you get b/c children are closer to nature/the natural world than adults are; they don’t think when doing anything and they do what they want (uninhibited like animals)
nature and sociability
“for art thou with me here…is full of blessings” (lines 114-134)
- mentioning his sister suddenly => retreats to nature to feel communion w/ other things (like sister)
- femininity of nature
- ends w/ some kind of claim/hypothesis of the world
petrarchan sonnet
- 14 line poem comprised of an octet (8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines)
- octet rhyme schem: ABBA ABBA
- sestet rhyme scheme: CD CD CD
Rhyme scheme in Tintern Abbey
- no rhyme scheme => laying groundwork
- meant to show nature can be a simile to human form “sprawling” => bouncing all over the place, hard to pin down
- putting artificial convention onto nature and see which part of nature sink into Petrarchan sonnet form
Composed upon Westminister Bridge
“Earth has not any thing…And all that mighty heart is lying still”
- poet has capacity to peer into things
- personification of London => catalog of things that fall on deaf ears
“never did sun more beautifully steep..the river glideth at his own sweet will”
- personifies river => will is usually motive but river doesn’t have that
- to see what the poet sees => poet got there before us and we have to catch up
The Prelude: Book First
- autobiographical epic Wordsworth wrote in 3 phases
- 1798-99: first two books
- 1805: thirteen books total
- 1850: published posthumously; 14 books total
Epic
- a long verse narrative on a serious subject, typically narrated in a formal and elevated style
- portrays a heroic or divine figure whose actions determine the fate of a community, nation, or human race
- depicts extraordinary events that often involve supernatural creatures or feats
Settling on a fitting subject
“I settle on some British theme…and hear their tales” (lines 179-184)
- “among the shepherds” = biblical
- “romantic tale by Milton” = romantic means literary genre (pick up where Milton left off)
- what British identity means to him
More on the Prelude
- in contrast, to national, political, or religious topics, Wordsworth settles upon an intimate one (himself)
- Prelude depicts human subjectivity as complex as the founding of Rome (The Aeneid) or the fall of man (Paradise Lost)
- What is The Prelude a prelude to? => revise idea of the epic, an autobiographical epic
- treating his childhood, mind, as significant as the poem he revises
Autobiography
1782: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
Bildungsroman
a coming of age story
- represent how we go from child to adult
- invention of modern childhood => cultural construction of childhood represents poet
- poet unconsciously write => imaginative
- cultural attitudes w/ children are romantic
Derwent River as a poem
“Was it for this…along the margin of our Terrace Walk” (lines 272-289)
- focus on river => wild, dangerous, beautiful to observe (romantic)
- mimic the river in his writing => free verse, no rhyme or reason to it, just writing in prose
- river is ever moving and goes where ever it wants => syntax represents river
enjambment
the continuation of a sentence beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza without pause
- a kind of tension, poetic recollection of childhood => see river as overspilling, traveling over the boundaries
- flow of sentences mimic how he sees river
roaming and exploring
“Fair seed-time had my soul…as silent as the turf they trod” (lines 305-332)
-“wander” = lack of destination in travel, no motivation, aimless, not fixed in mind, exploring => connection b/twn wandering and how poet’s mind thinks (emotionally he’s still wandering)
- more dangerous than the strolls in S&S => psychological drive that’s propelling him to go into nature
- “desire that overpowers reason” => emotion recollected in tranquility, how emotion and relation can relate to one another
invocation
- an appeal made by a poet to a muse or deity for help in composing a poem
- traditional in classical poetry
- poet is the conduit through which divine/religious/supernatural deities express themselves
Lines 1-32
“Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze…point me out my course”
- kicked out of Eden and whole world lay before you => Wordsworth reclaims he’s Adam
- breeze is a messenger => deity he’s appealing to
- Aelian harp is a metaphor for romantic poet => played on
- sees effects of wind but can’t see wind itself
- wind shuffling things around, he doesn’t know where to go
inspiration
- creative provocation
- the drawing in of breath => breeze is a creative muse of deity that inspires Wordsworth, incorporation of natural world into body
- turn to wind as metaphor for inspiration => replicating natural phenomenon into writing
Lines 41-54
“For I…the holy life of music and of verse”
- when there’s wind, usually storm comes => wind is metaphor for a change that’s coming
- “Tempest” = storm coming
- something violent and destructive
- something about human perception and learning how to read the signs and be attentive
Prelude on Imagination
- imagination is not a passive blank slate on which we are impressed but an active force that co-creates the universe via perception
- Wordsworth’s interest in memory, the past, and creativity - an early precursor of Freud and psychoanalysis => human mind is something wild, something illogical
“The mind of man”
“The mind of Man is framed…am worthy of myself” (lines 351-361)
- contradictory of human subjectivity => can entertain these contradictory emotions
