Wordsworth - Poem Overview/ Tone/ Stucture

Question 1

To My Sister

Answer 1

• Willing Sister Dorothy to enjoy nature with him
• Casual, conversational, hopeful tone
• 1798

Question 2

Nutting

Answer 2

• Autobiographical memory of childhood - enjoying the beauteous forms of nature - greed and lust overcomes him
• Mirrors concern of industrialization and the greed of humanity - the destructive tendencies of people and the harm we cause to our environment - climate change

Question 3

Michael

Answer 3

• Couple living rural life give themselves to their son who later goes to a city becomes corrupted and the house which is symbolic of life and simplicity is lost forever - immortalised in poetry
• 1799
• Around the time WW wrote a letter to a politician Charles Fox
  
  • “men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply”
• Lyrical ballad
  
  • Democratising - elevating stories - promoting equality
• Unrhymed iambic pentameter
  
  • Historically used for epic poems of heroes - WW believed these characters to be heroic leading inspiring lives
• Language has direct dialogue and is easy to follow - a story of the common people for the common people

Question 4

Resolution and Independence

Answer 4

• Wordsworth is in a bad state of mind mainly due to financial distress - nature calms him - sees the Leech-gatherer which gives him perspective

Question 5

Three Years She Grew In Sun and Shower

Answer 5

• Lyrical ballad - a child died which is described by WW as nature transforming her into making her apart of the the natural world
• Nature is speaker than WW - provides 2 perspectives on death

Question 6

Lucy Gray; or, Solitude

Answer 6

• Sing song rhyme scheme make a sombre story more mystifying and upbeat - suggesting death is not the end

Question 7

Tintern Abbey

Answer 7

• Overlooks beautiful landscape - explores the importance of memories - reminiscent of childhood - acknowledges deeper appreciation for Nature as adult - encourages sister to take in nature so she may create memories

Question 8

Expostulation and Reply

Answer 8

• Friend Mathew challenges speakers beliefs and values
• Conversational
• 1798

Question 9

Ode: Intimations of Immortality

Answer 9

• Begins with epigraph - “the child is father of the man”
  
  • Overall message of the poem and elaborates on something briefly touched on in ‘My heart leaps up when I behold’ which is the poem directly before in the collection (Heaney’s deliberate)

Question 10

I Wondered Lonely As A Cloud

Answer 10

• Symbiosis between individual and nature
• ABAB - iambic tetrameter
• First person
• Symbol of daffodils

Question 11

The Two Part Prelude

Answer 11

• Overall message
  
  • Autobiographical episodic poem as he recounts sublime experiences from his childhood

Question 12

Lines Written In Early Spring - 1798

Question 13

The Tables Turned

Answer 13

• 1798
• Ballad form
  
  • simple language, a narrative, strong rhythm, repetition

Question 14

My heart leaps up when I behold

Question 15

1801

Answer 15

• Buonaparté’s brutal destruction of humanity is described as a consequence of his unnurturing / unloving upbringing

Question 16

The World is too much with us; late and soon

Answer 16

• Switch from “we” - inclusive language to “I” emphasises isolation and separation felt from society due to its ideals and values going astray

Question 17

London, 1802

Answer 17

• Longing for friend Milton - apostrophising him

Question 18

Written in London September 1802

Answer 18

• Expressing disillusionment to Coleridge - apostrophising him

Question 19

French Revolution

Question 20

The Ruined Cottage

Answer 20

• Margret and her slow decline and death after the abandonment of herself and her children by her husband, Robert
• The house
  
  • Literally a physical dwelling
  • Charts Margaret’s slow decline and loss of interest or pleasure in the world
• Peddler narrator along with WW
  
  • WW is being taught something by the Peddlar - documents WW change in perspective when learning new things - how he wants his reader to be - open to new ideas and stories
• Poor harvest and starvation
• Lyrical ballad
  
  • Democratising - elevating stories - promoting equality
• Unrhymed iambic pentameter
  
  • Historically used for epic poems of heroes - WW believed these characters to be heroic leading inspiring lives
• Language has direct dialogue and is easy to follow - a story of the common people for the common people