Wordsworth themes

Question 1

nature

Answer 1

• Value of nature is very significant
• Go back to nature after death
• Personifies nature as a women, ‘mother nature’
• Children are more appreciative of nature than adults
• Nature is a companion
• Relationships between humans and nature
• Natures innocence and purity
• nature’s wisdom and divine
• Healing power of nature to escape modern troubles
• The beauty of nature
• The sublime, grand aspect of nature
• Nature as teacher and guide
• The pleasure nature brings in the present and in memory
• Nature as companion to the lonely wanderer and outsider

Question 2

key poems for nature

Answer 2

Lines Written In Early Spring
The Tables Turned
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey…
The Two-Part Prelude
To The Cuckoo
The Small Celandine
I wandered lonely as a cloud

Question 3

Modernity

Answer 3

• Ruining the appreciation of nature
• William refused the idea of a train line through the lake district
• Shows how modern ideas and values affects our relationship with nature
  Industrial revolution
• The negative impacts of industrialisation
• Our focus on materialism and consumerism
• Focus on outward and often showy appearances in contrast to rawness and authenticity of nature
• Mankind’s tendency towards destruction (particularly of self and Nature)
• Growing divide between rich and poor, forgetting the simple life of rural workers
  The impacts of war and abuse of authority (e.g. French Revolution)

Question 4

key poems modernity

Answer 4

The Tables Turned
The world is too much with us; late and soon
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
Written in London, September 1802
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland

Question 5

emotions

Answer 5

• Sorrow, loss and pain in the ruined cottage
• Awe of nature
• French revolution
• Impacts of death, loss on the individual
• Mans mortality and insignificance in the face of an eternal natural world
• Unpredictability of death
  In death we are ‘returned’ to nature, we are at peace
• Pleasure in meditation and the simple things
• The power of imagination to create
• The bliss of solitude and thoughtfulness
• Children are more capable of connecting with imagination, the divine and Nature due to their innocence

Question 6

key poems emotion

Answer 6

To My Sister
Expostulation and Reply
There Was a Boy
A slumber did my spirit seal
Strange fits of passion I have known
Nutting
My heart leaps up when I behold
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free
Surprised by Joy - Impatient as the Wind

Question 7

humanity

Answer 7

• Children should be in nature not working in factories
• The ruined cottage - the state of margaret
• Those who don’t buy into the modern way of living are outsiders
• The innocence of the child in contrast to the troubles and dustractions of adulthood
• Children are intrinsically at one with Nature due to their spiritual, playful and innocent natures
• The corruption of mankind and society
• The vulnerability of the feminine (often synonymous with Nature) in modern society
• Vulnerability of the unmarried/single woman in an increasingly unfeeling and patriarchal society
• The authenticity and purity of the rural worker or those who live on the fringes of society

Question 8

key poems emotion

Answer 8

Animal Tranquillity and decay
The Ruined Cottage
Lines Written in Early Spring
There Was A Boy
Nutting
Lucy Gray; or, Solitude
Three years she grew in sun and shower
Two-Part Prelude
The Solitary Reaper