William Wordsworth 17701850

1
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

• Major poetic voice of Romantic period
• Preface as revolutionary poetic statement
• Early supporter of French Revolution

Image borrowed from http//members.aol.com/words
page2/images.htm
2
Wordsworths Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

• Spontaneous overflow of emotion recollected in
  tranquility
• Poet as man talking to man
• Language of common man
• Poetry has a purpose
• Common people represent natural man

3
Wordsworths Myth of Nature

• Growth of human mind through individuals
  relation to natural world
• Verges of pantheistic beliefs at times
• Later becomes quite conservative
• Dorothys Journals and Coleridges collaboration
  instrumental in his myth of nature

4
Dorothy and Dove Cottage

• Dorothy Wordworth

Image borrowed from http//www.wordsworth.org.uk
/dovecottage/dot2.asp
Dove Cottage, 1802
Image borrowed from http//www.wordsworth.org.uk/
dovecottage/index.htm
5
The Pastoral

• Originated with Greek poet Theocrituswrote poems
  representing life of shepherds
• Deliberately conventional poem expressing an
  urban poets nostalgic image of the peace and
  simplicity of the life of shepherds and other
  rural folk in an idealized natural setting
• Develop pastoral elegy

6
Wordsworths Poetic Career

• Best remembered for Lyrical Ballads (1798)
• 1843 Appointed poet laureate
• 1850 Prelude published posthumouslyepic story
  of growth of poets mind
• Late poetry no longer seriously studied
• Poetics based on remembrancepast of intense
  experiences

Image borrowed from http//www.bartleby.com/145/

7
(No Transcript)
8
Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey (1798) I

• Wordsworth had visited in 1793now comes back in
  1798
• Claims written spontaneously
• Good example of dramatic lyricdramatic poems in
  which the focus of interest is primarily on the
  speakers elaborately ingenious arguments poet
  is often the speaker

9
Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey (1798)
10
Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey (1798) II

• 236 Scene provides sublime sensationsbecomes
  living scene

• After five years he is still connected with this
  spot

11
Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey (1798) III

• 236 Turns to this memory when world gets too
  busymoments of half-extinguished thought
• Recalls youthful days and animal movements
• 237 Now has more mature appreciation of nature
• Scene still affects him

12
Lines Composed Above Tintern Abbey (1798) IV

• 237 Turns to Dorothyhas wish for her
• 238 Wish for Dorothy
• Landscape and memory more dear because of her
  presence

13
The Sonnet

• Lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of
  fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an
  intricate rhyme scheme
• Italian Sonnet/Petrarchan Sonnet
• English Sonnet/Shakespearean Sonnet
• Spenserian Sonnetvariation of Shakespearean

14
Composed Upon Westminster Abbey (1807)
15
Composed Upon Westminster Abbey (1807)

• Italian sonnet
• Commemorates trip to France
• 296 City calm with day about to break
• Mighty heart lying still
• Great image citys latent potential
• Romanticism not all about nature

16
The World Is Too Much With Us (1807)

• Italian sonnet
• 297 Too much concerned with world
• 298 Natural splendor now packagedmoves us not
• Would rather be energetic Pagan
• Were out of tune
• Ends with great sea imageryphallic?