Lord Byron

From reading this text I think that it is an opinionated and comedic type of story. The way that he ends certain stanzas reveals his thoughts of writer like Wordsworth that he was probably afraid to say to the man himself. However, the way that he pokes fun at these other authors is quite funny. There are not too many other writers that have the courage to write things the same way and display their beliefs as openly as he does. But even though I think it is funny, I also think that it resembles The Prelude in certain ways. He discusses where he has traveled to and what he has done in his life time it shows how highly he thought of himself and how confident (or arragant) he was. It is easy to mistake his confidence for cockiness as well.

Dorothy and the Sublime

Dorothy Wordsworth’s poetry contains sublime moments that I think are much easier to identify and relate to than Williams. In her piece, Irregular Verses she has a subime moment saying, “There with my one dear Friend would dwell, Nor wish for aught beyond the dell. Alas!the cottage fled in air, The stremlet never flowed:-Yet did those visions pass away so gently that they seemed to stay, Though in our riper years we each pursued a different way.” She recalls what she dreamed for as a young girl, and has a sublime moment before the thoughts fade away. She discusses another sublime moment in Thoughts on My Sick-bed stating, “I thought of Nature’s loveliest scenes; And with Memory I was there.” When she is so debilitated and ill she enjoys her life through memories and her sublime moments.

     She makes her works more accessible to the average person by addressing the smallest form of the person- children. She learns to simplify her pieces in a way that I would argue William Wordsworth or Cooleridge might not be able to utilize. She discusses nature in a way that people can relate to in Floating Island. In this piece, she discusses the experience people may have with nature and how it relates to life which is much more easily read by the average person.

     She even writes poetry more accessible to the average person in Address to a Child because as children everyone has at one time or another experienced a fierce thunderstorm. She writes in a language that common people not only children could understand and relate to.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

A lot of times reading something that is turgid or in a form different than I usually read makes it difficult for me to understand a piece. For instance, a while back I was reading The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and it wasn’t until I saw a webcomic about the poem that I was really able to see what Eliot was going for. Along the same vein, Rime of the Ancient Mariner can be confusing. Though I wouldn’t consider myself a metalhead by any means, I remembered recently that Iron Maiden had a song of the same title. After looking into the lyrics, I noticed that it wasn’t simply an allusory title, but rather a reworking of the poem. This link takes you to those lyrics. If like me, you have problems envisioning certain works, perhaps looking at it from a different perspective will help you grasp the concepts and meaning as well.

Dorothy Wordsworth

The “insane” sister of William was the underappreciated writer of the family. Most of her life was spent with her brother and his writing counterpart Coleridge. She lived with them in Germany and wrote many great poems that most of the time were over looked because she was a female and because her brother was always in the spotlight as the established writer of the family. Furthermore, there were many historians that believed that the two of them had a slightly unuasual attraction that a brother and sister should not have for eachother. However, the work by both of them do not shine any light on the matter.

Much of her work was based off of her life in her journals that she kept while living with her brother and Coleridge. The Alfoxden Journal of her’s was a published journal of the accounts that took place while in that area. Her work was later given the respect that it deserved in the later half of her life but could be considered to have come a little too late.

The Prelude

The Prelude to me was very dry and boring and because I had already done research on Wordsworth for my presentation it was a lot of knowledge that I had already attained from other sources. However, from the research that I had done for my presentation I found that he was a very self-obsorbed type of writer and that he really thought somewhat highly of himself and his position in life which he had a great passion for. His writing in The Prelude also showed that he believe that the many trips that he took to various places were very interesting in the sense that he believed that he was the only person doing this type of traveling. In his own mind he was very famous and he had already arrived as a poet and that there was not much else that he thought he had to do in order for people to believe that he was an influencial artist during his time period.

Wm Wordsworth “The Prelude”

Wordsworth was a very introspective individual.  “The Prelude”, written over approximately 45 years, showed that he felt his life, and his feelings about his journey through it, should be recorded for posterity.  He had almost a mystical outlook, and would wax poetically about everything, no matter how  small or inconsequential it seemed.  In the first part, when he first goes on his own, his description of his impressions come from his very soul.  When he meets the old soldier, he analyzes his impressions and feelings about him before he meets him and offers to help him.  He makes a lot of referrals to mythological Greek gods, and to God himself.  Extremely wordy just to get to a basic point, but I guess that is what made him so successsful as a poet.  He definitely related to all things in nature, and everything that occurred to and with nature, from the sun rising and setting, to the hills, lakes, ponds, etc.

Poor Susan

Reading Wordsworth’s biography was very interesting. His life story was really a bit sad. He seemed lonely for a good portion of his life. It wasn’t until he was over the age of thirty that he married. Although the marriage was a positive he went on to lose his brother and two of his five children. After reading Wordsworth’s biography I already began making assumptions of what his poems would be like. I felt they would be sad based upon, what appeared, his own loneliness.

I focused on Wordsworth’s poem, Poor Susan. I enjoyed this poem because I felt the rhyme scheme made the poem easier to follow. It was a bit sing-songy, which I found made it more interesting. Also, the fact that it was sing-songy was somewhat ironic considering what the poem was about. The way that I read it made it feel lighter and happier when, in retrospect, the poem was a bit sad. Wordsworth is talking about a woman named Susan who seems to be pitied by everyone. She is considered an outcast and seems to be searching for her happiness. It seems that when she thinks she has found happiness it disappears and leaves her in the same condition that she was originally in. Between Wordsworth’s biography and Poor Susan, it seems Wordsworth may have been writing from a place of experience. It may be presumptuous to assume Wordsworth may have had loneliness in his life, but he quite clearly must have felt sadness and perhaps he was able to convey Susan’s sadness so well because of his experience with pain and loss.

Wordsworth … The Ending Made Me Sad

Wordsworth’s poem entitled, “Three years she grew in sun and shower,” captures the coming of maturity in the life of a young girl, followed by her untimely demise. The poem begins with Wordsworth’s beautiful description of the girl’s appearance and Nature’s realization of the girl’s beauty. Nature decides that it will take possession of the girl stating, “This Child I to myself will take/ She shall be mine, and I will make/ A Lady of my own.” Nature goes on to make a promise to the girl that she will become a part of all nature: rock and plain, earth and heaven, mountain springs and floating clouds. The girl, who in the final lines of the poem we learn is named Lucy, lives in peaceful harmony with Nature, until Nature decides its work is done. Soon after Nature makes its decision to step away from Lucy’s life (the end of maturation) she dies. Wordsworth concludes, “The memory of what has been/ And never more will be.”

This poem left me very simply, depressed. Lucy has been guided by “Nature” throughout her maturation, growing from beautiful girl to woman. She has become one with Nature and all its gifts, but just as she has reached maturation, she dies. As I read through the beginning of the poem I thought … “what beautiful writing” … not focused around slavery or women’s rights, but just beautiful. Then Lucy dies! I very much expected Lucy’s death, because of Wordsworth’s connection to the character, but I didn’t want it to happen.

Natural Selection

In his work, “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey,” William Wordsworth labels himself a “worshipper of Nature” (Line 153). His deeply entwined relationship with nature seems to inform all of his works, especially “Lines… above Tintern Abbey,” and “Lines written in early spring.”

In “…early spring,” Wordsworth seems to argue that the simple actions of hopping, playing birds and budding twigs represent a better and more pleasurable experience than human life. The opening stanza indicates that even while he reclines, relaxed, his pleasant thoughts “bring sad thoughts to the mind” (Line 4), while “every flower… enjoys the air it breathes” (Lines 11-12). I believe the entire poem sums up a general statement from Wordsworth, contending that as man has become more complex, he has forgotten the simplistic beauty that surrounds him. Most individuals take air, trees, birds, etc. for granted; they are elements of life that have always been there. Perhaps Wordsworth is arguing that the growth of complexity of man is due to his loss of awareness of life’s simple pleasures.

After all, Wordsworth was said to have learned more from nature and his travel experiences than from his studies. His “Lines… above Tintern Abbey” were composed following a trip there with his sister in the summer of 1798. The attitude is very different – while the reverence for nature is in both, this one seems to be more positive, perhaps due to the timing of its creation. It was said that Wordsworth spent cold winters cooped up in his home; “…early spring” may be the backlash of too much wintertime to think. “Tintern Abbey,” however, was written two weeks into July – the height of summer, it can be argued. “Tintern” seems to claim that nature helps us keep our faith in hope and good, and has an everlasting comfort value, which keeps our minds occupied to avoid any alternative states of evil or negativity. If this is the case, it can be proof to the attitude adjustment seen in Wordsworth’s “…early spring,” a reaction to the loss of his source of comforting solace and strength during the cold, dead winters.

Nature and Man in “The Thorn”

Wordsworth’s “The Thorn” certainly displays why he was considered by Victorians to be the poet of nature. He expresses more excitement and passion for the landscape than any other subject. I was struck by how he showd pity for the thorn as the moss clasped it, trying to bring it down. This image stayed with me as a read Martha Ray’s plight. It seems that she suffers the same misfortune; Wordsworth portrays society to be as menacing to Martha Ray as the moss is to the thorn. I also found it interesting the the man who betrayed her by marrying another is named Stephen Hill, and she finds solace sitting by a mountaintop, above him (and society).

At first I found the image of an infant’s grave (50-55) to be odd and eerie, but now I see it as a foreshadowing device for Martha’s story. I think Wordsworth does well to reinforce his belief that nature has an important place in our lives. The poet even mistakes Martha for a jutting cave. I think this shows that we are not as above nature as we think we are. He urges the Reader to experience nature as Martha has in line 108 to begin to understand what she has endured. Martha was mad with grief and rage, until nature reminded her of what she had inside her: a baby. To add to her sorrow, Martha lost the baby, and the town coldly wonders how it was lost. To Nature though, her story is just another element in the “Circle of Life” as it were.