Hello everyone,
This blog is written in response to the classroom activity given by Megha ma'am. In this blog we will discuss about the salient features of Wordsworth's poetry and it's characteristics.
About Wordsworth
Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth, Cumberland. He is one of the most famous romantic poet and better known for his collaborative work with Samuel Tylor Coleridge "The Lyrical Ballads" In 1798. In this partnership, Coleridge was to take up the "supernatural or at least romantic" while Wordsworth was "to give the charm of novelty to things of everyday.. by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us". His spiritual autobiographical work The Prelude give more insight to his early life and his experience.
Moreover, his long and uneventful life divides itself naturally into four periods,
1) his childhood and youth, in the Cumberland Hills, from 1770 to 1787.
2) a period of uncertainty, of storm and stress, including his university life at Cambridge, his travels abroad, and his revolutionary experience from 1787 to 1799.
3) a short but significant period of finding himself and his work from 1797 to 1799.
4) a long period of retirement in northern region where he was born and raised, about a half century he lived so close to nature which reflect in his later poetic works.
Difficulties in reading Wordsworth
Whosoever reads Wordsworth for the first time finds a sense of disappointment in his works. There are mainly two difficulties which prevent us from appreciating the poet's worth. First one is that readers often perplexed by the simplicity of Wordsworth. There is blend of creative imagination and simplicity of diction in Wordsworth's poetry, such as his poem Lucy,
"A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when the only one
Is shining in the sky."
Poetry of Wordsworth is more or less free from use of "conceits". He made use the language of simple truth and portrayed the man and nature as they are. Oftentimes we fail to appreciate his poetic beauty, passion and intensity which are hidden under his simple lines. Secondly, poetry of Wordsworth sometimes become monotonous as he was not often melodious and lacking in humor. He made use of bulky and prosy verses that sometimes we wonder that how poet could have written it.
Because of these two difficulties at first we should avoid reading his longer works rather we should read his exquisite shorter poems.
Characteristics of Wordsworth's Poetry
- Wordsworth is sensitive as a barometer to every subtle change in the world about him. He is an epitome of the gladness and beauty of the world. In The Prelude, he compares himself to an aeolian harp, which answer with harmony to every touch of the wind and the figure is strikingly accurate, as well as interesting.
- We can compare Wordsworth's nature poetry with other such poets like Gray and Burns but no one excel as Wordsworth does in representation of truthfulness. That depiction we can see in his poetry Tintern Abbey. Which is his most famous nature poetry, published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. He did not used heavy and obsolete words in his poetry rather he used simple language such as tree, river, mountain, bird, flowers, wind. He observed every minute details about them and let them speak their own message.
- no other poet found such abundant beauty in the common world as Wordsworth does. He had not only sight but a deep insight that is, he is not sees clearly and describe accurately but penetrates to the heart of things and always find some exquisite hidden meaning of natural objects. other poets such as Burns, Keats, Cowper, Tennyson also gives the description of natural objects but Wordsworth depicts very life of nature. There is a natural awakening in the mind and hearts of readers of Wordsworth's poetry. He seems to awaken rather than create an impression. by reading his poetry one can live once more in the vague, beautiful wonderland of childhood.
- Wordsworth is considered as a poet of nature. He was pantheist, that we can see in his poetry.
"My trust is in the God of Heaven
And in the eye of him who passes me"
Nature in his poetry is recognized everywhere. In his childhood, Wordsworth regarded natural objects, the stream, the hills, the flowers, winds, as his companions which is reflect in his poetry.
- Wordsworth believed that man is not apart from nature but is the very "life of her life". such is the philosophy of Wordsworth's nature poetry. He asserts that natural instincts and pleasures of childhood are the true standards of a man's happiness in this life. All artificial and fictitious pleasures grow tiresome. This nature is reflected in his poetry as well, such as, Tintern Abbey, The Rainbow, Ode to duty and Intimation to Immortality. We can hardly find a page in his poetry without an appeal to nature.
- The poet does not like the idea of industrial revolution, for which he believed that it will do harm to nature and it's wholesome atmosphere upon which his most of the poetry structured. According to him, society and the crowded unnatural life of cities tend to weaken and pervert humanity and return to nature and simple living is the only remedy for human Wretchedness,Wordsworth consider the truth of humanity that is, the common life which labors and loves and shares the general heritage of smiles and tears. Transitional and Pre-romantic poets such as Burns, Gray and many other poets started this tradition of depicting romantic interest of common life in their poetry that, Wordsworth continued in his Michael, The Solitary Reaper, To a Highland Girl, Stepping Westward, The Excursion and other lesser poems. He described joy and sorrow of widest commonality rather than of princes or heroes.
"I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of Undistinguishable motion. "
- Where the 18th century poets put emphasis much on the "wit", the romantic poets put emphasis on the "Imagination". Wordsworth made use of imagination by which he reflected common things in his poetry in very strange and subtle way.
" There was a time when meadow, groves
And stream,
The earth and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light"
- Romantic poetry is more subjective rather than of objective poets expresses their own personal thoughts and feelings. Wordsworth expresses his personal thoughts in Ode : Intimation of Immortality.
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From god, who is our home"
In this exquisite ode, Intimation of Immortality, Wordsworth talks about his philosophy of childhood.
- for Wordsworth the power of human mind is extremely important. In several of his poems Wordsworth begins in a bit of negative or depressed mood then slowly becomes more positive. The most important use of memory is to maintain connection with past memories. For instance in poem "Tintern Abbey".
Work Cited
- Long, William j. English Literature. Maple Press Limited, 2012.
- For further understanding you can refer to this video,
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