Choose two or three Romantic poems on nature.

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

In your answer you should refer to at least two poems by the same poet.

Analyse the poet’s methods and use of language.

Make comparisons and draw relationships. Show how the poems refer to their literary tradition.

Give a personal response and evaluation.

Carla Haughey

I have chosen to analyse two Wordsworth poems, “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” and “The World is Too Much With Us.”

At one stage in his life, Wordsworth was greatly influenced by William Godwin, a philosopher who claimed that salvation lay only in reason perfected by education. Wordsworth adopted these Neo classic views for four years until he nearly suffered a nervous breakdown. Neo classicist writers believed that poetry had to be “fancier” than prose; they did not think of nature as a teacher as the Romantic writers did, they thought that reason was the prime source of inspiration and emotion was inferior to thought and they thought that poetry should be about people in high society; humble life was contemptuously ignored. After four years Wordsworth turned his back on Neo classicism and turned towards Romanticism. Romanticism was the idea that nature teaches the only important knowledge to man. The next philosopher to influence Wordsworth was Hartley, who taught that the mind was a “blank slate” until sensation introduced ideas into it, that sensation was the basis of all knowledge. Wordsworth, in his preface to the Lyrical Ballads insisted that poetry should be about the evocation of emotion and the inculcation of awareness through the artistic examination of immediate experience – poetry should be about how we emotionally respond to our experiences. For Wordsworth, the earth was not a dead thing, but full of life, full of the breath of the infinite Being.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge shows Wordsworth apparently appreciating the beauty of a great city – though it is characteristic of his love for solitude that the poem is set in the early morning, when there is no noise or bustle. It has a calm, slow rhythm, which could represent the river, which adds to the relaxed atmosphere of the poem. The World is Too Much With Us embodies one of the main ideas of Romantic poetry – that in our daily life we have lost touch with the renewing powers of nature. The slow rhythm adds to ...

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Both poems are written in the form of a Petrarchan Sonnet, which is divided into an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines) by the rhyme scheme abbaabba cdcdcd. The essence of the Petrarchan sonnet is the unequal relationship between the octave and sestet. This structure is one of observation and conclusion, or statement and counter statement. In the octave of Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Wordsworth seems to be praising the city of London but the turn after the octave is a shift of feeling that develops the subject of the poem by surprise to its conclusion. In the sestet, Wordsworth praises the beauty of the morning that envelops the city. What seemed to be a celebration of London is actually a celebration of the beauty of the morning. The octave of The World is Too Much With Us plays with the idea that we have sold our souls to the material world and in doing so broken our bonds with nature. The sestet offers a solution to the problem, to go back to a less cultured, out of date society, the Pagans, and worship nature.

Wordsworth was writing during the Industrial Revolution when society was becoming increasingly reliant upon mass production and there was a growth of towns and cities. These circumstances obviously affected Wordsworth – the majority of Romantic poetry is about nature whereas Composed upon Westminster Bridge is about the beauty of a city in the morning. Wordsworth used simple, everyday language that ordinary man could understand. The title “Composed upon Westminster Bridge” could be a pun; the word “composed” might also represent how the poet is feeling. Wordsworth suggests that people would have no sensibility if they could “pass by/ A sight so touching in its majesty.” The words “touching” and “majesty” suggests how powerfully this scene affects him. The words “now doth” seem to suggest that this is a transitory moment of beauty that will soon pass. The simile “This city now doth, like a garment, wear/ The beauty of the morning;” hints that the poem is celebrating the beauty of the morning before man wakes up and pollutes it. The words “bright and glittering” make this sight seem valuable; the “b” and “g” and the repetition of the “i” sounds makes it sound crisp. Wordsworth then compares the city to the country saying that “Never did sun more beautifully steep/ In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill.” The awe-inspiring image of this moment touches him and he feels that it is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He uses the metaphor “that mighty heart is lying still,” as when the people have woken up the city is beating and pulsating. The overwhelming nature of the scene resonates within him and he teaches us that we too should be still and appreciate nature. What at first seemed to be a celebration of London is ostensibly a moral lesson on standing still and appreciating nature.

Wordsworth was writing The World is Too Much With Us during the Agricultural Revolution when meadows and woodlands began to disappear. The title “The World is Too Much With Us” means that we are too concerned with the material world. Wordsworth uses the image of “getting and spending” to show the greed of our society. Our “powers” are our ability to appreciate nature and what she has to offer. “Little we see in Nature that is ours,” seems to suggest that if we don’t own it, we don’t want to know about it. “Sordid boon” suggests how bitter Wordsworth feels about how we have “given our hearts away” to the material world and betrayed nature. Wordsworth uses sensual imagery – “This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,” and the simile describing the wind “like sleeping flowers” helps to add to the sombre mood of the poem and effectively describes nature as a thing of beauty. For our ignorance, we are “out of tune;” we are lost in the wrong environment and have lost the harmony between nature and ourselves, man is trying to dictate to nature. Wordsworth would “rather be a Pagan;” he would rather go back to an out of date society to become less cultured but closer to nature. He feels “forlorn” because he is out of tune with nature, he has to reject cultured things and be a Pagan to be truly happy. Proteus and Triton were sea gods in the “outworn” beliefs of Greek mythology. Wordsworth finds it appealing that the Greeks had gods of nature. This shows how they revered and appreciated nature. The poem teaches us that we should be getting back to nature instead of concerning ourselves with material possessions.

Both poems address the same aspect of Wordsworth’s poetry – that we have become desensitised towards nature and don’t stop long enough in our daily lives to appreciate the beauty around us, instead we are concerned with “getting and spending,” although they do so in different ways. Like most of Wordsworth’s poetry they both comment on man’s complex relationship with nature and the world around us. Composed upon Westminster Bridge celebrates the beauty of the morning and how it can make the city of London more beautiful than “valley rock or hill” and how man cannot appreciate this whereas The World is Too Much With Us describes how we “lay waste our powers” and destroy nature.