Compare two poems of William Wordsworth.
Rebecca Brealey 10c GCSE Coursework - The Poetry of William Wordsworth - Compare two poems of William Wordsworth 'What is a poet? ... He is a man speaking to men' William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) was influential in establishing this 'Romantic' view of poetry During his lifetime Wordsworth wrote many poems in varying length and differing appeal. The two poems I'm going to compare are 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' version 1, composed in 1804 to The Boat-Stealing Episode from 'The Prelude' version 1, composed in 1799. In I wandered lonely as a cloud I get lost in the poem, I'm suddenly in the poem walking on a spring day 'When all at once I saw a crowd A host of dancing daffodils;' For me the poem is about natures power and it's overwhelming force 'Ten thousand dancing in the breeze' the poem gains much momentum as it goes along 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' verse 1 line 1 compared to verse 2 line 1 'the waves besides them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee'. Wordsworth believed the best poetry recorded a poet's feelings about some experience. In I wandered lonely as a cloud he backs up this idea in saying he looks back on his summer's day walk and the power and beauty of nature changes his mood 'In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude'. In contrast the Boat - Stealing Episode shows how nature can
How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism? A. Romantic
ENGLISH COURSEWORK - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Q. How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism? A. Romantic poetry was an artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th century. It dealt with nature, human imagination, childhood and the ability to recall emotional memories of both happiness and sadness. Before Wordsworth began writing his revolutionary new style of poetry, all preceding poetry had a very different style. The reason these poems were classed as revolutionary was because he believed that romantic poetry should describe "incidents of common life" and ordinary people and were written in deliberately plain words. It was what Wordsworth called "The real language of men". Before this style of writing, all poems were about important things and people. They were written about Kings, Queens and Gods. All poems were of a formal nature and of epic proportions. Before Wordsworth, poets didn't believe that "common people" were good enough to have a poem written about them. We see Wordsworth's Romantic style and the inclusion of memories, imagination, human feelings and ordinary people. One such poem is "The Reverie of Poor Susan". In this poem, we are told of Susan who is a woman from the country who is living and working in the city. As she passes by a bird singing in a cage, she seems to be saddened. Wordsworth wonders why this is,
How does William Wordsworth’s poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism?
ENGLISH COURSEWORK - WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Q. How does William Wordsworth's poetry fit into the literary tradition of Romanticism? A. Romantic poetry was an artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th century. It dealt with nature, human imagination, childhood and the ability to recall emotional memories of both happiness and sadness. Before Wordsworth began writing his revolutionary new style of poetry, all preceding poetry had a very different style. The reason these poems were classed as revolutionary was because he believed that romantic poetry should describe "incidents of common life" and ordinary people and were written in deliberately plain words. It was what Wordsworth called "The real language of men". Before this style of writing, all poems were about important things and people. They were written about Kings, Queens and Gods. All poems were of a formal nature and of epic proportions. Before Wordsworth, poets didn't believe that "common people" were good enough to have a poem written about them. We see Wordsworth's Romantic style and the inclusion of memories, imagination, human feelings and ordinary people. One such poem is "The Reverie of Poor Susan". In this poem, we are told of Susan who is a woman from the country who is living and working in the city. As she passes by a bird singing in a cage, she seems to be saddened. Wordsworth wonders why this is,
How do Coleridge and Wordsworth present human suffering in the 'Lyrical Ballads'?
How do Coleridge and Wordsworth present human suffering in the 'Lyrical Ballads'? * Marginalized Characters * Epiphany's (show how life gets better...comparison) * Rime of the ancient -C * The Thorn * Female Vagrant * Foster Mothers Tale -C As shown in the advertisement for the 'Lyrical Ballads', Wordsworth and Coleridge place a huge amount of importance on "human passions, human characters and human incidents", which they reflect in their poetry. Inevitably, human suffering is one of the less positive focuses of some of their pieces, such as 'The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere' and 'The Thorn', and is a recurring theme throughout the anthology. One way in which Wordsworth depicts this is through introducing marginalized individuals as focal characters for his pieces. It is unusual for a person to live outside of society, and in much of the 'Lyrical Ballads', people that experience this are shown to be suffering. In Wordsworth's 'The Thorn', the very subject of the poem is a woman who has been forced to live in the wilderness, away from the community she previously lived in. From the very beginning, she is shown to be "sober sad from her exceeding pain", and having nobody to help alleviate it. The woman herself is shown to be "in a scarlet cloak", which alludes to the concept of a 'scarlet lady', who in the time that 'The Thorn' was penned, was also a marginalized
Comparison with 'The Thought-Fox' and 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud'
Comparison with 'The Thought-Fox' and 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' In 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' Wordsworth wrote the poem at the time when the spirit of 'romanticism' was strong. Romanticism was an artistic movement which celebrated the wonders of nature, the wonders of God's 'creation'. It stressed human emotion and the senses rather than logic and rationalism. The poet William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland. Wordsworth's mother died in 1778 when he was only eight years-old, and his father who had problems looking after him sent him to a grammar school some distance away. The first poem 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud', is about a man who is 'wandering' alone in the woods 'o'er vales and hills' but then he see suddenly 'a host, of golden daffodils' they are everywhere 'beside the lake, beneath the trees'. They are also 'flutt'ring and dancing in the breeze.' There are so many of the daffodils that 'stretched' along a 'never-ending line' he is 'gay' at the sight of so many daffodils. In 'The Thought-Fox' Ted Hughes the writer of the poem was in his early 20's when he wrote the poem in 1955. It was one of Ted Hughes's earliest poems. He was born on 17th August 1930 and he died on 28th October 1998, aged 68. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 19th December 1984 in succession to the late John Betjeman. The other poem, 'The Thought-Fox',
How is the theme of Childhood presented in The Lyrical Ballads?
How is the theme of Childhood presented in The Lyrical Ballads? The Romantic era ushered in a whole new way in which children were perceived. Romantics did not believe in the "Seen but not heard" attitude towards children. The Romantics often busied themselves trying to understand what made a man, what shaped a person's personality to create the adult. Three poems in The Lyrical Ballads, all by Wordsworth, deal exclusively with the theme of childhood. They are We are Seven, Anecdote for Fathers and The Idiot Boy. A famous quote by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau states that "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains". By this he meant that we are all born without any laws or morality and that these are ideals we gain only as we age and get exposed to them by society. This sentiment is reflected in the aforementioned poems, as this belief is one of the reasons children were so celebrated by the Romantic movement, they were untainted by the societal rules forced upon them, and so were a part of nature in a way an adult could not be. In We are Seven, Wordsworth relates a conversation between the poem's narrator and a young girl. The young girl claims to have sixth brothers and sisters, however she says that two of them are dead. Despite the narrator's attempts to convince her that makes only four brothers and sisters, five overall, he eventually concedes that is
A comparison of two poems which have the common theme of daffodils
A comparison of two poems which have the common theme of daffodils William Wordsworth's "The Daffodils" and "Miracle On St David's Day" by Gillian Clarke have common ground even though they were written two centuries apart-William Wordsworth's at the end of the eighteenth century and Clarke's in the last ten years of the 20th. "The Daffodils" inspired "Miracle On St David's Day" in that William Wordsworth's poem "The Daffodils" creates the extraordinary event, which occurs in Clarke's poem. William Wordsworth had never seen the daffodils about which he wrights. However with a wonderful imagination William Wordsworth was able to transform the details into a remarkable poem of a of a truly beautiful scene "what wealth the show to me had brought," which allows the reader to join in and feel the beauty of the scene. A confrontation is obvious in the first four lines of his poem when the use of "I" and "lonely" contrast with the words "crowds" and "host" in lines three and four. The writers joy continues till the end of the poem, though his loneliness also continues it is not burdensome. The same type of loneliness is felt by the speaker in "Miracle On St David's Day" when she also manages to find herself amongst large numbers of flowers and patients who are mentally ill. The big labouring man appears to be the most lonely as "He has never spoken" for some time owing to
The Daffodils
The Daffodils 'The Daffodils' was written in the eighteenth century by William Wordsworth. Gillian Clarke wrote 'Miracle on St.David's Day' in the twentieth century, making her a contemporary poet. 'The Daffodils' is about a day when Wordsworth was contemplating, and decided to go for a walk. Along the way he observed a host of daffodils. He thought that the flowers were so beautiful that they left an indelible impression in his mind. Weeks, maybe months after he had first seen the flowers, when he was in a "vacant or pensive mood," Wordsworth remembered the beautiful sight of the daffodils. Just thinking of the flowers gave him inspiration and filled his heart with pleasure. We know that something remarkable is about to happen in Gillian Clarke's poem by reading the title; "Miracle on St. David's Day." The word 'miracle' conveys this feeling. After reading the title there's a chosen extract or a prolog from the poem 'The Daffodils.' We now know that Gillian Clarke's poem is accociated with William Wordsworth's poem. As this extract is located at the beginning of her poem it makes us believe that her poem is also going to be about daffodils. The poem by Gillian Clarke is about a 'miracle' that occurs on St. David's Day, when a dumb man is touched by the power of a poem. She visits a mental hospital and recites poems to the patients. When in middle of a poem the dumb man
The presentation of Childhood in lyrical ballads
How does Lyrical Ballads show us Wordsworth and Coleridge's views on childhood? During the romantic period views on childhood dramatically changed from the previous. The enlightenment involved people having the belief that children should have no respects and as a result were 'seen and no heard'. This dramatically changed to children being a source of learning, so children could teach adults ways of life. This essay will discuss the different aspects of childhood and look at Wordsworth and Coleridge's views. From a romantics point of view children were seen as pure, simple and innocent human beings, which had great importance to the world's teachings. Wordsworth gives the idea that a child is simple in the poem 'We are seven' (pg 59) when the opening line says "a simple child, drear brother Jim". The poem idealises childhood, describing a little girl to be a "sweet maid". The young girl lives out in the countryside, which at that time would be seen as a good thing, people who were raised in the countryside would be seen to have more moral than those brought up in towns. Rousseau believed that humans were born into the world innocent, with great potential for goodness, and that it was the adult world of organised religion, which corrupted them. He believed the idea of the "noble savage", something/one that is compatible with nature. The idea of this 'noble savage' is
By a detailed description of any 3 of Wrdsworth's typical poetry, point out the poet's strength in this kind of poetry.
By a detailed description of any three of Wordsworth's typical poetry, point out the poet's strengths in this type of poetry. Almost all poetry of Wordsworth involves Nature at some level. In some poems, it is the vessel through which his philosophy is expressed ( Ode to Immortality, To a skylark, etc), while in others, Nature is described for its own sake - for Nature in Wordsworth's poetry is but a form of God and the poems of the latter category can be taken as hymns to God from a Nature poet. Due to the great number of poems he authored, it is difficult to isolate just three that describe his strengths as a Nature poet the best. However, since I strongly believe Wordsworth was at his best as a Nature poet in poems that show his love for Nature for its own sake and it is in these poems that his romantic imagination and narrative powers are most enchanting, I shall be describing three of the enigmatic Lucy poems - "Lucy Gray", "Three years she grew in sun and shower" and "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" to show Wordsworth's strengths as a Nature poet. One of the attributes of Wordsworth's poetry that gives them a timeless appeal is perhaps his effective use of imagery. For instance, in "Lucy Gray", the establishment of Lucy as the personification of the more elusive, delicate aspects of Nature is complete in the very first stanza in the lines, "You yet may spy the fawn