Finally, Wordsworth concludes the poem with a very different mood to that at the beginning and the middle. Within the last verse, the reader can sense a feeling of calm and restfulness as Wordsworth writes,
“For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.”
It is clear from these lines that in moments of reflection, when Wordsworth feels that his mind is in a mood where it is not in a state of harmony with nature, he thinks back to his encounter with the daffodils. This alone can make him feel comforted and therefore more content and tranquil within his thoughts. The phrase, “they flash upon that inward eye,” suggests that Wordsworth has a moment of vision, where he has an insight beyond his everyday experience when he remembers the daffodils, and how they made him feel. This leaves his mind in deep joy, giving way to peace and a state of meditation.
The poem ends with a rhyming couplet, “And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.” These lines give the poem roundness and a feeling of there being no loose ends by letting the reader realise that Wordsworth is at last at one with himself and nature. Wordsworth writes that in his mind he “dances with the daffodils.” This suggests communication with nature and a final feeling of unity with it. It is as though Wordsworth recognises man’s place in the whole scheme of things and feels a sense of harmony with the universe; this reflects Wordsworth’s pantheistic belief that there is no God apart from nature or the universe, and that everything is considered as part of God, or a manifestation of Him. In this phrase Wordsworth also uses alliteration of the letter‘d’, which accentuates further the conclusiveness of the last line.
On the morning of the 31st July 1802, William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy crossed Westminster Bridge. They were on their way to France, in a carriage, to visit Wordsworth’s illegitimate daughter, Caroline and her mother, Anette Vallon. Inspired by the view of Westminster from the bridge, two months later Wordsworth used Dorothy’s memories from her journal to write the poem, ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’.
This poem has an extremely peaceful and tranquil tone, as Wordsworth puts into words the beauty of the sights of London he is experiencing so early that morning. It begins with a very bold statement about those sights: “Earth has not any thing to show more fair.” This indicates clearly that Wordsworth believes nothing in the world to be more beautiful than what he is about to describe, which captivates the reader’s attention instantly. He goes on to write,
“This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky.”
By using personification to describe how the city looks, Wordsworth is creating a vivid image for the reader: In saying the city, “wears” the beauty of the morning- like a garment, he is giving the impression that what he believes to be underneath is very different. It suggests that although he is astounded at the unexpected beauty he has encountered in the city, he realises that the natural world and the elements surrounding the city, such as the sun, are enabling him to perceive it in this way. He realises that the way in which these wonders of nature are influencing the appearance of the city, makes his perception of it in this way possible, and that the city isn’t normally this beautiful.
The use of words to describe the exceptional quality of the scene actually implies that the opposite is usually the case in the city. Words such as, “silent”, “bare”, “smokeless”, “asleep”, “still”, and “calm” all convey Wordsworth’s impression of the city on that particular morning, but indicate that examples of words he would usually associate with the character of the city would be, noisy, crowded, smoky, hectic, etc. Further implication that Wordsworth is shocked and overawed at the beauty of the city is found at the end of the poem where he writes, “Dear God! The very houses seem asleep; and all that mighty heart is lying still!.” This phrase also reveals to the reader that Wordsworth knows what the city is like when it comes to life, later in the day, as he refers to it as the, “mighty heart” .
As seen from ‘Daffodils’ and ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ Wordsworth’s poems are based on the themes of nature and pantheism. There is also an underlying fascination with how the mind works to be found in Wordsworth’s poetry. Among the aspects that he explores are emotions; Wordsworth endeavours to reveal and acquire a profound comprehension of the underlying impulses that influence the way humans think and feel. To Wordsworth, the imagination is a powerful, compelling force that combines with our senses to interpret the way in which we view the world, formulate opinions and react to our environment. Wordsworth examines the process of the memory and tries to understand how it combines and works with imagination to re-create events in the mind. To him this is comforting because it allows him to relive emotions, which can then be used as a source of spiritual strength in the future.
Emanating from Wordsworth’s engrossment with the human mind and how it functions is a fascination with how it develops during childhood. Wordsworth believes that the way in which a child perceives the world relies heavily on emotion, imagination, natural instinct and intuition, unlike adults who combine these elements with the use of intellect and knowledge. Through his poems Wordsworth also explores the extent to which a child’s early experiences contribute to their future adult personality.
Many accounts and descriptions of Wordsworth’s childhood memories and experiences can be found in his poems. He calls these recollections from the past, ‘Spots of Time’. These are significant experiences and memories which have consequently remained vivid in his mind, to the extent that they influenced and formed his personality as he got older. Wordsworth’s ‘Spots of Time’ were often connected with moments that provoked the most powerful emotions such as frightening or overwhelmingly joyful times. For Wordsworth, as a poet, his memories of his ‘Spots of Time’ were especially favoured and important because they provided him with a source of inspiration and creativity for his writing. In all his descriptions of them, he explores the influence of nature and the role of his imagination in intensifying his reaction to events. Many of Wordsworth’s ‘Spots of Time’ can be found in his autobiographical poem, ‘The Prelude’. This is made up of fourteen chapters, and each of these chapters explores a stage of Wordsworth’s life. I am going to study two extracts from ‘The Prelude’, beginning with ‘Ice-Skating’.
‘Ice-Skating’ is written in blank verse and has a regular rhythm from the use of iambic pentameter. The tone at the beginning of the poem is lively and exuberant as Wordsworth describes his pleasure and excitement at ice skating on Esthwaite Water, near Hawkshead, in the Lake District. However, throughout his excitement on the ice, Wordsworth is constantly aware of the subtle influence of nature around him. A clear indicator of this is in the opening lines of the poem, where he makes reference, not to the human activity he is participating in, but to its context within nature. He begins with, “And in the frosty season, when the sun was set, and visible for many a mile.”
The following lines explain how Wordsworth’s desire to continue skating with his friends is so strong that he ignores the time and carries on, “Clear and loud the village clock tolled six; I wheeled about proud and exulting, like an untired horse that cares not for his home.” Within these lines Wordsworth uses a simile, in which he compares himself to a horse, “like an untired horse”. This creates an image of an untired horse, which is then emphasised by saying the skaters, like a horse are, “shod with steel”. This simile continues into the next phase of the poem as Wordsworth goes on to liken the ice skating with his friends and the games they play to a hunt.
“All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
he pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare.”
This comparison of the skaters to a hunt and all its elements such as the speed, the horns and the bloodthirsty dogs, accentuates and captures the speed, noise and confusion of the people skating on the ice. To create imagery for the reader Wordsworth also uses the literary technique of onomatopoeia; he does this by writing the skaters, “hissed along the polished ice”. He also uses alliteration in describing the, “hunted hare”. These literary techniques combine together to convey the exhilaration of skating and the excitement Wordsworth feels from it.
After describing the fun and games of the skaters and himself, Wordsworth goes on to describe his surroundings, again resorting back to the influence of nature and his imaginative response to it. He imagines strange, perturbing noises that he envisages as coming from the earth and nearby mountains.
“Meanwhile, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every ice crag
Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed; while the stars,
Eastward, were sparking clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.”
These sounds remind Wordsworth of the presence of nature and, as he contemplates this, the tone of the poem changes. It goes from being lively to very calm, pensive and reflective.
In the following section of the poem, “Ice-skating”, we see Wordsworth seek out a quieter more solitary area, where he continuously whirls round and round.
“And oftentimes
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion.”
Although it is Wordsworth who is whirling around on the ice, his surroundings are described as moving instead of him; the banks come, “sweeping through the darkness”. Furthermore, when Wordsworth stops spinning he finds, to his amazement, that he feels that the earth is still spinning and for a moment this makes him feel connected to the wider universe which surrounds him. He writes that,
“Then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels
Stopped short-yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round.”
The ordinary human activity of ice skating has allowed Wordsworth to have an extraordinary and special experience that he has remembered as an adult, from his childhood. The poem finishes peacefully, with a simile, in which Wordsworth likens Esthwaite Water to being, “tranquil as a summer sea.”
In ‘Boat-stealing’ Wordsworth relives a deeply unsettling experience of stealing a boat from a lakeside shore one night and rowing it out onto the lake by himself. It has a very different tone to ‘Ice-Skating’ as it is much more uneasy and anxious. The passage is characterised by slow, regular movement from the motion of rowing. The poem begins with Wordsworth explaining that he is tempted to steal the boat by ‘Spirits of nature’ as they draw him into this situation,
“They guided me: one evening led by them
I went alone into a shepherd’s boat,
A skiff, that to a willow-tree was tied
Within a rocky cave, its usual home.”
As he sets out rowing on the lake, he feels a mixture of guilt and apprehension. Wordsworth describes it using an oxymoron, by saying, “It was an act of stealth and troubled pleasure.”
Initially Wordsworth enjoys his moonlit rowing and is impressed by his own ability and how the oars work to propel him through the water,
“I pushed, and struck the oars, and struck again
In cadence, and my little boat moved on
Just like a man who walks with stately step
Though bent on speed.”
It is only when his mind starts to wander, and his imagination causes him to conjure up an awareness of his surroundings, when he realises how potentially frightening it all is. “Not without the voice of mountain echoes did my boat move on”. Wordsworth uses imagery to create an air of uneasiness and unreality in the poem, an example of this being, “small circles glittering idly in the moon.” He describes the water from the wake of the boat as though it is glittering in the reflection of the moon, almost implying that right from the beginning nature is not quite what it seems.
As Wordsworth’s fear of his surroundings increase, the pace of the poem also increases,
“When from behind that rocky steep, till then
The bound of the horizon, a huge cliff,
As if with voluntary power instinct,
Upreared its head. I struck, and struck again,
And, growing still in stature, the huge cliff
Rose up between me and the stars, and still,
With measured motion, like a living thing,
Strode after me.”
Throughout the poem, there is a considerable amount of repetition. This reinforces the surreal and disturbing mood, while echoing the repeated motion of the oars in the lake. As seen in this phrase, Wordsworth repeats, “struck again” to convey the impression of speed and anxiousness.
In the last section of the poem we see Wordsworth reflect on his disturbing experience that night and struggle with how to come to terms with his fear.
“And through the meadows homeward went with grave
And serious thoughts; and after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days my brain
Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being.”
Wordsworth tries to make sense of the night’s events but the images of the huge black mountains chasing him haunt him terribly. The phrase, “unknown modes of beings,” is his attempt to describe the experience and emotions, which he doesn’t fully understand. Wordsworth is so perturbed and traumatised by the event that his imagination deserts him, and the familiar world of nature, which usually gives him great pleasure and happiness, takes on a menacing and tormenting character.
“In my thoughts
There was a darkness- call it solitude,
Or blank desertion- no familiar shapes
Of hourly objects, images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields,
But huge and mighty forms that do not live
Like living men moved slowly through my mind
By day, and were the trouble of my dreams.”
From this passage, it is clear that the tone at the end of the poem is that of a pensive, yet troubled mood. It reflects Wordsworth’s troubled mind from self-induced fear, caused by a guilty conscience from stealing a boat.
I am now going to look at the creations of another great poet, Seamus Heaney. Heaney is regarded very highly as a poet, and is believed to be one of the most important poets’ of the 20th Century. He is from Northern Ireland, therefore violence of the times influence his poetry as he writes with the troubles in his mind. He had his first collection of poems published in 1966, aged 27 and won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1995. Heaney has a traditional approach to poetry in that he uses straightforward language, which gives his poetry great appeal for everyone.
The collection of poems by Heaney I will discuss is called, ‘Death of a Naturalist’. The themes of this collection are very similar to those found in Wordsworth’s poetry such as nature and the many ways in which it is presented, childhood memories and experiences, and rural life. Heaney is especially familiar with the concept of rural life as he was born and lived on a farm and his family had a poor, undeveloped lifestyle. This is clear from his poetry. However, the main theme of ‘Death of a Naturalist’ is loss of childhood innocence and the gaining of adult experience and emotions.
The ‘Naturalist’ in the title of the collection by Heaney is referring to Heaney as a child, similar to Wordsworth in ‘The Prelude’. The word ‘Naturalist’ has two meanings in this context as Heaney is a naturalist in two senses; Firstly because he lives in a close relationship with nature and his surrounding natural environment, and secondly because he acts according to his instincts, rather than to the rules and expectations of society, as a natural free spirit. In Heaney’s poems, as a child he is a free spirit, but then as this child he experiences a moment of intense drama in which he changes emotionally. These moments cause his innocence and freedom to act spontaneously or instinctively to be lost forever. Such moments are comparable to Wordsworth’s ‘Spots of Time’ in ‘The Prelude’, in which we see him too shaped emotionally by childhood experiences, for example, ‘Boat-Stealing’.
Each poem in the ‘Death of a Naturalist’ collection focuses on different stage of Heaney’s formative childhood years, and concentrates on a moment of painful self discovery or new self awareness. However, through his poetry Heaney does not simply analyse these childhood experiences of loss, instead he relives them through his writing, as though he feels compelled to record them, and is driven to remember them as significant moments in his life. There is also a possibility that by recording such moments in the form of poems he might be emotionally able to drive away ghosts that haunt him from the past.
Like Wordsworth, Heaney is also concerned with poetry as a means of understanding one’s own personality and how it makes the transition from the innocence of childhood to the responsibility of adulthood through significant moments in one’s memory. The title poem, ‘Death of a Naturalist’ is superficially about the young Heaney stealing frogspawn from the local village pond, however when studied in more depth it becomes apparent that the underlying theme is loss of childhood innocence.
The poem begins with the account of how as a child Heaney used to take the tadpoles from the pond as they were his favourite part of spring,
“But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks.”
He then goes on to tell the reader what he used to do with the frogspawn,
“Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble
Swimming tadpoles.”
This passage demonstrates Heaney’s fascination with the tadpoles, and explains how he observed and watched them attentively, until they were frogs. The following lines tell us of Heaney’s first experiences of the lessons of the facts of life as he describes what he learns at school about the tadpoles.
“Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog-
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn.”
This really illustrates how young Heaney was when he had these experiences and conveys a state of innocence as he refers to the different sexes of the frogs as, “The daddy frog,” and, “Mammy frog,”. It also shows how absorbed he was in listening and learning from his teacher, which similarly is a childlike characteristic.
However, the following section of the poem sees some of Heaney’s childhood innocence and naivety that he demonstrated earlier, to be lost. This happens when Heaney discovers some adult frogs at the area where he usually collects frogspawn. He is shocked because he associates that area with an activity that brings him pleasure and happiness. However these notions are shattered, as the adult frogs scare Heaney and make him feel guilty for stealing frogspawn.
“The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the damn gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:”
Heaney feels that the frogs will punish him for taking frogspawn, and thinks that they have come back for revenge and to punish him. He uses onomatopoeia to really illustrate and describe the disgusting sounds the frogs were making with the words, “slap” and, “plop”. Heaney’s childhood innocence is taken away by feelings of guilt and regret at his past actions.
“The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.”
‘Digging’ is another poem from the collection, ‘Death of a Naturalist’ in which Heaney portrays rural life and nature. It has a nostalgic and almost proud/loyal tone as Heaney explains how he has not carried on the trade of his family that has been passed down the generations.
The poem concerns a mental journey, which takes Heaney from the confines of his room where he is writing, to reminiscing about the past and the generations of men in his family prior to him. At the start of this mental journey Heaney seems as though he is preparing to write something destructive with the opening lines, “Between my finger and my thumb the squat pen rests; snug as a gun.” However, the sight of his father draws him away from this mood and the confines of his room. It leads him to thoughts about the wider farming world, beyond his room. The sound of the spade his father is using to dig with releases Heaney’s imagination and sends it through successive layers of memory. At first he renews contact with his father; he writes, “Under my window, a clean rasping sound when the spade sinks into the gravely ground; my father, digging.” Then Heaney proceeds to remember his grandfather,
“By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.”
Finally, Heaney falls back on to the memory of his childhood once again and his sense of delight in the natural world. He writes about one vivid memory,
“Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly.”
In the last, conclusive lines of the poem, Heaney returns to his initial starting point, but this time his perception of the pen in his hand is changed. He resolves to use it in a way that will bring him closer to his roots.
“But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.”
In saying that he will, “dig”, with his pen, he places himself beside his father and grandfather. He discovers that recreating the rural world of his home, Mossbawn, on the printed page may allow it to achieve immortality, which generations of turf cutters could not win for it.
The poem, “Digging” and other poems from Heaney’s collection, “Death of a Naturalist”, such as “Follower” are concerned with praising and admiring his family’s farming skills – his father’s digging and ploughing and his grandfather’s turf-cutting. However the poems also draw a contrast between their skill and Heaney’s lack of it in those areas of life. What comes between Heaney and the generations before him is education; Heaney won a scholarship to a boarding school, which he attended for six years and consequently became an academic, whereas his family were uneducated and lived a very rural life. This made him extremely conscious of growing away from his family and his roots. We can see from his poetry that Heaney feels a sense of separation from his family and rural background. He has cut himself from his roots and in doing so cut himself off from the source of inspiration for his first collection of poetry.
In the poems about his family, Heaney is almost like a detached observer- he is distant and unemotional in the accounts he gives. This is shown clearly through the calm manner in which he gives an account of his younger brother’s death in the poem, “Mid-Term Break”. This poem finishes with a very matter-of-fact tone, with little or no emotion,
“…..Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.”
To conclude, we can see that Wordsworth’s and Heaney’s poetry shares many similarities. Both poets explore the transition from childhood to adulthood in depth, focusing on the factors which affect this journey. In particular, they both concentrate on the relationship between the natural world and a rural life and how influential it can be in the formation of a person’s character.