Happy Birthday William Wordsworth!

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” 

It seems fitting to share my favorite poem by William Wordsworth in honor of his 245th birthday (born April 7th, 1770): Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour. July 13, 1798 or simply referred to as Tintern Abbey. It is far too long to post but you can read it here. 

One of the most famous works to come out of the Romantic period was The Lyrical Ballads by Williams Wordsworth and his pal Samuel Taylor Coleridge--a collection of works by both poets first published in 1798 with a second edition published in 1800 (includes the preface). They were both determined to usher in a new-wave of poetry that would overturn the high-brow and neo-classical traditions of the 18th century. The explicit artifice found in the poetry of their predecessors such as Alexander Pope and John Dryden would be replaced with the stark-naked truth of human emotions. In the preface, Wordsworth describes poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." He goes on to elaborate further that the mind undergoes a kind of transition from tranquility to contemplation but once that tranquility disappears, emotions take over and poetry is born. The combination of the "lyric" and "ballad" was wholly unique at the time--a hybrid genre that would take on the qualities of expressing personal and emotional feelings as found in the lyric with the oral traditions of the ballad (poems or songs narrating a story in short ballad stanzas that take on the form of quatrains). 

In order to make sense of Tintern Abbey, it is important to know a little more about what Wordsworth and Coleridge were attempting to achieve with the Lyrical Ballads. In the preface, Wordsworth describes the Lyrical Ballads as an "experiment," warning readers that the rough diction and lack of refinement may come across as strange or primitive in contrast to the older traditions. Nature and individualism take on a great importance for them. They wanted to focus on the universality of human emotions and on the lower classes to express their lives. Daily life was seen to be greater than common life; the poems often coloring ordinary situations with imagination. They wanted to bring poetry within the reach of the average person; writing in a colloquial language for the "common man" which in turn, becomes an artistic and political statement: 1) they will be original artists rather than copying others. 2) they can discuss subjects and issues that are not normally addressed in poetry such as domestic life or the rural poor. City life is viewed as problematic; the rise of consumerism and capitalism degrades the ability to appreciate nature. In a sense, Wordsworth and Coleridge see themselves as political reformers.

Now that I have provided some background information and context, it is time to jump into the awesomeness of this poem. Saving the best for last, Wordsworth decided to place Tintern Abbey as the final poem in the Lyrical Ballads. A good decision on his part. Hey, if you are going to attempt to kick-start a new literary movement, you might as well go out with a bang, right? Written in blank verse, there is a prosaic feel to this poem that is remarkable in its narrative flow, language, personal convictions, honesty and above all else, it's poetic ambitions. Wordsworth would later go on to write far more audacious works such as The Prelude along with the The Excursion, but Tintern Abbey appeals to me most for its emotional intensity and philosophical musings. No matter how many times I read this poem, it never fails to makes me fall in love with the beauty of poetry all over again. 

First off, it can categorized as a "prospect poem" which is usually bound to a particularized setting (usually outdoors) where the speaker engages in an internal dialogue with himself; putting on a hypersensitive and a superior point of view where consciousness is mediated through landscape--the unification of mind and the natural world. Such pensive contemplation and personal reflection evokes a process of memory, thought and anticipation of feeling. The speaker should achieve some kind of insight and the poem often ends where it began at the outer scene, but with an altered mood and deepened understanding. The emphasis on time is also important to the prospect poem, as evident here with the speaker reflecting on the past and the meticulous use of caesuras in the lines (pauses for dramatic effect) as a way of slowing down the flow of the verse.

As indicated by the long title of the poem, Tintern Abbey is an actual monastery that is located near the River Wye in Wales, which Wordsworth visited on several occasions throughout his lifetime. Built during the 12th century, the abbey is still standing today but is mostly in ruins. Landscape painting was all the rage during Wordsworth's time, especially in capturing the "picturesque beauty" found in nature. This particular style was advocated by many artists such as William Gilpin who sought to represent nature not in an idealized or artificial way but to show its roughness and imperfections. Ruined structures and distance between the artist and nature were of great importance to the picturesque. Looking down on the scene as opposed to looking up heightens the sense of the sublime (I can't seem to escape Kant) and we see that here in this poem. Wordsworth is not wandering around the ruins but is looking down on the Abbey from atop a hill as he composes the poem. It makes sense that Wordsworth would take some of these ideas of the picturesque in art and infuse it into his new brand of poetry.

View of Tintern Abey and the courtyard from the east.

There is an elegiac tone to this poem that is easy enough to recognize. The poem begins with the speaker lamenting the past as he returns to a familiar scene ("Five years have past; five summers, with the length/ Of five long winters!"), attempting to recapture the feelings of bliss and sense of tranquility he once experienced in nature at this very spot many years ago. He is soaking in the beauty of nature, which provides solace against all the pain and misery of the world. Similar to Gilpin's ideas of the picturesque, the natural world is being crafted by the artist, except Wordsworth is a poet and not a painter. The physical eye is connected to the mind's eye--the imagination: "These beauteous forms /Through a long absence, have not been to me /As is a landscape to a blind man's eye" (24-26). Even though he has been away from nature for so long, getting swept up in the hustle and bustle of city life, he is still able to recall their "beauteous forms" through the power of the imagination, which rejuvenates his soul (line 31: "tranquil restoration"). He proceeds to comment on being saved from absolute death through nature (lines 44-47) before making a grand philosophical statement about gaining a heightened sense of human understanding of the universe that can only be achieved through nature: "While with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, / We see into the life of things" (48-50). For Wordsworth, nature represents divine providence; where embracing nature leads to spiritual transcendence, the opening up of the mind beyond ordinary limits; a way to see the bigger picture so to speak. He admits to having doubts concerning these grandiose notions of the human mind and understanding of the universe but these wavering beliefs soon dissipate once he is able to fully commit his spirit to this greater power found in nature: "How oft in spirit, have I turned to thee / O Sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the wood / How often has my spirit turned to thee!" (57-59). 

The past and present collide as Wordsworth appreciates the scene in a new way than the first time he was here because he is now more mature (Line 84: "That time is past"). Lines 90-103 represents the fulcrum of the poem--the speaker outlines this new perception where the spiritual and divine can be glimpsed in the natural world; youth could not appreciate such phenomena or what Kant refers to as the "supersensible" feeling of the sublime. Divinity pervades all of nature; it becomes his anchor to the world, his spiritual guide, a moral teacher, showing the path to achieving a fulfilling life.

In the last stanza of the poem, the speaker goes on to say that even if he loses faith by not feeling the power of nature ("Suffer my genial spirits to decay"), he can still take comfort in his sister (122). He imagines Dorothy as this youthful and innocent being like he once was and he sees his former self through her. He makes the declaration that the social world cannot impose upon the natural world, imparting a legacy to his sister by the end of the poem--the connection and transfer from one being to another via nature. In essence, the speaker anticipates the future through his sister. While brooding on death, if nature does not renew him, he can live through the memory of his sister. The poem has now come full circle. Tintern Abbey is Wordsworth's definition of the "Greater Romantic Lyric" because poetry looks back in order to look forward.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

So purdy.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When alla t once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in a sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought:

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;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

(Courtesy of The Poetry Foundation)

What better way to start off the Romantic Period for the Literary Movement Challenge than with a poem by William Wordsworth. I am obviously not the first person to point this out, but isn't it cool how one of the great poets from the 19th century happened to have the last name of Wordsworth. Not that a last name influences one's vocation but I always wondered if his last name were something more common like Smith. Would William Smith have gone on to become one of the preeminent figures of the Romantic Age or would have have chosen an illustrious career in Blacksmithing instead? Anwyays, I digress.

A few people have personally requested that I discuss more about poetry on this blog and while it may not be my area of expertise, hopefully I can offer some general reading techniques that have helped me to engage poetry on a more critical level, while at the same time, explain various poetic terminology along the way; taking a closer look at structure as as language, rhythm, meter, etc. that might help others who might be new to poetry and often find it difficult or intimidating. I am do not claim to be a literary critic like Stanley Fish or Cleanth Brooks with expert knowledge in poetry, capable of dissecting a poem to its bare essentials with such verve and brilliant precision. I am just a normal dude who likes to read and dabble in a bit of poetry of my own on occasion. My primary objective is to get others interested and excited about reading poetry. Therefore, it seems appropriate to start off a lovely and and relatively simple poem to see how one might pull off a close-reading. Alright, let's break it down.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud is a very famous poem but for those who may not be familiar with it, a bit of back-story. As I mentioned in the introductory paragraph, William Wordsworth was one of the forefathers of the Romantic era but how does one exactly define Romanticism? This is a difficult question to answer with any concrete explanation; thus, the focus should be on the possibilities of the genre. Some people might assume that this literary movement focuses on romance or 'love poetry' but that would be a misnomer. In a nutshell, the preceding Enlightenment period emphasized reason, science, order, constraint, a shared collective experience where rational thought supplanted superstition. Romanticism attempted to subvert these ideologies in favor of emphasizing the importance of self and personal experience; emotion/feeling, imagination, nature, freedom, inspiration--essentially, the rejection of rationalism. Obviously, having a basic understanding of the ideas and social/historical context of this or any other literary movement will be helpful to form an understanding of the poem but that is only one facet of critical analysis.

Using this poem as an example, we can see how several of these ideas are emphasized by the poet. Pay attention to the way Wordsworth shows how experience grows in the imagination ("inward eye") along with the sympathetic relationship between man and nature which is drawn from this personal experience. The subjective self is clearly important in establishing the epistemological arguments of the poem where knowledge can be advanced by shaping the imagination through the engagement of the environment. Nature--or more specifically, the daffodils--are linked to the patterns and grandeur of the universe. The poet forms a connection to the spiritual harmony of creation. In essence, the whole poem--event and interpretation--presumably comes as a presentation of real experience, preceding the act of composition, making up the materials of poetry. The juxtaposition between the actual work of a poet and his personal experience may be a very delicate and tenuous one but sometimes there is a very close correlation between the events and the poetry. This happens to be the case with this particular poem. Wordsworth lived most of his life in the Lake District, a fairly large rural area in England which is well renowned for its lush forests, rolling hills, picturesque scenery and enchanting waters. He would often take long walks around his home, soaking in the beauty of nature, using it as an inspiration for his writing. One of the end results is this poem. There is evidence that such an instance took place, recorded in the diary of his sister Dorothy, who accompanied him on one of these walks where they encountered a field of daffodils along the shores of Ullswater. Of course, Wordsworth clearly does more than merely report the scene (1802) in the poem that was eventually completed in 1804. We have the impression that the poet had the experience and then reflected on its significance at a later date before entering upon composition to write the poem. However, is not thinking about the original experience also qualify as material as much as the sight of the daffodils? 

Scansions (looking at poetic structure) is another effective way to tackle a poem--examining the aesthetics of language, meter and rhyming patterns can very useful to derive meaning. Let's look at the general structure of this poem then: it is divided into four stanzas, contains a rhyming pattern of ababcc and the meter is iambic tetrameter with slight variations (a fancy way of saying that each line contains four "feet" of unstressed/stress beats like this: da Dum, da Dum, da Dum, da Dum). How is this useful you might ask? Well, for starters, the specific rhythmic movement and cadences of language often serve to emphasize meaning in poetry. I don't want to get into the complex semantics of language but think about some of your favorite pop songs. They operate under their own specific rhythmic structure, containing a catchy chorus; particular words and lines emphasized or repeated for dramatic effect. I am not trying to suggest that "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus should be considered poetry, resembles or is in some way influenced by Wordsworth; but rather, to merely illustrate that the aesthetics of modern pop songs share a lot in common with poetic structure and form that may not be readily apparent. The use of repetition ("dancing," "gazed") personification, simile, alliteration and anastrophe (the literary device of inversion) is worth keeping an eye on in this poem. The use of specific words such as "host" (Line 4) cater to the poem's religious implications--the speaker's spiritual transcendence derived from nature with the daffodils representing the holy communion or heavenly "hosts" as angels.

Furthermore, there is a musicality to this particular poem not only in imagery (the "dancing of the daffodils") but in the actual lines themselves. Take a look at line 12: "Tossing their heads in a sprightly dance." The transition from the sight of ten thousand daffodils in the previous line (hyperbole) to "tossing their heads in a sprightly dance" produces the sense of awe in the speaker. Indeed, would could interpret his experience as witnessing the sublime in nature. Upon a closer inspection of this line, the verb "tossing" should be read as a trochee (stress/un-stress) instead of an iamb. The stress on this word is important because it highlights the specific movement of the daffodils, creating a whimsical feel through the bobbing and swaying of daffodils. One should also consider the use of dancing throughout the poem. Each stanza echoes a particular dance whether it be formal or patterned: the dance of conceptual movements--past to present, solitude to joyfulness, free-floating to grounded, ethereal to celestial, fanciful outer landscape of nature to the inner landscape of the mind and most importantly, the dance of visual observation to the powers of the imagination. The poem is a document in form and content; the speaker's intellectual movement from an observer to participant in a dance, revealing in the process, the harmonizing capacities of the imagination.