Assignment Wordsworth and his contribution

Name:- Hinaba D. Sarvaiya

Roll no:- 09 

Paper no:-103 Literature of the Romantics

Email id :- hinabasarvaiya1711@gmail.com

Enrollment no:- 4069206420210032

Submitted to:- English Department MKBU.

William Wordsworth and his Contribution.

Introduction of The Poet:-

William Wordsworth, English poet whose Lyrical Ballads in 1798, written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the English Romantic movement. Is the one of the most well-respected and revered poets in British history; even in his own time, he was England's poet laureate in 1843. 

William had three brothers: Richard, John and Christopher . He also had a sister named Dorothy. His mother died in 1778, when William was only eight years old, then his father died in 1783, when he was thirteen. Wordsworth didn't have many memories of his mother. He once said "O lost too early for the frequent tear". However, he remembers her more than he remembers his father. At age seven was the last time he saw his mother before she died of a decline, which she got after catching a cold and it turned into pnemonia. His mother was more anxious about his future life than she was for the other children.

His poetry later on showed his thoughts and his action when he was a child. Wordsworth has said "l was on a stiff , moody, and violent temper". He was a child that liked to disobey. As a child, he was very violent towards nature. William and Dorothy became very close as they got older.

Most of the passages he wrote was during the time he spent in Cambridge where he describes his experience. The time he spent there he had no mother, his father was never really around, and his grandparents disapproved of them, so he tried to make the most of it while he was there.

Wordsworth view of nature:-

The French revolution made William Wordsworth use writing as a self defence of war and returning to the nature which he used as a premise element in writing. William Wordsworth was one of the prominent of romantic poetry, he expressed his feeling in the natural world rather than in reason because he always tried to build a better future for the world. William Wordsworth's writings about a series of cultural practice with photography, his writing were early instructor for art museum. In his writings he was used simple language to describe geographical places or special places as painterly landscapes in the 19th century. Wordsworth's description of nature was not the nature of Darwin, or Isaac Newton, neither nature of Stephen Hawking. William Wordsworth created in his mind, his desire for writing , upbringing in a middle class, and his education at Cambridge. In the 19th century Wordsworth created a new version of nature, "it was mostly male, white, upper-middle class, very literary, and very romantic". Wordsworth was from England, a pastoral person, he believed that there is a strong relationship between human and nature. He always tried to declare the power, the blessing of nature in our lives, and he had personal experience about nature in everywhere, he said behind each his poem has a valuable purpose. Moreover, Wordsworth regarded as a great poet of nature because most of his poem asserted of human being's dependence on nature. Examples of poems:

 

"The World is Too Much with Us" which was written in 1802 and published in 1807 in this poem Wordsworth frustrated of human's treatment of nature, and deny the natural elements of nature:

"This sea that bares her bosom to the moon; 

The winds that will be howling at all hours," 

"The Prelude", "Lines written in Early Spring"(1798) in this poem Wordsworth described that the nature is loyal to man:

"I heard a thousand blended notes, 

While in a grove I sate reclined, 

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 

Bring sad thoughts to the mind"

"The Tables Turned" (1798) is a good example for William Wordsworth's believe about the power of nature:

"Up! Up! My friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you'll grow double:

Up! Up! My friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?"

Are William Wordsworth's poems which he expressed his feeling of nature in different ways. Other poems like:

"Tintern Abbey":-

 

Is William Wordsworth most famous poems, published in 1798. It is a conversational poem that contains elements of an Ode and dramatic monologue. The poem is based on a small place situated in the village of Tintern in monmouthshire, on the Welsh bake of the river Wye. Wordsworth, through this poem, helps his readers understand his philosophies on nature and its beauty.

Ode: Intimations of Immoratality:-

Referred to as Wordsworth greatest ode, the poem explores the narrators divine relationship with nature. The poem compares the deep connection between a child and the nature, which is lost when the child grows and loses his divine vision. However, the narrator's recollections of the past allows him to relive his relationship with nature.

London 1802:-

"Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom,power."

Composed in 1802 itself, the poem is medium that Wordsworth uses to reprimand his fellow English people for becoming selfish and morally stagnant. He eulogises 17th century poet John Milton and explains how Milton could improve the present situation of England if he was alive. Through "London 1802", Wordsworth shed light upon the deteriorating conditions of the English society while paying homage to Milton. 

William Wordsworth

Michael by William Wordsworth

Financial ruin, a lost son, and hostile living conditions– these are some of the striking features of this sorrowful ballad. You may find yourself asking, how can one man maintain his values amid so many struggles?

Wordsworth explores this question and more in ‘Michael.’ He also makes it clear that despite its visual beauty, life in the country isn’t always as ideal as it seems.

‘Michael’ written in 1800 at Grasmere and published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads. The poem deals with man’s struggle in this hostile world to maintain his values and reputation, through the life of Michael, a lonely former. As Bernard Groom remarks about the poem, “Wordsworth’s picture of rural life in Michael is less idyllic and nearer to historical truth than some readers may suppose.”(The Unity of Wordsworth Poetry)

Michael by William Wordsworth

Introduction of the poem:-

‘Michael’ is a simple pastoral poem that bears the closest resemblance to the bareness of solitude in the mountain as well as the difficult life lead by the people in the mountains.

Michael is a story of a man’s struggle to maintain himself and his values in a hostile universe. As Wordsworth himself stated, this tale of Michael heard when he was a boy, led him to feel for other men and to think ‘on man, the heart of man, and human life.’ The poem depicts the story of an old shepherd, his wife, and their son, Luke.

As the son grew up, he became his father’s ‘comfort and daily hope.’ When the boy is eighteen, Michael had to discharge the debts of a nephew for whom he has given surety. To compensate for this loss, he sends his son to a wealthy distant relative for employment. Before his departure, Michael instructs Luke of his obligations towards his forefathers. He needs to lay a cornerstone as a sacred promise to fulfill his duty. But, when the boy goes into the world, he is distraught, and the outer world tempts him. He leaves old Michael and his wife alone to take care of themselves.

Theme and Setting:-

Michael is a tragic poem that deals with the traumatic life of Michael, a shepherd with dignity. Wordsworth focuses on man’s struggle to maintain himself and his values in a hostile world that tries to pull him down. It delineates how an orderly life of a man breaks up into disconnectedness and chaos.