TO EVALUATE MY ASSIGNMENT CLICK HERE.
Ø Prepared by : KAVITABA P. GOHIL
Ø Roll No : 19
Ø Paper –5 : THE ROMANTIC LITERATURE
Ø TOPIC: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND ANALYSIS OF
HIS SELECTED POEMS
Ø M.A (English) : Sem
-2
Ø Enrollment No: 2069108420180018
Ø Batch :
2017-19
Ø Email :
kavitabaprahaladsinhjigohil@gmail.com
Ø Submitted to : Smt
.S. B Gardi, Department of English, MKBU.
WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH AND ANALYSIS OF HIS SELECTED POEMS
Ø LIFE OF WORDSWORTH:
The second
of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth
was born on 7 April 1770 in Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland,part of
the scenic region in northwestern England known as the Lake District. His
sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his
life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. They had
three other siblings: Richard, the eldest, who became a lawyer; John, born
after Dorothy, who went to sea and died in 1805 when the ship of which he was
captain, the Earl of Abergavenny, was wrecked off the south coast of England;
and Christopher, the youngest, who entered the Church and rose to be Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge. (W. contributors)
Wordsworth
was taught to read by his mother and attended, first, a tiny school of low
quality in Cockermouth, then a school in Penrith for the children of
upper-class families, where he was taught by Ann Birkett, who insisted on
instilling in her students traditions that included pursuing both scholarly and
local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day and Shrove
Tuesday. Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little
else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including
Mary, who later became his wife. (W. contributors)
Wordsworth
made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European
Magazine. That same year he began attending St John's College, Cambridge. He received
his BA degree in 1791. He returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of
his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours,
visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a
walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and
visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy.
In 1791,
Wordsworth visited France and during that time he fall in love with one French
woman, Annette Vallon; who gave birth to their daughter in 1792.Britain’s
stretched relation with France led him to return England alone and he could not
meet his daughter and Vallon for some years but after some year with the peace
of Amiens he allowed to visit France. When he first time met his daughter she
was 9 years old. He and his sister Dorothy visited Annette and Caroline to
prepare Annette for the fact of words worth’s forthcoming marriage with Mary
Hutchinson.
In 1798, his
Lyrical Ballad was published; it is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth
and S.T. Coleridge. Lyrical Ballad played a vital role in the English Romantic
Movement; according to some historians the publication of Lyrical Ballad is
starting point of Romanticism which runs till 1832, till the essence of Queen
Victoria. They published 3 volumes of Lyrical Ballads first in 1798, second in
1800 and third in 1802 but neither of them helped Wordsworth as well as
Coleridge to get reorganization as author. In all three volumes both decided to
deal with different subject matter and therefore Wordsworth deals with reality
and beauty of nature whereas Coleridge deals with super natural elements and
many other things, Wordsworth tries to reflect country side and Coleridge tries
to reflect urban side. In this book both have given their own definitions of
poetry as well as what is poet?, both tries to give their own opinion but at
some extent wordsworth failed to get publicity among readers and other writers
that’s why he must have to give prefaces to Lyrical Ballads and his style of
writing because his writing is very simple one; thus common people can
understand easily and it became problematic for classical writers. After that
they published fourth edition of Lyrical Ballad in 1805.Coleridge and Wordsworth
worked together for many years but after some year they started living and
working separately and then wordsworth return to Lack district because he
wanted to live in his home town because he feels homesickness because of long
travelling with Dorothy and Coleridge.
Wordsworth
was very religious man and he remarked in his of the poem that he was ready to
shed bold for his Church, this religious thought of him reflected in The
Excursion, a long poem which published in 1814.In the later part of his life he
faces many difficult situations in front of his eyes he saw death of his sister
Dorothy as well as his close friend Coleridge and many more contemporaries like
Charles lamb, James Hogg etc.
Ø His important works
· Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other
Poems (1798)
· "Simon Lee"
· "We are Seven"
· "Lines Written in Early
Spring"
· "Strange fits of passion have I
known"
· "She Dwelt among the Untrodden
Ways"
· "Three years she grew"
· "Expostulation and Reply"
· "The Tables Turned"
· "The Thorn"
· "A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal”
· "Lines Composed A Few Miles
above Tintern Abbey"
· Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems
(1800)
· Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
· "I travelled among unknown
men""Nutting"
· "The Ruined Cottage"
· "Michael"
· "The Kitten At Play"
· "Lucy Gray"
· "The Two April Mornings"
· "The Solitary Reaper"
· Poems, in Two Volumes (1807)
· "Resolution and
Independence"
· "I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud" Also known as "Daffodils"
· "My Heart Leaps Up"
· "Ode: Intimations of
Immortality"
· "Ode to Duty"
· "The Solitary Reaper"
· "Elegiac Stanzas"
· "Composed upon Westminster
Bridge, September 3, 1802"
· "London, 1802"
· "The World Is Too Much with
Us"
· Guide to the Lakes (1810)
· " To the Cuckoo "
· The Excursion (1814)
· Laodamia (1815, 1845)
· The White Doe of Rylstone (1815)
· Peter Bell (1819)
· The Prelude (1850)
William Wordsworth
dies on April 23rd in 1850, and after his death his widow Mary
published words worth’s autobiographical work – “poem to Coleridge” as The
Prelude but it failed to get much reorganization.
Ø A Brief Analysis of his some
important poems
Here I am going to analyse his 2 poems which I like most.
1] THE SOLITARY REAPER
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound. (The solitary
Reaper)
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides. (The solitary Reaper)
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again? (The solitary Reaper)
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more. (The solitary
Reaper)
v Analysis:
The Solitary Reaper is ballad by Wordsworth and known as one
of the best work by him. The poem divided into 4 stanzas each stanza reflects
wonderful melody. Poem begins with speakers question to reader to behold a
young girl ‘Reaping and singing’ in a beautiful field, her song was very sad,
people as passing by and poet has noted that some stop for listening her but
other gently pass by intension of not disturbing her; poet struck by her sad
beauty of song and listen her song for many hours. Poet was unable to
understand her language or what she actually singing but poet compares her
singing with Nightingale and also with singing of cuckoo bird. Poet uses
metaphors and tries to convince readers that her song is more thrilling to hear
then the cuckoo bird during spring.
In third stanza speaker tries to understand what she is
singing and he imagines that the tone of her song is sad therefore she might be
singing about some past sorrow, pain or loss of someone or something. Speaker
also guess that she might be sing a song of war or battles fought long ago, or
it might be a simple song of present sorrows, pains etc. Speaker found that she
is singing like her song will never end. Speaker watched peacefully, enraptured
and he was not moving anywhere but at the end he quietly walks away, by keeping
her song in his mind and her music in his heart for a long time.
2] LUCY GRAY OR SOLITUDE:
OFT I had
heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I
crossed the wild,
I chanced to
see at break of day
The solitary
child. (Wordsworth)
No mate, no
comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on
a wide moor,
--The
sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a
human door! (Wordsworth)
You yet may
spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon
the green;
But the sweet
face of Lucy Gray
Will never
more be seen. (Wordsworth)
"To-night will be a stormy night--
You to the
town must go;
And take a
lantern, Child, to light
Your mother
through the snow." (Wordsworth)
"That,
Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely
afternoon--
The
minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is
the moon!" (Wordsworth)
At this the
Father raised his hook,
And snapped a
faggot-band;
He plied his
work;--and Lucy took
The lantern
in her hand. (Wordsworth)
Not blither
is the mountain roe:
With many a
wanton stroke
Her feet
disperse the powdery snow,
That rises up like smoke. (Wordsworth)
The storm
came on before its time:
She wandered
up and down;
And many a
hill did Lucy climb:
But never reached
the town. (Wordsworth)
The wretched
parents all that night
Went shouting
far and wide;
But there was
neither sound nor sight
To serve them
for a guide. (Wordsworth)
At day-break
on a hill they stood
That
overlooked the moor;
And thence
they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong
from their door. (Wordsworth)
They
wept--and, turning homeward, cried,
"In
heaven we all shall meet;"
--When in the
snow the mother spied
The print of
Lucy's feet. (Wordsworth)
Then
downwards from the steep hill's edge
They tracked
the footmarks small;
And through
the broken hawthorn hedge,
And by the
long stone-wall; (Wordsworth)
And then an
open field they crossed:
The marks
were still the same;
They tracked
them on, nor ever lost;
And to the
bridge they came. (Wordsworth)
They followed
from the snowy bank
Those
footmarks, one by one,
Into the
middle of the plank;
And further
there were none! (Wordsworth)
--Yet some
maintain that to this day
She is a
living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray
Upon the
lonesome wild. (Wordsworth)
O'er rough
and smooth she trips along,
And never
looks behind;
And sings a solitary
song
That whistles
in the wind. (Wordsworth)
v
Analysis:
Lucy Gray is a beautiful ballad written by Wordsworth in 1799
but he published it, in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads during 1800. Poem
is about a little innocent girl who is living in a town near by valley and most
of her time she pending alone because she has not many friends and her family
is also small. As a solitary child she has no one with whom she can share or
talk or play. This poem is based on famous story of Lucy Gray, which heard by
him from her sister Dorothy. It is mysterious story of a girl whose father many
times sends her to fetch her mother when she was out of the town.
At one day when storm comes before expected time and Lucy was
going to fetch her mother at that time she lost her path and mysteriously died.
People though believes that she was not dies but she is still alive and singing
songs of her solitude and tries to tell everyone that how lonely she is? In the
end of the poem by the use of supernatural elements Wordsworth keeps Lucy alive
in hearts. Supernatural theory shows that how she was attached with town or the
people of town. This ballad is written very lyrically and the tragic end of the
poem leaves everlasting impact on the mind of readers.
Ø Conclusion:
In above paragraphs, we have seen that how simplicity and
nature is used by William Wordsworth as his main objects, scholars of the age
were unsatisfied with his work and some remarks his poems as childish one but
as per Coleridge’s view, If Wordsworth’s poems are childish one then it should
be drawn in the passage of time but that was not happened; it means there is
something in his poems which made him remarkable poet of the age.
Bibliography
contributors, Wikipedia. "Early
life of William Wordsworth." Wikipedia. 3 march 2018. 4 april 2018
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_William_Wordsworth>.
contributors, WIkipedia. "William Wordsworth."
Wikipedia. 28 Mar. 2018. 4 April 2018 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth>.
"The solitary Reaper." Poetry foundation .
4 April 2018
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45554/the-solitary-reaper>.
Wordsworth. The complete poetical works. 1770-1850.
4 April 2018 <http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww158.html>.
No comments:
Post a Comment