WORDSWORTH

Nature:

• the Wordsworth attitude to nature is original and remarkable and it is presented in “Lines- composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey”

• in the nature there is a unity of everything, there is no fight between human being and nature

• the nature is a great entity

• nature is the great teacher of morals, nature is responsible for who we are, Wordsworth stress the importance of nature in his life and influence on his future. He calls the nature a guard of his moral being which means that it is nature that shaped who he is now

• his relationship with nature compensates for Wordsworth's loss of `genial spirits'

• instincts, emotions and feelings that he experiences in nature becomes a passion for him

• he finds tranquility in nature, it calms him down, nature is the prime bringer of happiness, nature is the great friend and healer, everything matches perfectly, the peacefulness is stressed, thinking of a place makes the I-speaker feel comfortable, it has made him a better person, he is in kind of a trance, he feels the harmony of the place, he has become as a living soul (conventional description of a place)

• nature protects us, if we allow nature acts upon us (działać na nas); we will be protected from evil, nature is a guide, soul of everything, we are dependent in nature, it has enormous role, gives us the strength to cope with the world

• nature will always influence us in a positive way

• as children we are too careless to be aware of the true value of nature but as adults we see the nature differently and we are able to find human elements in nature, there is a spirit present in all natural things

• his philosophic minds enable Wordsworth to fully understand the nature

• in nature resides God, Wordsworth is described as a PANTHEIST= one who identifies the natural universe with God

Blank verse:

• it is unrhymed iambic parameter -each line has 5 feet, every foot contains 2syllables- one is stressed and one is unstressed (every second syllable is stressed, stressed syllable is followed by unstressed syllable)

• it appears in Wordsworth's “Lines- Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey” and it is unusual here because it always was associated with tragedy in Renaissance or with epic poetry e.g. Milton, Paradise Lost

• it is revolutionary because it is a lyric against decorum (jedność stylistyczna, zasada zgodności treści z formą, sformułowana przez Arystotelesa). Romantic poets wanted to break up with the traditional aspects of the previous epochs, so they experimented a lot.

Elements of neoplatonism/ co-existence of things:

• in “Lines- Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey”

• everything seems to be connected to each other, without any barrier

• house is not separated from the landscape- it's in the middle of it

• sycamore- a tall tree, connecting the earth and the sky

• he perceives the unity and harmony of nature, all elements are interconnected

Concept of poetry (in `Preface to Lyrical Ballads'):

• poetry is a vocation (powołanie, zawód)

• -new kind of poetry- supposed to be different form the old ones, supposed to be an experimental one (breaking with decorum and classical literature)

• poetry should be spontaneous and full of powerful feelings, however it is not simple to be like that because when the poet write about emotions he thinks long and deeply and it is not spontaneous then.

• poetry should be more personal, emotional, concentrated on moral relations and incidents form people's life because he hoped that in this way poetry will be more interesting and will appeal to everyone

• -characters are rural people, themes of the poetry concentrate on relationship between man and nature

• -for Wordsworth good poetry should have worthy purpose

Concept of language(in `Preface to Lyrical Ballads'):

• lg of poetry should be simple, similar the lg of ordinary people but coloured by imagination in order to present ordinary things in unusual way. Lg has to be purified as to not offend the reader (but if you purify the lg it is not the lg or ordinary people anymore, so Wordsworth contradicts (zaprzeczać) himself and make it impossible to follow his own ideas)

• lg of common people used in poetry will show how laws of nature work, since those common people are influenced by the nature they are not influenced by education, culture etc. He says that the best way to speak to people is to speak their lg. He suggested the simplification of poetry and absence of personifications, but in fact his writing is not simple and full of metaphors.

• he was against the rational concept of the Augustan poetry which was more political and satirical

• he wanted to return to imagination, legend, the human heart. Imagination is the highest quality, the thing that makes us human, the mind is both creative and receptive.

Concept of a poet (in `Preface to Lyrical Ballads'):

-the poet is a prophet (prorok), not the transcriber (osoba kopiująca, przepisująca) of other men's truths, poet is the initiator of the truth

- to be a poet means:

*to carry on your shoulders a tremendous responsibility=> the poet had the key to the hidden mystery of the human heart and life

*to be a man that gives meaning to life

- poets vs. other people: poet is more sensitive but he's also a human. All features that other people have are visible in a poet in a higher degree. A poet also posses a secondary imagination.

The child and childhood

Ode: “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

-motto: `The Child is Father of the Man' - it means that what we are as child gives shape and, in a sense, gives birth to what we are when we grown.

In Wordsworth's poetry, childhood is a magical, magnificent time of innocence. Children form an intense bond with nature, so much so that they appear to be a part of the natural world, rather than a part of the human, social world. Their relationship to nature is passionate and extreme: children feel joy at seeing a rainbow but great terror at seeing desolation or decay. The children who grow up, lose their connection to nature, and lead unfulfilling lives. The speaker in “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” believes that children delight in nature because they have access to a divine, immortal world. As children age and reach maturity, they lose this connection but gain an ability to feel emotions, both good and bad. Through the power of the human mind, particularly memory, adults can recollect the devoted connection to nature of their youth.

Ode:

* ` Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood'

Divided into 2 different parts:

1. 4 stanzas written several years before the poem was completed;

2. the rest= motto: ”The Child is Father of the Man”; basic idea of the poem is the preexistence (preegzystencja). We are not created at the moment of birth, our soul exists earlier.

*Ode is an elaborate (kunssztowny) and lyric poem

*the ode dates back to Greek choral songs that were danced at public events and celebrations

Classical odes:

-praise particular events e.g. coronation of the king

-always addresses someone- praise kings, great warriors, heroes

-devoted to patrons (people who sponsored artists)

*the odes of the 19^th century romantic poets' such as Keats, Shelley, Coleridge tends to be much freer in form and subject matter

Romantic odes:

-subject matter doesn't praise events, heroes

-subject matter is more general, including philosophical subjects e.g. praising of childhood, praising of our life.

-it's not addressed to anyone

*variety of odes:

-Wordsworth- irregular stanza, different length and number of stanzas and verses

-Shelley & Keats: regular stanzas, the same rhythm, the same number of stanzas, regular verses

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