Can an object or idea have more than one interpretation? In “Tintern Abbey” and “Digging,” the reader is introduced to some very common objects and ideas a person might encounter in their everyday life, things the average person may perceive as common or unimportant. Particularly, things like nature, or an action, such as digging, or simply the average person, but in these poems the authors entices the mind of the reader to dig deeper into things meanings. William Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney use different techniques in “Tintern Abbey” and “Digging” to make the familiar unfamiliar, and in effect the readers begin to develop changes to their perceptions on everyday objects or situations.
The emphasis on “digging” is observed throughout the
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The repetition first presents itself when Heaney talks about his father digging flowers and potatoes with his spade in the yard, as well as the memories of his grandfather digging turf on “Toner’s Bog” when he was a child. In both these situations digging is an act of labor, but towards the end of the poem, he also expresses his own interpretation of digging into his writing with his pen rather than using a spade. “Digging” becomes an act directly correlated throughout Heaney’s family when he repeats the word through each memory of each person. To the reader, digging is presumably the action of striking the ground with a spade to extract soil, but in this poem it takes on more than a literal meaning. From Heaney’s point of view, he says, “Between my finger and my thumb/The squat pen rests./I’ll dig with it” (29-31). Giving the reader the impression that Heaney will not be digging in the literal sense of using a shovel, but possibly digging by making a living with a pen such as his father and his grandfather made a living working with a shovel. In this way “digging” becomes a symbol rather than a physical act, symbolizing the connection between a grandfather, a father, and a …show more content…
Each encounter he describes is in unison with a time period of his life, the first being when he says, “Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, / That on a wild secluded scene impress” (5-6). The relationship between nature and the structure can be recognized here by how Wordsworth introduces this scene as a past image he has so long recollected, as well as introducing the structure of past to present time periods. His use of vivid imagery can also be observed in this quote as well as be seen throughout the poem such as when he says, “Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, / And the round ocean, and the living air, / And the blue sky, and the mind of man” (99-101). Which creates such a vivid scene for the reader that they can’t help but put themselves in the setting of the poem and begin to observe what Wordsworth sees in a new light. Additionally, Wordsworth hopes his own ideology of what nature means will be passed on to his sister when he says, “May I behold in thee what I was once, / My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make, / Knowing that nature never did betray/The heart that loved her” (123-126). Furthermore, hoping that his past experiences and new found adoration of nature will arise in his sister as well. Wordsworth’s
As a child, Egan desires to be a surgeon, then in adolescent years discovers a particular aversion to blood and switches her pursuits to archeology, as that field is very popular at the time. Many pivotal discoveries made the press in the early seventies and inspired her young mind with visions of adventure in exotic places. She tells of her youthful naivety, when during her senior year in high school, she wrote to several prestigious graduate programs offering her services to their archeology digs, thinking that she could get paid to explore in the upcoming summer. A reality check comes though, in the form of the single reply letter she receives enlightening her that graduate students pay them to go on digs and she is nowhere near adequate for the position. Still not giving up on her dream, Egan uses her hard earned money to pay for participation in a far less illustrious excavation venture for three weeks in Kampsville, Illinois. The pitifully small town is far removed from the extraordinary places she envisioned exploring and investigating through the years. The dig itself is anticlimactic to her preconceived notions of archeology in that she is allotted only one square metre of earth and not allowed to dig or even sit down. She has to squat down and painstakingly scrape away the soil with a scalpel in the sweltering summer sun. She sticks it out though, and completes her three week stint in Illinois, resigned to the fact that the life of an archeologist, just as that of a surgeon, was not her preferre...
(ll. 19-24) Wordsworth’s famous and simple poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud,” expresses the Romantic Age’s appreciation for the beauty and truth that can be found in a setting as ordinary as a field of daffodils. With this final stanza, Wordsworth writes of the mind’s ability to carry those memories of nature’s beauty into any setting, whether city or country. His belief in the power of the imagination and the effect it can have on nature, and vice a versa, is evident in most of his work. This small
Together they worked until the two holes were one and the same. When the depression was the size of a small dishpan, Nel’s twig broke. With a gesture of disgust she threw the pieces into the hole they had made. Sula threw hers in too. Nel saw a bottle cap and tossed it in as well. Each then looked around for more debris to throw into the hole: paper, bits of glass, butts of cigarettes, until all the small defiling things they could find were collected there. Carefully they replaced the soil and covered the entire grave with uprooted grass. Neither one had spoken a word. (Morrison 58-59)
the reader a picture of a man who is not only digging, but doing it
moved on, and that the young boy has now become older, as so did his father. I am a father. The poet, Heaney, says in verse 7, stanza 3, "till his straining rump along the flowerbeds", this verse indicates that his father is old, and strains as he bends over to the flowerbeds, but Even though the father is aging, he is still a strong man who can still hold a spade of light. Also, in the poem Digging, it mentions about the grandfather of the poet,. Heaney describes his grandfather through a series of recollections he had with him.
“I cud do a bit of doughboy, an’ that theer boggabri’ll eat like tater-marrer along of the salt meat.” He talks to himself expressing to the audience of a man broken and sadly alone in the desolate bush. The humour of the bush undertaker breaks the realistic side of living in the bush, ““I’ll take a pick an’ shovel with me an’ root up that old blackfellow,” mused the shepherd.” However, this statement does show how he lived in the bush, but it also shows the rough harsh inhumane treatment of the indigenous being dug up after death and
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” (John Muir). Both John Muir and William Wordsworth demonstrate this through their use of language as they describe nature scenes. John Muir studies nature and in his essay about locating the Calypso Borealis he uses scientific descriptions to grab his reader’s attention and to portray his excitement at finding the rare flower. William Wordsworth on the other hand shows his appreciation for the beauty of nature and its effect on a person’s emotions in the vivid visual descriptions that he gives of the daffodils in his poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud.’ Wordsworth with his appreciation of beauty and Muir through scientific descriptions provide an indication of the influence that nature has had on them as they capture their reader’s attention both emotionally and visually through their personal and unique use of tone, diction, syntax and vocabulary.
His poetry is written in a natural language that speaks to and demonstrates common human emotions; called forth by readers' experiences in nature. He explains how nature has never betrayed his heart, and that is why he has lived a life full of joy. Therefore, he wishes her sister to indulge in the nature and be a part of it. That way, she will be able to enjoy and understand life and conquer the displeasure of living in a cruel human society.
Five different situations are suggested in "Lines" each divided into separate sections. The first section details the landscape around the abbey, as Wordsworth remembers it from five years ago. The second section describes the five-year lapse between visits to the abbey, during which he has thought often of his experience there. The third section specifies Wordsworth's attempt to use nature to see inside his inner self. The fourth section shows Wordsworth exerting his efforts from the preceding stanza to the landscape, discovering and remembering the refined state of mind the abbey provided him with. In the final section, Wordsworth searches for a means by which he can carry the experiences with him and maintain himself and his love for nature. .
The poem is a free verse poem. It has eight stanzas with two couplets. It rhymes occasionally, but it does not have a patterned rhyme. The first two lines rhyme with “thumb” and “gun”, the second stanza also has some rhyming words. The poem is a first person narrative; this is evident from the first line that uses the word “my” and other lines throughout that use words such as “I” and “we”. The title relates to the poem because all three generations mentioned are digging. His father dug potato drills and flowerbeds, his grandpa used to dig peat, and he is digging up the past. Because of this, the title is very fitting.
Throughout the poem, the poet presents an overall meaning. The main meaning is that nature can bring happiness when it’s needed and that its beauty should be appreciated. The speaker of this poem makes a heaven out of a windy day and a bunch of daffodils. When he felt lonely, the daffodils around him, gave him a boost of joy. The poet is implying that people have become blind to the beauty of nature that is easily accessed, which is why he focused on the visual descriptions of the daffodils. Wordsworth wanted to emphasize the importance of
The Influence of Nature in Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth
The poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth is about the poet’s mental journey in nature where he remembers the daffodils that give him joy when he is lonely and bored. The poet is overwhelmed by nature’s beauty where he thought of it while lying alone on his couch. The poem shows the relationship between nature and the poet, and how nature’s motion and beauty influences the poet’s feelings and behaviors for the good. Moreover, the process that the speaker goes through is recollected that shows that he isolated from society, and is mentally in nature while he is physically lying on his couch. Therefore, William Wordsworth uses figurative language and syntax and form throughout the poem to express to the readers the peace and beauty of nature, and to symbolize the adventures that occurred in his mental journey.
Wordsworth is deeply involved with the complexities of nature and human reaction to it. To Wordsworth nature is the revelation of god through viewing everything that is harmonious or beautiful in nature. Man’s true character is then formed and developed through participation in this balance. Wordsworth had the view that people are at their best when they are closest to nature. Being close creates harmony and order. He thought that the people of his time were getting away from that.
His poem recognizes the ordinary and turns it into a spectacular recollection, whose ordinary characteristics are his principal models for Nature. As Geoffrey H. Hartman notes in his “Wordsworth’s poetry 1787-1814”, “Anything in nature stirs [Wordsworth] and renews in turn his sense of nature” (Hartman 29). “The Poetry of William Wordsworth” recalls a quote from the Prelude to Wordsworth’s 1802 edition of Lyrical ballads where they said “[he] believed his fellow poets should "choose incidents and situations from common life and to relate or describe them.in a selection of language really used by men” (Poetry). In the shallowest sense, Wordsworth is using his view of the Tintern Abbey as a platform or recollection, however, this ordinary act of recollection stirs within him a deeper understanding.