Tenets of Wordsworth in Resolution and Independence
Romanticism officially began in 1798, when William Wordsworth and Samuel
Taylor Coleridge anonymously published Lyrical Ballads. This work marked the official beginning of a literary period which had already begun many years before 1798. A work is defined to be of a certain period by its characteristics, therefore to be considered a
Romantic work, the work must contain aspects which are termed “Romantic.” A few typical “Romantic” aspects are: love of the past; sympathy to the child’s mind; faith in the inner goodness of man; aspects of nature having religious, mystic, and symbolic significance; and reconciliation of contrasting ideas to make a point. Wordsworth flourished in these ideas in a poem called Independence and Resolution. In this poem
Wordsworth shows the reader what he thinks his life is like and what he wants it to be like. In its essence, Resolution and Independence is an open book to what Wordsworth feels his life is like. It is about the past, present, and future Wordsworth. Wordsworth feels that his life is like a “traveler” on the moors (15). He feels that in the past he has always been like a small “boy,” who never “heard” or “saw” the beauties of nature (18).
As a child, Wordsworth never understood life, because he never looked to nature for inspiration or guidance. Presently, Wordsworth feels he that he is “a happy Child of earth,” because he walks “far from the world. . . far from all care” (31, 33). He begins a search to find a way to live in harmony with himself, God, and nature. During his search, he finds an old man, the leech-gatherer, who is one with himself, God, and nature. Upon seeing this man, Wordsworth is immediately amazed by the mien of this old man.
Wordsworth admires this man’s insight on life, that Wordsworth decides that he wants to become the same way. Thus, in Wordsworth’s search for his place in eternity in nature, he finds an example that he wants to duplicate.
Resolution and Independence includes many tenets of Romanticism including a love of the past. Wordsworth loves the storm of the previous night and the “rain-drops” on the moors that it leaves behind (10). Wordsworth loves the old man, because the old man has so much knowledge from his past experiences. The poet enjoys reminiscing on past experiences:
I was a Traveler then upon the moor
By again experiencing now what he did five years ago, Wordsworth’s imagination is able to bring together both of these experiences. Therein, Wordsworth is operating on another level within his imagination: “Almost suspended, we are laid asleep / In body, and become a living soul / While with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy / We see into the life of things” (NAEL, D, 289, ll.47-49). Here, his revisiting of Tintern Abbey stirs in him an explicitly greater understanding of the world. In thinking on the “body” and “living soul”, Wordsworth perceives the “deep power of joy” in this oneness of the universe. At the heart of this oneness, Wordsworth describes nature as “the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse / the guide, the guardian of my heart, and the soul / Of all my moral being” (NAEL, D, 291, ll.109-111). Through his journey into the imagination, Wordsworth claims nature to be his moral compass. He delves into the Romantic imagination through nature and finds a greater understanding of the world and his place in
Deviance is a very important concept in both criminology and sociology. It deals with society as well as the law. In this paper I will answer the question of what exactly is deviance and how is it constructed? Who gets to define what deviance is? Who benefits from defining it in a certain way and how does this process influence the legal system?
Despite his position, Wordsworth can hear the “soft island murmur” of the mountain springs. As “five long winters” suggests, Wordsworth is cold and dreary—London, we must remember, is a bitter place. He longs for the islands: the sand, sun, and warm waters that those murmurs suggest. The coldness of winter could be brought about by Rebecca’s distance from her brother; they had been, at the time of the poem’s writing, separate for five long years. But he can hear reconciliation coming just at the edge of hearing: he can spot the horizon of friendship. But no sooner does friendship appear in the poem than it is thwarted by these lines:
Wordsworth seems to be in some sort of pain, questioning if his lost love is fair or not, if it was is suppose to be with the following lines:
Primarily in Lines composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey the mortality of creativeness and imagination is expressed by Wordsworth. This is a poem about the beauty of an old cathedral called Tintern Abbey. He hasn’t been there in five years and he brought his sister along. Even though imagination isn’t immortal, there is a way to reclaim it, “That time is past, / and all its aching joys are ...
The importance of humanity’s relationship with the natural world is shown through the main characters interaction with the environment. The different contexts of the authors make Wordsworth’s relationship with nature not nearly as physical as Ovid’s. He is a gentleman from the early nineteenth century, and he would not “bush bash” to get places. To him nature is just a source of pleasure and a way to get closer to God. This is a reflection of his context and culture as this is what he is accustomed too. His world is much more civilised, “Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke.” This demonstrates the domestic elements of his world. There is a contrast in environments in Tintern Abbey and the landscape around Tomis in An Imaginary Life. Wordsworth’s environment appears to be fertile and suited to agriculture because it is domesticated but Ovid’s hasn’t even been explored. Wordsworth never loses himself in nature because the line between God and earth always remains. A contrast to Wordsworth’s idea of interaction with nature is the child in An Imaginary Life. The child is at one with nature because he is part of it. At the beginning of the book Ovid’s ...
Wordsworth visualized scenes while he was away, a way for him to feel a spiritual connection until he was able to return. Wordsworth states, “As a landscape to a blind man’s eye: But opt, in lonely rooms, and mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them” (Wordsworth 25-27). Wordsworth gives a sense of conformity and loneliness while being in the towns and cities. That he had his memories of when he was younger to keep him hopeful to return to nature and all the memories he had grasped the memories of. As the society today focuses merely on what they can profit from cities, Wordsworth understood the true meaning of memories. Memories today are mostly captured through social media, and in return being taken for granted. Wordsworth had nostalgic bliss as he replayed his memories, and knowing that in the future he could look back on that day and have the same feeling again. Social media today is destroying our memories and what we can relive in our minds as memories. We can know that when things are posted within social media it will get likes and be shared. However, there are not many people in society today that will remember the true essence of what nature has given to
The theory of chronic sorrow is a middle range nursing theory explored largely by Georgene Gaskill Eakes, Mary Lermnann Burke and Maragret A. Hainsworth. The theory provides framework for understanding and working with individuals who have experienced a significant loss of a loved one. As stated by Eakes et al. (1998, p. 179), Chronic sorrow is described as “…the periodic recurrence of permanent, pervasive sadness or other grief related feelings associated with a significant loss.” As nurses, it is vitally important to understand and be aware of the high potential for chronic sorrow to occur when treating patients across the life span with chronic and traumatic conditions.
In his elaboration in “Tintern Abbey”, he says “For I have learned to look at nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity” (William 79).... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Bloom, Harold.
Sex trafficking is the most profitable form of slavery. Drugs or weapons that can only be sold once, sex can be sold time and time again. There are many ways to force humans into selling their bodies. The forced sale of commercial sex acts can take place through means of, “force, fraud or coercion” (Dempsey). Alternatively, one could exploit the vulnerable or use a position of power to enact the same outcome. In most states, including Nevada, any child subjected to performing sexual acts for money violates sex trafficking laws, even if the minor gives consent. Not unlike slavery, to be inducted into the world of sex trafficking is to be robbed of freedom, possibility, and dignity. I have been aware of the cruelties of sex
Overall, Wordsworth's use of symbolism in his poem illustrates a sense of the conviction and deep feelings he had toward nature; however, he sees himself as having insight to the problems. The materialistic progress being made by mankind is not without consequence, and the destruction of the environment by mankind's shortsightedness will continue as Wordsworth has foreseen. The change hoped for by the author will not come as a result of an initiative by humanity, but as an uproar by mother nature in the form of a battle. This battle will bring forth a victory for the environment and stimulate a re-birth for the world.
He is writing the poem as if he were an object of the earth, and what it is like to once live and then die only to be reborn. On the other hand, Wordsworth takes images of meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being whatever a person needs to move on, and without those objects, they can't have life. Wordsworth does not compare himself to these things like Shelley, but instead uses them as an example of how he feels about the stages of living. Starting from an infant to a young boy into a man, a man who knows death is coming and can do nothing about it because it's part of life.
It is obvious that through this perception Wordsworth is generally speaking of past experiences. Wordsworth believed that nature played a key role in spiritual understanding and stressed the role of memory in capturing the experiences of childhood.
William Wordsworth was one of the most influential of all the Romantic poets. To most people Wordsworth did not look like a poet. He had nothing of a delicate feature. He almost had a rugged look. His facial expression still could be romanticized. There was something powerful about his facial expression, the wide slash of mouth, the commanding nose, and the fierce eyes, “half burning, and half smoldering, with a bitter fixture of regard.” Though capable of utmost delicacy in feeling and affection, his character was independent, craggy, intense, brooding, and inward. He was stubborn in effort, reflection, proud of his work, and immensely high-minded in aspiration. To William Wordsworth, the “getting and spending” in which we consume time and ourselves are the escape, the avoidance, the dream on which we float out of existence, having cheated ourselves of life. Poetry is a way of confronting ultimate questions, and hence of living with the depth and passion that come only in their presence (Perkins 169).
Another important event that influenced the poetic life of Wordsworth was his 1795 meeting with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth with the help of Coleridge published the famous Lyrical Ballads in 1789. During that time, Wordsworth wanted to compete “the gaudiness and inane phraseology of modern writers.” Most of his poems in this collection focused on the simple yet deeply human feelings of ordinary people. Therefore, his views on this new kind of poetry were specifically described in the important ‘Preface’ that he wrote for the second edition of ‘Lyrical Ballads.’