William Wordsworth Research Paper

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility,” said William Wordsworth, but his beliefs about what poetry is expand much further. William Wordsworth was a poet from the late 18th to the mind 19th century. He was a major power in launching the Romantic Age of English literature. Romantic poetry in particular is characterized by imagination, reverence for nature, self-expression, spirituality, wonderment, innocence, and pondering the past. Writing styles varied from person to person, however. William Wordsworth believed that Romantic poetry should utilize common language that is easy for many to understand, be inspired by the simplicity of one’s life, contain wonderment, and harmonize with nature. Likely to Wordsworth’s approval, many poets wrote in this style. For example, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats, “She walks in beauty” by Lord Byron, and “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley are akin to the works of Wordsworth such as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth.

For instance, the lines “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:” tell the reader that imagined melodies, those heard by the spirit, are sweeter than real melodies, those heard by the body. The wonderment of something so simple is a theme aligned with Wordsworth’s ideas about poetry. In his own poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” he uses the lines “Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils,” to reference how he feels walking through nature. One could argue he is most definitely awestruck by the simplicity of a