Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey William Wordsworth
• Wordsworth meditates on: – His life – Aging – The joys of nature – Solitude – And the companionship of his sister • This meditation leads him to express the feelings that overwhelm him.
• Broken into four statements about Nature’s impact on Wordsworth • Impact of Nature on him in the past 5 years “Five years have past; five summers, with the length of five long winters! And again I hear these waters…” • Impact of Nature on him as a child “when like a roe I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams”
• Joy of seeing his sister surrounded by Nature “For thou art with me here upon the banks of this fair river; though my dearest Friend, my dear, dear Friend, and in they voice I catch the language of my former heart…” • Nature’s power in the future – “If I should be where I no more can hear thy voice, no catch from thy wild eyes these gleams of past existence – wilt thou then forget that on the banks of this delightful stream we stood together; and that I, so long a worshipper of nature, hither came unwearied in that service. . ”
Literary Terms • Monologue – 1 speaker who addresses others – Wordsworth addresses his sister and nature • Enjambment – the continuation of a sentence in a poem from one line to the next – This creates a conversational tone and mimics natural speech patterns • Simple language – Free flow of emotion – “Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of feelings”
• Wordsworth uses imagery to convey the experience. – Romantic authors could experience “exotic” places and “nature” through the descriptions of others. • Written in Blank Verse – Unrhymed iambic pentameter • Alliteration – repetition of sounds at the beginnings of words to create a flow.
- Slides: 7