Romantic Poetry: William Wordsworth

Tintern Abbey
blank verse. very personal, power of imagination: (1) Speaker returns to Tintern Abbey after five years, he recits the objects he sees again, like the river cliffs, and their effects on him.

It is summer as he leans on a tree and sees unripen fruit, sees smoke rising from cottages and imagines who is making the fires (2) The speaker then talks about how the beauty of the landscape has remained in his memory, how when in big cities or alone they have given him sweet sensations and peace, influencing his good deeds without noticing. The memory also allows him to enter a outo ofo body state, where the durdens of the world are lightened (3) He wonders if the memory might be in vain, but knows he turns to it often in fretful situations (4) The revives the memories feeling bittersweet, but believes the present pleasures will provided for the future. The speaker believes he is different now, as he used to really love nature but he still does in a diffrent way where he is aware of something in natur a presence like God’s (5) Speaker is happy he is with his sister, as she feels what he once did for nature, and hopes if she is sad or fearful, the memory of this experience will help to heal her. And if he himself is dead, she can remember the love with which he worshipped nature.

The World is too Much with Us
Petrarchen Sonnet. (Octave) The speaker complains that “the world” is too overwhelming for us to appreciate it. We’re so concerned about time and money that we use up all our energy.

People want to accumulate stuff, so they see nothing in Nature that they can “own.” We can no longer feel at one with nature like we should, but we can’t (Sestet) The speaker would rather be a pagan who worships an outdated religion so that when he gazes out on the ocean , he might feel less sad. If he were a pagan, he’d see wild mythological gods and feel closer to nature and be able to worship it to an extent

Daffodils
Four stanzas. ababcc. appreciation of nature and power of memory (1) The speaker wanders by himself as a cloud would, and spots golden daffodils moving in the breeze (2) as many as stars in the sky along the bay, (3) the daffodils out do they sea, and their presence brings the speaker joy.

He believes that he does not fully understand the gift of happiness the daffodils have given him (4) Now, whenever he’s feeling sad, he just draws from his memory and thinks of the daffodils, and his heart is happily dancing with the daffodils