Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth

what is the rhythm and how many lines per stanza?

Iambic tetrameter, three lines per stanza

what happens on each fourth line of every stanza?

anapestic trimeter introduced - each fourth line loses a foot and becomes trimter

what creates an immediate sensory experience?

‘I heard’

how is dualism felt and in what lines?

• contradictory experiences

• ‘In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts / Bring sad thoughts to the mind’

• thoughts cannot be separated, we lose a foot and the rhythm slows down → melancholy

how is nature and the human soul conveyed?

nature = female Goddess

human soul = man

key theme so far is…

dualism, reflecting The Sublime by Edmund Burke

how is the bond between man and nature strengthened?

finding physical/human features in the non-physical/human

at first the speaker is ….. but in the next stanza his mind …..

• ‘reclined’

• runs

the poem works in what structure?

structural parallelism

what conveys the sound of plants interlinking with each other, making sound key?

repetition of ‘p’ and ‘t’ mirroring each other (symbiotic imagery) like how plants grow and link together

“every flower enjoys the air it breathes”

breathy alliteration allusive of actual breathing → the Romantic’s key ideas surrounding sound and experience

what line highlights the cross over between nature as a form of faith, nature as a direct link to God and the heavens?

‘And ‘tis my faith that every flower enjoys the air breathes’ - he wants to believe it, nature ‘becoming’ his God.

“their thoughts I cannot measure”

the idea of skipping ‘thought’ in sublimation, no cognitive process only feeling and physical experience

“The birds around me hopped and played”

experience emulated through delicate consonants, however, there is uncertainty in this belief that he can convey feelings directly with the following line: “their thoughts I cannot measure”

what starts to happen in the fourth stanza?

• there begins to be a division - first two lines = sensory experience / final two = philosophical

• thought begins to take over even though he wanted to prioritise feeling

what is used to create a flowing rhythm allusive of thinking?

caesura

stanzas are no longer short and descriptive, he starts to really think in the poem in the line….

‘I must think, do all I can’

language directly related to ….. is used in the last stanza e.g. …. and ….

1. religion

2. heaven

3. holy

the last stanza becomes completely….

logical thought free from any descriptive physical feelings

the line …………. seen in the 2nd stanza now becomes a ………… at the end of the last stanza

1. ‘What man has made of man.’

2. question

this question highlights how he can no longer…

convey experience, he doubts this ability

the reader is ….. from the ending, it passively conveys the speaker’s emotions - he does not fulfil …….

1. excluded

2. sublimation