tintern abbey - COMPLETE

william wordsworth

Themes

• Memory

• Imagination

• Worship of Nature

• Religion

Context - Personal

• Separated from his sister for nine years

• Spent most of his time outside as a child due to his uncle’s mistreatment

• Wordsworth was a Christian

Context - Historical

• First thought of in 1793 ‘five summers’

• Written in 1798.

• An example of pastoral poetry, which originated in Ancient Greek and Rome. They conjured highly idealised images of rural life.

• Lyrical Ballads’ intention was to move poetry beyond the stilted in accessible forms that had dominated the century.

Structure

represents stream of consciousness

enjambment - supports stream of consciousness

‘felt in the blood and felt along the heart’

nature is genetic, innate in humans. pantheism? Nature is within the human soul. Wordsworth believed there was a mutual consciousness between humanity and nature.

‘five summers with the length of five long winters’

winter is commonly associated with sadness. This line creates a contrast between the two emotions.

‘that on a wild secluded scene impress/ thoughts of a more deep seclusion’

Nature makes humans more thoughtful. Wordsworth liked being alone and enjoying nature.

‘weariness of towns and cities..’

Wordsworth, as well as the other Romantics, had a disdain for the Industrial Revolution. This is because it did not prioritise human emotion and destroyed humanity’s connection to nature.

Since it heals it, this could feed into Wordsworth’s belief of nature as a nurse.

‘soft inland murmur’

A ‘murmur ‘ could be seen as personification. Wordsworth liked to believe that Nature was a living personality.

‘run wild’

more life in nature to support Wordsworth’s view.

‘hermit’

religious connotation, suggesting religion was in conjunction with nature. Wordsworth was a Christian.

‘passing into my purer mind’

Comparative adjective supports Wordsworth’s belief that nature made a person perfect. In his view, perfection would be of being a ‘purer’ mind.

‘become a living soul’

Wordsworth believed that even after death, humanity could persist. This mentioned in conjunction with nature could be exploring a naturalistic pantheistic view, since the idea of the afterlife is associated with both Heaven and Nature.

‘fever of the world’

Wordsworth disliked slavery. Was once in support of the French Revolution but looked down on it when the Reign of Terror occurred. He also hated the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, which favoured emotion over reason.

‘o Sylvan Wye’

Wye is a river.

The word ‘Sylvan’ is derived from the word ‘Silvanus’, the Roman God of trees and wood. By referring it to a person, it personifies it. Nature as a living personality.

‘from when I was first I came along these hills’

‘roe’

Nature is within humanity throughout their entire life. This line could also imply that Wordsworth believes nature took care of him in his childhood, as he viewed nature as a guardian.

roes/deer are generally symbolic if innocence.

‘of elevated thoughts’

Wordsworth’s belief that a closeness with nature makes a human perfect.

‘the guide.. of all my moral being’

Nature as beneficial to humanity. As well making somebody a ‘perfect person’

‘my dear, dear friend’

He is referencing his sister here. They had an ‘amazingly close bond’ (Kathleen Jones) that was a result of them losing two parents together and being separated. They lived with each other.

‘dreary intercourse of daily life’

Nature offered solace and served as a respite to the Industrial Revolution. Served as a respite to him, as he moved from London to the Lake District in 1793, a contrast between the two environments.

Structure

Blank verse - at the time seen as a more natural way to write poems. Conversational due to talking to his sister.

Ode - poem praising a subject.