William Wordsworth

UNIT 11 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Structure
11.0 Objectives
11.1 Introduction
11.2 William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
11.2.1 Characteristics of his Poetry
11.2.2 His Theory of Poetry
11.3 ‘Intimations of Immortality’
11.3.1 The Background of the Poem
11.3.2 The Text
11.3.3 The Stanza Form
11.3.4 A Discussion
11.4 ‘Tintern Abbey’
11.4.1 The Background of the Poem
11.4.2 The Text
11.4.3 The Stanza Form
11.4.4 A Discussion
11.5 Let Us Sum Up
11.6 Suggested Reading
11.7 Answers to Self-Check Exercises

11.0 OBJECTIVES
After having read this unit you will be able to:
• Talk and write about Wordsworth the poet;
• Discuss Wordsworth’s poetry with special reference to ‘Intimations of
Immortality’ and
• ‘Tintern Abbey’

11.1 INTRODUCTION
In this unit we have discussed William Wordsworth’s life in brief. He is regarded
the greatest poet of Nature and also the foremost of the Romantic poets. He
brought about a revolutionary change in English poetry by his language, his sense
of the influence of Nature on the mind, and his insight into emotion.

The first poem is an extract from ‘Intimations of Immortality’ which can also be
termed as autobiography in poetry. Wordsworth talks about how memories
recollected in tranquillity / calmness strengthen and inspire us if we remain true
to Nature. We have scanned five lines of the poem. You may practice scansion by
scanning the rest of the poem.

The second poem is also an extract from ‘Tintern Abbey’. It contains the essence
of Wordsworth’s thought as a poet. The extract discusses how Nature soothes and
heals a mind and heart in turmoil.
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The Romantic Poets Both the poems are representatives of Wordsworth’s theory of poetry:
“spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquillity.”

After going through the unit, we hope, you would be able to appreciate the fact
that Wordsworth was the poet of Man, of ‘man as they are men within
themselves.’ He celebrates both ‘Nature in her modesty’ and ‘Nature in her
sublimity’.

It is better if you read through the unit section by section and do the exercises as
you read. Do give yourself a break after you have worked on a section.

11.2 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850)

Wordsworth along with Coleridge and Southey belonged to the first generation of
the Romantic poets.

Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 at Cockermouth on the Derwent in the

Cumberland highlands of Lake District. By the age of fourteen he had become an
orphan. His school days at Hawkshead , in his own words , “ were very happy
one, chiefly because I was left at liberty then, and in the vacations, to read
whatever books I liked .” Here he received his early impression “derived neither
from books nor from companions, but from the majesty and loveliness of scenes
around him… loved with the first heats of youth.” He spent his first summer
vacation at Hawkshead where “after a night spent in dancing, I was deeply
moved by a splendid sunrise.” Speaking of this experience, he says in The
Prelude :

“Ah! need I say, dear friend! that to the brim

My heart was full : I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be , else sinning greatly ,
A dedicated spirit.”

But he did not relish the petty restrictions of University life and atmosphere of St.
John’s College, Cambridge, and felt like “a fowl of the air, ill-tutored for
captivity.” His days at the University are well documented in The Prelude.

After obtaining his B.A. degree in 1791, Wordsworth went to live for some
months in London where the multitudes of the huge city brought him a vision of
totality – human sympathies into his thoughts of Nature – and made him
recognize “ the unity of man,” the unity of life.

In 1791 Wordsworth went to France to learn French in order to fulfil his

cherished idea of becoming a touring tutor. There, like so many of his generation,
he was very enthusiastic about the Revolution of 1789 and the revolutionaries. In
particular he was charmed by the personality of Michael de Beaupuis whom he
met at Blois in 1792. His influence revealed to him the power and potentiality of
man - to attain “rational liberty, and hope in Mind, Justice and peace.” At Blois
he fell in love with Annette Vallon. He did not marry her, but she bore him a
daughter.

He was compelled to return to England because his guardians in England

threatened to cut off his allowances. The next few years were a period of
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disillusionment and disappointment for him. He was filled with remorse on William Wordsworth
account of his desertion of Annette and the child. Besides, the violent course of
events in France rudely shattered his dreams of a new world of Liberty, Equality
and Fraternity – the ideals of the French Revolution. Further, the war between
France and England divided his loyalties in the most agonizing way.

His stay at Racedown, Somerset, between 1795 and 1797 is significant because
he gradually overcame the depression and disillusionment caused by the French
Revolution. Here he wrote ‘Guilt and Sorrow’ and his only drama The Borderers,
a tragedy in blank verse, both being attempt at the psychology of guilt and
expiation.

In 1797, Wordsworth along with his sister, Dorothy, moved to Alfoxden to be

near to S.T. Coleridge, whose genius for philosophical speculation offered him an
intellectual companionship that answered his needs. Here the two greats thought
of embarking upon a book of poems to meet the expenses of a walking tour of
Germany. Their joint venture resulted in the publication of the remarkable and
monumental The Lyrical Ballads for which ‘Tintern Abbey’ was composed. The
Lyrical Ballads was a manifesto of a new spirit in poetry we know as the
Romantic Revival. Among the notes of new poetry were a new and intenser
interest in Nature, and a new faith in Man. In this period he wrote some of his
best poems like ‘Ruth’ , ‘Nutting’ , ‘The Poet’s Epitaph’ and the Lucy poems like
‘The Idiot Boy’ , ‘A Slumber did my Spirit Seal’ , ‘She Dwelt Among the
Untrodden Way’ , ‘The Education of Nature’ , etc. This period also saw the
publication of ‘Peter Bell’, a poem written as a reply to Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner’. Like Coleridge’s poem, this poem is also about the
redemption of human soul.

In the beginning of 1800, with Dorothy, he settled at Dove cottage, Grasmere. In

October 1802, he married Mary Hutchinson. In the following lines from ‘She was
a Phantom of Delight’ he describes her thus:

“The reason firm , the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight , strength and skill ;
A perfect woman, nobly planned ,
To warm, to comfort, and command.”

Here he planned his great philosophical poem The Recluse in three parts, of
which he was able to write only two parts: The Prelude by way of introduction
and the second part, The Excursion. In 1813, he settled at his favourite place
Rydal Mount where he died on April 23, 1850, and was buried in the Grasmere
churchyard. In the meantime, in 1843, he was appointed the Poet-laureate in
succession to Robert Southey (1774-1843).

11.2.1 Characteristics of his Poetry

Every critic of English poetry has come to the conclusion that Wordsworth is the
greatest Nature poet of England. Indeed, after reading his poetry, we are moved
deeply and experience a kind of calm pleasure. To him, like the mystics, Nature
was not a mere physical entity or loveliness or a sensuous presentation and
description, but revelation of the Supreme Being; a vision, an interpretation, a
path to perception of the unseen and infinite as both the poems here selected
show. To him the myriad forms and phenomena in the universe were the
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The Romantic Poets manifestations of the divine – to him God in Man and in Nature is one as the
super-sensuous world appeared to be more real than the world of sense-
perception.

One cardinal principle of his poetry is his love for human beings – to love Nature
is to love Man who is part and parcel of Nature. A distinguishing feature of this
belief in Man is his glorification of childhood, of which the ‘Intimations of
Immortality’ is the supreme example.

Another characteristic of his poetry is that Nature is a great teacher, healer and
soother. In the ‘Tables Turned’ he says:

“One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man;
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”

But to learn lessons from Nature one must “bring with a heart /That watches and
receives.”

His attitude to Nature did not become mystical and spiritual all at once. There
were three stages in this development and they are described very vividly in the
‘Tintern Abbey’ and the ‘Immortality Ode’. In the first stage, his love of Nature
was like that of child – sheer animal delight in the freshness and beauty of natural
objects. This, in the second stage, developed into an impassioned love and
sensuous beauty of Nature. In the third stage these passions, joys and raptures of
youth yielded place to a quieter and more sober approach in which he became
aware of the spiritual and human significance of Nature . He realized that Nature
was the abode of God, and that there was an indissoluble bond between Nature,
Man and God. This realization filled him with universal love and faith that all
God’s creation is full of His blessings.

11.2.2 His Theory of Poetry

Wordsworth elaborated his theory of poetry in his Preface to The Lyrical Ballads
. He writes:

“I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes
its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated
till by a species of reaction , the tranquillity gradually disappears and an emotion,
kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation , is gradually
produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind .” But adds:

“Though this be true, poems to which any value can be attached were never
produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more
than usual organic sensibility, has also thought long and deeply. For our
continued influxes of feelings are modified and directed by our thought, which
are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings.”

In his view, sensibility alone was not sufficient to ensure good poetry; it must be
directed by “thought long and deep ,” i.e. by a calm mind.

What Wordsworth implies is, to quote Herbert Read, that “good poetry is never
an immediate reaction to the provoking cause ; that our sensations must be
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allowed time to sink back into the common fund of our experiences, there to find William Wordsworth
their level and due proportion. That level is found for them by the mind in the act
of contemplation, and then in the process of contemplation the sensation revive,
and out of the union of contemplating mind and the receiving sensibility, rises
that unique mode of expression which we call poetry .” This is what Wordsworth
means when he asserts that poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquillity”- a product which provides ‘pleasure’ and ‘delight’, the purpose
being ‘ instruction through pleasure’. Wordsworth’s theory of poetry is rooted in
his ideas of a poet as a ‘man speaking to men’ who reveals to his fellow beings
the hidden unity of their experiences. The poet thinks and feels in the spirit of the
passions of people and therefore his language is very akin to theirs.

He writes in The Lyrical Ballads : “ Low rustic life was generally chosen because
in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they
can attain their maturity , are less under restraint , and speak a plainer and more
emphatic language ; because in that situation our elementary feelings exist in a
state of greater simplicity and consequently may be more accurately
contemplated and more forcibly communicated…. The language too of these
men is adopted…because such men hourly communicate with the best objects
from which the best part of language is originally derived….”

Wordsworth in this way discarded the abstract and frigid style of the 18th century
poetry in order to find a suitable language for the new poetic movement.

Do you find Wordswoth’s life and his creed interesting? If you do, you will find a
longer introduction in any History of English Literature.

Now find out how well you have read and understood the section with the help of
the following exercise. In case you fail to locate the answers, read the whole
section again.

Self-check Exercise I
1) How old was Wordsworth when he became an orphan?
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2) From where did Wordsworth receive his Bachelor’s degree?
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3) Wordsworth wrote The Lyrical Ballads in collaboration with
..................... and was first published in .....................................................
4) Name Wordsworth’s sister and wife.
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5) Wordsworth succeeded ..................................................... as poet-laureate
of England in the year ..........................................................................

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The Romantic Poets
11.3 INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
11.3.1 The Background of the Poem
The full title of the present poem is ‘Ode : Intimations of Immortality from
Recollection of Early Childhood’. The poem is in eleven stanzas containg 204
lines. The present extract is stanza IX.

Partly composed in 1802 and partly in 1804, ‘Intimations of Immortality’ is one

of the noblest poems of Wordsworth. Around the year 1802 the poet was facing a
spiritual crisis. The ‘visionary experiences’ that he had come across as an
adolescent and a young man, and which were the source of his ‘deepest
illumination’ were gradually losing their shine and glory.The present poem gives
expression to the poet’s spiritual crisis, the causes of the lost glory and an answer
to the poet’s problem.

C.M. Bowra in The Romantic Imagination observes that the first part (sts. , I-IV)
presents the crisis ,the second (sts. ,V-VIII) attempts an explanation , the third
and concluding part (sts.,IX-XI ) offers a consolation . Though “the radiance …
once so bright” is no more, yet all is not lost ; Nature will still ‘uphold’ and
‘cherish’ us is the message that the poem conveys.

11.3.2 The Text

O joy ! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions : not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast :
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised;
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake,
To perish never;
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 Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, William Wordsworth
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy.
Can utterly abolish or destroy !
Hence, in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Glossary
ember : ashes; remnant of his former being
doth : still
fugitive : of fleeting nature
breed : create; perpetuate
Perpetual : ever; constant
benediction : thankfulness to God; thanks giving
most : very thanks for
blest : given
simple : innocent
creed : faith
rest : contentment
new-fledged : young hope
fluttering : move lightly and quickly
breast : heart
blank misgivings : vague doubts about the realty of objects
affection : love, impression
shadowy : vague
fountain light : the real source of our knowledge
master light : the chief source of light
Uphold : support
eternal : without beginning or end; existing for ever ; frequent
listlessness : indifference
high instincts : lofty ideas / institutions
Man : manhood
Boy : boyhood
sea : previous existence with God
land : earthy life

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The Romantic Poets
11.3.3 The Stanza Form
‘Intimations of Immortality’ is written in an English Pindaric of the irregular
form. This form is also known as Cowleyan ode. Wordsworth had never tried
such a metre before. Each stanza has its own shape and length, and its own
rhyme-scheme.

The first four lines are scanned for you.

/ / /
O joy ! / that in / our em / bers
/ / /
Is some / thing that / doth live,
/ / /
That na / ture yet / remem / bers
/ / /
What was / so fu / gitive !

This passage is an example of Iambic verse.

Variations : The first four lines are Trimetre. The first and third lines are
hypermetrical. These four lines are rhymed and the rhyme scheme is a b a b.

11.3.4 A Discussion
The poem is a reminiscence in the sense that it is a poetic account of immortal
nature of the human spirit intuitively known by the child, almost forgotten by the
grown-up man, but to be known through recollection in tranquillity of heart and
mind.

In this extract, the poet considers the child as superior to the grown-up man in
the spiritual perception of divinity. But it is indeed a joy that even in our mature
age, we can recall and recollect the elusive visions – the feeling of immortality
and heavenly life – experienced during our childhood. In the same breath, the
poet makes it clear that his joys in recollecting those experiences is not due to the
blessings of childhood, delight and liberty, rather he is full of gratefulness and
thanks “for those obstinate questions of sense and outward things,” i.e. , the poet
is not thankful for those blessings for which he should feel most grateful. Our
maturity force us to question and doubt the existence of tangible objects of the
world around us , the vague intimations of the existence of a world of spirit and
the natural instincts as experienced during the childhood. During the childhood
period he had doubts about the reality of the visible world in which he moved
about. The material things seemed to move away from him, and vanish into
unreality. But as a grown-up man he feels like a guilty person, for now his life is
devoid of the former loftiness. He is grateful to that period because of those
innocent feelings and those vague remembrances of a previous existence in
heaven which have always been a source of joy. Whatever may be their ultimate
cause and effect, they are the primary source of knowledge, wisdom and
happiness. These memories / recollection strengthen and inspire us. As a result
the years of troubled and noisy times spent in the world are after all just
transitory moments in this vast eternity. They support us, sustain us, and have the
power to convert the noise and fury of our life into an eternal calm and serenity,
i.e., they are capable of making our troubled period appear to us like a
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momentary interval of disturbance placed between tranquil eternity of life before William Wordsworth
birth and after death.

The poet believes that once these truths are visualized through mystical
illumination, neither idleness, nor the mad pursuit of or endeavour to possess
material objects, nor the preoccupations of boyhood or manhood, nor ‘all that is
at enmity with joy’, can distory their influence. Hence, when man is advanced in
years, the soul has the glimpse of the sea of immortality which helped us in
coming on this earth. Our soul can in a moment recollect the experiences of
childhood. When our mind is vacant and tranquil, and the imagination at its
sublime, by recollecting the experiences of childhood, we can easily and instantly
go back to the shore of eternity. In other words, in our innocent imagination we
can have a vision of our eternal home.
In this excerpt Wordsworth picturises childhood with the help of apt images. The
first is the image of fire(embers) which slowly dies out in the course of time,
leaving ashes behind. The vision of childhood also slowly dies out when we grow
up, yet the spark remains. In another image ‘hope’ has been likened to a young
bird which flutters with its new-fledged wings. The third, ‘affection’ is used to
describe innocent experiences.

The words used to describe the process to visualize the eternal abode
spontaneously drive home the purpose of the poet – instruct through pleasure/
delight in a very convincing manner in lines colloquial yet full of meaning. They
dignify the simplicity, but at times rises to grandeur without falling into
pomposity.

Self-check Exercise II
1) The first four lines of the extract have been scanned. Now scan the next
six lines.
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2) What are the qualities of childhood?
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The Romantic Poets
3) Can you trace/find Wordsworth’s concept of Nature in the extract you
have read aloud just now?
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11.4 TINTERN ABBEY

11.4.1 The Background of the Poem
The sub-title of the poem ‘Tintern Abbey’ is ‘Lines Composed A Few Miles
Above Tintern Abbey’. The poem was composed in 1798, five years after his first
visit to the banks of the river Wye, for The Lyrical Ballads, published in 1798.
His first visit in 1793, the year following his return from France, when he was in
a state of intellectual and emotional turmoil, was still afresh in his mind. About
the composition of this poem, Wordsworth writes: “No poem of mine was
composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I
began it upon leaving Tintern after crossing Wye…Not a line of it was
altered….”

The main cause of his mental and moral crisis was his disillusionment with the
French Revolution in 1789 and the war between England and France in 1793. He
lost his faith in Man and even in God. He cherished to find some solace and this
consolation came to him in the lap of Nature. Therefore, when he revisited
Tintern in 1798, he was a chastened person fully aware of the sufferings of
humanity. He now no longer cried and longed for ‘dizzy raptures’ and ‘glad
animal movements’, but looked for a deeper meaning in Nature. On this tour of
1798 with Dorothy, he discovered that ‘Man had much to learn from Nature
which was Man’s prime teacher’.

11.4.2 The Text

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winter ! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. – Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thought of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark Sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts
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 Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, William Wordsworth
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild : these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up in silence, from among the trees !
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye :
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration : feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure : such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.

Glossary
Tintern Abbey : A monastry, situated in the ruins on the bank of the
river Wye, in Monmouthshire
Steep and lofty cliffs : Precipitous and high mountains
Repose : Take rest
Sycamore : A kind of fig tree common in the Middle – East
countries.
Tufts : A bunch of hair, feathers, grass,etc.growing or held
closely together at the base
hue : The degree or brightness in a colour
grove : a group of trees
copses : small trees or bushes
wreaths : column
vagrant dwellers : gypsies
Hermit : a holy person; sage
oft : often
din : a continuous loud and unpleasant sound
slight or trivial : ordinary; petty

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The Romantic Poets
11.4.3 The Stanza Form
The first four lines are scanned for you.
/ / / / /
Five years / have past ; / five sum /mers , with / the length
/ / / / /
Of five / long win / ters ! and / again / I hear
/ / / / /
These wa / ters , rol / ling from / their moun / tain – springs
/ / / / /
With a / soft in / land mur / murs. Once / again
This passage is an example of unrhymed Iambic Pentametre versification.
The first foot of the fourth line is Trochaic.

11.4.4 A Discussion
Wordsworth begins with a particular scene and a personal memory as
experienced five years ago. In these five years he had passed through a period of
great despodency. He was distressed by his love-affair with Annette Vallon who
also bore him a daughter in 1792, and by political events – The Reign of Terror in
France after the Revolution and the war between his motherland, England, and
France, the country he wanted to settle in.

The poet gives a vivid account of his second visit to the Wye where he has come
again after five years. He again hears the water rolling from their mountain
springs with a soft inland murmur. Once again he feels elated in the presence of
the wooded hills overhanging the Wye. The precipitous and high mountains,
thick Sycamore trees , the cottage ground, the orchards with ripe fruits, the hedge
row, etc. etc. are all observed and remembered by him and he recalls an
experience. The remembrance of these sights and scenes has been a source of
sweet, soothing and healing sensations from 1793 to 1798 when he had been
living in London and when the crushed ideals of the Revolution and other sundry
things had shaken his inner spirit. Yet the lastingness of his impression derived
from the passionate fusion with the myriad forms of Nature sustained him in
these critical years of his life. The revisit to the Tintern Abbey on the Wye with
all its surroundings gave him mental relief, restored his peace of mind and
thrilled the innermost recesses of his heart. The impressions gathered / received
from the Nature left a moralizing influence on his character and inspired him to
perform the ordinary deeds of love and kindness done in daily life, which are
often forgotten and ignored.

Wordsworth always looked towards Nature for peace and comfort for his sorrow-
stricken heart and in hours of weariness amid din and bustle of city life. In short,
whenever he was in communion with Nature, he discovered spiritual and
intellectual meaning in Her as if he were in the presence of some unseen power.

In the above extract the metre is blank verse – unrhymed ten – syllabled iambic
lines. The lines of the excerpt use a selection of the real language of men in a
state of vivid sensation. The excerpt is a lyrical meditation on the theme of
Nature and its effect on a troubled mind.

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 William Wordsworth
Self-check Exercise III
1) Enumerate Wordsworth’s causes of distress between 1793 and 1798.
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2) Find out the two phrases that are used to celebrate Nature.
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3) The first four lines have been scanned for you. Now scan the next four
lines.
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4) What soothes the poet’s mind?
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11.5 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit you have read about the life of William Wordsworth and examined
two excerpts from his poetry.

Wordsworth owes his distinctive position in English literature to his spiritual

interpretation of Nature. He penetrated to the very heart of Nature and saw in it a
revelation of universal spirit of God in the woods, mountains, meadows and men.
He has been called a pantheist because he saw the one Universal Spirit
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The Romantic Poets permeating the whole universe. Therefore, he was also a mystic. He made it his
mission to influence and convert humanity to this new religion – a religion to
soothe and heal the tired humanity. His another important mission was to teach,
and his greatest poems like ‘Tintern Abbey’, ‘Intimations of Immortality’ and
Prelude enabled him to transmute his teaching into pure poetry which are indeed
music to our ears and inspire in us obedience to divine eternal law.

11.6 SUGGESTED READING

Meyer Abrams, : The Mirror and the Lamp
Meyer Abrams, ed: Wordsworth : A collection of Critical Essays
A. C. Bradley : Oxford Lectures
Boris Ford : From Blake to Byron
Graham Hough : The Romantic Poets

11.7 ANSWERS TO SELF-CHECK EXERCISES

Self-check Exercise I
1) 14 years old.
2) St. John’s College , Cambridge.
3) (a) S.T. Coleridge (b) 1798
4) Dorothy; Mary Hutchison
Self-check Exercise II

1) / / / / /
The thought / of our / past years / in me / doth breed
/ / / / /
Perpe / tual be / nedic / tions : not / indeed
/ / / / /
For that / which is / most wor / thy to / be blest ;
/ / / / /
Delight / and li / berty /, the sim / ple creed
/ / / / /
of child / hood , whe / ther bu / sy or / at rest ,
/ / / / /
with new /- fledged hope / still flut / tering in / his breast :
These six lines are Iambic Pentametre. Its rhyme scheme is c c d c d d .
2) a) The child is intuitively aware of the immortality of the human spirit.
b) His spiritual perception of divinity is superior.
c) He is at liberty to spend his days in delightful acts.
d) His feelings and thoughts are innocent.
e) A child can have glimpses of eternal abode.
3) Yes, Wordsworth firmly believed that Nature was the abode of God, that
there was an indissoluble bond between Nature , Man and God, that God in
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 Man and in Nature is one. When we are child, we are the inhabitants of William Wordsworth
Nature, and therefore most near to Him. When we become man, we realize
Him in the perfect sense; when we are calm and serene we can visualize Him
in everything around us. Even after questions and doubts about immortality,
i.e. existence of a world of spirit, disappear only if we go nearer to Nature.
Read the previous sections for more information.

Self-check Exercise III

1) i) His love-affair with the French girl, Annette Vallon, and their daughter.
ii) Failure of the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
iii) The war between England and France in 1793.

2) i) Nature in her modesty and

ii) Nature in her sublimity.
3) / / / / /
Do I / behold / these steep / and lof / ty cliffs ,
/ / / / /
That on / a wild / seclu /ded scene / impress
/ / / / /
Thoughts of / more deep / seclu /sion and / connect
/ / / / /
The land / scape with / the qui /et of / the sky.

An example of unrhymed Iambic Pentametre.

4) Read the Text and the Discussion and find out the natural objects of beauty
described therein.

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