William Wordsworth Romanticism Essays

While superficially 'Tintern Abbey' can be interpreted as a nature poem, in reality it is mainly an autobiographical account of Wordsworth's own spiritual growth and maturation.

New, indeed, since Abram’s collection is the emergence of William Blake as a true rival to Wordsworth for the role of Romantic “spirit of the age.”Some readers have not found Wordsworth meaningful because he did not take an energetic enough role in the politics of the Age of Revolution; ironically, it is the battle between the life of action and the life of the mind that Wordsworth dramatizes in Books IX through XI in The Prelude.In Tintern Abbey he draws on the seclusion of nature, which he describes as "deep and quiet" - offering him time for reflection and to look inward.It is nature's seclusion that enables him to provide stark contrast between the chaos of the city and the country, and move toward the realm of the ideal.Arguing against traditional “literary” readings of the Intimations Ode, Marjorie Levinson decodes the references in the poem to Wordsworth’s experiences in France and to his nostalgia over losing his innocence during the Revolution.In the afterword to the collection, Alan Grob responds to recent critics who view Wordsworth as reactionary; looking back to Abrams, he argues that out of the poet’s turn to “consciousness” evolved the very means by which he could assume the role of an influential exponent of change.Literary texts composed during this time were characterised by a search for meaning through representations of the individual's relationship with the natural world, and the power of the imagination to inform, illuminate and transform human experience.Individualism was expressed through new ideas that challenged previous ways of thinking.In his poems 'Tintern Abbey' and 'I Wander Lonely As A Cloud' Wordsworth conveys the ideals of the Romantics through effective use of poetic devices that exemplify a particular moment in time where he experiences a closeness with nature.Romanticism emerged at a time of increased urbanisation and industrialisation, which influenced idealism and the imagination of Wordsworth.Together they represent Wordsworth's personal response to the world around him and express his own unique deep feelings and emotions.This is obvious to the reader when almost everything in both poems is approached from the personal point of view, with frequent use of the first person pronoun - 'I'.