William Wordsworth.wmv

https://www.martini-schio.it/images/doc/go_for_English/22._WORDSWORTH.pdf




http://www.mlkmuggio.gov.it/sites/default/files/risorse-didattiche/wordsworth.ppt

Man and nature

Wordsworth is interested in the relationship between the NATURAL WORLD and the HUMAN 

CONSCIOUSNESS.

When a natural object is depicted the main focus of interest is the poet's response to that object.

NATURE 

1)COUNTRYSIDE-LANDSCAPE

2)LIFE-FORCE

3)A MORAL GUIDE

1)Nature is the countryside as opposed to the town. Even the urban landscape in Composed upon Westminster Bridge becomes a sort of natural landscape because of the beauty of the morning sun and the proximity of the countryside.

2) Nature is a source of feelings (joy, quietness, happiness, pleasure). It is an active force.it is a sort of goddess. It is a living presence. It is permeated by God.Through the contact with nature, man can rediscover the image of God and become aware of his own inner life. It is a pantheistic view of nature.

3) Nature is a friend and a comforter to man. It is the only great teacher from which man can learn virtue, love, wisdom. It is a guide to the moral an d spiritual life of man.

CHILDHOOD and NATURE

In a short lyric Wordsworth wrote: "the child is father of the man". The state of childhood is the closest to God, because the child has not progressed far "from God who is our home", in his journey through life. Thus, childhood is the best part of man's life.What the child sees is more imaginative and more vivid than the perceptions of the adult. A Child is naturally in tune with nature.

Yet, as the child grows into a man, his relation to the world of nature changes-the world remains the same but he cannot feel its splendour. In his view of childhood, Wordsworth was influenced by Rousseau. Rousseau saw childhood as the most important period in man's life, because it is closer to the "ideal state of nature" and therefore the least corrupt.

RECOLLECTION IN TRANQUILLITY

What we read in the poem is the result of the active, vital relationship of present to past experience. Poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", but these feelings are not immediate. They take their origin from "emotion recollected in tranquillity", recreated by the subjectivity of memory.object 

              sensory experience

              emotion

              memory=recollection in tranquillity

              kindred emotion

              poem

              reader

              a new emotion

The object gives rise to an emotion. It is recreated through memory and it is reproduced and purified in a poetic form so that a second emotion, kindred (=similar) to the first one is generated.

The Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads

1)Subject matter of poetry

Poetry should deal with incidents and situations from simple, rustic life, transfigured by " a certain colouring of imagination", so that they appear to be unusual

2)Poetic Language

Poetry should use familiar, simple, clear language (" the language really used by men")- it's the language of humble and rustic people who can express their feelings and emotions in simple and unelaborated expressions

3)The poet's role

The poet is a man speaking to other men who has more lively sensibility.He is endowed with imagination, so he can express what he feels better than common men. He also has a greater knowledge of nature. The poet is a moral teacher.He reveals the beauty of nature and teaches men how to stay in contact with nature and in doing so how to improve their moral being

4)The creative act of the poet 

Poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings-it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity"