OUTLINE:

ROMANTIC PERIODPOET: WILLIAM WORDSWORTHDESCRIPTION OF THE POEMTHEMES & VALUESLANGUAGE USEIMPLIMENTATIONS IN THE CLASSROOMCONCLUSION

ROMANTIC PERIOD

FEATURES OF ROMANTICISM

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

• Destruction of nature

• Increasing population

• Keeping away from nature

• Longing for nature

The Three Primary Themes

Nature,Individualism Imagination

The biography of William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

born in Cockermouth, England

grew up in a rustic society

philosophical sympathies with

the effect of revolutionaries.

progenitor of Romantic Period

autobiographical poem

William Wordsworth’s Works

The Evening Walks (1793)The Lyrical Ballads (1798) with Samuel Taylor ColerdgeTintern AbbeyThe PreludePoems Dedicated to National

Independence and Liberty (1802- 1816)The Excursion (1814)Peter Bell (1819)Memorials of a Tour

on the Continent (1822)

DESCRIPTION OF THE POEM

About the poem… The speaker explains how humans change over time. When we are a child………

connected with nature,

but as we get old ……

forget nature & interested in responsibilities of adulthood,.

Nature stays as recollections of childhood in our memory

STANZA 1:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seemApparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.It is not now as it hath been of yore; -

Turn wheresoe'er I may,By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

STANZA 2:

The Rainbow comes and goes,And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delightLook round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry nightAre beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth

STANZA 3:Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

And while the young lambs boundAs to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong:The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

And all the earth is gay;Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,And with the heart of May

Doth every Beast keep holiday; -Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happyShepherd-boy!

STANZA 4:Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the callYe to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;My heart is at your festival,My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel - I feel it all.Oh evil day! if I were sullen

While the Earth herself is adorning,This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are cullingOn every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm: -I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

- But there's a Tree, of many, one,A single Field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone:The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

STANZA 5:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we comeFrom God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;At length the Man perceives it die away,And fade into the light of common day.

STANZA 6:

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And, even with something of a Mother's mind,And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she canTo make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,

Forget the glories he hath known,And that imperial palace whence he came.

STANZA 7:Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;A wedding or a festival,A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongueTo dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be longEre this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and prideThe little Actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocationWere endless imitation.

STANZA 8: Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belieThy Soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keepThy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, -

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy ImmortalityBroods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by;To whom the grave

Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sightOf day or the warm light,

A place of thought where we in waiting lie;Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,And custom lie upon thee with a weight,Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

STANZA 9: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 benediction: not indeedFor that which is most worthy to be blest;

Delight and liberty, the simple creedOf Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: -

Not for these I raiseThe song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questioningsOf sense and outward things,Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a CreatureMoving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal NatureDid 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 all our seeing;Uphold us, cherish, and have power to makeOur noisy years seem moments in the beingOf the eternal Silence: truths that wake,To perish never;Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,Nor Man nor Boy,Nor all that is at enmity with joy,Can utterly abolish or destroy!Hence in a season of calm weatherThough inland far we be,Our Souls have sight of that immortal seaWhich brought us hither,Can in a moment travel thither,And see the Children sport upon the shore,And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

STANZA 10:

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,Ye that through your hearts today

Feel the gladness of the May!What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;In the faith that looks through death,

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

STANZA 11:

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eyeThat hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.Thanks to the human heart by which we live,Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,

To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

Beneficial influence of nature

Line

“To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong “

The power of human mind

“Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in

your jubilee”

The splendor of childhood

‘ Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,’

Religion

‘From God, who is our home

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!’

Humanity

‘With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation’

Individualism

“We will grieve not, rather findStrength in what remains behind”

LANGUAGE USE

Eleven Stanzas

End Rhyme

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,      The earth, and every common sight,  

            To me did seem     Apparell'd in celestial light,  

The glory and the freshness of a dream.          5 It is not now as it hath been of yore;—  

        Turn wheresoe'er I may,              By night or day,  

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.        

The rainbow comes and goes,   10         And lovely is the rose;  

        The moon doth with delight     Look round her when the heavens are bare;  

        Waters on a starry night         Are beautiful and fair;   15 

    The sunshine is a glorious birth;      But yet I know, where'er I go,  earth. 

Internal Rhyme

“But yet I know, where'er I go” (line 17) 

“Fallings from us, vanishings;”(line 147) 

“Which, be they what theymay,” (line 155) 

Iambic feet

•a pair of syllables, the first one unstressed and the second stressed.

.........1...............2.................3.....................4......................5 There WAS..|..a TIME..|..when MEAD..|..ow, GROVE,..|..and STREAM,

.........1................2...............3................4. The EARTH,..|..and EV..|..ry COM..|..mon SIGHT,

.....1..............2 To ME..|..did SEEM

......1..............2.............3...............4 Ap PAR..|..elled IN..|..cel EST..|..ial LIGHT,

........1..............2.................3................4.................5 The GLOR..|..y AND..|..the FRESH..|..ness OF..|..a DREAM.

..1.............2.............3.............4..................5 It IS..|..not NOW..|..as IT..|..hath BEEN..|..of YORE;

........1....................2.............3 Turn WHERE..|..so E'ER..|..I MAY,

.......1..............2 By NIGHT..|..or DAY,

..........1...............2.................3................4................5..............6 The THINGS..|..which I..|..have SEEN..|..I NOW..|..can SEE..|..no MORE.

Rhetorical Figures in The Poem

Anaphora 

• Repetitions at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other.

“Ye that pipe and ye that play,  Ye that through your hearts to-day”

(lines 177-178)

Apostrophe 

• Addressing an abstraction or a thing, present or absent, or addressing an absent person or entity

“And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,  

Forebode not any severing of our loves! “ (lines 192-193)

Metaphor 

• Comparison between unlike things…

• “The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep”

(line 25) waterfalls = musicians

Paradox •Contradictory statement used to express a truth

“Those shadowy recollections,  Which, be they what they may,  Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,  Are yet a master-light of all our seeing” (lines 154-157) 

Shadows are a source of light

Personification •Comparison of a thing to a person

“The Moon doth with delight  Look round her when the heavens are bare” (lines 12-13) 

•the moon : person experiencing delight

“Land and sea  Give themselves up to jollity” (lines 30-31)•the land and the sea : jolly persons

Synecdoche 

Substitution of a part to stand for the whole, or the whole to stand for a part

• “thou eye among the blind” (line 112) 

"Eye" represents a child who guides adults

Symbols • Represent an idea

• Light

in childhood: “celestial light”(line 4)

“Apparelled in celestial light,The glory and the freshness of a dream.”

in maturity : “light of common day” (line 78)

“And fade into the light of common day.”

Implimentations in the class

Word Puzzle Find the given words.

- Students are asked to find the words from the poem.

c b e g a p i u q e

e l p f a t y o s d

o s u u k m d w o i

d t b n a p u s u d

c e l e s t i a l n

e h z r g k h q g e

i p n a t u r e f l

l o j l t s e i r p

a r h u m o r o u s

s p v o c a t i o n

Funeral Prophet

Equipage Priest

Celestial Splendid

Soul Humorous

Nature Vocation

Getting in the Mood

• Teacher sets the scene of the second stanza (the scene of a lovely nature).

• Students are asked to think about their childhood and a memory taking place in nature, and take notes.

• At the end, they are asked to

compare the nature in their

childhood and the nature

at the moment.

Interpretation Questionaire

- Students are asked to answer the following questions.

Answer the questions below.1- The poet thinks that children have the celestial light. Do you agree with him? Why/Why not?2- What can be the reasons that keep us away from the nature?3- When you compare your present with past, do you realise any differrences about yourself in terms of maturity?4- In seventh stanza the poet says that all human life is a similar imitation. What do you think about this statement?5- The poet thinks that the glory of nature passes away as people grow older. Do you agree with him? Why/Why not?

Compairing

- Students are asked to compare rural and urban life and take notes.

> differences > similarities > pros and cons

CONCLUSION

Birth

Conclusions…