Romanticism

The World Is Too Much With Us

• Read it through aloud• Partner up for a Think Aloud

• Observations/what do you notice• Questions and possible answers• Reactions/what do you think or feel

Freewrite• Write freely about what you think this

poem is about. • What does Wordsworth want us to

think/do?• What questions do you have and what

are some possible answers?• Does the poem apply to us today?

Words & Allusions• Sordid boon: shameful gain/tarnished blessing• Suckled in a creed outworn: brought up with

an outdated religion• Proteus: sea god from Greek mythology who is

able to change shape at will• Triton: another sea god who serves Poseidon

in Greek mythology. His special role is blowing a conch that controls the waves, the “wreathed horn.”

Sonnets• 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter• Italian sonnets (Petrachan) have two

parts:• 8-line octave that presents the problem• 6-line sestet that resolves it

• Rhyme scheme:• Abbaabba• cdcdcd

What Romantic principles are

present?• Lyric poetry: gives expression to the individual

subjective experience, esp reflections and feelings• Elevation of natural over the social; nature as the

foundation of truth• Society as corrupting; capitalism antithetical to

values of individual growth and expression• Romantic artist as special seer or prophet with

message to correct society• Use of symbolism to connect individual truths to

nature

Romanticism• Direct response to the neoclassical

conventions and ideas of the Enlightenment

• Romanticism the result of revolution:• American revolution• French revolution• Industrial revolution

Neoclassical Poetry• Rigid structure (heroic couplets)• Highly decorated language/ poetic

diction (ie. “finny tribe” instead of “fish”)

• Elevated subject

Preface to Lyrical Ballads

• Poetic Diction:• “The principle object…was to choose

incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them…in a selection of language really used by mean; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way”

Poetic Subject• “Low and rustic life was generally

chosen because in that condition, 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 condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity”

What is poetry• “All good poetry is the spontaneous

overflow of powerful feelings: but 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, had also thought long and deeply.”

What is a poet?• “He is a man speaking to men: a man,

it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind….To these qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present.”

Romantic Neo-classical Emphasis on Imagination Emphasis on Intellect Free Play of Emotions and Passions

Restraint and Obsession with Reason

Proximity to the everyday life of common man

Remoteness or aloofness from everyday life

Inspiration sought from country life and nature

Incidents from urban life prevailed

Primarily Subjective Primarily Objective Turned to Medieval Age for inspiration

Turned to Classical writers for inspiration

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

• “When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up— But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road . . .  [S]ome rested their heads on [mossy] stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway... —Rain came on, we were wet. ”

Process of composition

• Stage One: Observation—poet observes and experiences powerful emotion

• Stage Two: Recollection—poet recalls the emotion in tranquility

• Stage Three: Filtering—poet filters that which is not essential

• Stage Four: Composition—poet becomes “man speaking to men”

• “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility”