"Faith is a passionate intuition."
"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."
This above are two quotes from William Wordsworth. They can pretty much sum up his attitude towards his works.
William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) was born in in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. Throught his life, he would have many influences on his work. The first to shape his later works was the death of his mother when he was just eight. He attended Hawkshead Grammar School, where his love of poetry was firmly established and it is believed that he made his first attempts at verse there. Before his final semester at St. John's College in Cambridge, Wordsworth set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry and his political sensibilities. While touring Europe, he came into contact with the French Revolution. This, together with his stay in France, brought about Wordsworth's interest and sympathy for the life, troubles and speech of the "common man". These issues proved to be of paramount importance to Wordsworth's work.
We now move on to 1795, when Wordsworth had a meeting with the poet, Samuel Talyor Coleridge, his future publisher of his works(Lyrical Ballads in 1798). Wordsworth's poems were a great influence in Western literature, but it did contain his views on both his craft and his place in the world. Wordsworth wrote on the need for "common speech" within poems and argues against the hierarchy of the period which valued epic poetry above the lyric. Wordsworth wanted his poems to be of social or psychological influence. However, some exerted aesthetic influence.
Wordsworth's most famous work, The Prelude (1850), gives an insight into his spiritual life and marks the birth of a new genre of poetry. It is considered by many to be the crowning achievement of English romanticism.
In 1874, Wordsworth seemingly lost his will to compose poems after the death of his daughter, Dora. His wife, Mary, published The Prelude three months after his death.
Below are three poems are three poems by William Wordsworth that I like. Happy reading!
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
Lines Written In Early SpringI heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
Written In March The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!
Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The plowboy is whooping—anon-anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!
Sources1.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/quotes2.
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/2963.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/poems/109514.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/poems/109535.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/william_wordsworth/poems/109566.
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/wordsworth/section6.rhtml7.
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/wordsworth/section7.rhtmlCJ
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Let's analyse the poem and look out for the figurative language used.
In the first stanza, the picture that is brought to the readers minds is a man travelling on the road in the woods during autumn. This phrase that suggests the time that this incident occurred is “yellow wood”, which indicates that the leaves have all turned yellow.
From the second and third stanza, we know that the man is forced to make a choice and can only choose one road to travel” and will not be coming back ever. Thus, he feels gloomy. His emotion is exaggerated by the hyperboles “sorry”, “sigh” and “Oh, I kept the first for another day!”.
Personification is used in the eighth stanza, when he finds that one of the roads is grassier, and thus “wanted wear”, indicating that the road is in need of being trodden on. He then goes on to contradict himself by saying that both roads are equally worn out.
In the end, the man chooses the road less travelled and he has no regrets.
Metaphor and symbolism are also uses in this poem. The journey that the man takes is the metaphor for the journey of life and the two diverging roads symbolize the decisions one has to make in one’s life. The grassier and less-travelled road represents the more challenging path of life, for it had “leaves no step had trodden black”. The more-travelled road represents the easier path of life, the one which is chosen by the norm. The man chooses to stand out from the crowd and fish in deep waters, challenging himself, pushing himself to the limit and thus, stretching his potential. He does not regret doing so
This is the figurative language used in the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.
I like this poem because it uses much figurative language and because it has several levels of meaning. It also portrays a scenario that everyone experiences many time in one's life: having to make a choice.
CJ
Hi guys!
Although it still seems so far away, but... the June holidays are coming!
Let's interview some people to see what they are going to do during the holidays:
CJ: I'm going to count the all the money that I embezzled... I mean, collected in the class fund.
Q: Will any of the money go to charity?
CJ: Charity?! Bah! Humbug! The money is all mine I tell you, MINE!
Garfield: Well, like during the rest of the year, I'll sleep. And eat. And possibly kick Odie off the table a few times. And gain weight.
So, what will you do this holiday?
CJ
Yo people
Mother's Day is here! Have you wished your mother a Happy Mother's Day?
Anyway, here's...
What's Hot!Here are some "perfect" gifts for your beloved mother:
1. 1 ticket to Mexico (if she asks where is the return ticket, tell her that she would be quarentined for so long that she won't need one)
2. a 2-day-2-night stay at Hotel 81 (she will get the thrill of her life) Btw, have you seen their new advertisement?
3. a caked, baked by yours truly (ingredients:coke, pepsi, yogurt, raw meat, Hersheys chocolate sauce, castor oil, flour, ecstasy, ostrich egg shells, worms handphone and Dad)
So there you have it! Email me the present of your choice, prices will be negotiated and it will be delivered straight to your doorstep!
CJ
