An Analysis of Meaning of Wordsworth’s Poem Strange Fits of Passion Have I

Known

Hiqma Nur Agustina, SS, M. Hum, M. Si.

Dosen Tetap Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris FKIP UNIS – Tangerang

Abstrak

Pembahasan tentang puisi selalu menarik untuk dikaji. Beragam tema, pesan, gaya
bahasa, nada, irama dan arti mewarnai sebuah puisi. Tulisan singkat ini mengetengahkan
puisi William Wordsworth yang bertajuk Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known, dengan
gaya penyampaian yang sederhana namun memiliki makna yang erat berkaitan dengan
romantika percintaan yang menjadi santapan kita sehari-hari. Ada beberapa hal yang
penulis kaji berkaitan dengan puisi ini untuk memberikan gambaran singkat tentang puisi
Inggris ini dari segi interpretation, theme, image, tone, figurative language, rhythm dan
meaning. Semoga tulisan ini mampu menggugah pembaca untuk bisa lebih memahami
puisi dan memaknai setiap kata indah di dalamnya.

Key words: interpretation, theme, image, tone, figurative language, rhythm, meaning

I. Introduction
A. Background of study
Poetry is a kind of language that says more and more intensely than ordinary
language does. A poem is composed with the desire to communicate an experience
especially one expressing deep feeling or noble thought in beautiful language.
Poetry has a pattern that gives us pleasure as we listen to it. Poets repeat and echo
sounds to please our ears. They also use these effects to hold our attention and mirror or
reinforce the meaning word have rhythm or beat, as well as sound, and the rhythm of
poetry is usually more regular than we hear in ordinary language. Often a poem is divided
into sections of lines that follow the same pattern of sound and rhythm, so that we
quickly learn the pattern as we read or listen, and enjoy knowing what to expect.
The importance of poetry does not only lie on the pleasure it gives the readers
when they read it or listen to it, but also on the value of life implied in it. Poetry has been
regarded as something central to each man’s existence, something having unique value to

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fully realized life, something that he is better off for having and spiritually impoverished
without (Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, p. 554).
The Wordsworth’s poem Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known is chosen by the
writer because this is a beautiful and interesting poem. Though this poem is very simple,
it is an expression of one’s feeling and one’s experience. Through its simplicity there lies
a precious life teaching.
William Wordsworth, the poet of Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known is an
English Romantic poet. He was born in Cockermouth Westmoreland. He grew up among
the woods and lakes and mountains of the Wortwestern part of England. Therefore, all of
his poems always describe natural scene. Wordsworth believed that nature is the great
teacher of moral, and the prime bringer of happiness.
William Wordsworth was a chief voice of new romantic movement. He laid down
the new principles of Romantic poetry; those are:
1. The language of poetry is the language of ordinary men and women
2. Poetry is an expression of one own feeling
3. Nature is the source of beauty
4. Human mind is part of nature
All William Wordsworth’s poem reflected all this principles. Some of his works
are Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known, She Dwelled Among The Untrodden Ways,
The Solitary Reaper, Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, It is a
Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free, A Poet’s Epitaph, and Matthew.

B. Problem Formulation
This writing is going to analyze the meaning of the poem which is the basic life of
teaching.

C. Objective of Study
The meaning can be grasped through the theme, the image, the tone, the figurative
language, and the rhythm of the poem.

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D. Definition of Term
The terms that are used in this writing are:
1. Theme is the idea or thought that stays in our minds when we think about the
meaning of the work as a whole (The Literary Heritage, p. 733).
2. Tone is the writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward his subject, his audience, or himself
(Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, p. 702).
3. Image is the representation through language of sense experience (Literature:
Structure, Sound and Sense, p. 599).
4. Figurative language
- Simile: a comparison using the words like or as. It says outright that
something is like something else.
5. Rhythm is systematical stressing or accenting words and syllables.

E. Urgency of Study
The purpose of the writer analyzing the Wordsworth’s poem Strange Fits of
Passion Have I Known are:
1. To enrich the study of poem
2. To grasp the life teaching of the poet that is expressed impliedly through the poem

II. Analysis
A. Poem

STRANGE FITS OF PASSION HAVE I KNOWN

Strange fits of passion have I known:

And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When She I loved looked every day

Fresh as a rose in June,

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I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.
Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew night
Those paths so dear to me.
And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came dear, and nearer still

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,

Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof

He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide

Into a lover’s head!
“O mercy!” to myself I cried,
“If Lucy should be dead!”

B. Analysis of Meaning of Wordsworth’s Poem: Strange Fits of Passion Have I

Known
Wordsworth’s poem Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known is a romantic poem.
This poem, like most of other Romantic poem, has an idea of ‘Love’. This poem really
reflects Wordsworth’s principles of romantic literary work. It expresses Wordsworth’s

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own feeling and passion. He really praises the nature very much by giving such a nature
scene. The language in this poem is very simple.
a. Interpretation
Like many of Wordsworth’s poem, this poem start with some remembered events.
In the first stanza, the poet tells that he wants to tell the reader about his experience, the
passion of love he has. He addresses this poem to everybody who is falling in love.
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.

The third line of the first stanza uses a phrase ‘the lover’s ear alone to say a fallen love
person. This first stanza is a kind of introduction of the poet’s theme which is one’s
passion of love.
The second stanza is the beginning of the poet’s story about his experience when
he is in a journey of visiting his beloved girl friend. Here, he uses simile to describe the
beauty of his lover. He compares his lover to a fresh rose that blooms in June.
When She I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,

The last line of the second stanza gives us the hint of the setting of time. The
person here is talking his journey to his lover’s cottage in the evening when the moon is
above the sky.
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.

The third stanza tells us the person’s journey to his lover’s cottage by riding a
horse. He passes through the path that he recognizes very much on an open wide grass
land. Then the fourth stanza tells us that the person almost reaches his girl’s friend
cottage. The fifth stanza shows us how the person is full of passion at meeting his lover.

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The first two lines of the fifth stanza show us the passion of the person toward seeing his
lover. He is very patient to see her.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept

Kind nature’s gentlest boon!

In the sixth stanza the person has reached his lover’s cottage after long journey.
He no longer sees the moon sides behind the cottage. The seventh stanza tells us that
there is a little thought of scary of losing his girl friend crosses the man;s mind.
“Oh Mercy!” to myself I cried,
“If Lucy should be dead!’

The rhythm of these two lines shows us the emotion of the person. The stresses
that are given to ‘O‘ and ‘Mercy’ indicates the person’s scary. He does not want to lose
his lover.

b. Theme
Through the interpretation we can grasp the theme. The theme of this poem is
about one’s passion of love. From the title and the first stanza we can predict that this
poem is about love. It is about the poet’s experience of being in love and it is also about
the passion that the poet has when he is in love.

c. Image
Since the second stanza to the sixth stanza, the poet offers us a visual image of
beautiful nature’s view. He describes his imagination such a beautiful way and he makes
his imagination roam to other beautiful images.
Upon the moon I fixed my eyes,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew night
Those paths so dear to me

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 This stanza takes us to a beautiful scene which the poet has once experience
before. Here we can see a wide open grass land with the moon above it and there are
paths which is so dear to the poet on the grass land.
The poet also offers us a kinetic image. He describes how his horse moves and
takes him to his lover’s cottage.
My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:

d. Tone
The tone of the poet is sympathy and passionate. We can see him very sympathy
and passionate through the event. How he described the poem through the lyrics made the
reader getting involved with the tone.

e. Figurative language
Since Wordsworth believed in the principles of a new ideal of naturalness and
simplicity, he avoids everything artificial and merely conventional. He believed in the
language of ordinary men and women. Therefore, this poem has no difficult diction that
is difficult to understand by the reader.
This poem has no symbol, connotation, metonymy, allusion, the diction has
merely denotation. The poet emphasizes his tone, his visual image by using simile,
personification and metaphore. Therefore, this poem seems so alive, as in:
* When She I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June
* The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near, and nearer still
* But in the lover’s ear alone

f. Rhythm
The rhythm that the poem use is like Waltzing rhythm. From the first stanza to the
sixth stanza the rhythm is almost similar. This indicates that there is a constant. He uses
iambic tetrameter for every first line of each stanza.

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 The rhythm he offers us to emphasize his emotion in this poem. The calmness of
the rhythm show the poet’s sympathy and the last stanza of the poem give us a clear hint
of the poet’s passion.

g. Meaning
The meaning of this poem is that every falling in love person will be filled of
passion and desire to see his or her lover. The love that he or she has will guide him or
her to break every obstacle that hints his or her relationship. Love will make one sacrifice
for his or her lover. Just like the person in the poem who is willing to have long journey
to see his lover. The feeling afraid of loosing the one he or she loves will always occur at
any time, the way the person in the poem is afraid of losing his lover.
Being afraid of losing someone whom he loved describes clearly in his poem.
Through the beauty of lyrics, Wordsworth asked us to enjoy the journey of loving.
Loving means people are entirely sacrificing for the lover. It is seen toward every step
that the writer wrote. This poem taught us to be wise, patient and keep struggling to
realize the immortal of love. That is the hardest part of human being who need love to
balance their routine task. No one can live with meaningless love, but people will have
spirit to build their life by being love and to love somebody.

III. Conclusion
Wordsworth’s poem Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known is one of the
Romantic poems. This poem like many other Romantic poems has an idea of love and
nature. This poem is the most popular of Wordsworth’s poem, is a reflection of his own
passion.
This poem is about the passion of love of the poet when he is falling in love with
a woman. Here he is willing to have a long journey to see his lover. The poet’s
experience, as it expressed in this poem is the same as any other falling in love expressed
in this poem is the same as any other falling in love person who is full of love and
beautiful dream of his lover. Talking about love poem is always attract the art lover,
because life without love is empty, meaningless and full of sadness. Moreover, in many
Wordsworth’s poem always reflect about this everlasting theme, love. Love is reflected

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about romance, joy of loving couple and lover and how one surrenders or sacrifices to his
lover. Even this poem has such ordinary idea but still people are curious to find the
meaning inside. The more we are searching the meaning, the larger idea and thought we
can get through it.
Furthermore, the power of love always inspires human being to be mature, to
control emotion, to struggle every challenge to pursue the joy in life. Some people think
that talking about love always arise the curiosity, the huge basic knowledge surrounding
people’s desire. Love is always become the interesting part in human being’s life,
because love become the greatest part that cannot be neglected. Finally, love will give
great impact to someone who is fulfilled with love because the power of love can change
one’s life.

References
Guth, Hans P., The literary Heritage, General Editor and Senior Author. Massachutes:
Lexington.
Perrine, Laurence. 1974. Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, Second Edition, New
York:
Wilson, B. A., John Burgess. English Literature: A Survey for Students, British:
Longman.