About William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was one of the founders of English

Romanticism and one its most central figures and important intellects.
He is remembered as a poet of spiritual and epistemological
speculation, a poet concerned with the human relationship to nature
and a fierce advocate of using the vocabulary and speech patterns of
common people in poetry.

He began writing poetry as a young boy in grammar school, and

before graduating from college he went on a walking tour of Europe,
which deepened his love for nature and his sympathy for the common
man: both major themes in his poetry. Wordsworth is best known
for Lyrical Ballads, co-written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and The
Prelude, a Romantic epic poem chronicling the “growth of a poet’s
mind.”

Most renowned works: Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, The

Excursion, The Prelude, Ode: Intimations of Immortality, Tintern
Abbey and Lucy Poem.

Summary of the Poem

The poem begins with the speaker, Wordsworth himself, having
returned to a spot on the banks of the river Wye that he has not seen
for five long years. This place is very dear to him and is just as
beautiful and mystical as it was when he left. He describes the
beautiful springs and cliffs he can see. Sitting under a tree,
Wordsworth gazes at not-yet bloomed orchards and country farms. It
is clear he adores and is awed by this natural scenery.
The “beauteous forms’ of the landscape have not been lost from his
mind though. They have stayed with him through his absence and
supported him. Whenever there was a moment he felt trapped in the
modern world or dragged down by “dreary” life he would cast his
mind back to this specific spot. It is here he finds solace.

Despite not being in this place for many years, it has never left
Wordsworth's mind. While in bustling and noisy cities, he has thought
of these natural landscapes, and they have given him solace and calm.
Wordsworth believes that his experiences with the natural world have
impacted the way he behaves, making him a better and kinder person.
The nature around Tintern Abbey has also had a philosophical
influence on Wordsworth. It has allowed him to view life both more
clearly and much more positively.

Tintern Abbey, an ''ecclesiastical ruin'' originally established in 1131

for Cistercian monks, is located in Wales beside the River Wye.
Tintern Abbey has been made famous by William
Wordsworth in Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July
13, 1798. This poem is the last poem in Lyrical Ballads, a collection of
poems written by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
and published in 1798.

Rhyme Scheme and Literary Devices

• Unrhymed
• LITERARY DEVICES
o Repetition- There is a line where the word "Five" is repeated
several times.
"Five years have past; five summers, with the length of five long
winters!"
o Personification- There are several lines where Wordsworth
brings plants and landmarks to life.

"These waters, rolling from their mountain springs with a soft inland
murmur."
- ". . . and connect the landscape with the quiet
of the sky. . ."
- ". . ., hardly hedge-rows, little lines of sportive
wood run wild: . . ."

o Analogy- He used an analogy with how much he missed Tintern

Abbey.
"These beauteous forms, through a long absence, have not been
to me as is a landscape to a blind man's eye: . . . "
o Alliteration- misty mountain, sneers of selfish men, secluded
scene.
o Metaphor- He imagines, through two metaphors, that the
smokes rises from the fire of “vagrant dwellers” and the fire of a
“hermit's cave.” According to Romantic beliefs, hermits, who
lived secluded in nature, were viewed as emblems of piety,
virtue, and special wisdom.