Alice Fell or Poverty,

Alice Fell or Poverty, written by Wordsworth deals with the real incident between Mr.Durham

and Alice. It is an autobiographical poem of the condition of Alice who is an orphan child crying

over her rag cloak. The poem is romantic and it captures the very essence of romanticism.

Though Wordsworth is absent during the incident, he uses the flight of imagination and the

documentation of his sister’s journal to illustrate the situation and the incident from his own lens.

Summary of EV Lucas The School for Sympathy

The poem captures the romantic essence of a voice for the poor helpless paupers. Wordsworth ,

influenced by French Revolution gives sympathy and empathy towards the common people and

he is recollecting and representing the pauper Alice in the poem to depict the condition of the

common people. The emotion and the pain of Alice marks the poetic development of voice for

the common people that the poet tries to communicate with the readers.

The poem also contains an autobiographical comment about the actual event from Dorothy

Wordsworth’s journal. She uses an event involving Mr. Graham and the unfortunate Alice Fell,

whose cloak got caught in the carriage’s wheel. The poem clearly contains this element of

autobiography, and Wordsworth did not leave out any of the specifics. To give the unfortunate

Alice Fell a purpose, he creates a subjective sketch of an event and a setting.

Wordsworth has demonstrated his commitment to these values in the poem by capturing Alice

Fell’s agony and pain. The romanticism movement aims to connect with and write for the

ordinary people. He recounts the story of what happened to Alice Fell beautifully and uses

everyday language to relate with her plight. The enigmatic sound that the speaker hears is

expertly described in the poem, and it is clear from reading the journal that the sound belongs to

Mr. Graham. He orders the post chaise to stop the carriage after hearing the sound. He then

hears Alice Fell, a young girl, screaming from behind the carriage because her cloak is caught in

the wheel. She is an orphan and possesses no other covering. The speaker transports her to a

neighboring inn where she is given a brand-new cloak.