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7 entries this month
Tintern Abbey03:20 Feb 25 2008
Times Read: 1,189
In keeping with the Wordsworth theme, I read "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" aloud to a friend who'd been there before. It is a beautiful long poem written in blank verse. The sounds of the words feel gorgeous on the lips and I love the prose-like sense that iambic pentameter can deliver when there is no rhyme scheme.
In this piece, he again visits his love for nature and its influence on him throughout his life. The beauty around Tintern Abbey has been an inspirational and calming influence upon him even while away. He recalls running through the hills while a youth, and appreciates his more mature focus as he stands beneath a sycamore and feels the poignant sting and call of time linked through this one copse.
A Commentary22:15 Feb 23 2008
Times Read: 1,219
I was asked to do a commentary of this sonnet, helping it to be better understood. It happens to be a favorite of mine, so I jumped at the opportunity with glee. Angelus asked to be mentioned as the student, and I was pleased to be teacher. Thank you for your request.
Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much With Us"
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
My commentary:
“The world is too much with us…a sordid boon!” this was written in 19th century and is a Petrarchan sonnet…which means it’s likely going to pose a question for us. He is talking about a theme in a lot of his own poems and those of his contemporaries: We have become too focused on what is materially important to us, having lost touch with the natural world and the spiritual world. The word, “boon” is archaic and means “gift” but he’s called it a sordid gift. Giving away our hearts for nature and the spiritual world was a dark gift with consequences.
“This Sea…out of tune” I love this…it’s so gorgeous. He uses rhetoric to show a dramatic image of the gifts of nature that we should gather up like flowers into a bouquet and admire and appreciate as the gifts they are. But we miss them because of our focus on the material world. We are out of tune with what truly matters.
“It moves us not…less forlorn” He uses a strong metaphor here for his time. Not popular in a Christian 19th century English world to yell that you’d rather be a pagan. Why does he do it? Because in the pagan gods, there was a connection to the actions of nature, a wonder at who and why we are. He longs for that spiritual wonder and awe and its tie to the wonder and awe found in nature.
“Have sight of Proteus …wreathed horn” Proteus was an early Greek sea god whose name suggests “First and ancient…the beginning” and Triton was another Greek sea god, a messenger whose horn commanded the waves themselves. Wordsworth is talking about his desire to see that kind of majesty in the scene laid out before him.
All in all, the poem has an anger and charges us all with complacency about the things in life that truly matter. His implied question is, “How do we change who we are now and become who we should be?”
Long Day07:50 Feb 22 2008
Times Read: 1,241
Some nights I just wish
That I were a sock puppet
With a sewn-on smile.
Ringer Off15:26 Feb 21 2008
Times Read: 1,331
Thinking of my friend
And how he reached out to me
But I wasn't there.
Perspective15:22 Feb 21 2008
Times Read: 1,333
A bird in my tree
Sings though the morning is gray
And his wings are damp.
Another14:20 Feb 21 2008
Times Read: 1,337
My morning begins
Like a squeaky wheeled wagon
Pulled by a mad child.
No Shy Laplander, He10:17 Feb 12 2008
Times Read: 1,401
I miss the crisp notes
In your speech, barbarian.
Come plunder me now.
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