Outline Study of Wordsworth's Poems

OUTLINE STUDY No. 85.

PALGRAVE'S "GOLDEN TREASURY."
(Francis T. Palgrave, 1824-1897.)

WORDSWORTH'S POEMS.

(William Wordsworth, 1770-1850.)

A. PREPARATORY WORK-Classification of Poetry: Palgrave's "Golden Treasury": Character of Wordsworth's Literary Era: Wordsworth's Theory of Poetry.

B. FIRST READING-Classification of the Poems of Wordsworth found in Palgrave's "Golden Treasury": Study of the Text.

C. SECOND READING-Familiar Lines: Felicitous Expressions: Quoted Criticisms.

D. SUPPLEMENTARY WORK-Test Questions: Theme Subjects.

A. PREPARATORY WORK.

CLASSIFICATION OF POETRY: PALGRAVE'S GOLDEN TREASURY: CHARACTER OF WORDSWORTH'S LITERARY ERA: WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF POETRY.

I. CLASSIFICATION OF POETICAL COMPOSITION.

1. Narrative Poetry.

a. The Epic. Examples: Milton's Paradise Lost; Vergil's Aeneid; Homer's Iliad.

b. The Metrical Romance. Examples: Spenser's Faerie Queen; Scott's Lady of the Lake.

c. The Tale. Examples: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; Byron's Prisoner of Chillon; Longfellow's Evangeline.

(1) The Simple Narrative Poem.

(2) The Dramatic Narrative Poem.

d. The Ballad. Examples: Coleridge's Ancient Mariner; Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome.

e. Reflective

Harold.

Narrative. Example, Byron's Childe

f. Pastorals, Idylls, etc. Example, Tennyson's Idyls of the King.

2. Dramatic Poetry.

a. Tragedy.

b. Comedy.

3. Lyric Poetry.

a. Odes.

b. Songs.

c. Elegy.

d. Sonnet.

e. Lyrics which cannot be accurately classified.

4. Didactic Poetry. Example, Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

II. PALGRAVE's Golden Treasury.

Note 1. Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-1897) was an English critic and poet. His principal contribution to literature was his Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (1861), an anthology of the best songs and lyrics in the English language. "Such a book as The Golden Treasury should be one of the most precious books in the world. Rather than any other anthology of English verse, it has been accepted for what it is, a sort of canon as it were of English poetry within which nothing of doubtful quality or achievement is to be found, a perfect chaplet of beautiful verses."-Preface to Golden Treasury.

III. CHARACTER OF WORDSWORTH'S LITERARY ERA.

Note 2. That period in the history of English Literature of which Wordsworth is one of the representative writers is included between the years 1780 and 1837, and is sometimes called "The Age of Romanticism." The poets of this era are Cowper, Burns, Scott, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

In this era a new movement in literature was begun:
the poetic diction of the eighteenth century was swept
away; new themes were exploited; the ordinary laborer
and his daily tasks, the child and its manifold interests
were found fit subjects for the poet's verse.
The young
poets, intensely interested in the social questions
aroused by the French revolution, experienced a broader
sympathy with humanity, developed a spirit of love
for all earth's creatures, and displayed a greater appre-
ciation of nature in all its manifestations. Of this
new school of poetry, Wordsworth was the exponent.
He voices his feelings in the lines,

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears;
and expresses his poetical creed in the stanza,
Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy.

IV. WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF POETRY. (Quoted.) 1. Wordsworth began his career by preaching, both by precept and example, the duty of throwing aside the so-called language of dignity and the so-called language of poetry, and of appealing in the speech of real life to the primary emotions of men. (W. H. Myers.)

2. Wordsworth wished to establish the truth that what is false, unreal, affected, bombastic, or nonsensical in prose is not less so in verse.

3. He felt that his mission was to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, to direct the mind's attention to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us.

4. Wordsworth contended that the ordinary topics of daily life were fit subjects for poetry, and that the language should be that "really used by men." He believed that lowly things had a high and spiritual signifi

cance.

B. FIRST READING.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE POEMS OF WORDSWORTH FOUND IN PALGRAVE'S GOLDEN TREASURY: STUDY OF THE TEXT.

I. CLASSIFICATION OF THE POEMS AND STUDY OF THE TEXT.

1. Lyrics.

a. Simple Lyrics.

Note 2. Many of the poems in this class appeared for the first time in a volume entitled Lyrical Ballads. The subjects of these poems are chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents are such as will be found in every village where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, when they present themselves.

(1) The Lost Love. Numbers 174, 175, 178, 179, 180.
(a) She was a phantom of delight.

Note 3. This is a personal poem, supposed to portray Miss
Mary Hutchinson, whom the poet afterward married.

(b) Three Years She Grew.

Note 4. The subject of this lyric is the action of nature upon man. It gives an excellent insight into Words

worth's view of nature.

Suggestion 1. Notice the often-quoted lines in this group
of lyrics. Study the line, A being breathing thought-
ful breath, and interpret it. Study the expression
untrodden ways. Put the thought of clxxiv in your own
words. In lyric clxxviii, quote two lines which give
purpose to the poem. What impression does the last
stanza of poem clxxx make upon you? Notice the strik-
ing lines in this group of poems. See Suggestion 12.
(2) Nature Lyrics. Numbers 189, 223, 240, 242,
243, 253, 254, 272.

Note 5. It is said that Wordsworth's pretty stanzas on the
Daffodils are only an enfeebled paraphrase of a magical
entry in his sister's journal: "There was a long belt of
daffodils close to the waterside. They grew among the
mossy stones about them: some rested their heads on
these stones as on a pillow; the rest tossed, and reeled,
and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with
the wind, they looked so gay and glancing."

Note 6. Wordsworth is the most loving and thoughtful lyrical poet of Nature. In Lines Written in Early Spring (272), he expresses the belief that Nature possesses a conscious existence, an ability to feel joy and love:

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

(Halleck's Literature.)

Suggestion 2. What characteristics of birds and flowers are celebrated in these poems? In ccxxiii, what idea do you receive of the lesson taught by the celandine? In ccxl, what is the point of who soars but never roams? In celiv, notice the characterization of the daisy. Many a fond and idle name,-mention some of the names given by the poet to the daisy. Which do you consider appropriate and pleasing? What is the significance of a little cyclops. Does this simile seem to you a poetic one? In clxxxix, notice the exquisite

simile.

(3) Highland Life.

(a) The Highland Girl of Inversneyde (249). (b) The Reaper (250).

Note 7. Mr. Bradford Torrey cites as an example of "verbal magic," these lines in poem ccl:

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago.

Suggestion 3. Notice that the whole picture of the first poem is expressed in the last three lines. What is the thought of the poem? What impression does The Reaper make upon you? Study the meter and the rhyme of the two poems.

b. Sonnets.

Note 8. Wordsworth's sonnets are among the finest and most sonorous things in our language.

Note 9. A sonnet consists of fourteen five-accent lines of ten syllables each. It must be divided metrically into two parts; the first or octave-or octette-is made of eight lines, rhyming a-b-b-a-a-b-b-a, the remaining six lines, the sextette, rhyming in any fashion on either two or three terminals.-Johnson's Forms of English Poetry.

(1) England and Switzerland.

Note 10. This sonnet is an apostrophe to Liberty. What had been known as the free nations of Europe had been subverted by French imperialism. Switzerland had been put under the domination of the French, and Wordsworth expresses fear for England. The sonnet was written in 1802.