Analysis of an Extract of a Poem
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There are many reasons why the extract could not be the work of William Wordsworth. The most important is that the extract does not have the personal tone or the very full sense of immediate experience that is found in a Wordsworth poem such as "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey." Where Wordsworth's poem places the speaker in intimate contact with nature and that contact has an effect on his personal troubles, nature in the extract is seen on a grand scale that dwarfs the speaker. Wordsworth is concrete, a lover of nature, and discovers the loving nature of God in the poems' settings. The author of the extract, on the other hand, is abstract in approach, looks on nature with a combination of terror and awe, and discovers that nature can speak of greater things only if the individual is capable of feeling its majesty deeply enough. The difference in scale is the first thing a reader notices. Where the extract refers to the "remoter world" and to "the soul" in general, Wordsworth's poems begin by establishing place and the speaker's relationship to place. The full title "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798" shows just how important a definite place, time, and situation could be to Wordsworth. The opening lines follow with more information. Since this is a "revisiting" of the spot he tells exactly how long it has been between visits. He then goes on to establish the site firmly an
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off from it. In Wordsworth's poem nature calls up "sensations sweet" that are "Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart". In other words, nature enters into the speaker and, to the extent that he feels peacefully at one with nature, he benefits from it. By means of allowing all his senses to soak up the natural world around him Wordsworth's speaker experiences the immediate pleasures of nature, but this experience also provides the means for nature to move "even into my purer mind". By experiencing nature fully, in other words, the speaker is able to gain a sense of the greater meaning of the natural world of which he is a part. The mere memory of the visit to the banks of the Wye becomes a source of spiritual comfort.
There is little comfort to be found in the extract since "the busy thoughts . . . / Of those who wake and live" are overwhelmed by the enormous power of death and eternity. The comparison between the overwhelming qualities of nature and the apparent insignificance of human activity is frightening. But in Wordsworth's poem the speaker believes that it is the memory of the experience of beautiful nature, even the "unremembered pleasure", that has a major influence on the "that best portion of a good man's
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1542
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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