Tintern Abbey – William Wordsworth

     Tintern Abbey – William Wordsworth

The poem "Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" is generally known as Tintern Abbey written in 1798 by William Wordsworth, the father of Romanticism. It was published in 1798 in Lyrical Ballads and was considered to be one of Wordsworth's masterpieces. Tintern Abbey is one of the triumphs of Wordsworth's genius. The poem is having 160 lines, which is divided into five sections. It is a complex poem, addressing memory, mortality, faith in nature, and familial love. It may he called a condensed spiritual autobiography of the poet. It deals with the subjective experiences of the poet, and traces the growth of his mind through different periods of his life. Nature and its influence on the poet in various stage forms the main theme of the poem. The poem deals with the influence of Nature on the boy, the growing youth, and the man. The poet has expressed his tender feeling towards nature.

Wordsworth visited Tintern Abbey at the age of twenty-three, in August, 1793. In 1798 he returned to the same place with his beloved sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, on July 13, 1798. The place impressed him most when he had first visited. He has again come to the same place where there are lofty cliffs, the plots of cottage ground, orchards groves and copses. He is glad to see again hedgerows, sportive wood, pastoral farms and green doors. This lonely place, the banks of the river and rolling waters from the mountain springs present a beautiful panoramic light. The solitary place reminds the poet of vagrant dwellers and hermits’ cave. Wordsworth emphasizes the act of returning by making extensive use of repetition: "Five years have passed; five summers, with the length / Of five long winters! and again I hear / These waters..."

Wordsworth recalls how he has lived in a city, after visiting the Wye River. He believes that his spirit was sustained by his memories of these beauteous forms when he faces difficulty in the city. The feelings attached to remembered scenes of nature became sources of imaginative power when detached from actual observation of those scenes.

Wordsworth, then, diverts his attention to the immediate scene before him again, and he compares his present feelings with those that he had when first visiting this spot. At that time, he was young and thoughtless, unaware of his differences from other animal life. Now, he feels more burdened by the responsibilities of being human, of having a heart that sympathizes with the sufferings of other human beings. The feelings of youth have been revived by this revisit, and those feelings have energized his moral imagination to universal proportions.

Suddenly, Wordsworth changes the course of the poem and addresses his sister. She seems to be standing beside him, observing this same scene with him. This visit, however, is her first, and he imagines the future. He feels that these beauteous forms will help her n overcoming her future worries and tensions. He utters a prayer that nature will supply his sister with the same restorative power of feeling in the future. In this way, each will be a “worshipper of Nature.”

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Sonnet 116 Essay

Sonnet – 116

-William Shakespeare

Sonnet 116 is one of the best-known and most beloved poems in William Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence. This says a lot, since this group of 154 poems on the whole is probably the world’s most famous collection of love poetry. It has 14 lines. The speaker defines love in this sonnet.

Shakespeare says that true love never allows obstacles on its way. True love doesn’t change with the passage of time. No one can uproot love which is fixed constantly in the mind. True love with stands tempests of trial and misfortune.

The poet compares love to a Polar star which directs lost ships. It is not susceptible to storms. The youth and beauty of the lover may pass away but true love will remain constant though “hours and weeks” pass by. True love withstands the test of time stays steadfast until the doomsday.

In the couplet, the poet admits if his statement about love is false, he would not have written a word about love. If love is mortal or changing. The poet writes, no man would have indulged in love. The sonnet glorifies the eternal unchanging nature of love. It never changes, it never fades. It lives longer than death admits no flaw.

Finally, the poet stakes his own reputation on this definition, boldly that true love always perseveres, despite any obstacles that may arise

The village school master Essay

The Village Schoolmaster 

                                        - Oliver Goldsmith

               

         The portrait of the village school master is taken from Goldsmith’s poem The Deserted Village. Goldsmith portrays the characteristics of the village school master of Auburn.

            The village school master was one of the important persons in Auburn. He ran a school in his own house. It was near the fence of furze. He was a very strict man and knew how to control his pupils. Every truant knew his temper. His pupils read his frame of mind. Although, he was stern, he was kind and jovial. When he told jokes, his pupils pretend to enjoy them. When he frowned the news spread throughout the school. All children became quiet to avoid his anger. Thus, they adjusted to his temperament. Generally he was kind. Even if he was harsh, it was due to his love for learning.

             The whole village spoke of the schoolmaster’s knowledge. He could write and calculate. He was good at measurements. He could predict the seasons.  The villagers wondered at the schoolmaster’s skill in arguing. He would argue even after his point is disproved. Even the village preacher acknowledged him as a stubborn arguer. The rural people simply gazed at his high sounding swords. They wondered how his small head could contain so much knowledge.

             Thus, Goldsmith gives a fine pon portrait of the village school master. It is humorous and interesting.

The man in black Essay

The Man in Black

        – Oliver Goldsmith

               

  Oliver Goldsmith is a novelist, dramatist and poet. His writings are graceful and charming. They form a delightful commentary on the customs and manners of the English people. In this essay, The Man in Black, Goldsmith in the guise of Altangi, a Chinese Philosopher, gives an interesting account of an English man, the Man in Black. The Man in Black is an immortal creation of Blacksmith.

            The Man in Black had some strange inconsistencies. He was extremely generous but he pretended to be miserly. He spoke selfishly but acted selflessly. While many tried to hide their hypocrisy, he tried to hide his benevolence. But often his mask of cruelty fell off and his nobility was revealed.

            Oneday, Altangi and the Man in Black went for a walk. The Man in Black talked about the charity provided by the Government. The Government had made enough provisions to the support the poor people and the beggars. Even then beggars disturb the people. So the public should not encourage the beggars by giving alms.

            An old beggar appeared before them. He told them that he had to support his dying wife and five hungry children. His story had no influence on Altangi. But it moved the heart of the Man in Black. He gave a silver coin secretly to him. However, he scolded him not to tease passengers with false stories but to work for food.

            The Man in Black thought that Altangi did not notice him and continued his speech against beggars. He narrated two stories of ladies robbed by beggars. While he began the third story, a sailor with a wooded leg desired their pity. On hearing the story, how the sailor lost his leg, the Man in Black felt sorry for him. He gave a shilling and got the chips he had, which was only a few pence worth. The sailor gave the entire stock with a blessing.

            The Man in Black proudly told Altangi that he had the chips at a cheap rate. Suddenly he saw a woman in rags. She had one child in her arms and another on her back. Her misery moved the heart of the Man in Black. He forgot his pretensions and tried to put his hand into his pocket. But his pocket was empty as he had given all his money to the earlier beggars. His agony was greater than the poor woman’s misery. He simply put his shilling’s worth of matches into her hands and got relief.

            Thus, the Man in Black put up a black exterior but had a white interior.

Lysidas Essay

Lycidas - John Milton

Milton’s Lycidas is a monody in the form of a pastoral elegy written in 1637 to lament the accidental death, by drawing of Milton’s friend Edward King who was a promising young man of great intelligence. The elegy takes its name from the subject matter, not its form. No rules are laid down for the meter. The elegy is a conscious work of art, and not a spontaneous expression of sorrow.

Death, the primary theme of most elegies, is a vast evocative theme. It leads the poet to regions of reflections usually lying beyond the lyric imagination. Death can be, and is often, the starting point for the poet to deal with serious themes. Milton gives in 'Lycidas', speculations on the nature of death, tributes to friends, as also literary criticism. He comments on the degradation of poetry and religion in 'Lycidas'. And “Lycidas” would be a poor poem without its passage on fame, and the onslaught on the corrupt clergy of that day.

The poem 'Lycidas' can be conveniently divided into six sections (1) a prologue, four main parts, and an epilogue. In the prologue Milton invokes the Muse and explains the reasons for writing the poem. Although Milton had decided not to write poetry till his powers matured, “bitter constraint and sad occasion” compels the poet to attempt an elegy. That occasion is the untimely death of Lycidas. In the Second Section he describes the type of life Lycidas and the poet had at Cambridge. The descriptions are in pastoral imagery.

 They together- Lycidas and Milton - began their study early in the morning, continued throughout the day late into the night. Besides, there were innocent recreations. But now that Lycidas was dead; a great change, heavy change had taken place. Milton laments the death of Lycidas in the manner of traditional elegiac poets. He asks the Muse where she had been when her Lycidas was dying, This leads to reflections on the nature and meaning of life and death, and of fate and fame. Milton rejects pure earthy reputations as the true reward of life; that reward is in the divine judgment.

In the third section Milton returns to the pastoral style, and describes a procession of mourners lamenting Lycidas’s death. The procession is led by Triton, the herald of the Sea, and the last to come is St. Peter “The Pilot of the Galilean lake.” Through the mouth of St. Peter, Milton gives the sad condition of the Protestant Church in England.

 The fourth section in which the poet describes the “flowerets of a thousand hues” cast on the hearts of Lycidas, is an “escape from intolerable reality into a lovely world of make-believe.”

In the fifth section Milton expresses his belief in immortality. Grief and sorrow are temporary. And though Lycidas is apparently dead, he has arisen from the dead: “Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves.” Lycidas is in heaven, and therefore “Weep ye no more.” The saints there to entertain him in “sweet societies / That sing, and singing in their glory move.” The epilogue brings us back to the portal images again, and refers indirectly to the Greek Pastoral poets. The conclusion points to a new determination both to face life hopefully, and to rise up to greater poetic achievements.

Thus though 'Lycidas' is a conventional pastoral elegy, which has its origin in the loss of a friend, the poem becomes impersonal and timeless. The elegiac mourning is twice interrupted to invest the personal sorrow with universal significance. This is achieved by making the tragic death of Lycidas as one example of the tragic irony of fate which renders all human effort futile. A second theme of equally great concern is the degeneration of the Church, and the contemporary neglect of the things of the spirit. 'Lycidas' is undoubtedly one of the greatest short poems in English language.

Valentine Essay

Valentine

                           -Carol Ann Duffy

            Carol Ann Duffy (born 1955) is a Scottish poet. She was born in 1955. She is currently the UK’s first female (and first Scottish) Poet Laureate. She wrote poetry from an early age, and was first published at the age of 15. She has since written plays, critical works, and several volumes of poetry. Her poetry has been the subject of controversy. She follows in the poetic tradition of Robert Browning.

            Duffy’s poetry is often feminist in its themes and approach. Her collection The World’s Wife took characters from history, literature and mythology and gave them a female point of view, as a sister, a wife or a feminized version of a character

            The poem “Valentine” is written in free verse. Each stanza is very short, and several are only one line long. The poem is a first person narrative. Valentine describes a gift for a lover, such as you would give on Valentine’s Day. It is a rather unusual present – an onion. The poem explains why it is a powerful gift of love, much more than the clichéd roses or box of chocolates. The poem is about love as well as Valentine gifts.

            Valentine begins with a mixture of grand romantic imagery – the metaphor of the "moon" – and the everyday – the "brown paper" the moon is wrapped in. The very first stanza of the poem dismisses the clichéd, normal gifts of love, indicating that this will be a different kind of valentine.

            There is a strong sense of danger in the imagery of the poem. The onion will "blind you with tears", which is a comparison – using a simile – to what a lover will do, and even in affection there is a sense of danger in its "fierce kiss". This culminates in the single word sentence in the middle of the final stanza: "Lethal". This is emphasized by the fact that the final word of the poem is "knife". There is a sense that love can be dangerous, perhaps in its possessiveness.

This is reflected in the idea that light is promised by the "careful undressing of love" – you must be careful with love to get its benefit, just as you must be careful with the onion. Throughout the poem the onion is a metaphor for love, developed in different ways. There is also an ambiguity in the poem as to whether "it" refers to the onion or to love

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Ulysses Essay

Ulysses

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

                Alfred Lord Tennyson is the most representative poet of the Victorian age. Most of his poems reflect the spirit of scientific enquiry and the Victorian thirst for knowledge. This poem Ulysses describes Ulysses’ unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and his determination to pursue it beyond the limits of human experience. It is in the form of dramatic monologue.

            Ulysses is the king of Ittaca. He is restless with his idle life at home, after his adventure in the Trojan War his country is barren and rocky. There is nothing to charm him. He feels dull to keep company with his aged wife Benelope. His people are all savages. They cannot do anything else than eating, sleeping and hoarding up money and food. They do not understand his greatness.

            Ulysses is hungry for travel. He desires to live life to the fullest extent. He wants to “drink life to the lee”. He has enjoyed and suffered much already, alone and in the company of other on shore and in the stormy sea.

            He has travelled far and wide. He has seen all types of men, governments and countries. He has become a part of all that. Even then he says

“yet all experience is an arch whereth

Gleams that untravell’d world,

Whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move”

Ulysses doesn’t want to lead on idle life for him resting is same as rusting. He dislikes rusting like on unused sword. He wants to follow knowledge to its farthest limits. Every hour is precious for him, because it saves him from death and brings him new things.

            Ulysses awarded for his duties to his family, country and the people. He does not leave them uncared for. He intends to give his kingdom to his son Telemachus. Telemachus is good and virtuous by nature. He has the patience to civilise his people. He has dutifulness to adore his family gods also. He does all the household duties perfectly.

            Ulysses mind is at the port where the ship is ready for sail. He thinks of the sailors who have sailed and worked with him. Like him they too have welcomed good days and bad; sunshine and thunder with the merriment. He then thinks of the end of all human beings.

            Death closes all, but he wants to do something noble before death. He feels that the sea is calling him for adventure; so he invites his fellow mariners to join him in the voyage.

“....... come my friends

Tis not too late to seek a newer world”

            Ulysses wants to sail beyond sunset. He hopes to meet Achilles in the happy isles. He is awarded of his limitations also. Even though he and his men physically weak and old. They are young in will-power fighting spirit, he admits

“....and tho

We are not now that strength which in old days

Move earth and heaven....

Made weak by time and fate but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”

Thus Tennyson through this poem puts forward a Victorian epic of adventure, conquest and extended power over the world of nature and man.