Reviews for Selected poems, 1915[i. e. 1951]-1973

The average rating for Selected poems, 1915[i. e. 1951]-1973 based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-10-23 00:00:00 Roxane Becker Over the last few years I have been very unfair to Wordsworth. I’ve avoided him when possible because many of his poems are overly sentimental and just ponder over his conception of nature. However, the more of his poems I read the more complex his ideas become; his words go beyond simple nature admiration, and push into the realms of environmentalist thought. I especially like the idea of humanity’s place on earth in the poem “Brothers.” Wordsworth suggests that we are all mere tourists. Everything he uses in the poem to describe the natural world is associated with the immortal and the enduring whereas humanity is associated with the ever changing. The landscape is littered with objects of human death such as gravestones and old churches. It’s a stark contrast, a reminder that whilst we will be here for a short time the landscape, the natural world, will endure: "These Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live A profitable life: some glance along, Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, And they were butterflies to wheel about Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise, Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag, Pencil in hand and book upon the knee, Will look and scribble, scribble on and look, Until a man might travel twelve stout miles, Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn." In the poem the natural world is also evocative of memory, an ideal Wordsworth explores much further in his Prelude. Natural scenes trigger thoughts from long ago and remind the observer of a past self, of someone who has since grown and changed. The memories are not always joyful, as they are in “Tintern Abbey.” Some are full of heartache and bring forth feelings of loss and isolation, which in itself is something I’ve not seen much of in Wordsworth. Many of his poems are just full of optimism and simplicity. His exploration of memory is perceptive and powerful here. “For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity.” I will always prefer the writing of Percy Shelley, though in here are some absolutely masterful pieces of poetry. Wordsworth clearly helped to shape the poets that came after; his ideas helped to give birth to a new intellectual context that subsequent poets could challenge, revise and expand upon and, dare I say it, even improve. I’m going to be reading through Lyrical Ballads over the next few days, the collection written with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I’m hoping to find some more good pieces in there too.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-08-21 00:00:00 Christina Stramaglia Chronology Introduction & Notes Further Reading A Note on the Texts --Old Man Travelling --The Ruined Cottage --A Night-Piece --The Old Cumberland Beggar --Lines Written at a Small Distance from my House --Goody Blake and Harry Gill --The Thorn --The Idiot Boy --Lines Written in Early Spring --Anecdote for Fathers --We Are Seven --Expostulation and Reply --The Tables Turned --Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey --The Fountain --The Two April Mornings --'A slumber did my spirit seal' --Song ('She dwelt among th' untrodden ways') --'Strange fits of passion I have known' --Lucy Gray --Nutting --'Three years she grew in sun and shower' --The Brothers --Hart-Leap Well --from 'Home at Grasmere' from 'Poems on the Naming of Places': --To Joanna --'A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags' --Michael --'I travelled among unknown Men' --To a Sky-Lark --Alice Fell --Beggars --To a Butterfly ('Stay near me') --To the Cuckoo --'My heart leaps up when I behold' --To H. C., Six Years Old --'Among all lovely things my Love had been' --To a Butterfly ('I've watched you') --Resolution and Independence --'Within our happy Castle there dwelt one' --'The world is too much with us' --'With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh' --'Dear Native Brooks your ways have I pursued' --'Great Men have been among us' --'It is not to be thought of that the Flood' --'When I have borne in memory what has tamed' --'England! the time is come when thou shouldst wean' --Composed by the Sea-Side, near Calais --'It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free' --To Toussaint L'Ouverture --Composed in the Valley, near Dover, on the Day of Landing --Composed Upon Westminster Bridge --London, 1802 --'Nuns fret not at their Convent's narrow room' --Yarrow Unvisited --'She was a Phantom of delight' --Ode to Duty --Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood --'I wandered lonely as a Cloud' --Stepping Westward --The Solitary Reaper --Elegiac Stanzas --A Complaint --Gipsies --St Paul's --'Surprized by joy -- impatient as the Wind' --Yew-Trees --Composed at Cora Linn --Yarrow Visited --To R. B. Haydon, Esq. ('High is our calling, Friend!') --Sequel to the Foregoing [Beggars] --Ode: Composed upon an Evening of Extraordinary Splendor and Beauty --The River Duddon: Conclusion --'The unremitting voice of nightly streams' --Airey-Force Valley --Extempore Effusion Upon the Death of James Hogg --'Glad sight wherever new with old' --At Furness Abbey --'I know an aged Man constrained to dwell' from 'The Prelude': --Book I --Book II --Book III --Book IV --Book V --Book VI --Book VII --Book VIII --Book IX --Book X --Book XI --Book XII --Book XIII Notes Index of Titles Index of First Lines