The following sheet is intended to help you consolidate the first lecture, get ready for the next two lectures on Wordsworth, and prepare for your section meeting on Friday. Work through it carefully making notes and queries that you can refer to in the course of your discussion sections. The study questions are simply supposed to provoke thought: you should not feel obliged to answer them exhaustively, either in your written responses (to be handed in during the discussion section), or in the discussion section itself.

Some Characteristics Often Attributed to Romanticism as a Literary Movement:

1. British Romanticism often sees itself as revolutionary in spirit, resisting tradition and the Establishment (the Crown, Parliament, the Anglican Church). It sees itself as a cultural movement of new beginnings, new freedoms, new energy.

2. Romantic writers often claim to be more interested in the lowly or commonplace than in the sophisticated or highbrow. They often ally themselves with democratic movements (the French Revolution, the anti-slavery movement, promotion of women's rights, protest against the abuse of children, etc.). They will often claim to use simple literary forms (the short lyric, the ballad, the folk-song) rather than highbrow neo-classical genres which require attention to literary decorum (the ode, the heroic couplet etc.). Be on the lookout for contradictions to these claims.

3. Supposedly, Romantic poetry is more concerned with feelings and emotions than with reasons and logic. It considers itself a reaction against the Enlightenment and the latter's faith in rational thought. It concerns itself with the spiritual, the soul, or what after Freud we might call the unconscious, the intuitive, the psychic interior. It is supposedly not as interested in the empirical and material world. It likes to see itself as spontaneous and unaffected.

4. In the Romantic period, the "anti-theatrical prejudice" thrives. Artificiality, posing, acting a part, all are considered suspect. Instead, the Romantic writer will make claims to immediacy and "naturalness." With the claim to being natural comes the popularity of images of nature--pastoral scenes, flora and fauna, and an opposition between the urban and the rural. These are not so much literal images of natural beauty, but figurative representations of human interiority (the soul, or the mood, or the state of mind, or a sudden change of feelings).

5. Focus is on the individual consciousness rather than the social consciousness because in a democratizing world, individualism must be defended against sameness or homogeneity. In keeping with this ...

6. The Romantic poet often sees himself as having an unusual capacity for powerful feeling. Because of his special gift, his role is that of national bard, a social prophet, a substitute priest, a champion of the soul against crass materialism and industry. He sees himself as a heroic lone voice, isolated, solitary, and reclusive.

"We Are Seven" (p. 248/224)
"A slumber did my spirit seal" (p. 276/254)
Both these poems deal with the relation between life and death.
--What does each tell you about this relation?
--To what degree do these poems conform to or deviate from our list of characteristics associated with Romanticism laid out above?

"Tintern Abbey" p. 258/235 ["Lines: Composed a Few Miles above TA...etc.]
This is a much more challenging poem than the first two. Perhaps the most tricky thing about it is its representation of interiority: it documents shifting emotional and spiritual responses rather than a series of events or actions.

1. Look carefully at the title both before and after you have read the poem. Do you notice anything remarkable about it?

2. You'll see that the poem divides into five movements rather than the regular stanzas of "We Are Seven" and "A slumber ...." See if you can summarize the chief point made in each of these movements.

3. In the fourth movement, Wordsworth refers to "A presence" in Nature--"a sense sublime / Of something far more deeply interfused ..." "A motion and a spirit, that impels / All thinking things..." etc. What is the effect of his repetition of that little word "all" so many times?

4. Who is the poet addressing in the fifth part, and what role does this person play in the poem as a whole?

"Preface to the Lyrical Ballads" (Third edition, 1802) p. 263/238.
What I find perennially interesting about this Preface is the way it raises and attempts to answer head on all the questions about poetry that seem to me too difficult to be even approachable! For instance:
1. What exactly is poetry? [265/242]
2. What are suitable subjects for a poet to write about? [264/241-242]
3. What good is poetry supposed to do us? Are we likely to be better human beings if we are poetry readers? [266/243]
4. What sort of language makes for the best poetry and why? [265/241]
5. What is a poet, and to whom does he write or speak? [269/246]

Try answering these questions first for yourself, and then find out what Wordsworth's answers are by reading the Preface. I've given you some page numbers to help. What do his answers suggest about how he positions himself politically? [Look back at characteristics #1 and #2 above].

"My heart leaps up..." [sometimes referred to as "The Rainbow"] p. 306/285
1. What do you understand by the speaker's claim that his "heart leaps up"? Think of some of our own metaphors for similar experiences ["It blew my mind!" "It was totally awesome!" etc.] and see if you can pin down what is effective about this leaping heart metaphor. Also consider why a rainbow, rather than a new printing press, or power loom, would have this effect on the speaker?

2. How can a Child be the father of a Man?

"Ode: Intimations of Immortality" p.306/287
The Ode is a poetic form that we inherit from ancient Greece. It divides into three parts: a Strophe (pronounced to rhyme with "trophy"), an Antistrophe (like "an-ti-ci-pate" say "an-ti-stra-fee"), and an Epode or Stand. This Ode divides like this:

Stanzas 1-4 = Strophe
Stanzas 5-8 = Antistrophe
Stanzas 9-11 = Stand.

1. See if you can figure out before class the basic statement being made by each of these movements.
2. When you've done that, ask yourself why Wordsworth might choose the last three lines of "The Rainbow" as the epigraph to this more elaborate poem?