Romanticism

A Short Analysis of William Wordsworth’s ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘A slumber did my spirit seal’, as this wonderful little poem by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is known (its first line providing its unofficial title), is one of Wordsworth’s best-known short poems. It’s a lyric, an elegy, and a nature poem all in one. Here is the poem, along with some words of analysis. (We’ve offered more tips for the close reading of poetry here.)

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

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A Short Analysis of William Wordsworth’s ‘Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room’ is the title often given to the sonnet by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) which has this as its opening line. The poem is an argument about the usefulness of the sonnet as a means of poetic expression, and a rejection of the idea that the sonnet’s formal restrictions place undesirable limitations upon what the poet can do with the sonnet form. Here is ‘Nuns Fret Not’ (as we will refer to it) along with some notes towards an analysis of it.

Nuns fret not at their Convent’s narrow room;
And Hermits are contented with their Cells;
And Students with their pensive Citadels;
Maids at the Wheel, the Weaver at his Loom,
Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in Foxglove bells:

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A Short Analysis of Shelley’s ‘The Flower That Smiles Today’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Percy Shelley (1792-1822) was, along with Lord Byron and John Keats, one of the second-generation Romantic poets who followed Wordsworth and Coleridge – and, to an extent, diverged from them, having slightly different ideas of Romanticism. ‘The Flower That Smiles Today’, sometimes titled ‘Mutability’ (though Shelley, confusingly, wrote another poem called ‘Mutability’) is one of Shelley’s most widely anthologised poems, so we thought we’d share it here, along with a brief analysis of its language and meaning.

The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world’s delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

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A Short Analysis of William Blake’s ‘The Sick Rose’

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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Sick Rose’ was published in William Blake’s Songs of Experience in 1794. The poem remains a baffling one, with Blake’s precise meaning difficult to ascertain. Many different interpretations have been offered, so below we sketch out some of the possible ways of analysing ‘The Sick Rose’ in terms of its imagery.

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