William Wordsworth – Page 6 – Interesting Literature

A Short Analysis of William Wordsworth’s ‘To Sleep’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘To Sleep’ is not one of William Wordsworth’s best-known poems. It isn’t even one of his more famous sonnets. And yet, since it sees a major poet addressing a common theme, ‘To Sleep’ is worth reproducing here, along with a few words of analysis.

To Sleep

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;
I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie
Sleepless! and soon the small birds’ melodies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;
And the first cuckoo’s melancholy cry.

A Short Analysis of William Wordsworth’s ‘Surprised by Joy – Impatient as the Wind’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind’ is the first line of one of William Wordsworth’s most popular sonnets. However, the degree to which ‘Surprised by joy’ can be considered a truly great and successful poem is disputed by critics, so a few words of analysis may help to ascertain how far Wordsworth’s poem succeeds and how far it falls short of the greatness we expect from one of Romanticism’s most popular and enduring poetic voices.

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom
But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—
But how could I forget thee?—Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return

A Short Analysis of Wordsworth’s ‘She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways’ is one of William Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’ poems, which he first published in the 1800 reprint of his landmark volume Lyrical Ballads (co-authored with Samuel Taylor Coleridge). In three quatrains, Wordsworth summarises the life, beauty, and death of Lucy, a ‘Maid’ who lived and died among Wordsworth’s beloved Lake District. Before we offer a few words of analysis of this poem, here’s a reminder of it.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

For the critic Geoffrey Durrant, the three stanzas of ‘She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways’ represent ‘Lucy’s growth, perfection, and death’.

10 of the Best William Wordsworth Poems Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

W. H. Auden said of Edward Lear that ‘he became a land’. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) became ‘Romanticism’, in many ways: he came to embody the starting-point of English Romanticism through his early collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Lyrical Ballads (1798) and his famous preface, published two years later in the second edition, calling for poetry which uses direct, natural human speech rather than overly ornate language and diction.

A Short Analysis of William Wordsworth’s ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Lines Written in Early Spring’ was written in April 1798, the year that William Wordsworth and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge signalled their arrival on the literary scene with their ground-breaking collection of Romantic poems, Lyrical Ballads.