The Romantic Wordsworth: Breaking the Myth

How nice it is to be studying Wordsworth! Class today was intriguing; I don't know if I am the only one who feels this way, but it is so much easier to get into the analysis of the writing when the basic language is more contemporary. With Sidney and Dryden, it was a challenge much of the time just to get through the bare language, but now, I can immediately absorb what Wordsworth means on several levels.

The second reason I am particularly interested in Wordsworth is probably because my greater historical understanding is of the last two centuries. That being said, when we study the context in which he writes, a vision of my historical understanding is further enlightened. With Sidney and Dryden, I found it difficult to place their lives even after reading and hearing about them. The general background for me was not before them cemented. Though I suppose that is what makes them even more important for me to focus on.

The major thing I wanted to comment on regarding lecture this morning is that I was actually very surprised at this unifying point about Wordsworth the Romantic: In a sense, his interest lies more in the human nature than in an external nature.

While I previously knew that Wordsworth investigated the interconnectedness of man and external nature, I did not realize that he acknowledged it to such a humanistic extent. I had always thought that Wordsworth was a model for the contemporary environmentalist; that he was peace-loving and calm, artistic and expressive not necessarily from his own mind but from the way nature moved him.

Professor Kuin said today that this is in fact true: Wordsworth was moved by the aesthetic beauty of nature. But as a younger student I had thought that this aesthetic beauty charged in him the "spontaneous flow of emotion" that was impressionistically written on his page. Not necessarily so: Prof. Kuin revealed today, poem by poem, that his writing is well thought out and deliberate. In my naive mind, this morphs my "romantic" picture of an inspired writer who speaks to an inspired writer who has mastered a craft. But of course, I must get over my naive nature...In short, I was slightly disullusioned about Wordsworth; I had thought him one of the few who was focused on external nature and not on man, but he lies somewhere between focus on man and a combination of the two.

Realizing my disullusionment, I wanted to find out why I had thought the things I did about Wordsworth. I had never studied him intensely before...but I did study him in a Literature Theory course last year!....

The best place to do research sometimes...your old notes. Why? Because it's the writer, or the professor who spoke directly into your notebook. The professor from which I received the following information is Marie Christine-Leps. I found some very interesting information about the Romantic period:

-The etimology of the term 'Romance' is vernacular, it comes from Latin. It refers to medieval romances, tales in verse such as those of Lancelot, Tristan, etc.

-Romantics did not refer to themselves as such.

-Blake, Wordsworth and Colleridge are known to be of the first generation of Romantics. Byron, Shelly, Sir Walter Scott are known to be of the second.

-Romanticism rose as a revolt to Neoclassicism, the age of rules of reason, of decorum and 'poetic diction'.

-Colleridge, writing in 1817, differentiated between primary and secondary modes of imagination. The primary mediates between sensation and perception, while the second unites the perceiver and the perceived. The secondary then dissolves, leaving a new reality. For example, we have Wordsworth's relationship with daffodils. If Wordsworth is A and Daffodil is B, the space where they unite is between A and B.

-poetry became aestheticly pleasing!

These are ideas I have read in my old notes, and I am beginning to realize why I had a different view of Wordsworth: My emphasis was placed on the ideas of Romanticism: I love it! I find it really interesting, but now I will be able to learn who Wordsworth really is by studying more of the text.

I also found a fantastic analysis of "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal". It will be interesting to add that to what we learnt today, but I think I will keep that for my next blog.

Goodnight!