>threads up about blake, byron and keats>no thread about the greatest romanticWordsworth is severely underrated. Discuss his poetry.
That's not Dante
>>24816773sorry friend. I met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;And on the pedestal, these words appear:My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal Wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.
>>24816783Wordsworth wrote better sonnets. But that's beside the point, because what makes Wordsworth the greatest Romantic poet is that his vision was more influential, and encompassed more of nature and life, than any other individual of the era. Without Wordsworth there is no Romanticism.
>>24816830Agreed. He had the most soul and just strikes me as the most sincere, able, mature, and perceptive
>>24816861Read this first, and was not impressed. Anecdote for FathersI have a boy of five years old;His face is fair and fresh to see;His limbs are cast in beauty’s moldAnd dearly he loves me.One morn we strolled on our dry walk,Or quiet home all full in view,And held such intermitted talkAs we are wont to do.My thoughts on former pleasures ran;I thought of Kilve’s delightful shore,Our pleasant home when spring began,A long, long year before.A day it was when I could bearSome fond regrets to entertain;With so much happiness to spare,I could not feel a pain.The green earth echoed to the feetOf lambs that bounded through the glade,From shade to sunshine, and as fleetFrom sunshine back to shade.Birds warbled round me – and each traceOf inward sadness had its charm;Kilve, thought I, was a favoured place,And so is Liswyn farm.My boy beside me tripped, so slimAnd graceful in his rustic dress!And, as we talked, I questioned him,In very idleness.‘Now tell me, had you rather be,’I said, and took him by the arm,‘On Kilve’s smooth shore, by the green sea,Or here at Liswyn farm?’In careless mood he looked at me,While still I held him by the arm,And said, ‘At Kilve I’d rather beThan here at Liswyn farm.’‘Now, little Edward, say why so:My little Edward, tell me why.’ –‘I cannot tell, I do not know.’ –‘Why, this is strange,’ said I;‘For, here are woods, hills smooth and warm:There surely must one reason beWhy you would change sweet Liswyn farmFor Kilve by the green sea.’At this, my boy hung down his head,He blushed with shame, nor made reply;And three times to the child I said,‘Why, Edward, tell me why?’His head he raised – there was in sight,It caught his eye, he saw it plain –Upon the house-top, glittering bright,A broad and gilded vane.Then did the boy his tongue unlock,And eased his mind with this reply:‘At Kilve there was no weather-cock;And that’s the reason why.’O dearest, dearest boy! my heartFor better lore would seldom yearn,Could I but teach the hundredth partOf what from thee I learn.
Now Blake speaks to me and the soul of man!Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand, dare seize the fire?And what shoulder, & what art,Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began to beat.What dread hand? & what dread feet?What the hammer? what the chain,In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil? what dread grasp.Dare its deadly terrors clasp?When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears:Did he smile his work to see?Did he who made the Lamb make thee?Tyger Tyger burning bright,In the forests of the night:What immortal hand or eye,Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
>>24816919That's fine but I think the Wordsworth one is far better
>>248168302nd. I resisted him for quite some time, but then a few summers back I read the 1805 ed. Prelude. Wow
>>24816911That's a minor poem, it would be ridiculous to judge his entire oeuvre based on it. It is quite perfectly written with its simple form and perhaps deceivingly simple subject matter, because it succeeds in at once giving real insight into the psychology of father and son, as well as revealing a great beauty in the mundane experience of life, the value of which may not be immediately apparent to those with a pubescent taste in poetry.>>24816919Blake and Wordsworth are so extremely different. You should be able to appreciate both. But IMO once you begin to analyse Blake, instead of just being superficially awed like many people are, you see that his mythological language is emptier of meaning, more vague and ephemeral, than Wordsworth's very real and substantial record of his experiences. But I don't mean to hate on Blake.
>>24817018 Anecdote for Fathers was the first poem I ever read by him and I felt it saccharine and simple, but I'm open to being wrong, what are some of Wordsworth's better works to check out?
>>24817217That's the thing, simplicity isn't necessarily bad. Wordsworth is toying with simplicity, playing on the difference between ballad-like fiction and the reality of his experiences and thoughts, going back and forth between them. Again, it's really very perfectly written. As for being saccharine, I can understand that being said of Wordsworth and the Romantics in general, but it's just something you have to get over if you want to appreciate the period. It's morally upright and idealistic, it may seem like a limited view of life to modern man, but it's not necessarily a wrong or false view of life either. I mean, do you think it's impossible for a father to ever have the happy emotions portrayed in the poem?If you want Wordsworth at his best see Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey and the Immortality Ode.
>>24817580Damn that's good, going to have to consider that one for awhile.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood
>>24816830>Without Wordsworth there is no RomanticismDisagreeThe urge was there (as our resident 18th century proto romantic anon keeps pointing out), Wordsworth just embodied it.
>>24816773The Chad has arrived.
on further reflection, I think he is not popular and will decrease in influence because his subject matter is finding sublime joy in small honest things, which reek of a painfully earnest worldview that modern people see as naive. Poems about empires crumbling to dust or powerful tigers still is relevant in ways that a father's wonder at a child's innocence in their first words fail when people feel like there's no work around or society in general is imploding.
>>24816783>Nothing beside remainsone of my favorite sentences in all of poetry. so muted, so deft and solemn
>>24818578agreedShelley’s friend the banker Horace Smith stayed with the poet and his wife Mary (author of Frankenstein) in the Christmas season of 1817. One evening, they began to discuss recent discoveries in the Near East. In the wake of Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt in 1798, the archeological treasures found there stimulated the European imagination. The power of pharaonic Egypt had seemed eternal, but now this once-great empire was (and had long been) in ruins, a feeble shadow.Shelley and Smith remembered the Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus, who described a statue of Ozymandias, more commonly known as Rameses II (possibly the pharaoh referred to in the Book of Exodus). Diodorus reports the inscription on the statue, which he claims was the largest in Egypt, as follows: “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.” (The statue and its inscription do not survive, and were not seen by Shelley; his inspiration for “Ozymandias” was verbal rather than visual.)https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69503/percy-bysshe-shelley-ozymandias
>>24818678>his inspiration for “Ozymandias” was verbal rather than visual
>>24818687Who are these two modern chads?
>>24818565Following your reading, as long as there are small honest things still around us, his work will be relevant in application thereto (that we can find sublime joy). And in the event that we find ourselves someplace where small honest things are gone, his work must stand as a testament of what we have lost which will guide us back towards them. The very irrelevance (so-seeming) is what makes Wordsworth integral.
>>24818801I don't disagree, you make some salient points but would you say that's happening? or he is being eclipsed by readers/people that feel like Shelley and Blake are just naturally more relevant feeling to their modern lives.
>>24818842I see, personally I can’t speak much to trends in contemporary readership. Wordsworth seemingly hasn’t been cool since at least the early twentieth century, a time when literature was shaping cultural trends. Now any engagement with literature feels sporadic, like one off instances so I’ m not currently convinced there are many people who are reading Blake or Shelley either. Blake, being more consciously provocative, in my view will naturally meet with more strong reactions when encountered. But do you have an inclination people are engaging with his works beyond just gesturing at him? My point about the continuing relevance of Wordsworth is in the context of any scenario on the personal level, not specifically contemporary readership.
>>24818801Well said.