31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wandering lonely as a cloud, April 24, 2004
To me, poetry is like a swimming pool into which I have to dip my toe to test the temperature of the water before I jump in. I have to take it just a little bit at a time and allow myself to absorb it as well as enjoy it, and this volume of Wordsworth is something I find accessible and welcoming but challenging enough to engage my interest. Unlike his contemporaries of the Romantic movement like Blake and Byron who immersed themselves in wild fantasy and dark mythology, Wordsworth writes about things just about everybody can relate to -- nature, neighbors, family, nation, self-realization, glow-worms -- using direct language that avoids obscure metaphors. Granted, not many of us these days find the opportunity to observe a shepherd at work or hike over the Alps, but Wordsworth did, and tells us about it with imagination and exuberance.
The characters in Wordsworth's poems are vagrants, wanderers, beggars, figures from local legends, generally people who live outside of the mainstream or are forgotten by society, the humblest of the humble. There is Johnny the errant Idiot Boy, who is sent off on a horse to fetch a doctor for his mother's ailing friend but instead takes a personal journey governed by his limited imagination. There is the isolated Lucy, "a violet by a mossy stone" who "dwelt among the untrodden ways." There is old Timothy the Childless Father, who tries sorrowfully to maintain his spirits by continuing his hunting excursions after a period of mourning for the death of his last daughter.
The central piece in this collection is "The Prelude," Wordsworth's autobiographical poem. After explaining his desire to look beyond traditional poetical subjects like history and chivalry, he proceeds to document the development of his aesthetic, noting the importance of solitude to a budding poet, discussing his years at Cambridge and his undistinguished academic performance, his walking tour through Europe at the time of the French Revolution, and his sympathies for the common man arising from his love of nature. Several sonnets written around 1803 show him turning his attention to national matters, such as lamentations for England's lack of current literary figures as great as Milton and calls for defense against Napoleonic invasion ("To the Men of Kent," "In the Pass of Killicranky").
Adoration of nature is Wordworth's most salient attribute, and, having found his pictorial voice from an early age ("An Evening Walk" is astonishingly sophisticated verse for a seventeen-year-old to have written), he devotes the lion's share of his poetry to idylls, pastorals, dithyrambic odes to the beauty of the the landscapes around his boyhood home in Grasmere. With the exception of some London street scenes in "The Prelude" and elsewhere, there are very few references in his poetry to urbanization and industrialization; reading it, one would think England a permanently medieval country of quiet rustic villages and sparsely populated woodlands. It would seem that materialism and the chaos of living in an increasingly technological society mattered not at all to Wordsworth, and his poetry has all the more longevity because of it.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughts that are too deep for tears, December 15, 2005
From time to time I return to reread Wordsworth. There is a spirit of calm and consolation, which combines with the sublime that makes his poetry especially soothing and uplifting. His poetry is sympathetic and understandable but also deeply reflective. The great odes 'Tintern Abbey' and 'Intimations of Immortality' seem truly to provide a sense of something 'more deeply interfused, a power whose dwelling is the light and living air'
Wordsworth is not doctrinal but he is a profoundly religious poet. And he gives a sense of the natural world as awe - inspiring in itself and suggestive of something greater and more meaningful.
I love many of his shorter poems, some of the sonnets especially. The lines, the great great lines stay in the mind and are a help and a hope.
No wonder so many people have found in reading him as John Stuart Mill reports in his 'Autobiography' a way out of despair.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wordsworth's collection of poetry, March 1, 2009
Wordsworth's descriptions and comparisons are so vivid that you feel like you're in the setting to poem is striving to create. This is a truly remarkable example of fine poetry. Wordsworth commonly uses the rhyme scheme ABAB in his quatrains and AABCCB for his sestets. He writes quite a few of his poems in pastoral form, which a focus on nature, but not devoid of a rhyme scheme. The length of his poems vary greatly, ranging from 2-214 pages long! His one 214 page long poem is obviously the highlight of the book: "The Prelude, or Growth, of a Poet's Mind". It's an autobiographical poem divided into sections due to it's longevity. A few of his poems are controversial ("The Idiot Boy"?!), the vast majority are fantastic. The mere fact that he was able to write a 214 page autobiographical poem shows what a great poet he was. It's great to read such a fine example of poetry. Highly recommended.
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