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1、IntroductionWilliam Wordsworth (1770-1850) was one of the pioneers in the romanticist movement. As a great poet of nature, he wrote many famous poems to express his love for nature, one of which is “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. Wordsworth is the representative of the romantic writers who reflected
2、 the thinking of classes ruined by the bourgeoisie, and by way of protest against capitalist development turned to the feudal past, i.e., the “merry old England”, as their ideal, or, “frightened by the coming of industrialism and the nightmare towns of industry, they were turning to nature for prote
3、ction.” These writers, who have been called passive or escapist romanticists, endeavored to reconcile man with his life by embellishing that life, or to distract him from the things around him by means of a barren introspection into his inner world, into thoughts of lifes insoluble problems, such as
4、 love, death and other imponderables. So it is not surprising that nature, often personified, plays an important role in Wordsworths works. In the narrative poem, the poet successfully compared his loneliness with the happy and vital daffodils. The daffodils, the symbol of the nature, bring great jo
5、y and relief to the speaker. The passions of man and the beauties of nature appealed strongly to the imagination of the romantic writers, and all became the fountain-heads of the poets inspiration, as the poet knew well that only with inspiration could he speak out his true feeling, which was the lo
6、udest call of the romantic movement. So Wordsworths conception of nature is that nature has a lot to do with man, it can not only refresh ones soul and fill one with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort ones heart when in solitude. Although Wordworth put m
7、ore attention to the individual than the neo-classicist writers of the 18th century, his intimacy with nature revealed his passive attitude toward life. Nature is his relief, his harbor.The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 i
8、n Cockermouth in Cumberland part of the scenic region in north-west England, the Lake District. His sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year. All of his siblings were destined to have successful careers. His elder brother Richard
9、 became a lawyer in London; John Wordsworth rose to the rank of Captain on a merchantman of the East India Company; and the youngest of the family, Christopher, became Master of Trinity College at Cambridge. After the death of their mother in 1778, their father sent William to Hawkshead Grammar Scho
10、ol and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for another nine years. His father died when he was 13. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine. That same year he began attending St Johns College, C
11、ambridge, and received his B.A. degree in 1791. He returned to Hawkshead for his first two summer holidays, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790, he took a walking tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensivel
12、y, and also visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland, and Italy. His youngest brother, Christopher, rose to be Master of Trinity College. In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enthralled with the Republican movement. He fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vall
13、on, who in 1792 gave birth to their child, Caroline. Because of lack of money and Britains tensions with France, he returned alone to England the next year. The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raise doubts as to his declared wish to marry Annette but he supported her and his
14、 daughter as best he could in later life. During this period, he wrote his acclaimed It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, recalling his seaside walk with his wife, whom he had not seen for ten years. At the conception of this poem, he had never seen his daughter before. The occurring lines reve
15、al his deep love for both child and mother. The Reign of Terror estranged him from the Republican movement, and war between France and Britain prevented him from seeing Annette and Caroline again for several years. There are also strong suggestions that Wordsworth may have been depressed and emotion
16、ally unsettled in the mid 1790s. With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy visited Annette and Caroline in France and arrived at a mutually agreeable settlement regarding Wordsworths obligationsGermany and move to the Lake District Wordswort
17、h, Dorothy, and Coleridge then travelled to Germany in the autumn of 1798. While Coleridge was intellectually stimulated by the trip, its main effect on Wordsworth was to produce homesickness. During the harsh winter of 17981799, Wordsworth lived with Dorothy in Goslar, and despite extreme stress an
18、d loneliness, he began work on an autobiographical piece later titled The Prelude. He also wrote a number of famous poems, including the Lucy poems. He and his sister moved back to England, now to Dove Cottage in Grasmere in the Lake District, and this time with fellow poet Robert Southey nearby. Wo
19、rdsworth, Coleridge, and Southey came to be known as the Lake Poets. Through this period, many of his poems revolve around themes of death, endurance, separation, and grief.The background of William WordsworthOn July 14,1789, the Parisian people stormed the Bastille, which marked the outbreak of the
20、 French Revolution. Before long its great influence swept the whole European continent. In England all social contradictions sharpened in the meantime. Workers, peasants, and indeed all people of the lower classes as well as the progressive intellectuals hailed the French Revolution and its principl
21、e “ liberty, equality and fraternity”. In company with the political movement in progress, a new trend also arose in the literary world, namely, romanticism. It prevailed in England during the period 1798-1832. In 1798, “Lyrical Ballads”, with only about ten thousand words, came out as the manifesto
22、 to the English Romanticism, marking a new era in English literature. And its authors, William Wordsworth and his confidant Samuel T. Coleridge (1772-1834) became widely known as the “Lake Poets”. In the Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads”, Wordsworth set forth his principles of poetry, which reads “ a
23、ll good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling.” This forms a contrast to the classicism that made reason, order and the old, classical traditions the criteria in its poetical creations. Wordsworth holds that firstly the contents of a poem should focus on common country life and the
24、beauty of nature, while the diction of a poem should be plain and vivid with the application of lower-class persons daily language. The two main principles posed a strong challenge to the “upper-class only” Neo-classicism and quickly went popular.In the eighteenth century poems were supposed to serv
25、e the upper class, and the theme usually had something to do with the upper-class life. In contrast, romanticism gave much attention to the nature. As a great poet of nature, he was the first to find words for the most elementary sensations of man face to face with natural phenomena. These sensation
26、s are universal and old, but once expressed in his poetry, become charmingly beautiful and new. Romanticism is a general, collective term to describe much of the art and literature produced during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.Romanticism can be seen as a revolution in the arts, alongside t
27、he political, social and industrial revolutions of the age: all spheres of human activity were undergoing great change. Wordsworth and Coleridge were among the first British poets to explore the new theories and ideas that were sweeping through Europe. Their poems display many characteristics of Rom
28、anticism, including:1-An emphasis on the emotions (a fashionable word at the beginning of the period was sensibility. This meant having, or cultivating, a sensitive, emotional and intuitive way of understanding the world) 2-Exploring the relationship between nature and human life 3-A stress on the i
29、mportance of personal experiences and a desire to understand what influences the human mind 4-A belief in the power of the imagination 5-An interest in mythological, fantastical, gothic and supernatural themes 6-An emphasis on the sublime (this word was used to describe a spiritual awareness, which
30、could be stimulated by a grand and awesome landscape) 7-Social and political idealism.William Wordsworths understanding of natureIn the eighteenth century poems were supposed to serve the upper class, and the theme usually had something to do with the upper-class life. In contrast, romanticism gave
31、much attention to the nature. As a great poet of nature, he was the first to find words for the most elementary sensations of man face to face with natural phenomena. These sensations are universal and old, but once expressed in his poetry, become charmingly beautiful and new. His deep love for natu
32、re runs through such short lyrics as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”:I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high oer vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the thess,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shi
33、neAnd twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.In the first two stanzas the narrator, one version of the poet, tells us that one day when wandering through a landscape, he was struck b
34、y the sight of a field of daffodils. The first line “I wondered lonely as a cloud” immediately establishes the speakers loneliness. And in sharp contrast with the poets loneliness, the daffodils are happy and bristling with life: they are “dancing”, and “tossing” their heads. In addition, the daffod
35、ils are in large numbers. Their vast number is emphasized in the second stanza when the poet describes them as “continuous” and in a “never-ending line”. Actually, the emphasis on the happiness of the daffodils and their large number serves to foil the isolation and dispiritedness of the speaker. Bu
36、t this contrast between the speaker and the landscape soon becomes fused or integrated in the third stanza, where the relationship between the poet and the landscape is one of intimate union, suggesting an identity of mood between subject and object: A poet could but be gay, In such a jocund company
37、;And later, in moments of solitude, he recalls the experience, seeing the field again in his mind.For oft, when on my couch I lie,In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils. Lonelines
38、s once again seizes the poet as he lies on his couch. Though physically he is far from nature, he somehow feels sort of connection with it through the power of imagination. A single brief event which occurred in a distant summer landscape is recaptured in the poets mind. Meanwhile, the emotional moo
39、d attached to that scene is also revived.The diction of this poem is, in general, simple, direct, and clear. The image of the daffodils conveys qualities of movement and radiance through carefully chosen words. At first sight, the flowers are seen as “fluttering and dancing”; then the poet compares
40、the flowers to the “stars that shine/And twinkle on the milky way”, and then to the “sparkling waves” of a nearby lake. The daffodils are described as “golden”, not yellow, because “golden” suggests more than a color; it connotes light. These words of movement and radiance create a picture of nature
41、 as vital, animated, and glowing. Words for joy (glee, sprightly, gay, jocund, bliss) are used in a crescendo that suggests the intensity of the speakers happiness.A different kind of repetition appears in the movement from loneliness to solitude. Both words denote aloneness, but they are radically
42、different. The poem moves from the sadly alienated separation felt by the speaker in the beginning, to his joy and satisfaction in re-imagining the natural scene, a movement characterized in such words as “loneliness” and “solitude.” A similar movement is depicted within the final stanza by such wor
43、ds as “vacant” and “fills”. The emptiness of the speakers spirit is transformed into a fullness of feeling as he “remembers” the daffodils. Wordsworth develops the vision of the daffodils; and through this simple event, he tries to explore the relationship between humanity and nature. Therefore, in
44、his eyes, nature can not only refresh oneself and fill one with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort ones heart when in solitude.With regard to his poems, we can say that all of them deal, in some way, with nature. And this is what we are going to see now.
45、 For example: The presence of water in those poems where the sea appears, such as “ Lines written near Richmond upon the Thames, at evening” when Wordsworth says:Oh glide, fair stream! for ever so;Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,Till all our minds for ever flow,As thy deep waters now are flowing.In
46、this poem, appears a very huge ocean, and that oceans majesty and greatness still controls the individual and the species.Another example would be “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey”:How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee o Sylvan Wye!Thou wanderer through the woods,How often has my s
47、pirit turned to thee!Here, that deep blue sea or that river, show us that water which is apparently calm, can change into huge strength waves and that would produce some inspiration in the poet that would change his feelings.We can also find “nature” in his poem named “The Excursion” where he defend
48、s the natures contemplation to achieve the moral knowledge.I have written all these examples because I think that it is interesting to see how Wordsworth saw nature in some of his poems as we can say that nature is his main topic and this theme takes a very important role in all his works. However,
49、I would like to focus my attention on the poem called “Lines written in early spring”, also written by Wordsworth, where we can find a lot of examples of nature. It mainly talks about this topic.Lines Written In Early SpringI heard a thousand blended notes,While in a grove I sate reclined,In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind.