“Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth

Web resources:  Here is a web-page that provides much information about Wordsworth, including links to his works on-line.  

Background:  William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was the foremost representative of the “Romantic movement” in English poetry.  The publication of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 with his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge is considered its beginning.  The work challenged many convention in English poetry and was not well received by the critics of the day.  In 1800 he wrote a “Preface” to a second edition of the Ballads, in which he explained his views that the direct experience of the senses was the source of poetic truth and that poetry originates from “emotion recollected in tranquillity.”  He maintained that scenes from everyday life was the raw material of poetry.  This further enraged his critics.  In the latter half of his life he became very conservative, and his later poetry (after the Prelude) is not considered to be as inventive as his earlier works.  After 1820 his works began to receive critical acceptance and by 1843 was named poet laureate.  

Discussion questions:

What is Wordsworth describing in the first 20 lines?  What is being expressed in lines 25-30?  Is any of this characteristic of “romantic” poetry?

Is there any trace of an “intellectual journey” present in the poem?  (Hint:  consider lines 60-83.)

What do you think he means by the “presence” he has felt (ll. 93-4)?  Find terms or images that he uses to “express” what this is like in the rest of the poem.

Do you believe that what he means by “nature” (as in line 152) is more or less what Bonaventure means by nature?  Or Francis of Assisi?  What evidence would you bring forth to support your interpretation?