William Wordsworth’s, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of Wye During a Tour. July 13, 1798”, aptly draws our attention to the subject of time and place, which is revisited through the poem. Through the Romantic poet’s way of centralizing himself in the narrative, one is introduced to the changing moods of the poet, the self-elegy, the pursuit of the sublime and a call for universal brotherhood. The poet revisits the place, where he had escaped to from the war preparations against France in Portsmouth in 1793, accompanied on a walk tour by his sister, Dorothy, who is only about a year and a half younger to him. While Dorothy remains mute and may appear unimportant, her presence has far greater implications. …show more content…
Oh! Yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, This pursuit for the “former pleasures” is characteristic of the quest for immortality, permanence and ideals, although within the ordinary. In this sense, she bridges the gap between the past and the now. She experiences the nature in its immediacy while the poet has to consciously grasp the remote charm of the place. Also, the use of the phrase, “dearest friend” becomes significantly important in the contemporary socio-historical context. Thwarted but yet resolute, with the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Romantics studied the nature of man, and provide for solutions by encouraging representation of oneness and universality. In the essay, “The Shadow of Death”: Mourning and Murmuring above Tintern Abbey, Kurt Fosso points out how the poet first addresses Dorothy as a friend, gender neutral noun, and then only later, as his sister. This becomes important as in 1790s, the revolutionary idea of universal benevolence had come to challenge the values of familial attachment propagated by Burke. The poet’s addressing of his sister as a friend, thus becomes significantly important and charged with meaning of universal brotherhood that the Romantics