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William Wordsworth's Use Of Sublime In Poetry

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William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron are the most famous romantic poets who used sublime in their works. Each poet used the sublime in a different way from the other, but for them all, the sublime reflects the effect of Nature on them and they depicted what they felt through their works. Starting with Wordsworth, he defined poetry as “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility” (263). Hence, the use of sublime can be understood from Wordsworth’s definition of poetry. Wordsworth is popular with his use of sublime in most of his works. “Daffodils” is a perfect example of the use of sublime in Wordsworth’s works. Also, The Prelude and “Tintern …show more content…

The last example from Wordsworth’s works is “Tintern Abbey”. The opening and last lines in “Tintern Abbey” are alike. It is said that Wordsworth wrote the whole poem in his head first then he started to write it down. The following is as an excerpt from the poem, mainly the opening and the last lines: Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliff (Lines 1-4). That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape… (Lines 156-158). The repetition of the words ‘lofty’ and ‘cliff’ and the presence of the ‘s’ sound reaches the senses of the reader and those sounds are associated with the

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“A cool breeze came up behind us, sending shivers along the spines of the mesquite trees.” The text contains elements of the unconscious process of shivering and allows Taylor to project her inner feelings onto the landscape. The language mirrors how Taylor’s mind works and shows this by sending “shivers along the spines of the mesquite trees” as well as up her own spine, almost personifying the trees. Kingsolver’s descriptions of the natural landscape, shows her consciousness of the environment.

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He could imagine his deception of this town “nestled in a paper landscape,” (Collins 534). This image of the speaker shows the first sign of his delusional ideas of the people in his town. Collins create a connection between the speaker’s teacher teaching life and retired life in lines five and six of the poem. These connections are “ chalk dust flurrying down in winter, nights dark as a blackboard,” which compares images that the readers can picture.

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In “Golden Glade” Warren uses the literary elements of similes, alliteration, and word choice to create an overall image that conveys his ideas. The speaker recalls an adventure he had as boy where he strolls through the woods, a “heart aimless as rifle, boy blankness of mood” (3). The simile emphasizes the innocence of youth and the idea that children find satisfaction in simply exploring without any intention of finding a specific location. As the boy continues to wander he passes a gorge with “foam white on/wet stone, stone wet-black, white water tumbling” (7-8) The alliteration provides a rhythm that imitates the flow of the stream as it trickles through the rocks which increases the vividity of the image of the gorge. When the speaker

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Literary devices are techniques of expression that authors use to convey meaning to their story. When used with proper skill, these devices can bring copiousness and clarity to the content (Duckart). Certain literary devices can be applied to both fiction and nonfiction books. This essay will show how Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, uses symbolism throughout his novel to provide the reader with a better grasp at deeper understanding and meaning to his novel. More often than not, symbolisms are not obvious and are easily looked over; however, when analyzed in detail, they add new and important dimensions of meaning to the story line.

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For example, he describes its gloominess as a “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat,” which demonstrates a dismal feel in an ironic fashion through the contrasting imagery associated with growth and freshness. This tone is further expressed by the “ashes grow[ing] like wheat into ridges… and grotesque gardens,” which adds to the dreariness of

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Wordsworth also uses imagery to expresses a similar experience. In the first stanza he describes “A host, of golden daffodils; /beside the lake, beneath the trees, /Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” (Wordsworth Ln 4-6). Words such as “host”, “golden”, “Fluttering” and “dancing”, all appeals to the reader’s sense of sight, hearing, and smell. It brings us into the scene.

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Theoretical Physicist Albert Einstein says, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Essayist John Muir and Poet William Wordsworth both had one thing in common; they saw the beauty of nature and the correlation it had with life and they rejoiced in it. While John Muir revealed his strong, spiritual relationship with nature. On the other hand, William Wordsworth’s colorless and tedious outlook on the world is enlivened by nature in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

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In some degree, also, they diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the last month. I retired to rest at night; my slumbers, as it were, waited on and ministered to by the assemblance of grand shapes which I had contemplated during the day. They congregated round me; the unstained snowy mountain-top, the glittering pinnacle, the pine woods, and ragged bare ravine; the eagle, soaring amidst the clouds--they all gathered round me, and bade me be at peace.”... (page 109-110)... I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous and ever-moving glacier had produced upon my mind when I first saw it. It had then filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul, and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy.

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The leisurely, relaxed, and comfortable atmosphere at the Bunkers ' inspires Neddy to feel warmhearted and effervescent, inducing the muse, “Oh how bonny and lush were the banks of the Lucinda River!” (Baym 1180). However, the acknowledgment of thunder resounding in the distance metaphorically warns of coming troubles for Neddy. Nevertheless, Neddy causes the alert reader to feel ambivalence concerning the impending storm when he asks, “... why did the first watery notes of a storm wind have for him [Neddy] the unmistakable sound of good news, cheer, glad tidings?” (Baym 1181).

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In the classic words of Kant, the sublime “is that, the mere capacity of thinking which evidences a faculty of mind transcending every standard of sense” and “therefore does not reside in any of the things of nature, but only in our own mind, in so far as we may become conscious of our own superiority over nature within, and thus also over nature without us (as exerting influence upon us).” In other words, Kant, while understands that the sublime cannot be bordered or defined exactly, still concludes that we can self-transcend the notion within our own minds. However, according to Vijay Mishra, the Gothic sublime “is most aware of [its] incommensurability and the inherent problems of self-transcendence” and therefore cannot afford for it to self-transcend. He continues that in the Gothic sublime’s “self-empowerment,” the subject “always implies subservience to the trope.” The sublime is a quality that cannot be contained within our typical frameworks, and therefore in doing so, the sublime threatens the notions of the beautiful — which becomes an argument for the Gothic

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However there is a deeper connection between romanticism and nature all together. Many poets consider nature as the source of human ideas and emotions. “Henry David Thoreau says a poet who lived in a cabin on Walden Pond for two years, believed that people were meant to live in the world of nature”. Although the work of nature is characterized by search for self or identity, the poet William Wordsworth getting inspiration from Coleridge and nature wrote of the deeper emotions. Romanticism and nature are connected because the artists and philosophers of the romantic period romanticized the beauty of nature, and the power of the natural world.

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