Wordsworth Romantic Elements

William Wordsworth was a key Romantic poet, who alongside Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped instigate the Romantic period in literature with their dual publication Lyrical Ballads (Nicholson, Lecture 10). William Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” is a prime example of romantic poetry’s concerns. The poem describes the speaker’s return to a country location after five years privation. The speaker stresses that he is not the same man he was five years ago; he has changed, and yet the countryside is just as spectacular. Immediately, the romantic element of the appreciation of nature is expressed. Initially, in lines 4-7, Wordsworth incorporates the idyllic natural setting at the Abbey (Nicholson, Lecture 8). Wordsworth writes, “Once again do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, that on a wild secluded scene impress” (p.765). He goes on to express the heavenly calm orchard and countryside in lines 9-11 (Nicholson, Lecture 11). Interestingly, the adjectives steep, lofty and

The poem which consists of verse-paragraphs rather than stanzas is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter (Nicholson, Lecture 1). The straightforward, informal language is a sign of mindfulness. In lines 95-96, Wordsworth makes use of alliteration as he writes “Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused” (p. 767) (Nicholson, Lecture 8). By doing this, he reflects the soothing, serene atmosphere. Moreover, in line 67-68, Wordsworth also uses a simile to compare himself with a deer by writing “I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides” (p. 766). In this manner, he underlines the beauties of the natural world and the longing to flee the domineering world of the contemporary city for a simpler