{"id":478,"date":"2022-12-16T05:02:15","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T05:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/education\/?page_id=478"},"modified":"2023-03-27T06:58:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T13:58:39","slug":"e212-questions-wordsworth-w-spr-2011","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/e212-questions-wordsworth-w-spr-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"E212 Questions – Wordsworth, W. – Spr. 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EMAIL<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0SYLLABUS<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0POLICIES<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0| QUESTIONS<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0|\u00a0PRESENTATIONS<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0JOURNALS<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0PAPER<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0EXAM<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assigned: \u201cPreface\u201d to Lyrical Ballads<\/em> (262-74); \u201cExpostulation and Reply\u201d (250-51); \u201cThe Tables Turned\u201d (251-52); \u201cLines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey\u201d (258-62); \u201cThree years she grew\u201d (275-76); \u201cI wandered lonely as a cloud\u201d (305-06); \u201cThe Solitary Reaper\u201d (314-15).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPreface\u201d to Lyrical Ballads<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Subject and Language of Poetry\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.  On 264-65, Wordsworth says that the \u201cincidents and situations\u201d (264) in his experimental work Lyrical Ballads<\/em> come from \u201chumble and rustic life\u201d rather than from life in England\u2019s rapidly growing urban centers (\u201cthe gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers\u201d).  What ideal relationship between the natural environment, language, and the deepest, most abiding qualities of human beings does he articulate on these pages? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.  On 265-66, Wordsworth offers a noteworthy definition: \u201call good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings\u201d (265).  How does he modify this purely expressive definition with a characterization of his meditative process, and how are his remarks on this point related to what he says about the \u201cpurpose\u201d of his poems in \u201cLyrical Ballads<\/em>\u201d (265 bottom – 266)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.  On 266-67, Wordsworth expresses faith that his poems, which (contra<\/em> Aristotelian orthodoxy) emphasize feeling over action, will prove satisfying because \u201cthe human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants\u201d (266).  What is the source of this faith, and what \u201cmultitude of causes, unknown to former times\u201d does he identify as responsible for reducing urban dwellers to \u201ca state of savage torpor\u201d (266)?  What exactly is this state of being that Wordsworth captures with his oxymoron \u201csavage torpor\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.  On 267-69, how does Wordsworth address the often-argued distinction between poetic language and prose?  What criticism of Thomas Gray does he make to advance his argument against maintaining a broad gap between \u201cpoetic diction\u201d and ordinary language, or \u201cprose composition\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is a Poet?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.  On 269-71, what main characteristics does Wordsworth ascribe to poets?  What is their relationship to their \u201cown passions and volitions\u201d?  And what is the relationship between those \u201cpassions and volitions,\u201d or personal feelings and desires, and the \u201cgoings-on of the Universe\u201d (269)?  In your own words, what point is Wordsworth making here about poets as ideally expressive human beings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.  On 270-72, what sort of \u201ctruth\u201d does poetry give, according to Wordsworth?  How is this truth communicated, and why, in Wordsworth\u2019s view, does the poet\u2019s \u201csong\u201d appeal to individuals and to societies in a way that scientific discovery can\u2019t hope to rival, even though its dominance as paradigm and practice grows constantly in modern times?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEmotion Recollected in Tranquillity\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7.  On 273-74, Wordsworth returns to the issue of poetic process.  As in his previous reference (265-66), how does he modify a doctrine of pure expression with the language of meditation?  How does he describe the process whereby a poet gets into the right state of mind to \u201ccompose\u201d a poem mentally?  What must the poet keep in mind so that readers or listeners will receive a given poem\u2014one that may well have its partial source in strong emotion\u2014with \u201can overbalance of pleasure\u201d (273) rather than simply being overwhelmed by an all-too-genuine burst of feeling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8.  General question: scholars in the Meyer Abrams tradition have long argued that Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cPreface,\u201d written after early radical support for the French Revolution had to confront the ascendancy of the Jacobin guillotine, displaces the Revolution\u2019s three main ideals (liberty, equality, fraternity) into a theory about how poetry is composed and the effects it ought to have.  If that\u2019s the case, what are the \u201cPreface\u2019s\u201d theoretical equivalents to liberty, equality, and brotherhood?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9.  General question: it\u2019s clear that Wordsworth would have no patience with popular entertainment in C21 America\u2014\u201dReality TV,\u201d high-stakes game shows, endless crime-series broadcasts and spin-offs, shock-jock radio, the almost \u201cmainstream\u201d presence of pornography on the Internet, and so forth would probably drive him to despair.  How might some of this popular culture be defended against assertions that it\u2019s simply \u201cgross and violent\u201d stimulation for a dehumanized urban population?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10.  General question: Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cPreface\u201d amounts to a passionate assertion that the popular taste needs to be shaped, even re-humanized, by poets and thinkers who are wise but \u201cnot<\/em>\u201d elitist in their sensibilities.  How tenable do you find such assertions in our own time?  As you see things, what agents and factors actually shape the public\u2019s taste in modern America?  How do they exercise this shaping influence?  Is that influence for better, for worse, or both, depending on the particularities of each case?  Discuss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11.  General question: Wordsworth and other romantics (even Shelley, who actually admired science) often write rather negatively about what they see as the destructive effects of scientific thinking and practices\u2014do you find their assertions about the superiority of poetry and poetic \u201ctruth\u201d convincing?  Why or why not?  Do you think what they say is fair to science\u2014if so, why?  If not, what do you mean by \u201cscience\u201d\u2014the pure pursuit of truth, or applied science?  How well does such a distinction hold up in the Twenty-First Century?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExpostulation and Reply\u201d and \u201cThe Tables Turned\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

12.  What is \u201cwise passiveness\u201d?  Why is that quality important to William\u2019s argument in favor of communing with nature and against Matthew\u2019s emphasis on the benefits of book-learning?  How would you summarize the two characters\u2019 arguments?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

13.  M. H. Abrams has described \u201cGreater Romantic Lyrics\u201d as divided into three stages: a) description of a particular scene; b) analysis of the scene\u2019s relation to a creative or spiritual problem; and c) affective or emotional resolution of that problem.  In \u201cTintern Abbey,\u201d the first verse paragraph (lines 1-22) comprises stage one.  What is the scene\u2014what does the speaker see around him?  What qualities do his natural surroundings possess?  What effect do they presently have upon his consciousness? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

14.  In the first verse paragraph (1-22), how does the speaker signal the presence of other human beings in the midst of nature?  What inference might be drawn from the speaker\u2019s fanciful conjecture that perhaps the distant smoke may be coming from a fire set by some \u201cHermit\u201d alone in the woods?  What is a \u201chermit,\u201d and what comparison might be made between such a person and the speaker himself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15.  In the second verse paragraph (lines 23-49), what sustenance has the speaker drawn from the \u201cbeauteous forms\u201d of the locale around Tintern Abbey\u2019s ruins\u2014what two \u201cgifts\u201d does he attribute to their influence?  Regarding the second gift, what \u201cblessed mood\u201d does the speaker describe as flowing to him from the shaping influence of nature?  In your own words, discuss the deliverance and insight the speaker says this mood makes possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16.  In the third verse paragraph (lines 50-57), what anxiety does the speaker reveal?  What sense of loss or fear of self-delusion besets him?  How does he begin to hem in or limit this anxiety\u2014in what sense does the second half of the verse paragraph resemble a prayer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17.  In the fourth verse paragraph (lines 58-111), the speaker analyses the stages of his relationship with nature, from his early youth to post-adolescence (five years prior) to the present when he must be around 26.  The editor\u2019s note on lines 66ff characterizes those stages well, but there\u2019s more to say about the psychology of loss and compensation in this paragraph: what has been lost, and what two \u201cgifts\u201d (85) does the speaker go on to explore as constituting his \u201cabundant recompense\u201d (88) for any loss he has suffered?  (Quote the text, but use your own words to explain what you quote.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18.  In the fourth verse paragraph (lines 58-111), how do lines from \u201cTherefore\u201d (102) onwards not only refer to but also demonstrate<\/em> the beneficial effects of the gifts the speaker believes he has received?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19.  In the fifth verse paragraph (lines 112-59), the speaker first specifies that another dimension of his anxiety over the loss that comes with maturity has to do with his creative powers, his \u201cgenial spirits\u201d (113).  How do the presence and voice of the speaker\u2019s sister (William\u2019s sister Dorothy, that is) protect him from sadness and offer hope for the future?  How is Dorothy an integral part of what Meyer Abrams would call the poem\u2019s \u201caffective resolution\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree years she grew\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

20.  How does Wordsworth\u2019s view of nature in this poem (and others) differ from that of Christian theology?  How does his view of nature differ from that of William Blake? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

21.  What will be the relationship between the child and nature?  Is it a different one than is posited for the speaker?  If so, how? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

22.  On what note does this poem end?  Compare it to the great odes by Wordsworth\u2014\u201dTintern Abbey\u201d and \u201cIntimations of Immortality.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wandered lonely as a cloud\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

23.  How does the sensation of something natural lead the speaker to an imaginative vision?  How does Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cpoetry of nature\u201d in this lyric transform itself into the \u201cpoetry of self-consciousness\u201d?  Why is the poet\u2019s choice of the word \u201chost\u201d significant in this transformation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

33.  Describe the poet\u2019s epiphany and its aftereffects.  What effect did the vision have \u201creal-time,\u201d so to speak, and then what happens when the poet recalls his vision in the absence of the natural scene itself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Solitary Reaper\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

24.  As with \u201cLucy Gray,\u201d why is it important to Wordsworth\u2019s speaker that the Reaper is alone, singing by herself?  What is the significance of her solitariness\u2014is she an exemplary figure?  If so, explain how she and her song might be understood that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25.  What seems to be the difference in degree of self-consciousness between the solitary singer and the poem\u2019s observer-speaker?  Moreover, how does the poem exhibit \u201cdemocratic sensibilities\u201d\u2014what sort of person are we being asked to pay attention to here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26.  How is this poem both mimetic (i.e. an imitation of something) and expressive at the same time?  Consider the phrase \u201cthe vale profound\u201d (line 7)\u2014why is it significant that the vale is \u201coverflowing with the sound\u201d (line 8) of the woman\u2019s voice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

27.  What imaginative, exotic interpretations does the speaker offer in his attempt to describe the reaper\u2019s singing?  Does it matter that he cannot understand her words?  What does<\/em> he understand, or what spirit does he catch from her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edition: <\/strong>Abrams, M. H. et al, eds.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature.  <\/em>8th ed.  Vol. D.  New York: Norton, 2006.  ISBN Package 2 (Vols. DEF) 0-393-92834-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assigned: \u201cPreface\u201d to Lyrical Ballads (262-74); \u201cExpostulation and Reply\u201d (250-51); \u201cThe Tables Turned\u201d (251-52); \u201cLines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey\u201d (258-62); \u201cThree years she grew\u201d (275-76); \u201cI wandered lonely as a cloud\u201d (305-06); \u201cThe Solitary Reaper\u201d (314-15). \u201cPreface\u201d to Lyrical Ballads \u201cThe Subject and Language of Poetry\u201d 1.  On 264-65, Wordsworth says that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"wf_page_folders":[43],"class_list":["post-478","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4692,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/478\/revisions\/4692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/academic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}