Academic literature on the topic 'Prelude (Wordsworth, William)'

AbstractThis essay examines how Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth manipulate the autobiographical and elements of poetical voicing as they explore the figure of the Romantic Poet. Focusing onBeachy Head(1807) andThe Prelude(1805), I suggest that in devising separate, competing but eventually equal “personal” voices inBeachy Head, and in interrogating tropes of genre and composition inThe Prelude, the two poets signal their interest in using poetry to provide an answer to Wordsworth’s famous question, “What is a Poet?” For each, the model of the Romantic poet is most viable when, like wet clay, it is still able to be shaped.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Adam Smith suggests an important theory about moral sentiments that influenced many contemporary writers. While some praised Smith’s original theory of moral sentiments that emphasized the importance of society, others have been more skeptical about the workings of Smithian sympathy. In this essay, I first explore the primary elements of Smith’s theory that make it unique and significant. Then, I turn to the evaluation of Smithian sympathy by another important thinker in the early nineteenth century, the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth evaluates the workings of Smithian sympathy in his portrayal of London in Book Seventh of The Prelude (1805), where the emerging city of London serves as a counterexample to the mechanism of Smithian sympathy as the London society fails to work as a mirror for its members. The examination of Book Seventh of The Prelude will not only illuminate the flaws in the Smithian scheme of sympathy but also highlight Wordsworth’s insights on the subject as well as his corrections to Smith’s system.

This article will consider the extent and nature of the celebrity of the Poet Laureate William Wordsworth, who died in 1850. Ostensibly the most famous English poet alive in that year, on his death on 23 April 1850, Wordsworth had been Poet Laureate for just over seven years and had been actively producing verse since 1793. Shortly after his death, his longest poem, now considered a masterpiece of autobiographical epic, The Prelude, was published; one could easily assume that the death of such a major poet coupled with the publication of one of his most significant works would dominate the literary world in that year; yet notices of his death, while widespread, were fleeting in focus, and The Prelude met with a lukewarm reception. This challenges the concept of even a Poet Laureate as a literary celebrity. Nonetheless, as I will show, his name endured as a byword for ‘poet’ in periodicals of the time, and the Wordsworthian pastoral lyric remained an enduring form in periodicals of the year of his death; meaning that Wordsworth as a figure of ‘true poet’ endured even as his personal celebrity had waned.

Book Fourteenth of The Prelude by William Wordsworth serves as a religious conclusion that signifies that a spiritual communion with God, infinite and transcendental and magnificently expressed by Nature, can heal and restore man’s mind in his crises of life. God’s being is a supreme Dasein, which in terms of essence is the Word/Logos, and which embraces the feature of “de-severance”, that is, eternity. And as a creator, God’s being-in-the-world is essentially caring. This article aims to employ hermeneutics to explicate the religious significance of Book Fourteenth, pointing out that Being housed in Logos is actually the healing power in life crises. I apply hermeneutics to explicate the theological significance of Book Fourteenth.

By definition, the Romantic ego is a male; the creator of language which helps him to establish “rites of passage toward poetic creativity and toward masculine empowerment.”1 The outlet for a male quest of self – possession in Romantic poetry is women. For the Romantic poets , the “true woman was emotional, dependent and gentle –a born flower”2 and “the Ideal mother was expected to be strong , self- reliant , protective and efficient caretaker in relation to children and home.”4 With emphasis on the individual in Romantic literature and ideology, mothers are depicted as good when they are natural or unnaturally bad. In the Romantic period then, women’s maternal function equals the “foundation of her social identity and of her sexual desire.”5 Consequently, “convinced that within the individual and autonomous and forceful agent makes creation possible”, the Romantic poets “struggle to control that agent and manipulate its energy.”6 In a number of William Wordsworth’s (1770-1850) poems, this creative agent who possesses the powers of creation and imagination becomes a female character who is also often a mother. Nonetheless, when critics examine mothers in Wordsworth’s poetry, they also explore the child/poet’s relationship. Events in Wordsworth’s life surely influenced his attention to mothers. From a psycho-analytic perspective this interest might be an unconscious desire to resurrect the spirit of his dead mother Ann Wordsworth who died when the poet was almost eight. Thus in his poetry, the mother is the counterpart of the genuine faculty of the imagination of the poet and has a strong and felt presence within the poet’s poetic system. In The Prelude, Wordsworth acknowledges his mother’s deep influence on him. He associates her death with the break within his own poetic development; a sign that the poet relies upon in his creative power .It is through her that the young poet came first in contact with the genial current of the natural world. Nevertheless, without his mother, the male child’s connection to nature not only stands, it grows stronger:

The Prelude and David Copperfield reveal strikingly similar patterns of their heroes' development from boyhood to manhood; the idiosyncrasy of their growth can be found in its retrogressive rather than progressive aspect.

This thesis examines the role of imagination in "The Prelude," within the context of recent criticism. In accordance with the impact of new historicism on contemporary Wordsworth studies, considerable attention is given to new historicist readings. It is argued that new history's methodological approach generally undervalues the complex texture of subjectivity in "The Prelude." New historical critiques tend to interpret the Wordsworthian imagination merely as a narrative strategy that enables the poet to displace or elide socio-historical realities. However, "The Prelude" does not entirely support such a reading. On the basis of Wordsworth's autobiography and related prose works, it is asserted that the poet's consciousness of creative decline and mortality potently informs his sense of imagination, and eventuates in a mode of self-perception that precludes subjective autonomy and socio-historical displacement.

Em seu poema autobiográfico O Prelúdio William Wordsworth relata o modo como os principais eventos de sua vida levaram ao seu desenvolvimento espiritual a fim de tornar-se um poeta. Na chamada poesia de Natureza isso pressupõe a influência da experiência direta e viva com os objetos e elementos do mundo natural. Meu intento nesta tese consiste em investigar a qual ponto a formação individual representada na narrativa é resultado da experiência vivida – estética, moral e intelectual – do sujeito em relação às formas belas e sublimes do mundo exterior em paralelo com a constituição imaginativa de sua consciência; ou da elaboração retórica e associativa de imagens, analogias, metáforas, símbolos, conceitos e concepções tomados de um conjunto de saberes literários, filosóficos, religiosos, psicológicos e científicos da tradição ocidental em voga na época de Wordsworth. Além disso, busquei examinar de que modo a experiência da Natureza se associa ao papel da educação formal e da observação impactante da estrutura social e política advinda das transformações da modernidade, vindo a formar a visão de mundo do poeta e a crença no papel fundamental da poesia como depositária laico-sagrada da sabedoria essencial da humanidade. Os argumentos que dão sustentação à minha interpretação do poema baseiam-se na análise de uma estrutura narrativa de história individual de nascimento em meio ao mundo natural, de criação de laços de pertencimento a este meio, de afastamento da Natureza e de retorno a ela. A região natal de Wordsworth no Disrito dos Lagos Ingleses, no Norte da Inglaterra, é vista como equivalente primeiro da Natureza. Portanto é represetada analogicamente como um parâmetro físico e sensível que fundamenta aquilo que o herói deverá entender como Natureza: primeiro enquanto mundo visível, e a partir deste corolário em suas dimensões sensoriais e sentimentais, intelectuais e emocionais, morais e espirituais. Destarte, esta pesquisa organiza-se em três partes. Na primeira parte, procurei reconstruir as experiências do herói ao longo dos principais eventos de seu percurso autobiográfico, com vistas a reconstituir o seu sentido para a construção (Bildung) da sensibilidade do sujeito, emocional, intelectual e espiritualmente, de acordo como estas experiências tenham sido vividas ou recordadas. Na segunda, tratei separadamente dos tipos de contato empírico do herói com as formas naturais em momentos de observação, contemplação e meditação, dando ênfase à percepção sensorial, especialmente em suas funções visual e auditiva; aos impulsos sentimentais e emocionais ligados à sensibilidade corporal; e finalmente à intuição transcendente e à visão metafísica que acompanha as relações espirituais sentidas na responsividade anímica e espiritual do sujeito – em comunhão tranquila ou êxtase elevado – com a essência mais profunda manifestada na vida das coisas que o rodeiam. Por fim, na terceira parte, voltei-me para a análise dos recursos empregados para a construção estética e reelaboração retórica dos conteúdos da experiência humana representados na narrativa a partir da associação de conteúdos imaginários, metafóricos, simbólicos, conceituais e alusivos que indicam a apropriação de um conjunto de saberes e conhecimentos tomados de empréstimo a uma tradição intelectual e letrada. Enquanto resultado, sustento a tese de que Wordsworth combina dois elementos fundamentais na construção poética de O Prelúdio. De um lado há a expressão emocional dos efeitos interiores causados pela impressão das formas naturais, com base no que se pode conceber enquanto representação realista, ou seja, fiel às formas empíricas da percepção humana e relativa à atenção do sujeito ao ambiente circundante e à cor local. De outro, constatei a reelaboração de imagens, motivos e topói, bem como noções conceituais e alusões que remetem à afirmação de uma visão de mundo cara ao espírito Romântico, assim como a crítica cortante, apesar de velada, a um conjunto de práticas institucionais, sociais e políticas que ameaçam a integridade de um mundo orgânico que o eu-lírico julga ideal para o aperfeiçoamento do espírito humano em condições de harmonia com o universo onde vive – a Natureza.
In his autobiographical poem The Prelude William Wordsworth relates how the main events of his life led to his spiritual development in order to become a poet. In the so-called Poetry of Nature this presupposes the influence of the direct and living experience of the objects and elements of the natural world. My intent in this dissertation consists of investigating to what extent the individual formation represented in the narrative results from the subject’s lived through experience – aesthetic, moral and intellectual – in relation to the beautiful and sublime forms of the outward world paralleled to the imaginative constitution of his consciousness; or from the rhetorical and associative elaboration of images, analogies, metaphors, symbols, concepts and conceptions taken from a body of literary, philosophical, religious, psychological and scientific knowledges of the western tradition in voge during Wordsworth’s age. Furthermore, I sought to examine how the experience of Nature associates to the role of formal education and striking observation of the social and political structure derived from the transformations of modernity, thus forming the poet’s worldview and belief in the fundamental role of poetry as the laic-sacred depositary of humankind’s essential wisdom. The arguments which sustain my interpretation of the poem are based on the analysis of a narrative structure of individual history of birth amid the natural world, of creation of pertainment bonds to this environment, of distancing from Nature and return to her. Wordsworth’s native region in the Lake District in the North of England is seen as the primary equivalent of Nature. Therefore it is represented analogically as a physical and sensual parameter that founds that which the hero must come to understand as Nature: firstly, as the visible world, and up from this corollary in her sensorial and sentimental, intellectual and emotional, moral and spiritual dimensions. Thus, this research is organized into three parts. In the first, I attempted at reconstructing the hero’s experiences along the main events of his autobiographical course, aiming at reconstituting their meaning for the building (Bildung) of the subject’s sensibility, emotional, intellectual and spiritually, according to the way these experiences have been lived or recollected. In the second part, I dealt separatedly with the hero’s types of empirical contact with the natural forms in moments of observation, contemplation and meditation, emphasyzing the sensorial perception, especially its visual and auditory functions; the sentimental and emotional drives linked to the sensibility of the body; and finally to the transcendent intuition and metaphysical vision wich accompany the spiritual relations felt in the subject’s animical and spiritual responsivity – in quiet communion or lofty transport – with the deepest essence manifested in the life of the things surrounding him. Finally, in the third part, I turned my efforts to analyzing the resources employed for the aesthetical construction and rhetorical re-elaboration of the contents of human experience depicted in the narrative out of the association of imaginary, metaphorical, symbolical, conceptual and allusive contents that indicate the appropriation of a set of wisdom and knowledge drawn from an intellectual and literate tradition. As a result, I sustain the thesis that Wordsworth combines two fundamental elements in the poetic textualization of The Prelude. On one hand, there is the emotional expression of the inner effects aroused by the impression of the natural forms based on what might be conceived as a realistic representation, i.e. faithful to the empirical forms of human perception and regarding the subject’s attention to the surrounding environment and the local colour. On the other hand, I testified the re-elaboration of images, motifs and topoi, as well as conceptual notions and allusions which remount to the assertion of a worldview dear to the Romantic spirit, so as a sharp (although veiled) criticism against a number of institutional, social and political practices that menace the integrity of an organical world that the lyrical speaker considers ideal for the perfectioning of the human spirit in conditions of harmony with the universe where man abides – I mean Nature.

M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, 2011
This dissertation investigates the ways in which a broad and perennial problem – ‘the problem of dualism’ - is approached by three areas of inquiry, namely, English Romanticism, mysticism and contemporary studies of consciousness. By comparative analysis of key passages in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Huxley’s survey of mystical traditions in the Perennial Philosophy and work by contemporary philosopher Colin McGinn on the ‘mind-body problem,’ I explain how each discipline proposes an ideal state of ‘synthesis’ or ‘coalescence’ between the subjective and objective as a solution to ‘the problem of dualism.’ In turn, each discipline discerns a faculty or means towards such a synthesis. These are the ‘Imagination,’ ‘Third Eye,’ and ‘Bridging Principle’ respectively. Thus, this dissertation has three additional aims. First, I argue that the Romantic ‘Imagination’ and mystical ‘Third Eye’ faculty are conceptually similar in an attempt to show that certain Romantic poets (primarily Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley) sought access to a super-sensuous realm via the ‘Imagination.’ However, seminal texts such as Coleridge’s Biographia, Shelley’s Defence of Poetry and Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy imply that the Romantic poet, unlike the mystic, is thwarted from voluntary and veridical access to these realms: the Imagination reaches an impassable threshold which the mystical ‘Third Eye’ traverses. This condition, coupled with an inability to convey mystical experience in language with greater acuity, I argue, may account for the presence of melancholy in key Romantic works such as Wordsworth’s Prelude and Immortality Ode. I thus seek to enhance our understanding of the critical commonplace referred to as “Romantic melancholy.” Second, I aim to illustrate this view by analysis of key passages in Wordsworth’s Prelude and Immortality Ode. Finally, I aim to show that the early Coleridgean understanding of ‘the problem of dualism’ as highlighted in the Biographia can be further elucidated by contemporary theories of consciousness on the ‘mind-body’ problem.

碩士
國立彰化師範大學
英語學系
91
Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore the Self-Quest of the Psyche and Buddha Nature in William Wordsworth’s The Prelude and its application to English teaching in senior high schools. Totally, the thesis consists of five chapters. In the introduction section, the researcher she reports how to use the Deconstructionism, Jungian Analytic Collective Archetypes, and Zen Epiphany to explore the “Self-Quest” issues in Wordsworth’s The Prelude and its application to English teaching in senior high schools. Then the researcher she briefly surveys the following five chapters. Chapter One applies the theories of Deconstructionism to interpret The Prelude, an autobiographical writing, as a game of Self-Construction and Self-Deconstruction. So, an autobiographical writing is a symbol of self-attachment. How to read beyond the self-trapped word games will be explored in this chapter. Chapter Two applies the Jungian Analytic Collective Archetypes to explore the “Self-Quest” psyche in Wordsworth’s The Prelude. The researcher she tried to detect the French Revolution’s impact on Wordsworth’s thoughts and his self-questing journey. The discussion of the human psyche and the Collective Unconsciousness will be explored later. Chapter Three studies how to use an integrated approach to teach senior high students English poetry. In this chapter, the researcher she introduced many methods and approaches of English teaching. Besides, she applied the Action Research Method, combined the Computer Multiple Media, literary ways of teaching English poetry, and the Confluent Whole Man Language Education to teach literature and English. Chapter Four describes how the researcher she designed a teaching plan and procedure of the reading selection from The Prelude. She implied the literary meanings of The Prelude and combined the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures in the teaching text. Then, the researcher used the Action Research Method to empirically conduct a teaching experiment on how to teach The Prelude to senior high school students. During the teaching application, the researcher also the conductor integrated many teaching methods and theories, such as Eclectic Teaching Methods, the Life Education, Confluent Whole Man Language Games, Multiple Computer Media, and the Zen Mediation skills to instruct the adapted The Prelude text. Chapter Five applies data-analysis to analyze the statistic data from this case study, and points out the major findings. It provides the pedagogical reflections and improvements as well as suggestions for the further related study. Finally, the conclusion will summarize the major issues and findings of the thesis. Key Words: Self-Quest, Deconstructionism, Jungian Analytic Collective Archetypes, Zen Epiphany, French Revolution, an integrated approach, Computer Multiple Media, Confluent Whole Man Language Education, a teaching plan, teaching procedure, Action Research Method, Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, Eclectic Teaching Methods, the Life Education, case study, and data-analysis.