William WordsworthWord文档格式.docx

1、s philosophical sympathies lay with the revolutionaries, but his loyalties lay with England, whose monarchy he was not prepared to see overthrown. While in France, Wordsworth had a long affair with Annette Vallon, with whom he had a daughter, Caroline. A later journey to France to meet Caroline, now

2、 a young girl, would inspire the great sonnet It is a beauteous evening, calm and free. The chaos and bloodshed of the Reign of Terror in Paris drove William to philosophy books; he was deeply troubled by the rationalism he found in the works of thinkers such as William Godwin, which clashed with hi

3、s own softer, more emotional understanding of the world. In despair, he gave up his pursuit of moral questions. In the mid-1790s, however, Wordsworths increasing sense of anguish forced him to formulate his own understanding of the world and of the human mind in more concrete terms. The theory he pr

4、oduced, and the poetics he invented to embody it, caused a revolution in English literature. Developed throughout his life, Wordsworths understanding of the human mind seems simple enough today, what with the advent of psycholanalysis and the general Freudian acceptance of the importance of childhoo

5、d in the adult psyche. But in Wordsworths time, in what Seamus Heaney has called Dr. Johnsons supremely adult eighteenth century, it was shockingly unlike anything that had been proposed before. Wordsworth believed （as he expressed in poems such as the Intimations of Immortality Ode） that, upon bein

6、g born, human beings move from a perfect, idealized realm into the imperfect, un-ideal earth. As children, some memory of the former purity and glory in which they lived remains, best perceived in the solemn and joyous relationship of the child to the beauties of nature. But as children grow older,

7、the memory fades, and the magic of nature dies. Still, the memory of childhood can offer an important solace, which brings with it almost a kind of re-access to the lost purities of the past. And the maturing mind develops the capability to understand nature in human terms, and to see in it metaphor

8、s for human life, which compensate for the loss of the direct connection. Freed from financial worries by a legacy left to him in 1795, Wordsworth moved with his sister Dorothy to Racedown, and then to Alfoxden in Grasmere, where Wordsworth could be closer to his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor

9、 Coleridge. Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge began work on a book called Lyrical Ballads, first published in 1798 and reissued with Wordsworths monumental preface in 1802. The publication of Lyrical Ballads represents a landmark moment for English poetry; it was unlike anything that had come befor

10、e, and paved the way for everything that has come after. According to the theory that poetry resulted from the spontaneous overflow of emotions, as Wordsworth wrote in the preface, Wordsworth and Coleridge made it their task to write in the simple language of common people, telling concrete stories

11、of their lives. According to this theory, poetry originated in emotion recollected in a state of tranquility; the poet then surrendered to the emotion, so that the tranquility dissolved, and the emotion remained in the poem. This explicit emphasis on feeling, simplicity, and the pleasure of beauty o

12、ver rhetoric, ornament, and formality changed the course of English poetry, replacing the elaborate classical forms of Pope and Dryden with a new Romantic sensibility. Wordsworths most important legacy, besides his lovely, timeless poems, is his launching of the Romantic era, opening the gates for l

13、ater writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron in England, and Emerson and Thoreau in America. Following the success of Lyrical Ballads and his subsequent poem The Prelude, a massive autobiography in verse form, Wordsworth moved to the stately house at Rydal Mount where he liv

14、ed, with Dorothy, his wife Mary, and his children, until his death in 1850. Wordsworth became the dominant force in English poetry while still quite a young man, and he lived to be quite old; his later years were marked by an increasing aristocratic temperament and a general alienation from the youn

15、ger Romantics whose work he had inspired. Byron-the only important poet to become more popular than Wordsworth during Wordsworths lifetime-in particular saw him as a kind of sell-out, writing in his sardonic preface to Don Juan that the once-liberal Wordsworth had turned out a Tory at last. The last

16、 decades of Wordsworths life, however, were spent as Poet Laureate of England, and until his death he was widely considered the most important author in England. AnalysisWordsworths monumental poetic legacy rests on a large number of important poems, varying in length and weight from the short, simp

17、le lyrics of the 1790s to the vast expanses of The Prelude, thirteen books long in its 1808 edition. But the themes that run through Wordsworths poetry, and the language and imagery he uses to embody those themes, remain remarkably consistent throughout the Wordsworth canon, adhering largely to the

18、tenets Wordsworth set out for himself in the 1802 preface to Lyrical Ballads. Here, Wordsworth argues that poetry should be written in the natural language of common speech, rather than in the lofty and elaborate dictions that were then considered “poetic.” He argues that poetry should offer access

19、to the emotions contained in memory. And he argues that the first principle of poetry should be pleasure, that the chief duty of poetry is to provide pleasure through a rhythmic and beautiful expression of feelingfor all human sympathy, he claims, is based on a subtle pleasure principle that is “the

20、 naked and native dignity of man.”Recovering “the naked and native dignity of man” makes up a significant part of Wordsworths poetic project, and he follows his own advice from the 1802 preface. Wordsworths style remains plain-spoken and easy to understand even today, though the rhythms and idioms o

21、f common English have changed from those of the early nineteenth century. Many of Wordsworths poems （including masterpieces such as “Tintern Abbey” and the “Intimations of Immortality” ode） deal with the subjects of childhood and the memory of childhood in the mind of the adult in particular, childh

22、oods lost connection with nature, which can be preserved only in memory. Wordsworths images and metaphors mix natural scenery, religious symbolism （as in the sonnet “It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,” in which the evening is described as being “quiet as a nun”）, and the relics of the poets r

23、ustic childhoodcottages, hedgerows, orchards, and other places where humanity intersects gently and easily with nature.Wordsworths poems initiated the Romantic era by emphasizing feeling, instinct, and pleasure above formality and mannerism. More than any poet before him, Wordsworth gave expression

24、to inchoate human emotion; his lyric “Strange fits of passion have I known,” in which the speaker describes an inexplicable fantasy he once had that his lover was dead, could not have been written by any previous poet. Curiously for a poet whose work points so directly toward the future, many of Wor

25、dsworths important works are preoccupied with the lost glory of the pastnot only of the lost dreams of childhood but also of the historical past, as in the powerful sonnet “London, 1802,” in which the speaker exhorts the spirit of the centuries-dead poet John Milton to teach the modern world a bette

26、r way to live.ThemesThe Beneficial Influence of NatureThroughout Wordsworths work, nature provides the ultimate good influence on the human mind. All manifestations of the natural worldfrom the highest mountain to the simplest flowerelicit noble, elevated thoughts and passionate emotions in the peop

27、le who observe these manifestations. Wordsworth repeatedly emphasizes the importance of nature to an individuals intellectual and spiritual development. A good relationship with nature helps individuals connect to both the spiritual and the social worlds. As Wordsworth explains in The Prelude, a lov

28、e of nature can lead to a love of humankind. In such poems as “The World Is Too Much with Us” （1807） and “London, 1802” （1807） people become selfish and immoral when they distance themselves from nature by living in cities. Humanitys innate empathy and nobility of spirit becomes corrupted by artific

29、ial social conventions as well as by the squalor of city life. In contrast, people who spend a lot of time in nature, such as laborers and farmers, retain the purity and nobility of their souls.The Power of the Human MindWordsworth praised the power of the human mind. Using memory and imagination, i

30、ndividuals could overcome difficulty and pain. For instance, the speaker in “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” （1798） relieves his loneliness with memories of nature, while the leech gatherer in “Resolution and Independence” （1807） perseveres cheerfully in the face of poverty by the ex

31、ertion of his own will. The transformative powers of the mind are available to all, regardless of an individuals class or background. This democratic view emphasizes individuality and uniqueness. Throughout his work, Wordsworth showed strong support for the political, religious, and artistic rights of the individual, including the power of his or her mind. In the 1802 preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth explained the re