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Thread: Tintern Abbey

  1. #1
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    Tintern Abbey

    Hello,
    I am a french student and I am studiing a poem of Wordsworth : "Tintern Abbey" and more precisely the relation between the poet and the nature. I would like to have some informations on this relation and some analysis of the poem...
    Thank you

    Here is the text :

    Five years have passed; 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 cliffs,
    That on a wild secluded scene impress
    Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
    The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
    The day is come when I again repose
    Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
    These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
    Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
    Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

    These beauteous forms,
    Through a long absence, have not been to me
    As is a landscape to a blind man's eye;
    But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
    Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
    In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
    Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
    And passing even into my purer mind
    With tranquil restoration feelings too
    Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
    As have no slight or trivial influence
    On that best portion of a good man's life,
    His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
    Of kindness and of love.Nor less, I trust,
    To them I may have owed another gift,
    Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
    In which the burthen of the mystery,
    In which the heavy and the weary weight
    Of all this unintelligible world,
    Is lightened that serene and blessed mood,
    In which the affections gently lead us on
    Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
    And even the motion of our human blood
    Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
    In body, and become a living soul;
    While with an eye made quiet by the power
    Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
    We see into the life of things.
    For nature then
    To me was all in all. I cannot paint
    What then I was. The sounding cataract
    Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
    The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
    Their colors and their forms, were then to me
    An appetite; a feeling and a love,
    That had no need of a remoter charm,
    By thought supplied, not any interest
    Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past,
    And all its aching joys are now no more,
    And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
    Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
    Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
    Abundant recompense.For I have learned
    To look on nature, not as in the hour
    Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
    The still sad music of humanity,
    Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
    To chasten and subdue.And I have felt
    A presence that disturbs me with the joy
    Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
    Of something far more deeply interfused,
    Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
    And the round ocean and the living air,
    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
    A motion and a spirit, that impels
    All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
    And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
    A lover of the meadows and the woods,
    And mountains; and of all that we behold
    From this green earth; of all the mighty world
    Of eye, and ear both what they half create,
    And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
    In nature and the language of the sense
    The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
    The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
    Of all my moral being.

  2. #2
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    This is a tougher of Wordsworth's poems. A good start would be to think about the relationship of nature and man made structures, specifically Tintern Abbey, which is a sort of outdoor church. If it is not tended to, it is over grown with vines and plants...which is a clue as to what Wordsworth thinks about the power of nature.

  3. #3
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    Also keep in mind that Wordsworth is returning to this spot after five years, and is reflecting on the changes of nature and of himself, and how they relate.

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    Thank you...
    I also would like some help to illustrate the fact that nature is seen as a healer. But it is quite difficult to analyse the poem. There is the vocabulary of calming...but what else ?

  5. #5
    Oh I love this poem, wonderful, it has been a favourite of mine for a long time. Do you still need a little help with this?

  6. #6
    Registered User Dipen Guha's Avatar
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    By the expression "blessed mood", Wordsworth unhearts his enlightment about the mysteries of the human existence. By "Unintelligible world" the poet means the inscrutinable complexes of the world . Since life to him is no longer a "burden", the poet has ceased to feel the " weary weight" of a " living soul". By the expression "purer mind" the poet means a greater introspective power. His " aching joy with "dizzy raptures" are no more. But he has achieved that rapport with Nature which is of more profound and lasting effect to aid him in the experiences of life.

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