LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

 I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
 While in a grove I sate reclined,
 In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
 Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
 
 To her fair works did Nature link
 The human soul that through me ran;
 And much it grieved my heart to think
 What man has made of man.
 
 Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
 The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; 10
 And 'tis my faith that every flower
 Enjoys the air it breathes.
 
 The birds around me hopped and played,
 Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
 But the least motion which they made
 It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
 
 The budding twigs spread out their fan,
 To catch the breezy air;
 And I must think, do all I can,
 That there was pleasure there.  20
 
 If this belief from heaven be sent,
 If such be Nature's holy plan,
 Have I not reason to lament
 What man has made of man?
 1798.

Sara Peris Carrascosa

Poetry XIX-XX centuries

Dr.V. Forés -1 paper

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

This is a poem writen by a Romantic poet, and, by this, we can see some traits of the Romantics poets (their movement appeared around 18th century in Western Europe, against the scientific rationalization in art and music, and against the aristocracy).

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism)

We can see how important the nature is for Romantics, since the begining: in the title “..in early spring”, because during all the poem the author is speaking about nature and spring.

In the fifth verse, we can see “her” referring to nature, word that appear in the same verse, and is written in capital letter (“Nature”) as we write the names of the persons; this is because the author associates human traits to unanimated objects (antropomorphism)

And we can see the importance of nature, and examples of antropomorphism, in the verse 9 “primrose tufts” (referring when sping starts), “green” (the colour of the pring), verse 10 “periwinkle”, verse 11 “flower”, verse 13 “birds”, verse 17 “twigs”, verse 22 “Nature”; in all these verses we can see how important is nature for Wordsworth, because he speaks about it as if “she” was human, and as if the elements of nature were humans too (example: v 14 “their thoughts” –of birds, v13-, v17 “the budding twigs spread out their fun”, v 22 “if such be Nature’s holy plan”).

In this poem we can see that the author expresses pity for the humans, in the verse 8 “What man has made of man”, and at the end the poet repeats the words but asking “Have I not reason to lament / What man has made of man”; it seems that, after a reflexion since the verse 9 to the verse 20, he concluded in this question.

A verse that reinforces my theory is the verse number 14 “Their thoughts I cannot measure”, although the author is using antropomorphism, we can see that he thinks even birds can think by them, not even them are marionette, they can think and feel by themselves.

I think that, the main idea of the first four verses is to think by ourselves, not to trust 100% in everything we listen or see, and try to find the reality, the truth by ourselves, to have our own ideas, our own point of view. Because, before the Romanticism, the books, songs, paintings, etc, were controlated by religious people, in order to keep their power, so, they don’t allow the people to think by themselves, and this change is important because, when the people is free to read, listen and think, they start to be free.

Although we can find some religious concepts, such as: “soul”, verse 6; “belief” and “heaven”, verse 21; “holy” verse 22.; this could be because the religion is still having some importance, this book is one of the first that Wordsworth published, and, by this all the “topics” of Romanticism are not “applied” at all.

In what refers to the prosodic analysis, we can say that this poem has masculine rhyme (link-think, bower-flower, measure-pleasure, fan-can, sent-lament); in what refers to rethorical figures, we can find some examples of antropomorphism (verses 5, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 22).

We can see that sometimes the author exagerates what he is saying, example: “But the least motion which they made / It seemed a thrill of pleasure”, because he uses two contrasting adjectives, that is, “least” versus “thrill”.

Wordsworth believed that humans are good by nature, they become bad by contact to the civilization (as Locke, Rousseau, and Leo Spitzer –“the myth of the good wild”); so if the humans are always alone, in contact with nature, they will be always good and fair, but, if they become corrupted, guilty, unfair, they will be like “contamined”; men have to return always to nature, because in there they have an innocent and purer existence. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth).

This poem was included in the book “Lyrical Ballads”, which was written by Coleridge and Wordsworth (most of the poems were writen by him), this poem was included in the first volume of the book published in the edition of 1798. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth).

This book was important because “it is typically considered to have marked the beginning of the Romantic movement in literature”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrical_Ballads)

And this means to break to the precedent movement, to change the way the poets write and the readers read (this can be applied to art, music and whatever), to change the way the people thinks.

This book was important became in it the authors experimented with vernacular language, they focus on simple, uneducated country people a subject of poetry (against aristocracy –Romantic movement-) and this was a departure from the nom (break with the previous movement) and a signal shift to modern literature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth)