Reading Wordsworth

1. What seem to be this poet's general interests and concerns? What images and ideas are stressed and repeated throughout his work?
   
   
2. Read "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" several times. What is the basic situation of "Tintern Abbey"? Who is speaking and where is he? Why is he speaking?
   
   
3. What do you notice about "Tintern Abbey's" prosody, voice, and music? For help, compare it to Pope's Essay on Man.
   
   
4. What is the speaker's relationship to and understanding of nature in "Tintern Abbey"? Does this speaker see himself as
   
   
   • Lord of nature?
   • Victim of nature?
   • Interconnected or interfused with nature?
   • Indifferent to nature?
     
     
5. What specific WORDS get frequently repeated in the poem?
   
   
6. What are the Lyrical Ballads?
   
   
7. Why did Wordsworth feel compelled to write his "Preface" to that book? What is the Preface's main purpose?
   
   
8. Why has he chosen to write about common things and "rustic life"?
   
   
9. What, for Wordsworth, is "good poetry"?
   
   
10. True or False: Wordsworth believes in the almost sacred value of emotion and sentiment; he regards reason, on the other hand, as unnecessary and even trecherous.
    
    
11. What is one way in which these poems, for Wordsworth, are distinguished "from the popular poetry of the day"?
    
    
12. What is the "capability" on p. 266 which he wishes to "produce or enlarge"?
    
    
13. What does he believe is "blunting" that capability in his day?

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