Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

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Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

• By
• William Wordsworth
• 1770-1850

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Tintern Abbey
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Tintern Abbey

• Was once a great medieval church with associated
  living quarters for monks
• Located in Monmouthshire, Wales, in the valley of
  the River Wye
• The Abbey was broken up during the time of Henry
  VIII
• Its buildings were left in ruins

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Wordsworth Tintern Abbey

• Wordsworth first visited the ruins during August
  1793, when he was twenty-three.
• He returned to the spot five years later in 1798.

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Wordsworths Words

• no poem of mine was composed under
  circumstances more pleasant for me to remember
  than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after
  crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was
  entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble
  of four or five days, with my sister. Not a line
  of it was altered, and not any part of it written
  down till I reached Bristol.

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Meditative Poem

• Used frequently by the Romantics
• Begins with an observation of the outside world
• Its not nature itself which absorbs him but the
  idea of the harmony between humanity and nature.
• Ends back in the outer world
• The meaning of nature to the speaker

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Stanza 1

• Five years have passed five summers, with the
  length/ Of five long winters!
• Indicates the passage of time
• Five years since he has last visited Tintern
  Abbey
• Poem will indicate the affect nature had on him
  and the changes it brought about

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Stanza 1

• Nature Imagery
• Describes the setting
• Presents the tone of the poem as a result of
  nature
• Provides the speaker solace
• Peaceful
• Sublime
• Innocent
• Meditative

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Stanza 2The Power of Memory

• 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
  (22-28)

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Stanza 2The Power of Memory

• Even though he has been absent for five years,
  the poet can remember the beauty of the scene.
• Nature quiets his mind, lightens his mood, guides
  him to kind acts and brings him closer to God.
• Calls upon memory when lonely
• Memory of the place provides solace.

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Stanza 2The Power of Nature

• As have no slight or trivial influence
• On that best portion of a good mans 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,

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Stanza 2The Power of Nature

• In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all
  this unintelligible world, Is lightenedthat
  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

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Stanza 2The Power of Nature

• 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. (32-49)

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Stanza 2The Power of Nature

• Nature is a powerful connection to religion
• It is a means by which the poet enters a state of
  heightened consciousness, in which he is able,
  through nature, to see past nature to the
  universe.
• living soul
• our relationship with nature allows us to see
  into the life of things.

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Stanza 2The Power of Nature

• Allows us to make sense of this unintelligible
  world
• Partnership between nature and humanity
• nature becomes the center of the moral being
• nature is not merely something to be observed
• nature is an intimate and personal experience
• Romantic concepts

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Stanza 3

• If this/Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft-
  (49-50)
• Validity of comment occurs because of personal
  experience
• It is not a vain belief because it is a
  personal experience
• Characteristic of Romantic Poetry
• Focus on psychological and mysterious aspects of
  the human experience

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Stanza 4

• Theme
• Youth versus Maturity
• Youth
• (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,/ And
  their glad animal movements all gone by) (73-74)

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Stanza 4

• The sounding cataract
• Haunted me like 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, nor any interest
• Unborrowed from the eye. (76-83)

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Stanza 4

• Nature was an outside experience
• The poet loved to observe nature but he never
  connected it with something inside of him
• Now has a deeper and more personal meaning

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Stanza 4

• Maturity
• 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 or grating, though ample power
• To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
• A presence that disturbs me with the joy

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Stanza 4

• 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

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Stanza 4

• All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
• And rolls through all things. (88-102)
• deeply interfused
• intimate connection between nature and humanity
• we can better understand humanity because of
  nature

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Stanza 4

• 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. (107-111)

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Stanza 4

• His intimate connection with nature is the anchor
  of the best parts of him

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Stanza 5

• Addresses his sister
• Sees her perspective of nature which parallels
  his as a youth.
• Wants her to experience the deeper meaning and
  experience he has.
• Hopes that Nature will provide the same for his
  sister as it has for him.

• Addresses his sister
• Sees her perspective of nature which parallels
  his as a youth.
• Wants her to experience the deeper meaning and
  experience he has.
• Hopes that Nature will provide the same for his
  sister as it has for him.