Understanding Poetry

Unit 2: A Precursor and Two Romantics

Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her

Wordsworth (1798)

Lake District, England

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 4

The Romantic Movement 8

William Wordsworth’s The World is Too Much With Us 10

Daffodils 12

John Keats’ The Eve of St Agnes 14

Ode to a Nightingale 16

Answer Guidelines 21

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2. Introduction
In this unit we will study:

 Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

 William Wordsworth’s The World is Too Much with Us

Daffodils

 John Keats’ The Eve of St Agnes

 Ode to a Nightingale

We will look at Thomas Gray (1716-1771) as a transitional poet. We

will meet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) as a pioneer of the
Romantic movement and Keats as a poet with distinctive abilities to
hold his readers’ attention while they are reading his long narrative
poem. We will also look at Keats’ vision of life and his poetic skill.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this unit, you should be able to:

 highlight those elements that make Gray’s elegy a transitional

poem.
 describe some features of English Romantic poetry.
 define Wordsworth’s attitude to life and nature.
 identify some characteristic features of Keats’ poetry.
 demonstrate understanding of the poems and to respond to
them critically .

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2.1 Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is different from Milton’s

Lycidas in the sense that Gray is not mourning one particular person.

Read Gray’s elegy. Do the first reading at a stretch in order to get the gist of
the poem.

During your second reading follow the development of the speaker’s thought.

Here are some guidelines for the interpretation of the poem:

 The speaker is at first describing what he hears, sees and feels in

the churchyard. In the last line of the 4th stanza he mentions
“Forefathers”
“Each in his narrow cell for ever laid”.

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  In stanzas 5- 7, he goes on to describe the rural life which the
dead will no longer enjoy.
 In stanzas 8- 11 ambitious readers are told not to mock the grave
of ordinary country people.
 In stanzas 12 – 19 we are told that many living in the countryside
did not have the opportunities to flourish; stanzas 14 is often
quoted.
 In stanzas 20-21 the speaker describes the humble gravestones.
 In stanzas 22- 23 we are allowed to enter into the thoughts of the
dying
(this a rare privilege).
 In stanzas 24 – 29 we learn about a stone-cutter.
 In the Epitaph, we read about the young man who was intelligent
and generous.

The stone-cutter is often taken to represent Gray himself. It is interesting to

examine the metaphor.

You may now listen to the reading of the poem paying attention to the rhythm
and meaning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D47EAApRkiQ

2.1.1

Task 1: Read Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country’s Churchyard closely and collect
material to illustrate that it is a transitional poem.

Here are some characteristics:

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 Neo- Classicism Romanticism

Reason Feelings, imagination, intuition

Sophisticated city life Rural life & solitude

Human nature Spiritual values of nature

Norms of society Individual voice

Belief in God Faith in man

Objective Subjective

Statement Images and Symbols

Public Private

Formal poetic diction Language of the common man

It must be noted that there was a general move towards Romanticism. William
Blake (1775-1827) and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) had written on the
idea that nature was the best teacher and this point became a central point in
Romanticism.

You may visit the following site for a review on critical views on Gray’s elegy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegy_Written_in_a_Country_Churchyard#20th-
century_response

2.2 Some critical views on Gray’s elegy

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(a) Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) says “ The Churchyard abounds with images
which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom
returns an echo.”(1779,p384)

(b) T.S.Eliot (1888- 1965) puts forward that “The feeling, the sensibility, expressed
in Country Churchyard ( to say nothing Of Tennyson and Browning) is cruder than
that in the Coy Mistress”---poem by Marvell , the Metaphysical poet (1621-1678).

(c) David. B. Morris ,(2001) declared in his analysis of the use of death in 18th
Century English literature that Gray’s elegy is like a monument in an ongoing
transformation of death and that “ the elegy in its quiet portraits of rural life
succeeds in drawing the forgotten dead back into the community of the
living”(2001 p235).

Now you are invited to listen to some music: Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-
1827)

You may listen to Moonlight Sonata at

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http://1stpiano.com/beethoven-moonlight-sonata/

Beethoven is considered to be an important figure in the transition between

Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music. The Moonlight Sonata must
have been composed in the early years of 19th Century.

2.3 The Romantic Movement

The Romantic Movement flourished in the first half of the 19th Century. This
movement is also known as the 19th Century Romantic Revival.

The Romantic Movement is a continuation of the trend set by Gray and Blake.
In general the aims of the Romantic poets were to:

 break away from the neo classical ways

 to turn to nature as a form of spiritual inspiration
 to favour imagination
 to delve into the country’s myths, legends, historical past and
folklore; to stand up for liberty
 to give expression to the individual .

Yet it is held that we cannot refer to them as a school for they had their
particularities, rightly so as they were all for freedom. The ideas propagated by
the French Revolution had great impact all over Europe.

It is also held that the Romantic Movement was a form of resistance against
the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution and an attempt to restore human
values that could be corroded by prosperity.

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Late 20th century criticism on the Romantic poets has focussed on the political
aspects of their works; most of them did not openly oppose the establishment
but could not be totally blind to injustice made to fellow human beings.

According to Marylin Butler “Twentieth- century notions of Romanticism are

fed by two intellectual traditions. One tradition tries to understand
Romanticism aesthetically, as a theory about the nature and origin of art. The
other attempts to see it as a historical phenomenon which must be associated
with political and social circumstances.”(1981,p8).

2.3.1 William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Wordsworth was greatly influenced by the French Revolution. Together with

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) he planned The Lyrical Ballads; it was
published in1798. Wordsworth wrote a Preface to the second edition of The
Lyrical Ballads in 1800; it is regarded as the literary manifesto of the Romantic
Movement.

In the Preface Wordsworth says “the language of Prose may yet be well
adapted to Poetry”. He adds that his aim was “to choose incidents and
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situations from common life” and to present them in “ a selection of language
really used by men”. For him , he points out “ poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquillity”.

Source: http://www.bartleby.com/39/36.html

Wordsworth is regarded as a nature poet; this fact is easily supported by his

ideas in Tintern Abbey, the Prelude and in most of his poems either in a
direct manner or in an indirect one .

Wordsworth lived in the Lake District, a region in NW England, known

for its beautiful scenery and its trails.

2.3.2 The World is Too Much With Us

This famous sonnet includes one of the central ideas of the Romantic
Movement and also one of the main points of Wordsworth. The speaker
recommends a move from the busy life of earning and spending, probably
from towns, to a life of communion with Nature.

Suggestions for study:

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Study the structure of the poem. You may look at the octave; here
Wordsworth has used eight and a half lines in which he makes a statement.
Look at the solution that he proposes in the sestet. You may look at the
rhyming pattern and the rhythm.

Note the way figures of speech are used in lines 5-7 and a rhetorical device is
used in line 9.

In the sestet, Wordsworth says:

“Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;”

It will be interesting to look into the intensity of the speaker’s heart cry. For
further study, read T.S Eliot’s Journey of the Magi focus on the last lines
where the speaker says:

“We returned to our old places, these kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.”

When T.S. Eliot uses "gods", he might be referring to what was believed to be
"a creed outworn".

Wordsworth’s philosophy and his influence can be considered. Look at the

poem Leisure (1911) by W.H. Davies

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

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 Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare

2.3.3 Daffodils

In this poem Wordsworth recreates a view common in the Lake District of

England. He not only communicates his joy to us but also includes an insight
into his process of poetic creation.

Wordsworth says clearly how he could recall his feelings of joy at the sight of:

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Daffodils is an example of Wordsworth’s poetic creation from direct contact

with nature and “emotion recollected in tranquillity”.

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 Daffodils

Task 2 Using the material covered put down points you would use to
prove that Wordsworth is a nature poet.

Suggestion: you may use the site below, but your personal work is most
valuable.

http://literarism.blogspot.in/2011/02/wordsworth-nature-poet.html

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2.4 John Keats (1795-1821)

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Keats views on poetry are found in his poems and in his letters. In his poem
Sleep and Poetry he says that poetry should be about the agonies and the strife
of human hearts. He was well aware of the agonies and he even describes
them in Ode to a Nightingale in unforgettable verses.

Keats wanted to be among the great poets and he explored various modes. His
narrative poems are gripping verses. The Eve of St Agnes is as fascinating as a
fairy tale and at times it is taken to be a happy ending version of Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet. His Isabella or The Pot of Basil is a horror story and his
Lamia has supernatural elements.

Here’s an interesting resource on St Agnes Eve

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Medieval+Music&Form=R5FD5#view=
detail&mid=12A259563EBF22E13E4312A259563EBF22E13E43

2.4.1 The Eve of St Agnes

This poem was written in the first two months of 1819 - note the first stanza.

St Agnes was a Christian Roman girl, beheaded for having refused to marry a
non-Christian. Her symbol was a white lamb. According to the legend, a girl

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who went to bed without supper on St Agnes Eve would have visions of her
lover, as a response to her prayers.

Keats has set his narrative poem in medieval England. He reminds us of the
times through his descriptions of the architecture of the castle.

He has used contrasts between:

 the cold and hard surfaces of the chapel and the warmth
prevalent in the chamber scene.
 the desire to express through words such as “uttered”,
“voluble”, “eloquence” and the repressing forces, through words
such as “tongueless”, “in vain”, “stifled”
 death of the old and survival of the young ones

For a first reading, you may read it at a stretch.

At your second reading you are advised to focus on Keats’:

 narrative skill, paying attention to his ability to create and

maintain suspense
 descriptive powers
 vision of women and love
 ability of creating a medieval atmosphere
 style.

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A Medieval Castle

2.6 Task 3. Note down points highlighting the portrayal of Madeline in Keats’
The Eve of St Agnes

Suggestions:

 Consider the title

 Look for parallels
 Watch for moment of transformation in Madeline
 Analyse speaker’s point of view.


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2.4.2 Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale

Highgate Woods, close to Keats’ home in Hampstead, London.

Odes, meaning songs in Greek, are lyric poems having an elaborate stanza
form; they are formal in tone, they communicate lofty thoughts and feelings.
Sapho’s Ode to Aphrodite (600BC) is considered to be among the most ancient
odes. Pindar (522-442 BC), the Greek poet and Horace the Roman writer (65-8
BC) are well known Ode writers. During the 18th Century Pope and Gray wrote
odes. Wordsworth’s Ode to Duty (1805), Coleridge’s Dejection (1802) and
Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind (1819) are among best known odes. This lyric
form was taken up in France by Lamartine, de Musset and Victor Hugo. From
Keats we have six odes: they are all striking and once met never forgotten.

We have two types of odes: public odes and private odes. Pindar wrote public
odes but Horace, the Roman writer took up the private ones. Tennyson’s Ode
on the death of the Duke of Wellington is an example of the public ode. Keats’
Ode to a Nightingale is a private ode.

Keats’ Odes: To a Nightingale, (May 1819) Ode on a Grecian Urn (May 1819),
On Melancholy (May 1819), To Autumn (Sep 1819) are well known.

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In On Melancholy Keats tells that:

“When the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,”
one should “glut one’s sorrow
“ on a morning rose
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand –wave”

In Ode on a Grecian Urn, he illustrates how art can immortalise love, the spot
and the mood, for the speaker says:

“ For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair”

and adds:

“Ah , happy , happy boughs! That cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;”

You must have recalled the sonnet by Shakespeare!

To Autumn is a celebration of maturity. We come close to a season of plenty

and imagine seeing Ceres, the Greek Goddess of corn and harvest. However
Keats adds a philosophical depth and we read:

“Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,”

We now come to Ode to a Nightingale. It is a poem of eight stanzas only but

there is a movement that must be followed. In your first reading pick up the
various moods in the poem. In your second reading get to grips with the
content of each stanza.

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You will note that in:

 stanza 1 the speaker describes his intense feelings as he listens to

the bird

 stanza 11 he expresses his desire to follow the bird, with the help
of wine

 stanza 111 he describes the world as it is, that is one which the
bird does not know

 stanza 1V he changes his mind: he will follow the bird with the
help of poetry, so he travels with him but comes back on earth.

 Stanza V the speaker takes time to enjoy the English summer

 Stanza VI he expresses his death-wish saying

“Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,”

but also admits that it will be sad

to “ have ears in vain” and to be just “a sod “ to the
nightingale’s “high requiem”.
 Stanza VII the speaker celebrates the immortality of the
bird’s song ; can we detect a comparison between
poet and bird here?

 Stanza VIII after an imaginary flight into “ancient days” , into

the old Testament, meeting Ruth and even in fairy
lands, the speaker comes to himself. The speaker has
been carried away, so much, by the nightingale’s
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 song that he asks himself:
“Do I wake or sleep?”

Task 4: Make a list of points that you can use to discuss Keats’ style in To a
Nightingale. Support your points with close references to the poem.

Suggestions:

 Keats admired Spenser’s and Milton’s style.

 He was eager to acquire knowledge of classics.
 Keats is known for his work through the senses.
 He has been noted for his skill in word painting.

On Ode to a Nightingale

Note that this ode can be taken as a triumph song for Death or simply as a
Death wish. Yet we also note the duality it represents: at times we note total
dejection but at other moments there is an eager desire for life and joy that
nature offers. The ode represents an interplay of movements between the
bird’s song and its effect on the speaker.

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Task 5 : Explain the following lines with reference to their context and add

brief critical comments.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air

Some suggestions:

 re-read the poems in this unit, closely.

 locate the verses given above, within the content of the poem
 supply the necessary explanations
 discuss the content from a structuralist point of view and you may apply
practical criticism.

It is essential to become familiar with the poems set for study; short but
frequent periods of readings can be most helpful.

Summary
In this unit we have

 looked at Gray’s elegy as a transitional work

 studied some of the main characteristics of the Romantic
movement
 examined the centrality of nature in the two poems by
Wordsworth
 looked at two poems by Keats and his poetic skills
 worked at a sample of the context question.

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Answer Guidelines

Task 1

Neoclassical elements in the poem:

Stanza 8 = Ambition
9 = pomp of power, wealth, path of glory,
11= Honour’s voice
Stanza 15= reference to Milton & Cromwell
Stanza 16-19 = calm objective view of the poor
Style of the poem: archaic words
Quatrain with abab rhyming pattern

Elements of Romanticism:
Stanzas 1-3 = focus on nature
Stanzas 5-7 =description of rural life ; rural life given value
Stanzas 14, 15= use of symbols
Story of stone –cutter and epitaph= subjective
Stanzas 25-29 = rural worker in nature presented in a sympathetic
manner
Style formal but easy and close to common language
Instead of turning to classical myths and legends, Gray recalls the well
known writer , Milton and the Head of the Parliamentarian Army,
Cromwell, thus he celebrates the past of England (not the past glory of
Greece) as other Romantic poets will do later.

Gray composes a fusion and guides the reader towards the trend to
come.
Gray (similar to Blake) is rightly called: precursor of the Romantics.

Task 2

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 Back to Nature: Gray, Blake, Rousseau
Reaction against 18thC trends set up by the emerging Commercial class
Desire to maintain moral values
Wordsworth’s Preface
The poem “The World is Too Much With Us...”
“Daffodils”
Other poems by Wordsworth ( mentioned earlier)
His influence

Task 3

 Consider the title: St Agnes, patron of young virgins, possibly

martyred at the age of 13
 Note the parallel between Madeline and the beadsman in front of
the picture of Virgin Mary, see stanzas vii and viii
 Find out how Madeline is described in the hall among the cavaliers
 Note the transformation in stanza xxxv
 Probe into the role played by Angela; see her name
 Look into the significance of the feast arranged by Porphyro;
similarity found in The song of Solomon in Old testament in
Chapter 4:11-14
 Compare the beginning with the end of the narrative
 Explore the reason behind the choice of medieval setting
 Note beadsman’s postures at the beginning and at the end
 Examine the meaning behind the escape of Madeline and
Porphyro in the context of early 19th Century England; it could be
an escape from repressive forces.

TASK 4

 Keats was influenced by Edmund Spenser and John Milton. He

loads his descriptions.
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  His poetic devices include:

-- intertextuality: Biblical, mythological for example Ruth,

Bacchus, Dryad

-- synaesthtesia, that is the mixing of sensations, the

concurrent appeal to more than one sense and the response
through several senses to the stimulation of one; for example see
stanza II the sense of taste is mixed with the
senses of touch and sight---emotions too come in with “
blushful Hippocrene” ; see “ soft incense” and “embalmed
darkness” in stanza V
--Alliteration: “ the fever and the fret”; “ beaded bubbles”
-- compound words : “ Deep-delved”; “Queen- Moon” ;these are most
helpful for a concise poetic style
--Personification: “Beauty” in stanza III
-- Coinage: “Darkling” in stanza VI. A term, believed to have been
coined by Keats. Later,Thomas Hardy(1840-1928) uses the term as
part of a title for his poem The Darkling Thrush
-- anadiplosis:the repetition of the last word of one clause at the
beginning of the following clause to create special effect; here Keats
makes a striking use of the anadiplosis between stanza VII and stanza
VIII to come on earth and face the reality of the illness and death.

-- Keats very often uses evocative expressions to create the mood he

desires : see “Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas”

Concluding note: Keats is known as a sensuous poet and as one skilled

in word painting.

Task 5

Context: This quatrain comes almost half way through Gray’s elegy.
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The speaker has been pointing out that those in the country’s church yard
might not have achieved much in life either in governing bodies or in arts but
they did not have the necessary education because of “Chill Penury”. After
the verses given above, the speaker goes on to add that may be in the
churchyard there are some who could have been as great as Milton or
Cromwell.

Explanation:

 gems—trend in 18th Century , ships were bringing in gold,

silver and precious stones from different parts of the world.
England was among the major sea powers of Europe.

 “desert” can be taken as referring to a cheerless place, one

where there is little activity.

Comments:
 These verses can be taken as an offer of consolation
to the deprived but talented country folk . However,
the main point is to show that all are equal in death.
 Structuralist : (a)poetry in early 18th Century
 (b)Gray as precursor of the Romantics. Later we
come across:
“A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!”
Wordsworth (1799)

Wordsworth’s point was to value the hidden “gem” of the countryside,

precisely from the lake District .

Through Practical Criticism:

 effect of spondees at the beginning of first and third

lines

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  alliterations, repetitions, rhyming patterns
 /d/ & /K/ versus long vowels
 see through functions of speech -- referential
 Rhythm such that these are often recited

Concluding note: Often these verses are taken as representative of the whole
poem. “gem” and “flower” form a strong association built for nature.

References

Butler, Marilyn,1981,Romantics, Rebels & Reactionaries, English

Literature and its Background 1760-1830,Oxford
University Press, Oxford, p 8.
Johnson, Samuel, 1959, Lives of the English Poets, in English Critical
Essays16th,17th,& 18th, ed. Edmund D. Jones,
Oxford University Press, London, p384.
Morris, B. David, (2001)A Poetry of Absence. Available from:
https://www.academia.edu/354662/A_poetry_of_absence
Wordsworth, William, 1798, Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey, On Revisiting The Banks Of Wye During A Tour in The
Poetical Works of Wordsworth, Oxford University Press,
Oxford,p163.
Wordsworth, William, 1799, Poems founded on the Affections in The
Poetical Works of Wordsworth, Oxford University Press,
Oxford, p86.

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