Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey - Essay Example

“Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” Introduction People fall in love with different things for different reasons. While some fall in love with other people, others fall in love with animals and nature. Love is the feeling of affection towards something or someone, and is expressed romantically through words or writing. People have varying levels of affection towards different things. While some people fall deep in love and develop a feeling of attachment towards the loved person, animal or place, others do not. Poets are affectionate about different things. A poet’s love is revealed through the various pieces composed in his or her lifetime. It is normal for poets to reveal their feelings and express their affection towards various issues in their different writings. Through the piece “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour,” William Wordsworth expresses his love for the landscape in that region. Summary In the poem, William Wordsworth expresses his profound love for the Tintern Abbey region. In this romantic piece, Wordsworth paints a beautiful picture of the banks. Memories of the beautiful scape remain eked in his mind regardless of time or place. In his emotional narration, Wordsworth points out that the banks reminded him of when he was a boy. However, despite the time gone, the place has constantly been influential to his life. The images of the banks have worked on him when alone or in crowded places and cities. Further in his revelation, he credits the memory to offering him access to a mental and spiritual state, which is responsible for the lightening of the burden of the world. Individually, different things affect us, and those that we love reflecting about influence our thoughts and emotions most of the time, just like the memories of the banks worked wonders to the author. The goal of the author by painting a romantic picture of the banks in the mind of the reader was to show the similar effects that different things could have on different people. In a romantic manner, the author narrates his tight connection with the Tintern Abbey. Through the smooth lines in the poem, the poet renders his deep attachment to the banks. Every line is a reflection of his profound love for this particular place. Although an old man at the time when he wrote this piece, he takes back the reader to the days of his teenage life when he used to visit the place and equally loved it just as he did now. The author narrates, “What then I was” (77), which is a statement that the author uses to take readers back to the days of his childhood. The effect the bank had on him then is no different to what it is today. While some things take a short time to change, others do not change at all. As he begins his narration, he declares that it had been five years since he last visited the place. Yet, he remembers a number of things that had remained the same. Wordsworth narrates, “plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tuft” (11), “Once again I see / These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines” (15–16), to include the various things that he could remember about the place from his early days. The manner in which he relates the incidences he had at the bank with life situations draws the audience from the scenes he paints with his words of the Tintern Abbey to their real life. For example, he reveals the effects the banks had on his life, regardless of the situation he was facing. The poem is kind to nature. The choice of words by the author gives the poem a good romantic feeling. It is, however, ironical how the author chooses to fall so much deep in love with nature. The reality is different to other people, though. Most people fall in love with other people more. In a love relationship, both parties involved share the same feeling. However, this is contrary to the relationship between Wordsworth and nature. According to the author, he benefited from his relationship with nature handsomely, perhaps even more than he would from human beings. They create lively pictures in his mind, images that he describes as “wild ecstasies” and become “a mansion for all lovely forms” (141). He equates the sound of the banks as sweet and harmonious, which are more musical and have an appealing feeling to him. Constantly, he mentions spirit and soul to signify how religious he was. He believed in some form of divine being and nature, which he reveals at the end to be nature. Wordsworth states that “We stood together; and that I, so long, / A worshipper of Nature” (152–153). To make the poem interesting and captivating, the author has used a number of styles in writing. They make the poem interesting to read. Poets use different styles of writing for a number of reasons apart from making it interesting. Readers can relate the information contained in the poem with their daily lives, while at the same time they influence the people’s minds and thoughts about the particular issue under discussion. The author has used personification in many incidences in the poem. For instance, he refers to the nature of the banks as “The wild green landscape” (15) to show how green the place was. In describing tortures of everyday life, he writes, “The dreary intercourse of daily life,” (132) to show the hustle of the daily life. He uses imagery vividly to describe the banks and the amazing scene that it was. For instance, he describes the woods as “Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, / Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire, the hermit sits alone” (21–22). He has severally repeated kindness of nature in the poem to show how willing it was to welcome him whenever he visited. The author uses metaphors to compare his feeling with nature to real things. He describes the effect of the sounding cataract as “Haunted me like a passion” to show how deep and strong the sound was. The poem uses emotional language when describing incidences that occur every time he visited the place. Even after long periods after his visits to the banks, these images lingered in his mind long after his visit. He shows caution with the manner in which he describes incidences in his many visits to the bank. While many people care less about nature and do not find good use of it, Wordsworth saw it as a place where he would relax and calm his mind from the issues that affected him and his life. He ethically treats nature and manages to create a lasting impression both to the reader and to the non-environmentalists. As evidence from the poem shows, there are many ways in which people can communicate their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Poets, for instance, use different writing styles such as imagery, personification, repetition, etc. The manner in which authors use these methods effectively communicates his ideas to the people in a more successful and vivid manner. Wordsworth uses the styles that determined how well he described his relationship with nature in the manner. Despite the dedication of the romance expressed in the poem to nature, something that one could not read or understand, any reader is impressed with the contents of the poem and wants to fall in love just to share a similar feeling with the author. Works Cited Wordsworth, William. “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.” Lyrical Ballads. London: J. & A. Arch, 1798. Print. Read More