![]() We have analysed this classic Wordsworth poem here.ġ0. The poem is one of the great hymns to tranquillity, quiet contemplation, and self-examination in all of English literature, and a quintessential piece of Romantic poetry written in meditative blank verse. Well, actually, according to Wordsworth, he didn’t ‘write’ a word of the poem until he got to Bristol, where he wrote down the whole poem, having composed it in his head shortly after leaving the Wye. This poem was not actually composed at Tintern Abbey, but, as the poem’s full title reveals, was written nearby, overlooking the ruins of the medieval priory in the Wye Valley in South Wales. The landscape with the quiet of the sky … Thoughts of more deep seclusion and connect These waters, rolling from their mountain-springsĭo I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, ![]() This is one of the most famous poems of the late eighteenth century and an important example of English Romanticism, although Blake stands separate from the next two poets on this list…įive years have past five summers, with the length Don’t get too close to the tiger, Blake’s poem seems to say, otherwise you’ll get burnt. The fiery imagery used throughout the poem conjures the tiger’s aura of danger: fire equates to fear. Framed as a series of questions, ‘Tyger Tyger, burning bright’ (as the poem is also often known) sees Blake’s speaker wondering about the creator responsible for such a fearsome creature as the tiger. Accompanied by a painting of an altogether cuddlier tiger than the ‘Tyger’ depicted by the poem itself, ‘The Tyger’ first appeared in Songs of Experience in 1794. The opening line of this poem, ‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright’, is among the most famous lines in all of William Blake’s poetry. This needn’t surprise when we bear in mind that the sonnet’s author, Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806) was associated with English Romanticism and was also a key figure in the revival of the English sonnet. This poem by Charlotte Turner Smith, a pioneer of Romanticism in England who was born before Wordsworth or Coleridge, is that rarest of things: a Gothic sonnet. But as Dorothy Wordsworth’s role in inspiring ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ demonstrates, Romanticism wasn’t quite an all-male affair. Murmuring responses to the dashing surf …Įnglish Romanticism wasn’t entirely dominated by men, although it’s true that names like Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and so on tend to dominate the lists. With hoarse, half-uttered lamentation, lies Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighsĬhills his cold bed upon the mountain turf, Its distance from the waves that chide below To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,Īnd, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes Charlotte Smith, ‘ Sonnet on being Cautioned against Walking on a Headland’. And did the final two lines inspire The Proclaimers to write ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’? One cannot choose but wonder.ħ. Bob Dylan called it his single biggest inspiration. Possibly based on a traditional lyric, this poem – also called ‘My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose’ – is one of the most widely anthologised love poems in English. The poem betrays its eighteenth-century context and the attitudes towards race at the time, but Wheatley’s voice is an important one in eighteenth-century American – indeed, world – poetry. Wheatley had been taken from Africa to America as a young girl, but was freed shortly after the publication of her poems the short poem ‘On Being Brought from Africa to America’ reminds her (white) readers that although she is black, everyone – regardless of skin colour – can be ‘refined’ and join the choirs of the godly. 1753-84 pictured right) was the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in 1773 when she was probably still in her early twenties. Once I redemption neither sought nor knew … That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too: ’Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Phillis Wheatley, ‘ On Being Brought from Africa to America’. The poem also gave Thomas Hardy the phrase ‘far from the madding crowd’ for use as the title of his fourth published novel.ĥ. ‘Gray’s Elegy’ (as it’s often known) was partly inspired by the death of another poet, Richard West, in 1742, but became a grand meditation on death and the simple memorials left behind by rustic village folk rather than statesmen and celebrated figures.
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