Tintern Abbey and Preface to Lyrical Ballads

 In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth discussed his main ideals about poetry. He felt that poetry should be about everyday life and the truths and emotions that can come from those common experiences.

One of the things he says his poetry should contain common language to better convey the very ordinariness of the events he is transcribing. In Tintern Abbey he does this pretty well with straight forward language. It would be almost prose like if it weren’t in iambic pentameter. It is written in blank verse. The lack of rhyming helps it to better sound natural and conversational, as though the speaker really is just talking to himself or chatting with his sister.

The topic of this poem is of the River Wye, the trip he is taking there, and the memories of the trip he has taken before. This is a very normal topic for a poem, it almost seems like something casually brought up in conversation, when telling someone what you did this weekend, or something of that sort. Still the way he tells it is amazing. The amount of detail he says he remembers is staggering and definitely helps support his claim from the preface that a poet is a simply a man who feels more when experiencing life.

In theme with poets feeling more than regular men his response to aging, and the effects of changing and maturing are rather lovely. The way people change is perhaps one of the main themes.

Lines 84-96 above definitely goes along the lines of aging and growing through life experiences. He is traveling with his sister who is still enjoying nature in a youthful way. Perhaps her presence is the opportunity he really needs to fully appreciate the difference in how he look at the world between then and now. He looks and sees “the still, sad music of humanity.”(ln.92) The way everything connects and Gods presence. In youth the sights and feelings of nature were more like a thing of “appetite” (ln 81) something here, quenched, then gone, not thought of again until the feeling rises upon you again.

Despite the way the young look at nature, Wordsworth says the memory is more than worth having. It helps one get through days “amid the din of towns and cities” (ln26-27) It can raise your spirits or help you to be kind. He hopes his sister can take these memories of their current trip the way he does and that she will be able to stand against the cruelties of the world with these memories to fall back on when she is sad. When he dies, he hopes she will remember the trip they took together to Tintern Abbey.

 He mentions eyes a lot, five times I believe. As the barrier between the river wye and his mind and memories, I suppose they are significant. In line 24 he says the sight is not as a landscape is to a blind man’s eyes. Which I think means that it is more than mere description of trees and hills and mountains. As he continues this stanza with how the memory of the view can comfort him when he is unhappy perhaps the sight is something far more spiritual. Despite the title have the words Tintern Abbey in it an abbey is never actually mentioned in the poem. Perhaps nature itself is his abbey?

The next mention of eyes is in line 48. He is describing how the sight of nature can calm a restless spirit. “In body, and become a living soul: / While with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy.” (ln. 47-48) In this I think the most literal translation would be that the sight of the river is enough to hold a gaze. Instead of frantically looking about he is staring transfixed upon the river. Another way to look at it is that the body itself is held still, the spirit is held and calmed.

Overall the poems definitely holds to the claims and ideals made in the preface. It has a commonplace topic, uses conversational tone and words, and shows a reaction to an overflow of emotion the poet must have felt at remembering the scene.