Songs of Innocence and of Experience showing two contrary states of human soul

-first published separately and later as a revolutional collection-contrast between them is very distinct, obvious, sharp, contrast in atmosphere, tone, rhythm, irony-poems that occur in one collection have the same pairs in the other (the name is the same)-depicted as positive and negative-the point was to combine the text and the image-innocent pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption

Songs of Innocence-fragile, pastoral setting, Blake is showing the world seen by the eyes of the children, protagonists are children who are left and are not aware that are being exploited-poems: Introduction, The Lamb, The Chimney Sweeper, The Little Black Boy, The Infant Joy

Introduction poem in Songs of Innocence-pastoral setting, cheerful atmosphere, poet is presented as a shepherd, he is piping down the valley, he sees a child on a cloud (inspires him to write a song about lamb), lamb stands for Christ (protector), child is an angel and his tears are tears of joy-trochaic foot, rhyme: abab, stanza: quatrain, form and content are very simple-this poem gives the tone and mood to a whole collection of poems-uses nature to write down poems

The Lamb-the lamb is the central symbol of this collection-the lamb is the embodiment of innocence-the poem consists of 2 stanzas, the first one is question and the second one answer-the speaker is a child who asks lamb about its origin, how it came into being, how it acquired its particular manner of feeding, its ‘clothing of wool’, its ‘tender voice’-in the second stanza the lamb answers that it was made by one ‘who calls himself a lamb’, one who resembles both the child and the lamb-there is a link between the child and the lamb, they are both weak, tender, soft-tone: joyous, peaceful-the innocence and goodness of the lamb is emphasized when compare to the tyger who lives in a dark and gloomy atmosphere, who is dangerous, whereas the lamb is meek and mild-the nature embraces the lamb as if it is the part of it

The Chimney Sweeper-the poet expresses his criticism of child labour, exploitation and inequality-parents are betraying their children by allowing system to exploit them-children are sold to work as chimney sweepers, we can see their misery when they say 4 times ‘weep’-‘I sweep and in soot I sleep’ – this ‘soot’ metaphorically stands for corruption, and literary means that innocence is sleeping in soot-‘Tom Dacre’ – one of chimney sweepers, they shaved his hair and took away his innocence, he didn’t have opportunity to be a child, there is a contrast between its dream and reality, he dreams that they will be free from work and this dream offers him a release, like a lamb he is enjoying the nature, touching the clouds-‘If he’d be a good boy He’d have God for his father and never want joy’ – extremely ironic, they are all good boys and where is God to help them, there is no one to rely on, to protect them-dream fills him with optimism

-‘So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm’ – irony, it is not their duty, they experience nothing but harm

Song of Experience-dark setting, protagonists understand how world works-symbol of this collection is tiger (stands for power)-poems: Introduction, The Tyger, The Chimney Sweeper

Introduction poem in Songs of Experience-the form is more complex, very serious -written in iambic foot, rhyme scheme: abaab-the poet is commenting on the state of the world, he is urging people to hear the voice of the Bard, who is the poet himself, he introduces fallen world, fallen man-he identifies himself with someone, he understands some things that other people don’t-‘That walk’d among the ancient trees’ – might refer to walking of Genesis, referring to the God’s creation of the world-in the first stanza we have poet as a profit, and in the second poet’s profit addresses the mankind-‘lapsed Soul’ – God-mixture of innocence and experience, man should control the reason, balance between the reason and imagination-in the 3rd stanza he is calling the Earth to restore the light, it refers to the rotation of Earth, swift of night and day, mankind is in a state of slumber-in the 4th stanza he is addressing the Earth, there is no more of dark, kind of a vicious circle, the circumstances will change, but the basis is the same-‘watry shore’ – the edge of the world-man embraces reason so imagination is lost

The Chimney Sweeper-the same form as the ‘Chimney sweeper’ in Songs of Innocence, however there, children are not aware of what is happening, whereas here, children knows that they will die-uses iambic foot, no cheerful tone-‘a little black thing’ – a child, the society sees the boy as a thing, which refers to its bad treatment and that he is neglected, alone, crying-contrast between black and white (snow)-the child blames the church, the God, the king, his parents-parents show him that life is hard and that there is nothing to be happy about, he is controlled by others, he is not a boy anymore-‘they clothed me in a clothes of death’ –uniform, the work itself leads to death, refers to misery of its life-in the 3rd stanza he manages strength to be happy, he is extremely ironic in the last line, because church approves this kind of exploitation

Lucy Poems: Themes, Mood, Inspiration

The Lucy poems are a series of five poems written by English romantic poet William Wordsworth:1. Strange fits of Passion Have I Known2. She dwelt among the untrodden ways3. Three years she grew4. A slumber did my spirit seal5. I travelled among the unknown men

Four of these poems were published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, the collection that Wordsworth published with S. Coleridge. The main question that many critics ask themselves is: ‘Who was Lucy?’ The answer is not known, yet it is irrelevant. Lucy may or may not be inspire by Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet’s sister with whom he spent most of his life, by Annette Vallon, poet’s great love with whom he had a daughter, or Mary Hutchinson, poet’s wife and childhood friend or by another female person. However these are not personal confession, but lyrical ballads, each of which tells a verse story and presents it dramatically. She is embodiment of nature, the nature’s being that lived for a short time only to be returned to its original source, nature. The best example is ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’, where the girl is presented as an ideal almost eternal structure and soon as dead. The poet considers Lucy more as a spirit of a nature than a human being.The poems themselves tell us very little, that Lucy died very young and that she lived in a cottage and the main theme which binds together the Lucy poems is the growth of love for a pure young girl and the loss of that love. He felt her presence everywhere around him and even his love for his country could be traced to this love for Lucy.The mood varies through these poems. In ‘A strange fits of passion have I known’ the presence of death is felt throughout the poem although it is mentioned only in the final line. He finds it painful to admit the fact that all living things are as time passes by, closer and closer to death. Lucy, like the rose and the moon will after all end up in the same way. In the poem ‘Three years she grew’, the mood of lamenting over the girl’s death is present. In ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’ the poet can’t accept the truth about the existence, the condition of being only human and mortal, and at the same time being the lover of a mortal woman.

Strange fits of passion have I known-regular rhyme scheme and simple ballad form (quatrains abab iambic tetrameter + trimeter)-narrator has been a victim of strange fits of passion, he has strange fears when some moments came into his mind-he describes the journey to Lucy’s cottage and his thoughts on that way-the fear is dominant feeling in the poem-he says that Lucy is beautiful, ‘fresh as a rose in June’ – period of time when roses blossom, but as everything else in the nature the rose fades, as well as people-his eyes are ‘fixed upon the moon’-‘evening moon, sinking moon, descending moon’ – alludes to Lucy’s death-the disappearance of the moon brings into him fear that Lucy might be dead-he realizes that ‘the rose in June’ is fated to die as well as moon is fated to set-his welcoming of the state of sleep can be interpreted as a desire to withdraw with Lucy-when he was in front of her cottage he said: ‘O Mercy! If Lucy should be dead!’, this thoughts terrifies him, he finds painful to admit that all living things are as time passes by closer and closer to death, Lucy like the roses and the moon will end up in the same wayA slumber did my spirit seal-2 stanzas, ballad form abab-contrast between the stanzas

-in the first stanza there is ‘state of immortality of love’-‘a slumber’ is related to sweet dreams from ‘Strange fits of passion’, it is the state of sleep, peace, time when ‘we had no human fears’-here is poet’s grief best described, he is not afraid of death-calls her ‘a thing’, she seems to be immortal-the space between the stanzas refers to transition of Lucy from life to death-in the second stanza there is contrast, she is dead, she is now part of nature not just a human thing

She dwelt among the untrodden ways-the poet starts the poem with the description of an isolated and untouched area where Lucy lived-‘untrodden ways’ are symbol of her both physical isolation and the unknown details of her thoughts and life-‘Dove’ is the symbol of purity, peace, she is fragile, gentle-she is connected to nature because of the way she lived and because of the imagery pictures the poet used to describe her-poet sees her through nature, compared to the star, only one which is shining and visible (Venus-star of goddess of love)-in the last stanza we can see that she died where her roots are

Three years she grew-cyclical structure of the poem-similar to ‘She dwelt among the untrodden ways’, they both share the theme of Lucy’s growth, perfection and death-not written in ballad stanza-narrated by nature, Lucy is ‘the child of nature’, she is in perfect harmony with nature-allegory in which Lucy is a flower-a lot of antithesis: ‘law and impulse’, ‘rock and plain’, ‘earth and heaven’, ‘glade and bower’, ‘kindle or restrain’-Lucy is a representative of all human beings and not as a particular person-everything in nature will lend something to Lucy to achieve perfection, her growth, development-she would be an intimate friend with nature, explores her relationship with nature-she isn’t doing anything harm to nature-in the last stanza dramatic change, she is dead and there is nothing left but a memory of her, their love

Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads: Composition, Title, Publication, Critical Reception

Lyrical Ballads is the collection of poems written by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, although Wordsworth has much more poems. The first edition was published in 1798 and it marks the true beginning of romanticism in England. Wordsworth published an Advertisement, where he wanted to explain what the purpose of this work was. The reactions were hostile, many people said that it is simplified. The second edition was published 1800, with the Preface, which is a kind of manifesto about the nature of poetry. He tried to clarify his ideas, his aspects and thoughts were much clearer. Focus of the entire collection was primarily strong emotion (wrote about common people, incidents, events). His poems are partly mimetic (describing nature in too many details). He wrote about events he witnessed, things he saw (Tintern Abbey). The aim is to keep us aware, to open our eyes, provide comfort, pleasure, excitement. Wordsworth supposed to write about ordinary themes from life giving them look extraordinary and unusual, whereas Coleridge supposed to write about supernatural and exotic giving

them look ordinary. Wordsworth understands human nature, the one who are poor, unemployed and feels sympathy towards them. He was criticized for being too simple. He wrote in simple language because he wanted ordinary people to understand it. He used language of lower and middle classes, language which is very close to the language of prose. He used a very few figures of speech. Characters are common people from ordinary life, sometimes he discussed the relationship between an individual and the society. His task was to represent everyday things in an interesting way, for example Thorn, he sees it with different eyes. The initial reactions to this work were negative, many people thought it was written by a single author, it lacked unity. All of the poems are lyrical.

Tintern Abbey Revisited – Composition, Structure, Themes, Style

‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798’ is the poem written by William Wordsworth, which deals with the re-visiting the town in Wales. It is written in blank verse (iambic pentameters which don’t rhyme) and consists of 5 paragraphs, not stanzas. The poem starts with the description of the surrounding and the effects that this place had left on the poet when he first visited this place. He is making conclusion that 5 years have passed since he last visited this place, when he was fascinated and speechless. He gives us a philosophical view of nature, he is asking nature to shape his mind. There is changing of perception, when you are a child, it is not instinctive and it is irrational, and when you grow up you see things more clearly and in a rational way. In the second stanza he describes a 5years lapse between visits to the abbey. He feels ‘sensations sweet’ when he think about this place in a lonely rooms of the towns and cities. Since he was unable to visit the place physically, he went there in his mind which provided him comfort and pleasure. He describes the moon of happiness caused by remembering and experiencing, the emphasis is on the things that are seen and experienced. He believes nature will be part of him until he dies, there is a link between a mind and a nature. He specifies his attempt to use nature to see inside of his inner self. He remembers how he felt towards nature when he was young, he was full of energy. He is completely aware of everything around him and he speaks from his heart. In the fourth stanza, he begins by explaining the pleasure he feels at being back in the place that has given so much joy over the years. There is transition from past into present, now he has a deeper relationship with nature. In the last stanza, he searches for a means by which he can carry the experience with him. He addresses his sister Dorothy, calling her both ‘sister’ and ‘dear friend’. Through her eyes, he can see the vitality he had when he first visited this place. He says that he will die first and he hopes that he will remain in her memory. There is a spirit of contemplation, a spirit which connects everything, man and nature.

Tintern Abbey Revisited – Nature, Childhood, World of Spirit

It is crucial that we speak about nature when analyzing ‘Tintern Abbey Revisited’. The poem is located a few miles away, and the place itself is very important to the poet since he gives us a direct specific location. He has already visited this place 5 years ago, and it left him speechless.Wordsworth is known as the ‘Poet of Nature’, and for him nature has much deeper meaning than the obvious, aesthetic one. Nature is the centre of his universe and provides good influence on human mind. It is not only inspiration for him but suits his pain, provides him comfort. What Wordsworth keeps emphasizing is that the landscape around him is not something ordinary or general. He is not trying to describe landscapes but to convey feelings, deep thoughts, express the poet’s mind and describes the effect of nature on himself. Nature is not only physical beauty, beauty for the eye, but she is at the same time beauty and food for the mind, also connection between the man and God, unity of everything. When

he was closed in lonely rooms of cities and towns, he meditated, nature brings him comfort and relief. He addresses nature as a friend, life savior, ‘the guardian of my heart and soul of all my moral being’. He says that nature healed his broken, tired spirit, which suffered in the city. Something in his spirit made him understand the whole world in a different way. After meditations, he was capable of surviving another day in dirty city. His spirit witnessed the fact that we are all connected, created to live in a harmony with nature. Spirits of all things are connected and they live all together in harmony with nature. His meditations had started when he was very young. From his early age he’s been accustomed to the state of consciousness. He had brief periods of ecstasy, insight… In childhood, perception and joy are simultaneous – an appetite, enjoyment of nature is animalistic, innocent since he was more a part of nature than her observer. More mature, Wordsworth came to Tintern Abbey and this visit changes perception and awoke emotions in him, passion… An adult man sees things more clearly and in a rational way, he is not too aware of the pain and sadness all around him. He is not sorry for his childhood has passed, and he known that the world of spirit will always be there to comfort him. His childhood still inspires him, since it is not lost but exist in his spirit and in his sister. In Dorothy, he recognizes his old fire, amazement and innocence. He is now involved in more mature things in life, he’s becoming more intelligent and sees nature in the light of his experience and intelligence.

Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads – ‘We are seven’

‘We are seven’ is the poem written by William Wordsworth, and belongs to the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, collection of Wordsworth and Coleridge. It has 17 ballad stanzas with the rhyme scheme abab and the main theme is the conversation with an 8-year old girl who is telling him about her family. The first stanza sets the tone of the poem, and the contrast between ‘child and death’ places the dark atmosphere of the poem. Last line is a rhetorical question, what can child know about death. Poet walking in the nature, met a girl and he was amazed with her beauty, curly hair and fair eyes. He was amazed with her simplicity, she was so natural, simple, maybe he saw her that way because she lived in the country whereas the poet is from urban area. From here, we are introduced to the main conflict in the poem, question how many brothers and sister she had. Through the poem, girl insists that she has 7 brothers and sister (including herself) despite 2 of them being dead. The poet is somewhat confused by her claims thinking that she is simply miscalculated. The speaker asks her where they are and she says that 2 of them are at Conway (seaport in Wales) and 2 of them lie in the church yard. We see from here that they are dead. The girl assures the poet that there is still life in her dead siblings. She believes her siblings limbs are as alive as her own, and nature of her replies is strong, natural and self-assured. She can’t be compared to the ones who are dead. They still exist at some level for her, she might be in a state of denial. She spends a lot of time near that area, dancing around, knitting and singing, showing the love for her family and unwillingness to let them go from her life. She says that first died little Jane and then her brother John, she still counts them as family members. The poet tries one more time to convince her that she is mistaken, but her insistence can be best seen in the last line of the 16 th stanza when she says: ‘O Master! We are seven.’ He is just throwing his words away (metaphor), there is no point in trying to convince her. The real power of thoughts is felt with an exclamation: ‘Nay, we are seven!’. Language is simple, a lot of similarities with folk poetry, sad tone of the poem. The main theme is the importance of innocence, looking life through the child-like eyes. The poet is jealous of this innocence, he misses it. There is the idea of the poet that dead people still live in imagination and memory of those who are alive.

‘This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison’Poem written by Samuel Coleridge, published in his collection of poems ‘Conversation poems’. The poem is based on a real incident. Charles Lamb, W. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came to visit Coleridge and his wife, but Coleridge had an accident and he was prevented from going for a walk with them, so he left at home and wrote this poem. His collection of ‘Conversation poems’ is also known as ‘Poems of Friendship’ because he is addressing his friends, this poem is explicitly addressed to Charles Lamb. The poem is written in blank verse (iambic pentameters which don’t rhyme) which gives the poem spontaneous look. It consists of 3 stanzas and the language is close to that in prose.The poem starts in depressed and melancholic mood of the poet because he is unable to join his friends. He says: ‘I have lost beauties and feelings, such as would have been most sweet to my remembrance even when age had dimmed mine eyes to blindness!’. The speaker imagines that he will go blind when he is old and laments that he won’t have a memory of the evening walk with his friends to give him comfort. He imagines that he will never see his friends again because they could die. He feels isolated and calls ‘this lime-tree bower’ his prison because it keeps him away from his friends. Idea of ‘the lime tree bower’ as a symbol of imprisonment is actually a paradox, contrasting the beauty and freedom of the nature and dirt of the city. This imprisonment actually liberates his imagination because that’s the moment he wrote a poem. There is a change of colors in the poem, as he moves on the focus on Charles, the new colors are introduced. In the 2nd stanza he addresses the sun, flowers, ocean. He remembers when he himself perceived the same scene, he achieves a kind of unity of nature. He wants Charles to experience what he had experienced in the past. In the 3rd stanza he speaks as if he is there. Everything is becoming more beautiful because his mood changes all of a sudden. As he is describing all these things, he has a different vision about a lime tree, it now brings him comfort and delight. He appreciates he branches through which the sun is going. He focuses on sound and finds consolation in nature. He imagines that both Charles and he can see a bird on the shy and that will carry a charm to him. Coleridge thought the time spent in nature could help Charles relive his pain because he was trapped in the city for so long. At the end of the poem, Coleridge is now seeing world from different perspective. This imagination journey has brought him closer to his friends and taught him to appreciate nature, because everything in nature is valuable.

‘Ode on the Intimations of Immortality’ – WordsworthAn Immortality Ode or The Great Ode as it is popularly called, is a poem written by William Wordsworth in which he evaluated all ideas which he started to explore in the ‘Tintern Abbey’. It is a sequence to ‘Tintern Abbey’ and it deals with our inevitable growth as individual human beings. It is a lyrical ballad written in elevated style. In the introductory lines he wanted to establish connection of his adult mind with childhood. He wants to show us that child knows things that adult don’t. He doesn’t mention the loss of soul, but the glory of soul. The first stanza starts with pastoral setting where he compares the past and present, the way he sees nature now and the way he saw it before. He has strength and joy but not glory. In the second stanza he says that although he can see the beauty of rainbow, the rose, the moon and the sun, he still has feeling that something in his soul changed and that glory of a past, which to him was like a dream, no longer exists. We have here also allusions of cycle of life and a constant change. Flower symbolizes a new seed and further growth. In the third verse paragraph, while listening to the bird’s song in springtime and watching the young lamb leap and play in the field, a feeling of sadness and grief suddenly stuck him. Nature reminds him of death of glory, until he hears the sound of a nearby waterfalls and the wind, which can suggest revival of spirit and poetic inspiration. Beauty of nature in May is so grand that he can’t be sad although he feels certain emptiness in his hearth, so he encourages the shepherd boy to share happiness with him and sing. In the fourth stanza he says that it is impossible to feel any kind of grief on this sweet May morning. But sadness returned in his heath while watching a tree in a single field, which reminds him of the Tree of Life. He lost something very important what was revealed to him as a child

and asks a question where is glory? There is a symbol of Pansy, a flower of thought which describes a loss of joy. In the fifth stanza he says for our soul ‘our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting’ and uses metaphor ‘our life’s star’ for a sun. He says that there are stages in the process of growing up and with every stage we are more distant from Heaven. First small children retain some memory of paradise, which glorifies their experience on earth, but youths begin to lose it, and adults entirely forget it. In the 6 th

stanza, Earth is personified, he speaks about it as a maternal figure which has a duty to make us forget the glorious past we experienced in Heaven, so it offers us some pleasures, but these pleasures of earth can’t compensate joys of Heaven. The 7th stanza is allusion to monologue in Shakespeare’s ‘As you like it’. At the age of 6, boys and girls see the plan of their life set before them by their family and society. It consists of ‘a wedding or a festival, a mourning or a funeral, business, love, obligations’.. He says that our lives are made of acting, imitating. For him it is a tragedy to see a child’s unity of nature being replaced by acting game and imitations in which the child pretends to be an adult before he actually is. In the 8 th

stanza, poet addresses the child, and rhetorically asks him why, when he was access to the glories of Heaven, he still hurries toward an adult life without even realizing the fact what an adulthood carries. In the 9th, 10th and 11th stanzas, poet manages to reconcile the emotions and questions he has explored throughout the poem. The 9th stanza is the most important part of an Ode, he goes back in the memories of his childhood and remembers the enjoyment of being one with nature. He wants to say that we can always look back, anything we have can never be taken away completely, because it will forever be held in our memory. In the 10th stanza he tells about the change of perception. The speaker wants to find ‘strength in what remains behind’ and to develop a mature ‘philosophic mind’ which enables him to see nature with the same eyes when he was a child. In the final stanza, the poet says that this mind enables him to love nature and natural beauty, and says that even a simplest flower blowing in the wind can raise in him ‘thoughts that do often lie to deep for tears’.

‘Dejection: An Ode’ – Samuel ColeridgeThis is one of Coleridge’s most personal and autobiographical poems. This work originally drafted in the form of a letter to Sara Hutchinson, his love, although she is not mentioned directly because at the time the poem was published he was married to Sara Fricker. In this poem he discusses his feelings of love for Sara H. It is metred in iambic lines from trimeter to pentameter.The poet hopes that the Bard in the preface is right about the moon’s foreshadowing of the weather because Coleridge hopes that a storm can revive him from his emotional state. The first stanza deals with description of nature and the poet’s physical surrounding. He sees a new moon holding the old moon in her lap, he wishes for a storm to occur because he needs something to stir his emotions and ‘startle this dull pain’. In the 2nd stanza he talks about the grief he feels. He can’t express himself in any way. He has been endlessly gazing at the skies and stars. He is so sad because he can only see and no longer feel the beauty of nature. He is introducing the ‘Lady’, who suggests that his pain is the result of a broken heart. Perception is vivid enough but his feelings aren’t. In the 3rd stanza he says ‘my genial spirits fail’, which refer to his inspiration. For the poet his inspiration is the most important but now he is losing it. He says that we can’t get happiness from outside. Things from outside can’t help us feel emotions, we must find it in ourselves. He wants to share this feeling with her. In the 4 th stanza he says that we receive what we give. You can’t expect happiness to come from outside. ‘A light, a glory’ comes from you, inspiration comes from inside. A person must be an active agent in creating his/her happiness. In the 5 th stanza he is calling her ‘O pure of heart’. We have to find the light in our soul. Things around us won’t change if we don’t change ourselves. She already knows about the light and music of the soul which is joy. Joy can create beauty and marries us to nature. In the 6 th stanza he tells us about his past. He once felt joy, there was a time when he was full of hope. In the past he could overcome problems with the help of Fancy. ‘But now afflictions bow me down to earth’ – troubles in his life brought him this tragedy, they destroyed him, ruined him. This mood has become habitual, constant. Distress he feels is now much more dominating. He no longer cares that all his happiness is gone. He laments how each small ‘visitation’ of

sadness robs him of his power of imagination. His imagination is imprisoned by his thoughts. In the 7 th

stanza he tries to escape the ‘viper thoughts’ (his thoughts are poisonous) and turn to the storm. He addresses the wind, which reminds him on army and child. Last stanza – Although it is now midnight he has no intention of going to sleep. He wishes for a ‘sleep’ to visit his Lady and wishes her good night and cheerful morning. He tells her ‘Dear Lady, friend devoutest of my choice’, from where we can see that she is his best friend, intimate friend.

‘Kubla Khan’ – Samuel ColeridgeOne of his most ambiguous poem based on a dream vision. It is based on an opium dream after reading ‘Purchas Pilgrimage’, he fell asleep at the moment where the author talks about Kubla Khan, Mongolian emperor, who built himself a paradise on Earth. In his dream, he created a poem, and when he woke up he started writing this poem, but he was interrupted, he didn’t finish it. It belongs to his masterpiece collection ‘Mystery Poems’. It is written in iambic tetrameter, and deals with 2 visions of imagination. First part of the poem deals with the first vision, where he describes the Kubla Khan’s garden. It is narrative and descriptive, written in 3rd person. The speaker describes ‘the stately pleasure dome’ built in Xanadu, in the place where river Alph ran ‘through cavern measureless to man down to a sunless sea’. Xanadu is isolated by ‘walls and towers’, it is a peaceful place, mysterious and exotic, resembles the Paradise on Earth. Suddenly everything changes, it becomes a terrible place. Source of the river is as a huge chasm, description is very dynamic. Brutal energy of geyser is throwing the rocks. Except all this noise that river makes, the poet hears the voice of ancestors from the war. Again there is a transition, contrast between the ice and sun.The second part of the poem deals with the second vision, about a girl singing about another paradise on Earth. It is lyrical and written in 1st person. He saw an Abyssinian (former name for Ethiopia) maid, singing about the Mount Abora and playing an instrument. She is not a typical English lady, she is a kind of a muse for him, provides him inspiration. He says that if he could compose such a melody (song), he would be able to build a palace, and if people saw this, they would be scared, afraid of him, thinking that he might be possessed. At the end he says: ‘And drunk the milk of Paradise’, which is might allusion to Coleridge’s taking of opium.

‘The Cloud’ - ShelleyThe poet follows the cloud through every phase of its life: through smooth and rough, night and day, summer and winter… Poem has 6 stanzas, the length of the stanzas varies, and the tone is very cheerful and playful, always the same. Poem deals with celebration of nature, and has the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc ded ee. In the 1st stanza we can see the cloud described in all its moods. It is amazingly gentle, generous, friendly. The cloud is like a bird that shakes the dew from the wings. All of a sudden, we have a different image of the cloud in the second part of the 1st stanza. It is described as violent and dangerous, and at the beginning of the 2nd stanza we can feel that danger. These images of cloud’s moods are poet’s personification of a cloud. It is seen as a human being, also as a source of human joy, goodness, faith… The poet points out that through these moods, the cloud’s role is not only positive, it can destroy as well as it creates and inspires. In the 3rd and 4th stanza the poet follows the cloud through the night and day, beginning at down (Sunrise). The cloud is so strong and powerful to bear the weight of the sunlight which leaps on its back. The vivid images are described in the 3rd stanza such as: ‘the sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, and his burning plumes outspread’, ‘ an eagle sitting in the light of its golden wings’… In the 4th stanza the cloud is presented as a producer of a light, daily light as well as nightly. The cloud brings calamity and disaster, it presents both positive and negative sides of nature. If we see the cloud as a metaphor for human beings, it can also represent flaws and virtues. The poet ends the 5 th stanza by decorating the sky with the rainbow. It emerges after the shower, when birds and plants seem to enjoy life

more. In the last stanza he says that the cloud is a daughter, which emphasizes that the cloud is ‘she’. The poet sums up the Cloud’s life cycle. The cloud is constantly changing, but it never dies, it is powerful and no matter who tries to destroy it, it will reappear.

‘To a Skylark’ – ShelleyPoem consists of 21 stanzas written in hexameter (Alexandrine rhyme) with the rhyme scheme ababb. ‘A skylark’ is a bird of day-light which symbolizes freedom without constraints. The poet addresses the skylark, calling it ‘blithe Spirit’ and says that its song comes from Heaven. Poet says that the birds are unpremeditated, they are natural and spontaneous, don’t plan their song unlike human. In the 2nd stanza he says that the bird is flying higher and higher and that it is singing a song. He finds the bird perfect, because it is free and sings. It is a muse which brings joy and happiness to the creative world. As the bird flies higher and higher, the poet loses the sight of the bird but he can still hear its song: ‘thy shrill delight’. The Earth and air are united in the song, the song filled them with its melody (6 th stanza). Heaven overflows with moonbeams when the moon shines out behind a lonely cloud. In the 7 th stanza he says that the bird is unique, he evokes its glory and excellence, no one knows what the skylark is. He says that the bird is ‘like a poet hidden in the light of thought, able to make the world experience ‘sympathy with hopes and fears’. He compares it with other things: ‘like a lonely maiden in a palace tower who uses her song to soothe love-laden soul’, ‘like a glow-worm golden in a dell of dew’, ‘ like a rose embowered in its own green leaves’… The skylark’s song surprises ‘all that ever was joyous, and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Calling the skylark ‘ the sprite or bird’, he asks him to tell him its ‘the sweet thoughts’. All music seems lacking when compared to this song of a skylark. The birdsong is perfect, which makes the bird perfect as well. In the 15 th stanza he asks several rhetorical questions, he is desperate to find out the inspiration of those things. Pain and languor never came near the skylark, it is an ideal poet who knows only for eternal love, it loves but will never know of love’s pain and sadness. The bird is inspired by song, knows nothing but pain, the poet is inspired by pain. He is calling the bird ‘scorner of the ground’, he says that its music is better than all music and poetry. He is asking the bird to teach him ‘half the gladness’, to make harmonious poem that the world will listen just as he is listening to the bird.In this poem, the poet makes a contrast between bird’s perfection of art and imperfection of human life, and he wants to find out how to achieve that ideal that the bird has.

‘Ode to the West Wind’ – ShelleyPoem consists of 5 cantos of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter, 4 tercets and a couplet. Tercets are written in terza rima with the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc ded ee. Every stanza brings new themes and images. First 3 stanzas include an appeal to the west wind and a lot images to describe his actions on earth, sky and at sea.He opens the first canto with an alliteration: ‘O wild West Wind’, addressing the west wind as a human. He describes the funeral of dead leaves and seeds by the Autumn wind, which will his ‘thine azure sister’ – the Spring wind raise from their ‘dark wintry bad’. On that way, the wind is at the same time ‘destroyer and preserver’. He is asking the wind to hear him. The main theme here is death and rebirth.The second canto, poet describes how clouds are coming down from the Heaven, sending message to the Earth, which means that something is going to happen. The poet compares the west wind to a funeral song ‘ a dirge of the dying year’ and describes how it stirs up a violent storms that will bring black rain and fire and hail. Again the poet asks him to listen what he has to say.In third canto, the main element is water. He is talking about the sea and the effect that the wind has on the sea. We have idyllic picture, we don’t know if it is illusion or reality. There is beautiful, sweet picture of Mediterranean and then moves to something dynamic, things are changing on the sea as well as in the whole nature.

In the 4th canto, focus is on the poet and his feelings. He says if he were a dead leaf, a cloud or a wave, then he wouldn’t have to pray to the wind and evoke its power. He calls the wind ‘ O Uncontrollable’. He wants wind to affect him, to change him, to see his strength and power. He remembers being one with the wind and he wants that again.The 5th canto is like a Shelley’s prayer to the West Wind. He wants to be an instrument wind controls, to drive his thoughts throughout universe. Poet needs a spirit, and a spirit needs a poet (the same relationship as the poet and a prophet). He says that his thoughts are dead which leads to the lack of inspiration. After his death, the wind should blow his thoughts and words among people and then, they become ‘a trumpet of a prophecy’. The wind symbolizes revolution, it is as a revolutional spirit. He transform the wind into a metaphor for his own art of imagination and inspiration. Spring symbolizes liberty, rebirth and possible returning of inspiration.

‘To Autumn’ – Keats

To Autumn is perhaps Keats’s most famous and beloved work. It was written in Winchester on 19 September 1819 and fist published in 1820. It is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats’s ‘1819 odes’. It has 3 stanzas, each of eleven lines that describe the tastes, sights and sound of autumn. The poet doesn’t use elaborated language, therefore it is easy to understand.Like many of Keats’s 1819 odes, the structure of the poem is that of an odal hymn. It is written in a three-line stanza structure with a variable rhyme scheme. Each stanza is eleven lines long and each is metered in a relatively precise iambic pentameter. The rhyme follows a pattern of starting with a Shakespearean ABAB pattern which is followed by CDEDCCE. It differs from his other odes with use of 11 line stanzas instead of 10 and with a couplet placed before the concluding line of each stanza. Although the rhyme scheme varies the poem has a smooth flowing rhythm.The prevailing mood is peace and contentment. The year is winding down, the fruit trees and vegetables have matured and ripened, the fields have been harvested… The tone of the poem is soft, mellow and wistful, diction is slow as poet describes the autumn with its calm, gentle and lovely description.Compared to Ode to Nightingale, there is contrasted opinion about the process of passage of life and its passage. In Ode to Nightingale he is sad because everything in this life passes, while in To Autumn he learned to accept the beauty of autumn, he accepts mortality and says that we should not be afraid of death.The poet may be seen as a passage of time presented in a cycling of seasons. This cycling of seasons may also represent human life and getting older. As a poet expresses his love of this beautiful season, it may implicit that we should also find something good in every stage of our life. Autumn has its own music, as well as every year of our lives has its own beauty.In the first stanza predominate tactile sensations (bend, swell, plump). The author opens it addressing autumn describing its intimacy with the sun. First stanza describes a moment in early autumn preceding harvest. The theme is ripeness, growth now is reaching its climax beneath the ‘maturing sun’, as the strain of the weighty fruit bends the apple trees and loads the vines. The cells of the beehives are already brimming over.The second stanza presents autumn as four figures completing harvest tasks. It reverses the image of the first stanza and describes the process of harvesting. It helps the reader to imagine the poem’s pastoral idyll. We find stillness where we except process. Now autumn is conceived as a reaper or harvester. The poppies may suggest the presence of Ceres, the Roman goddess of corn and harvests. The movements begin in the second part of the stanza, and this pastoral vision suggests hard human labour of harvesting, its success depends on nature.The end approached within the final moment of the song and death is slowly approaching alongside of the end of the year. Author tells Autumn not to wonder where songs of spring have gone, but instead listen to her own music. We should enjoy in every stage of our life. The personified figure of autumn is replaced

by concrete image of life. Like full grown lambs, the swallow is reminder of the inevitable return of spring and renewal. When autumn harvest is over, fields will be bare, the swaths with their ‘twined flowers’ cut down, the skies empty… Spring will come again, the fields will grow again and the bird song will return.

‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ – KeatsThis poem is written in the same verse as ‘Ode to Nightingale’ but without trimeter in the 7 th line which makes it monotonous. It consists of 5 stanzas of 10 lines with the rhyme scheme abab cde cde. The main theme is the contrast of the immortality of art and mortality of people. He is describing the urn with a lot of joy and addresses it using a pronoun ‘we’. In the 1st stanza, the poet stands in front of a Grecian Urn and evokes it. He is describing it as a historian who can tell a story. There is a lot of rhetorical questions, which are giving us a sexual image of a group of men pursuing a group of women. The physical love is present in the poem.The 2nd stanza starts with the paradox, he gives us another picture of the urn. He says that the ‘piper’s’ ‘unheard’ melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time ad our imagination can imagine it how it wants. What you imagine is more important that what you can see, hear… He is talking about the lovers, chasing the girl who can’t grow old so they don’t appreciate the beauty of eternity. Although the lover can’t kiss his dear who stands near him, he will always love her and she will stay beautiful as now. They will last as long as the vase lasts.In the 3rd stanza, there is an image of the trees on the urn which will stay green forever. There is a contrast between the love on the urn which is ‘forever warm and still to be enjoy’d, for ever painting, and for ever young’, and mortal love ‘that leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d’. The poet envies ‘the happy melodist’ who is able to create.In the 4th stanza there is a ceremony. Heifer (young cow) is sacrificed to the God. He imagines the city of villagers who are leading the cow, their little town, silent, without citizens…The 5th stanza reminds on the 1st one in attitude and tone. He attributes the voice from the urn, he says that when his generations die, the new generation will appear and the urn will remain telling the story to the future generations. ‘Beauty is truth, truth is beauty’ – that is the only thing the urn knows and it needs to know, it is speaking to present and future generations.This vase is actually a product of human imaginations, a product of what Keats wants to see, there is no vase looking like this.

‘Ode to a Nightingale’ – KeatsThe poem consists of 8 stanzas written in iambic trimeter and pentameter. It is the most personal ode, and the nightingale represents the symbol of immortality that he desires. He opens the poem with declaration of his own heartache. We can see that something is trembling him. He is in drowsy state. He is addressing the nightingale, he describes the state while he listens the bird singing. He is too happy when he hears the nightingale singing a song about summer, cheerful song, full of joy. He is happy because he identifies with the bird, calling the bird ‘keeper of trees’. In the second stanza he gives us the images of nature is spring, pastoral image. He can ‘taste countryside, dance Provencal song and sunburnt mirth’. He wants to make us feel what he feels. Wine provides him inspiration, it can inspire him or comfort him by helping to forget. He has ‘purple stained mouth’ because of drinking wine. In the 3 rd stanza, he expresses his wish and desire to fade away, saying that he would like to forget the troubles the nightingale would never know of. He would like to fly away and forget the problems. He wants to say that nothing lasts, everything fades away, beauty can also fade away on the wings of poetry. He is telling about the things he can’t see but can feel (night).In the 4th stanza he tells the nightingale to fly away, and he will follow him on the wings that he was given by poetry. He says ‘already with thee’ – he is already with him.

In the 5th stanza, he can’t see the flowers in the glade, but can guess them ‘in embalmed darkness’.In the 6th stanza he listens in the dark to the nightingale saying that he has often been ‘half in love with death’ and calling the Death with soft names. He wants to die more than ever, he is witnessing the perfection of the nightingale’s song. He says that when he dies, the nightingale will keep singing, but he will have ‘ears in vain’ because he won’t be able to hear him. In the 7th stanza he tells nightingale that it is immortal, that it is not born to die. His song is immortal and represents the symbol of perfection of art. His song was heard by a widow from a Bible (Ruth). In the last stanza, as the nightingale flies farther away from him, he laments that his imagination has failed him and that he doesn’t know if its music was ‘a vision of a waking dream’, whether he himself is awake or asleep. Imagination has failed him, it can help him only permanently.