Assalamualaikum and good morning everyone. Welcome
back to English poetry at the Islamic University
of Gaza. Today we move to a very interesting poet,
critic, and a modernist. When we started this
course, I asked you for your favorite definition
of poetry, and most of you opted for the
Wordsworthian definition, defining poetry as a
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. And I
think that many people would stop here, giving this
definition, and this actually falls short because
there is a second part; there's a significant
part, actually 50% of what the definition is,
which is "recollected in tranquility." This
recollection, act of remembering and recalling
memories, is significant. We're going to see this
in a bit. Before we talk about the features which
we, in a way or another, mentioned in the lectures
on William Blake. Let's see this canonical text.
I'm sure you're already familiar with this. Some
of you must have studied this before, but it's
always, always good to see how different people do
different things. In my way of studying poetry and
literature in general, I like to focus on the
structure, on the form, on how the poets say what
they say, rather than what they actually say. Some
critics would suggest that there are actually a
handful of themes out there. All poetry, all
literature, all writings can be summarized into a
handful of issues. I'm happy, I'm sad, she likes
me, she doesn't like me, life's good, life's bad.
And that's why we have poets, Arab poets, who
suggested almost 2,000 years ago that whatever
they were doing was just repeating themselves and
intertexting or borrowing or quoting other poets.
And this is 2,000 years ago. ما رأينا نقول إلاّ
معروفا أو معروفا من لفظه مكرورا. And Antara
says, هل غدر الشُعراءُ و من مُتْرَدِّمِي.
Opening his mu'allaqa, his long poem, saying that,
what should I write about? Everything I want to
speak about has already been spoken about by other
poets. But he doesn't just stop there and give us
that one line, the opening, because he knows he is
not, in a way, the idea is being repeated, but how
he is doing his poetry is totally different.
That's why every poem, every poet is a different
experience. Even by the same poet, you'll
experience different things. I have, like,
when you study Tamim al-Barghouti, you'll find
that there are common features for his poetry,
right? But once you get into each poem, it's a
microcosm of its own world. One guy said to a
critic, "I want to write poetry. I have so many
ideas." I want to write poetry; we do this
sometimes. "I want to write poetry, I have so many
ideas." And the critic, being a critic, said, "Poetry
my friend, is not made with ideas, but with words."
What words to choose, how to use the words, how to
word the words, how to order the words, how to
play with the words, how to use and recruit
literary devices and metaphorical language,
figures of speech. And that's why, again, I like
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's definition probably more. He
says, in a way, it sounds a stupid definition, but
it's really deep. Poetry is the best words in the
best order. Poetry is the best words in the best
order, where he is focusing more on how the form
and the language should say what they should say.
Now, when we talk about William Wordsworth, we
talk about one of the most, again, important poets
of all time. We talk about the father or the
founder or the co-founder of Romanticism. Along
with Coleridge, they published what is known as
*Lyrical Ballads* around 1798. And the book, in a
short time, sold out. There were no more copies
because, remember, we said neoclassicism was
already in decline, and people were looking for
something different, something new. Coleridge
published only his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and
Wordsworth published, like, I'm not sure how many
poems, but a bunch of them. Now, after two years,
they said, "Okay, let's
let's tell people what we're doing. Let's define
poetry, define a poet, and tell them what kind of
language, what kind of sensibility we're employing
here."
Coleridge, probably you know this already,
Coleridge was a drug addict. He was an opium
addict. He was high all the time. Not climbing
trees, but high. He didn't participate in writing
the introduction, which is now known as the
preface to *Lyrical Ballads*. It was written; I'm
saying this because some people think that the
preface is what Romanticism is, and this is, to a
large extent, yes, if you consider Wordsworth
everything in Romanticism, and this is wrong. And
I know many of you usually... I like feminism, I
like post-colonialism, I like romanticism. And
then later on you find, you realize that there are
romanticisms, feminisms, and post-colonialisms.
Because when you study what Coleridge is going to
be like, they share these common features, but
they're totally different. Look at Shelley, for
example, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Lord Byron, Lord Byron,
hates Coleridge and William Wordsworth. He keeps
making fun of them all the time, mocking them.
This is the second generation. Now, so William
Wordsworth wrote the preface himself alone. This
is good, again, and bad because we have now
something, unlike the metaphysicals; they didn't
write anything to define their poetry, what they
were doing, to tell people about their new
sensibility.
But again, it's bad because some people think that
this is all what you need to know about
romanticism. This is also good because later on
Coleridge realized that, "Oh my God, I didn't
participate in this." And he wrote his own book
known as *Biographia Literaria*, or *Literary
Biography*. So it's good that we have two books by
these two amazing poets and critics. This poem,
some say, is the icon, the epitome of
Romanticism. It contains
almost every feature, as if he wrote this poem
just to show people how to write poetry in terms
of form, of language, of subject matter, of the
new sensibility, of the feelings and emotions and
imagination, individuality, as opposed to
everything that we had in neoclassical poetry. Okay,
so the poem is entitled "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," or *The Daffodils*.
Probably let's let's read the poem
together. For the sake of time, just one stanza
each, please. "I wandered lonely..." Okay,
can you say again and speak up. "I wandered lonely"
as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills."
"When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden
daffodils; beside the lake, beneath the trees,
fluttering and dancing in the breeze." Thank you
very much. One more, please.
Thank you. Speak up. "The waves beside them danced,
but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet
could not but be gay, in such a jocund company:" I
gazed—and gazed—but little thought what..." Thank you
very much. One more, please. "On my couch."
Very good.
Very good. Okay, so I'll go into a journey through
this poem and show you how I like to usually do
things. But this is a poem that can be studied
from different ideas. You can start with the
features, looking for them, et cetera. But let's
do a close reading, reading between the words and
the lines. Now, the title itself, *Daffodils*, or
*I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud*, suggests that
this is a poem that is rooted, or at least
inspired by nature. The daffodils, rather than
*Paradise Lost*, *Paradise Regained*, rather than any
lofty subject matter, *The Fairy Queen*; they say, on
criticism, they say, "On Man"—that's the daffodils.
Totally different from the neoclassical poets
who were writing before this. When
we read the poem, we realize that this is a poem
that is overwhelmed by nature and natural
elements. It's not a poem that uses nature as some
kind of decoration for the poem. Because some of
you will say, "Okay, Shakespeare used natural
elements. Marlowe used natural elements in his
poetry." What difference does it make? The
difference is actually
existential, not just superficial, because in this
poem, in Wordsworth, nature *is* the poem. The poem
is *for* nature; nature inspires the poem; nature is
everything. Take nature from the poem, and you
don't have a poem. But for Shakespeare, probably
for Marlowe, if you take nature, you take the
decorations because he's saying, "Come live
with me and be my love. I own everything around
me." He's not showing the relationship between him
and nature and how nature is impacting him, his
psychology, his everything here. So nature here,
this is about the impact of nature. The impact,
and again, I don't like to talk about themes
because sometimes they limit the meaning of the
poem. But yeah, there is this thing about how
nature is changing, is impacting him from one
thing to the other. And then the second thing, we
are struck with the "I." "I wandered lonely as a
cloud." And actually, not only "I," we have "lonely," and
we have the singularity of a cloud. "I wandered
lonely..." as there is subjectivity here; there is
individualism. For Romanticism, remember we said
that neoclassical poetry was poetry of the
collective, of everybody, for all—not for all
like in this sense where it talks, where it
talk about this later on. And lonely, this is
loneliness. We'll see at the end how he was not
alone when he had this experience. But there's
somebody he is totally eradicating and erasing
from the poem. Is this anti-feminism? Is this?
self-centeredness or is this and again emphasis on
individuality rather than society and community
which is a romantic feature when he says as a
cloud as is it's a simile, thank you. And a simile
is a metaphor where you use "as" or "like," just and in
general, similes are easier than metaphors. If he
said, "I wandered lonely" or "I floated lonely," we'll
be asking, "What does he mean? Why is he floating?
What is he? Is he a bird? Is he a duck? Is he what?
Because the possibilities are open, but he just
closes the door here by saying that, "I wandered
lonely as a cloud." That's the end of it. And this
is something some people might be interested in
doing research on. How, for example, the Nihilists
were more into metaphors, you know, make things
complex sometimes, elaborate. That's why we have
the conceit and the Elizabethan conceit. But here,
they go for the simple. We'll see this repeated
again later on as the stars. And then again, a
cloud, not clouds, emphasizing the singularity of
it. But why a cloud? Yeah? Why a cloud? Not a
tree, a bird, a cat, or a drone, or a plane, or a
kite, you know? A kite, a paper kite. What does it
indicate possibly? Yeah? Maybe because it's up in
the sky and it's hard to reach. Thank you very
much. It's up in the sky; it's high up above
everything; it has this bird's-eye view that it can
look at things below; it can see things from
a comprehensive perspective; it's up above. That's
one, and I think because it is moving slowly, so
he's in a state when he is staring at everything
and imagining everything, so he couldn't be like
But not necessarily; not all clouds move slowly,
but that could be part of it. Sometimes they move
slowly. So this deliberate movement could be a
possible thing here. There is deliberation in the
process. There could be another reason. Maybe to
show that it's like something that is delicate and
soft. The delicacy of it, okay, the softness. I
heard somebody say something here.
Okay, it's also free; it has this kind of free
will. It's not connected with anything; it just
moves at free will. So there could be these
reasons for a cloud, one cloud, three. I love how
when you examine our friend here, Wordsworth,
we'll see the second poem in a bit. He likes to
position himself. Remember I said, try to
understand where the poet is, what he or she is
doing now, at the moment the poem is being
written, right? Is he asleep? Is he walking? Is he
eating? Is he in a class? Is he what? In a train,
traveling? The man here positions himself up
above. We see in the second poem, he does almost the
same. He distances himself from things. That
floats on high o'er vales and hills. Now, "o'er" is
over, but "over" makes it two syllables, or one
syllable. And again, look at nature. This is
something. "When all at once I saw a crowd." If you
look at the first two lines, I think there is some
kind of deliberation. Somebody said "deliberate"
here. They're musical, but they are a little bit
slow. "I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on
high o'er vales and hills." This line goes even
quicker. "When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of
golden daffodils." "When all at once," look at this
suddenness here. "I saw a crowd." And the crowd
refers to a bunch of daffodils he saw. He
describes them as a crowd, doing something called a
personification. Because a crowd of people, we
say. But if "crowd" is negative, a little bit
negative, because "crowd," you don't like crowds,
you're like, "It's crowded; I'm not going to go
there." He quickly follows it with "a host," which is
more welcoming and more inviting. If you are a
guest, the guy taking care of you is the host. And
when you are a guest, somebody's guest, you just
stay there, you enjoy food, you enjoy drinks, you
enjoy, just relax, right? But it's the host that
works hard to please you, to make you comfortable.
I'm not sure what he's doing here, but is he
suggesting that the closer you get, the more
beautiful the scene becomes, the more involved you
are, the more inviting and appealing it is,
because it sounded like a crowd, and then they
turn out to be a host, which also means a group of
golden daffodils. Now, the daffodils are golden.
Why would you say "golden" if they are already
there? So there could be some kind of significance
for this color, this shiny color. Some people would
suggest that "gold," they're precious; they're gold.
Referring to the color, but referring to their
significance. "Where? Beneath the lake, beside the
lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in
the breeze." This is again more for the
personification. They are fluttering like birds,
but also they are dancing like human beings.
That's a beautiful opening to a poem, very
ecstatic, very appealing. I'm not sure if this is
soothing to you, but he's inviting you to some, in
a way, to reconsider natural scenes, natural
experiences. I hope you never see daffodils the
same after this poem, or roses, or cats, or birds,
or clouds. Now, I'm not sure what words you find
difficult here. "Fluttering," we already mentioned
this before. Vale, vale, vale, vale, valley.
"Fluttering," you know, "breeze," "the sweet morning."
What else? I don't think there are difficult words
here. Even the words you're not familiar with, you
still can guess. If you go to the rhyme scheme,
Please. Thank you. Go. A, B,
A, B. Are you sure? Yes. Yes. C, C. Are you sure?
Yes. The letters are different. We have to count
the sound. It's the sound that we care about.
Perfect or? Perfect. Perfect. If you count, just
to save you some time, if you count the syllables,
each line has eight syllables, making four feet,
mostly iambic tetrameter.
You'll find that this time we're not going to find
many poems going for the five-foot iambic
pentameter.
And then the second syllable goes for continuous
as the stars that shine. Again, another simile: as
the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way,
they referring to? And look at this; this is by
the way, this is now a modifying phrase.
The sentence is originally, "because they are
continuous, they stretched," or "they were
continuous; they stretched." This is one of them is
reduced. "Continuous as the stars that shine and
twinkle on the Milky Way, they stretched in a never-
ending line." Grammatically, it's a never-ending
line because "line" is one. So there is, again,
because many people still say there's no such
thing as spontaneous overflow of powerful
emotions; there's always a conscious attempt, a
deliberate attempt to write poetry. So if this is
a poem with a perfect rhyme scheme and a perfect,
you know, same number of syllables, yes, great
poets don't stop and count; they feel the beat,
they feel the rhythm. But here, he's deleting the
"أ" just to make it fit the eight syllables, the
four feet. "Along the margin of a bay, ten thousand
I saw at once." Look at this. Again,
grammatically, this is called fronting. Fronting,
when you bring something in front. تقديم in
Arabic. It should be "I saw ten thousand" subject
verb at a glance. But why is he doing this? Why
is he starting with "ten thousand" and then delaying
the subject? The door, the eye? Because the scene
is more important
than the person himself. What kind of scene do we
have here? The daffodils. Very good. So the
daffodils, the scene, thank you, nature is more
significant than he is.
He's bringing nature before, and of course we
don't, how did he know that this is 10,000
daffodils?
Just, it's again, this is possible; it is possible
that this is an exaggeration, but you could see in
fields, you could see 10,000 roses or flowers in
a particular natural scene.
If you, I'm sure you've seen many pictures online,
you will find sometimes actually none in, you look
to the horizon; everywhere you'll be surrounded
with, but yeah, it could be, could be he's just
creating this perfect ecstatic image. "Ten thousand I saw
at a glance," again extending the personification
here, the metaphor, "tossing their heads, like
moving their heads in a sprightly dance." They're
still dancing. They're dancing here; they're
dancing in the second stanza; in the second
stanza. Dancing and dancing. They're happy; they
inspire joy, inspire happiness, beauty. If you look
at, again, same eight, eight, eight; four feet each. The
rhyme scheme is, remember you could continue with
the letters. But my advice is when you begin a new
stanza, go back to the alphabet to do this.
Please, A, B, A, B,
C and D, also perfect rhyme. So it's the same, A,
B, A, B, C, C, A, B, A, B, C, C, creating this
perfect world, world, natural element. And then,
stanza three, which I love very much. 41
but to be gay in such joking company. I gazed. And
gaze. He could have said, I gazed a lot. Right? We
do this. I gazed a lot. And that's it. I gazed.
This is how he reacts. He just stands there. Once
he was suggesting this beautiful thing, submissive
to nature. You know? Like how the cloud is
submissive to nature, to the wind blowing it here
and there at free will. Because it doesn't control
it. He is exactly like this. He's just standing
there absorbing. You know, absorbing like a sponge?
It absorbs water. He's trying to absorb this
beauty, this never-ending beauty. I gaze and gaze.
Look at how he's emphasizing feelings and emotions
over thinking.
But little thought. Not never. Same thing, two
syllables. But little thought.
This is unlike the Age of Reason, the Augustan
Age, where thinking and logic are more important
than feelings and emotions. I gazed, I just kept
looking and looking. And I found this very
beautiful, one of the most fascinating lines.
Because nowadays what we would be doing is just
again, take our mobile phones and just snap
pictures just to show off on social media. You
care more about the picture than just enjoying the
scene. Submitting yourself to the scene. What
wealth the show to me had brought. There's wealth
here. This is not a businessman looking, wow, I'm
going to make a lot of money because he said gold
before. So we'll come back after a very, very
short break. So I'm saying here that there's
wealth here, but that's not the financial
materialistic wealth. This is the spiritual,
natural kind of wealth that the romantics look
forward to. Now, I find this very interesting as a
stanza. I think this is the core of the whole
poem.
If we start with the rhyme scheme, can somebody
help me with the rhyme scheme, please? A, B, A, C,
D, D, D. Possible? Possible? But do you have
another suggestion, somebody? Please? Say again?
Okay, begin again. A, B, A, another B, but does
"company" and "glee" rhyme? This is "glee" and this is
"company".
Long, short. Okay, so we go for an imperfect rhyme
here, although I find this possible.
And the fact that we differ here, that the first
two sentences were beautiful and perfect. We're
fine with that. But all of a sudden there's
something, there's something that doesn't add up,
something that is imperfect, something that is
making us disagree. The first two sentences made
all of us like, you know, nodding. But here, they,
again, A, B, A, B, Nobody does this, the A, the S,
the B small thing, but I like to do it to indicate
an imperfect rhyme. And then another C, another
C. If we just do the last one and come back to
this, it's going to also be A, B.
Perfect? So the only stanza with an imperfection
is stanza number three. That's number one. I was
counting the syllables the other day and I
realized the only line that has an
extra syllable was this one.
Is it this one? One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight. No, which one? Which one was that?
Not this one. I think this one is perfect. Where's
the eraser? This one is also eight syllables. I must
have mixed this up with another one. Okay. The
thing I noticed, if you look at this, is that the
poet here, remember this is a first, if this is a
story, this is a first-person narrator. I
wondered, saw I at once, I gazed and gazed. And
then all of a sudden, he shifts. He shifts from I
to He or she, a poet. A poet could not but be gay.
He doesn't say I was nothing but gay. Why didn't
he say I was gay, I was happy? Definitely he
didn't care about coming out and people saying
he's gay because it meant happy here. A poet could
not but be gay. Poets should be happy, would be
happy. Can be nothing but happy when they come
face to face with this fascinating scene here. A
poet could not but be gay in such joking
company. And there is another indication here. I
gazed and gazed. But little thought. The binary,
the opposites. So I gazed, some would be
thinking. I wandered lonely, I gazed and some
might just be happy. What wealth does he show? He
didn't care about even this kind of wealth. In
other words, he didn't react instantly to the
poem, to the scene here. And we'll talk about two
types of imagination here. There is primary
imagination and there is secondary imagination.
The primary imagination is the instant reaction to
beauty, to nature. You see something beautiful,
you say, wow, and that's it. Or you take a picture
and you just go on. But for the romantics, they
like to absorb, to put it there in their heart and
mind and everything. And later on, two years
later, a day later, one month later, two months
later, they would be reflecting on this.
Recalling, that's why the second part of the
definition is as important. Recollected in
tranquility. But why would the poet shift from,
why is he distancing himself from this experience?
He's not saying, I was happy, right? He's saying a
poet could not but be gay. Yeah, please. Thank you
very much. This could suggest that not only words
worth, but also all poets. That's very good.
That's possible. More. Please. It's also maybe
an attack or talking about the previous poet. Not
the, not the, the neo-classical maybe, or the poet
that they prefer him. How's that? Because they
maybe don't appreciate nature as, as he does.
But, but he's saying the poet is happy. Could not
but be. Please. It might be an advice, or advice.
So this is for all poets, but why poets in
particular? Why not everybody? Remember the
romantics believe that a poet is an ordinary man
endowed with comprehensive sensibility.
You're not a poet, but poets don't only write
about happiness, right?
Okay, yeah, like if nature doesn't inspire
happiness and pleasure and beauty, you're not a
poet or you're not a romantic poet.
So when he says a poet, he means that a poet will
see this as being something much more than any normal
or ordinary person would see. And this would make
him happy? That would make him happy.
Okay. Thank you very much. Want somebody here? I
think he's here distancing himself from this term
of "the poet". Like he's putting himself above this
word. He's considering himself more than just a
poet. Because any other poet would just see the
scenery and be happy and react momentarily to it.
But he sees himself as something more than this. So
he is in a way challenging the neo-classical
people. What's wrong with this? What's wrong with
being happy?
Okay, that's good. Connecting this with the
primary and secondary.
Some kind
of discipline and that, you know, the idea of
spontaneity could be challenged here.
Okay,
so you agree there with Rahaf that the ability to
express this, although not all people can express,
at least they can feel it inside.
Not all poets, remember. Romantic poets.
But what's wrong with being happy? Isn't that
good?
But clearly this poet is expressing himself or
herself by being happy, by being gay. Okay, so
you're taking happiness as just again some kind of
an instant, momentary reaction to this, but for the
romantics, a primary reaction, for the romantics
it's much more. Okay, sorry? He's beyond, he
doesn't find this... I think I agree with those who
suggested that this could include some kind of
parody, clearly when he said "but little thought,"
again he's putting himself as opposed to the other
Augustan poets. "I'm different from those people,"
which is a poet... he's suggesting an ordinary poet,
this is, yes, this emphasizes here "couldn't but,"
but it includes some negativity, the negative of "not"
here. And the distance, the shift from the "I" to "he"
or "she," the third-person pronoun, suggests that
the poet is distancing himself from this
momentarily artificial reaction to nature. He's
saying an Augustan poet, an ordinary poet, would
just be happy and that's it, bye bye. But I am
different, I am not an ordinary poet, I'm a
romantic poet. Remember the romantics did not call
themselves romantic poets, later critics called
them the romantics or romanticism. Because for him
it's much more than just being happy, than just
the instant reaction to nature. It's about,
remember, absorbing, living the experience, making
it overwhelm you, submitting yourself to this.
Making it change your life radically altogether,
as we're going to see in the second, in the last
stanza, in stanza number four. So this, again,
stanza in particular, has this imperfection, which
creates tension, tells us, wait a minute, there's
something there, and then we find the shift from "I"
to "he" or "she," and then the negative here,
indicating that there's something, a poet is
telling us, calm down, wait a minute, pay
attention, I'm doing something here. I'm raising a
point that is deeper than probably other ideas.
Some might read this and just keep going. But
Pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils. I
love how he, at the beginning, personified nature
and now he's objectifying himself. He's not
uniting with nature. He's submitting himself to
nature. He's allowing nature to control him. He's
becoming part of nature, Mother Nature. I return
to nature as a romantic feature.
So the shift from the past simple tense to the
present simple tense is a very interesting thing
because he is reliving. This is the secondary
imagination we talk about. Later on, I'm not sure
how long after the original experience he's
writing this, but he's using the present
simple tense to express that this happens to him all
the time. Every time he's in a vacant or pensive
mood, what does he do? He recollects, he recalls,
he remembers that experience. And every time he
does so, this is again, remember, the baby-like
experience. Experiencing it every time,
everything as if it's the first time you've ever
seen this. Reliving it again and again and again.
Every time being awestruck by this. This sense of
awe. Sense of wonder. Everything is a miracle.
Everything is a blessing. So this present
continuous tense gives it continuity, but also it
indicates how the poet is reliving this experience
now. One last thing I find interesting about this
poem is the last couplet, if you want to call it a
couplet. I don't like to call it a couplet here,
but okay. The last line: If you do the scansion,
if you scan the meter here, it should be like this:
and it says, "with the daffodils."
Okay, so weak, strong, stressed, unstressed,
stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed, and
then stressed. But this way, and you should be
reading it, "and dances with the daffodils." And
then, "my heart with pleasure fills and dances with
the daffodils," without stress on "with." And then my
heart with pleasure fills and dances with the
daffodils. Which is okay, again. But I think this
should be going back because "with" is a preposition;
remember determiners, articles, prepositions, even
auxiliaries are unstressed generally because it's
something you add to the syllable, to the word, to
the main syllable, so unstressed; and then "with"
unstressed, with two weak syllables here, a weak
thought, "and dances with the daffodils." But it
should be read otherwise, with "with" being stressed. And
I find this beautiful and again deliberate, with a
spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions stirred
word for word. In this sense, we emphasize the
idea of "withness" with nature. And then my heart
with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.
Emphasizing this "with" is... not only gaining unity, like you
could say unity, I accept that, but this is nature
is overwhelming. He's submitting himself to
nature. He's emphasizing the idea of "withness" with
nature, unity with nature, going back, a return to
nature, to Mother Nature, like I said. So I could
ask you a question, for example, why should "with"
in the last line, "with the daffodils," be stressed?
Please, don't say "to emphasize." "To emphasize" is
not the answer. That's why I'd be asking you this
question, why is he emphasizing "with"? So the
emphasis here is to indicate this unity, this
total submission to nature.
What a beautiful poem! A critic says, many critics
say, this man was the poet who taught us how to
remember. Because this is about remembering
things.
Now, you could see all the features of Romanticism
here. Maybe I forgot something. There's a return
to nature, imagination,
individuality, simplicity of language, anti-
mainstream, rejection of artistic conventions, and
the form is the content; how in the third stanza
when he wanted to make a point, he just created
this tension and conflict; memory, feelings, and
emotions as opposed to reason. There are questions
here; I'll be posting one of them online so we can
continue the discussion.
Probably you mentioned some of them.
Look at this, number five. In real life, by the
way, it was Dorothy who had this entry, this
experience in her diaries. She's totally not
there. So I'm saying here that what is, why is
she—should be "why"—why is she erased from the
poem? We can continue this discussion online. Is
she erased because he hates her, because he's anti-
feminist, because women are not good enough? Or
is this more to do with the fact that this is a
romantic poem and individuality? Think about this.
But the last question is more important to me.
It's not showing here; I have to show it to you
because it's important. I love this question.
The question says—I'm quoting somebody.
It says, "a trivial subject matter," okay? The
question says, "a trivial subject matter, as Anne
Seward says or thought a daffodil to be, does not
deserve the ecstatic diction of 'vacant,' 'pensive,'
and 'bliss.' Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is
just a daffodil, a bunch of daffodils. You don't
write this fascinating poem to react to just a
bunch of daffodils. That's too much. You use this
language and this beautiful reaction, what, to
write about the queen, about more significant
issues. How would you react? How would you reply
to this critic? Clearly, she's trashing the
Romantics. Clearly, she is not happy with what the
Romantics are doing. This will be our question to
discuss online. Would you agree that, yes, this is a
trivial matter? You're causing us a headache with
this "just daffodil," "just a rose." Why are people
reacting to the poem this way? Now, in the
remaining time, we need to study this again, a
poem by William Wordsworth. I'm sure I'm shifting
quickly.
"Upon Westminster Bridge." If you know London,
Westminster Bridge is a famous, famous bridge in
London, probably the most famous bridge in London,
Westminster.
Remember, this is a poet of nature. What on earth
is he doing in London? If you reject London and
its corruption and its society, why are you there?
And again, let's examine where he positions
himself in time and in place. Please read the poem
very quickly. "Earth hath not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty: This
City now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of
the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes,
Theaters, and temples lie open unto the fields, and to
the sky; All bright and glittering in the
smokeless air; Never did the sun more beautifully
steep In his first splendor, valley, bronze
overhead; Never saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God!
the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty
heart is lying still." Okay, beautiful reading.
Thank you for this recitation. What do you notice
the first thing before we talk about it? Please.
Fourteen lines, so this is a sonnet. Ah, he's not
only in London; he's also restricting himself.
Where is the spontaneity, the spontaneous
overflow? Remember I told you never believe
critics and teachers. This is where you should
listen to my advice, unless you don't want to
listen to me as being a teacher. So this is a 14-
line poem. It's a sonnet. Remember a sonnet is
very rigid. It's like, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
So he's doing the same as the Romans. Thank you. You
know, putting himself in this cage. So it's a
sonnet, thank you very much. 14 lines, thank you
very much. And what about the rhyme scheme? Could
somebody do it very quickly, the rhyme scheme,
please? A, B, B,
A, leave her alone, yeah? A, B,
B, A. Thank you. C, D,
deep and
deep. C, Well. D, Asleep. C. And then? That's a
Petrarchan sonnet, not a Shakespearean sonnet. He
doesn't like Shakespeare, clearly. Listen, the
Romantics were called Romantics because
Romanticism, the word "Romantic," was used to
describe the Middle Ages, the medieval times, when
nature was unregulated, uncivilized, uncontrolled
by man. When nature was, when life was as simple
as it could be in a way. So he's leaving, jumping over
all the poets, the giants, the Romantic, the
Neoclassicists, those poets, and he's going back
to the origin, the origin of things. So I think
this is a deliberate, again, attempt to distance
himself from Shakespeare. I also think that it's a
way of defining critics. Like, if you say, "I'm not
a poet, I can write upon it just as well," I can,
it could be, yeah. But also it says that the idea
of spontaneity in poetry and writing is a myth.
It's not always true. Sahya, you're right, you
react instantly sometimes. I'm sure you started
writing poetry, some of you. Sometimes you just
get the inspiration and you write a poem and it's
a beautiful poem. But sometimes you go back to
check, you know, on language and diction and
poetic language and everything. Some of you
protested something here. I agree that this is...
Okay, an imperfect rhyme. At the time when he's
talking about the majesty, the "majesty" here, by
and "majesty," there is an imperfect rhyme. Again,
creating some kind of conflict. There is something
as an escapist, as
He's doing nothing. For many people, he is running
away, but for others, the act of writing poetry
itself is how he avoids corruption. And for this, you
will be surprised by the way, when the second
generation was writing, Shelley, Keats, and Byron,
this man was still alive because he lived like a
hundred years. I'm not sure how old, but he was
very old. But again, the second generation was
taking control. And those people, Chile, you are
many, they are few. He was clearly calling for
revolution, for an actual revolution. And that's
probably one reason why I love him the most,
Chile. He was anti-authoritarian, anti-everything.
So the poem here, Upon Westminster Bridge, shows
how this Romantic poet would choose a
particular timing and a particular place, again
just to be himself. If you read the poem, I'll
just do some commentary very quickly before we
leave. "Earth has nothing," again this is starting
with a stressed syllable. "Earth has nothing." Has
not anything to show more fair. What? You just
said the daffodils are the most beautiful thing.
"Dull would he be of soul who could pass by a sight"
"so touching in its majesty."
You'd be dull if you don't react to the beauty
here. "The city now doth," I love him using the word
the old English/Middle English "doth" rather than
"does," because again he's taking London 300 years
before, 200 years before the Industrial
Revolution and the factories and the corruption
"Doth like a garment wear," and sadly this is only a
garment; he knows this; it's only something the
city will shed, will take off in minutes
or in an hour or so; a garment like a dress; the
beauty of the morning silent, bare; the silence here,
the lack of people, the fact that there are no
people; and there ships, towers, domes, theaters,
temples, lie. And I think there could be a pun
here. "Lie," they're just lying asleep out there,
but the scene lies. It's deceptive. Now it's
beautiful and romantic. In an hour or so, it's
going to be hell breaking loose. "Upon
open onto the fields and to the sky," how it's just
one painting, one image, all bright and glittering
in the smokeless air. I think this is where I mix
things up. This is; every line is 10 syllables.
It's basically Iambic Pentameter, but he does
experiment more. He's just not as symmetrical as
others. This is the only line that has an extra
syllable unless you want to delete the schwa in "glittering." If you go for "glitter," it's 10; if you
go for "glittering," it's just 8; it's
already 11. "All bright and glittering in the
smokeless air." Look at this: "smokeless." People is
what else does he go for; list. How many instances do
we have? Two or more?
"Smokeless," just one. So, "glittering in the
smokeless air," "never did sun." It should be "the sun"
because there's just one sun, right? Or is he considering
it the "son of nature," son of this? But he doesn't go
for "the sun"; he's going to break... See my point
here? Grammatically, it should be "the sun," which is
going to add an extra syllable. But why did he
add an extra syllable here? I didn't want to add
one here because there is a message he's sending
here. If you dig deeper, you'll find it.
If you dig deeper, you'll find it.
Possible, but I'm not sure whether, because
sometimes you have different texts, I try to look
for the original text; I couldn't find one, just
to see whether it's "glittering" or "glitter,"
right? And yeah, you look at texts; if this is the
original text, this is how he wrote it, why is
this capitalized, but not this? Or is this where
society and civilization control overwhelm and
subdue nature, which is not good? "Never did sun"
more beautifully steep in this first, in his first
remember his—refers to the sun—his first splendor
valley, rock, or hell, no, so I again, never two
syllables, "no, so I again," the fronting here, "I never"
saw; I never saw; never felt; there's a lot of
negativity; we'll see this in a bit. "A calm so deep,"
a calm beauty, a silence.
"The river glides," he goes again for, not "glides,"
going for old English because he's situating
himself in a different place. Remember this is the
relativity of time and issues of time and shapes
of time Dr. Lyman mentioned before; you could use
this as an example. "The river glides at his own
sweet will."
I don't think this is religious; "dear God," some
people would take it as a religious thing. It's
just, "dear God, the very houses seem asleep." This
is another personification. People are asleep;
everything is asleep. "And all that mighty heart is
lying still." The mighty heart, London. Is he just
referring to London as a whole? Or the factories?
Or the machines? Remember this is momentarily;
it's going to change. I find the imperfect rhyme,
the extra syllable, and thank you; somebody said
the repetition of "never," "never," and "not,"
"not." Things that create tension that tell us that
this is not going to last forever. Because it's
only, and he admits this; he's not deceiving us or
himself. This is a garment; it's just a gown you
put on at night. And soon it will be taken off and
a garment of corruption, sins, pollution, smoke.
Smoke will overwhelm, will take over. Such a
beautiful poem. One of the most, again,
interesting poems of all times. But again, he's
not going for Shakespeare. He's jumping over
Shakespeare. That's the term: "frog leaping," or you
know, it's going back to Petrarch. I think the
word "garment" works entirely with the whole
time idea of "lie" and "lying." The garment? Possibly,
it's momentary. It's now this
beautiful and silent and bare, but in a moment
it's going to be different.
More? Please.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but look at
what timing he chooses, what place he places
himself. That's a Romantic concept. If you look at
these questions, they are very interesting things
to look into in this poem. I'll stop here. If you
have questions, please stay behind.