Taking Place One Evening

I always find it intriguing when a book tells me to stop reading and go outside. I understand the sentiment that nature is amazing and we learn so much from it, but there is an inherent contradiction in the message.

In “The Tables Turned: An Evening Scene on the Same Subject” by William Wordsworth, readers are presented with a speaker who is berating the reader or some unknown character. The speaker says, “Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife,/ Come, here the woodland linnet,/ How sweet his music; on my life/ There’s more of wisdom in it” (9-12). The speaker tells the reader to go outside, experience nature and learn from her, but how can the reader know that this is what they should do if they do not read the poem? It seems fruitless because it is ignoring how much we learn from books and newspapers. Wordsworth is either making a statement or responding to a statement in this poem. It is possible that another person told him to stop writing and reading and that he should instead go outside, but it is hard to tell.

Knowing that Wordsworth was experiencing a ‘crisis’ when he returned from France, the line “Sweet is the lore which nature brings;/ Our meddling intellect/ Mishapes the beauteous forms of things;/ -- We murder to dissect” (25-28) leads me to believe that this is an idea Wordsworth himself wanted to say.  I think it was a reaction to happenings he experienced. The part about our intellect and our ever-growing fascination with solving everything makes me think he needed it to stop. He got tired of the excessive analysis of theories, crimes, society, and wars. He wanted people to remember that there is more than “toil and trouble” (2) to be seen; that there may be horrible things happening in the world, and they are pertinent, but there is still so much life to be had as long as people are willing to look for it.

"We Are Seven" and "Simon Lee"

I really like the idea from “Simon Lee” by Wordsworth that spoke about how people treat each other. At the end, the line says that the speaker is mourning that Simon Lee was so grateful. I took this to mean that the speaker was sad that this man was in such a desperate situation and had no help that he could only be grateful. While I didn’t see the same gratefulness theme in “We Are Seven,” also by Wordsworth, I spotted the idea about treatment of others in society.

In “We Are Seven” the speaker is trying to take away a belief from the little girl and undermining her by constantly reminding her that there are only five siblings left. The little girl is adamant about the fact that there are seven of them. Though the speaker likely wasn’t trying to be rude, he was underestimating the girls capacity to cope with grief and understand what happens in death. As a societal problem, this discrediting of children (who are definitely more perceptive than people give them credit for) is what leads to the mistreating of people later in life. I think there is both a belief that people don’t know how to handle situations and a belief that people should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”

I think Wordsworth would have experienced this mal-intention when he was prepping for his travels and putting together his poems. He writes often about industrialization and its effects on society and human treatment but then writes this poem about people who are living these exceedingly simple lives, as though he is focusing on the contrast. The little girl plays with her siblings, sews and visits the graves of her other siblings. They live in Northern Wales along the sea, which, as in "Simon Lee", is rather separated from London. I think Wordsworth does a lot to contrast these ideals, simplicity and machination, as a way to explain society’s interpersonal flaws.

Cold Witches

Wordsworth’s poem, “Goody Blake and Harry Gill: A True Story” has three major aspects about it that struck me upon reading. The first was the flow of the stanzas. The narrative style and rhymes really eased my understanding of the poem. The contrast from other style’s we’ve seen so far from Lyrical Ballads was evident. Though the narrative style has been used before, the syntax in this poem is different and clearer.

The second aspect that struck me is the idea of karma and penance. The last two lines say, “No think, ye farmers all, I pray,/Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill.” This strikes me as a warning to other farmers that Harry Gill’s actions, that of stopping Goody Blake from stealing his wood, even though she was freezing and needed it, directly resulted in his curse. It warns farmers both to not act impulsively and assume the worst about people, and that their actions have consequences.

The third idea that was apparent was the connection to Coleridge’s poems. In “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere” we see themes of penance and supernatural being reality. This is also in Wordsworth’s poem. We have the so-called witch and the curse that she places on Harry Gill. As she curses him, though she prays to God, we are given an image of the moon, “the cold, cold moon” that seemingly was what she was praying to. As mentioned above, the penance also reoccurs in this poem. As the mariner was cursed to tell his tale for the rest of time, Harry Gill was cursed to be cold for the rest of his life.

Rhyming Mariners

“Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d

With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.”

At the end of “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the mariner mentions that he must travel the land and tell his tale.

I don’t know if Coleridge was religious or not, but his poem seems to hold quite a few religious themes, including wearing a cross around one's neck and the idea of penance, among other things.  The curses that are placed on the mariner all seem to be a form a penance for him, in order to pay for his “sins.”

The mariner is cursed and must share his story, but while he confessed this to the wedding guest he adds, “He prayeth well, who loveth well/Both man and bird and beast.” Though the mariner did not outwardly express any remorse over killing the albatross immediately after it happened, the message he is sending is to love all things, including albatrosses. I imagine the mariner feels that he is only cursed, this last time and previously, because he did kill the albatross.

I think his story-telling is also a way of warning people, “this is what you should NOT do.” That’s a very common way of warding people from various activities; it’s why we have the Deterrence Theory. It is very much a way to say, “I did this and look what I have to do to pay for it, do you want to face that?” I think it would be very interesting to see how Coleridge intended that passage to be understood.