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William WordsworthA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Throughout his poetic career, Wordsworth drew a clear distinction between the present, which he typically perceived as corrupt and meaningless, and the past, which he idealized as a purer and more spiritual time. For much of his poetry, that idealized past was his own childhood. In “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth notes that he often indulges in the memories of his youth, feeling “in hours of weariness, sensations sweet” (Line 28) when doing so. It was the memory of the River Wye which he often returned to “in spirit” (Line 57) when the “fever of the world” (Line 55) “hung upon the beatings of [his] heart” (Line 56) too heavily. Ruminating on his past in nature is what Wordsworth uses to get through the miseries of the present world.
The halcyon days of Wordsworth’s childhood and his dependence on those memories inspired in him a belief that society and civilization were consistently becoming worse and that the past was a purer time. In “The World Is Too Much With Us,” Wordsworth is disillusioned with the state of the world. He dislikes the culture of consumerism, the materialistic attitude of his countrymen, and the severance he feels from the natural world.
By William Wordsworth
A Complaint
William Wordsworth
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
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Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
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Daffodils
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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey ...
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London, 1802
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Lyrical Ballads
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My Heart Leaps Up
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Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
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Preface to Lyrical Ballads
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She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways
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She Was a Phantom of Delight
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The Prelude
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The Solitary Reaper
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To the Skylark
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We Are Seven
William Wordsworth