Tintern Abbey
Group One: Analyze lines 1 – 49 and relate the significance of memory in this passage to the poem as a whole.In the poem "Tintern Abby" by William Wordsworth the idea is developed that the process of memory serves a much greater purpose than simply remembrance. Instead through the progression of memory the speaker is able to leap beyond the constraints of reality and begins to see things in a new sense, he reaches a "purer mind." The narrator begins the second stanza by sharing his memories of nature. The "beauteous forms" or memories of nature, have sustained the speaker with "sensations sweet" in "lonely rooms…of towns and cities." But beyond reciting recollections of loveliness the memories of the speaker hold no power they are simply memories. Yet as the poem progresses the memories of the narrator take on a much deeper role. As he guides us through his process of memory we begin to see a transition. In the journey through the speaker’s memories the narrator reaches a new stage, as he feels "sensations sweet…felt along the heart." This new stage is almost a meditation state and described by the speaker as his "purer mind." From this moment on the narrator is now able to recite "unremembered pleasure[s] . . .
It is in these ways that Dorothy becomes a symbol of Wordsworth's "courser pleasures of [his] boyish days" (73), and so becomes an outlet for him to "live again" through her experiences, assuming that they will mirror his own. He see this moment as another memory that, in the future, will bring more "life and food" for years to come. Coleridge doesn't really experience nature he is more in awe of it. Wordsworth becomes involved in nature, he sees into it, he feel the presence of the spirits within nature, where as Coleridge simply sees the divine in nature. Thus, the prayer in the poem by William Wordsworth, displays the spiritual comfort that can be found in nature, and contributes to the rest of the poem as it reinforces the theme, and once again displays the participatory view of nature. All in all, it is the connection with nature that leads man to discover himself. Wordsworth follows "Wherever nature [leads]," (L. It is as if, he must leave himself to truly find himself. Amy Waschenfelder: The two passages in "Tintern Abby" verse the passage in "This Lime Tree Bower My Prison" show's Wordsworth's more participatory view of nature as compared to Coleridge's more distant observations of nature. In the lines "In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:" (L39-40) he discusses how, through nature, the weigh of the mystery of the world is lifted. Most significantly, Wordsworth’s memory suggests that his past memories were formed from physical senses, while his current (and future) perspectives are shaped from a combination of physical, emotional, and (most importantly) spiritual senses. As Wordsworth looks upon nature it causes him to pause, and he feels the presence of nature and the spirit of all things.
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