"For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor."
Read about "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"
Read about "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"
Read about "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"
Class Discussion Questions:
"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey"
- Why does the speaker repeat the word "again" in the first stanza?
- What is the situation in this poem? To whom is the speaker speaking?
- According to the speaker, how can images of nature actually temper the mind of man? Identify some examples.
- There is a past, present, and future in this poem. Can you explain how they are interconnected?
- What are "forms of beauty" and again later, "lovely forms"?
- Does the speaker want to be a child again? Is there an urge to return to childhood, or does the speaker celebrate something else?
- What advantage does the adult mind have over the "delight and liberty" of childhood?
- What is the "philosophic mind"?
- Wordsworth says that "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," but he also tempers this statement with another. What other dimension does Wordsworth uphold as valuable? And what do these two dimensions have in common?
- What is Wordsworth's purpose in writing the poems found in Lyrical Ballads?
- I was struck by this sentence: "For a multitude of causes unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor." Is this still true today? How so?
- What is Wordsworth's attitude toward recreational drug use?
- What does "recollected in tranquillity" mean?
- How does Wordsworth call us to responsible reading? What do we need to do in order to measure up this ethical standard?
