Today, I present on William Wordsworth. For my presentation I chose to focus on Tintern Abbey and his Preface. I am most intrigued by his Preface because of its ability to create a critical view around his poetry that is solely in his control. He is setting a standard for how his poetry will be viewed, before anyone else. It is redefining author control over one’s work once it is published.
We Are Seven was the other piece of his poetry that I really enjoyed within this section. I wish I would have included it more in my presentation because I see it as really defining Wordsworth’s use of memory and narrative. In this poem, Wordsworth’s narrative runs through the poem like prose, making it more accessible to a wider audience. The content of the poem is not an unknown story, as child birth and child death were at times synonymous to one another. These two aspects, along with the absence of proper names, generalize the poem. Allowing any Reader to insert themselves into the poem.
Romanticism Blog 