William Wordsworth as a writer of sonnets
William Wordsworth as a writer of sonnets
Write an essay on William Wordsworth as a writer of sonnets.
Introduction :
William Wordsworth hold a very high place among the English sonneteers. He started writing sonnets during 1801, and went on writing till the last years of his life. He has written five hundred sonnets. When we remember the fact the Shakespeare has written 156 and Milton only 26, Wordsworth’s achievement seems quite impressive.
A Lover of the Sonnet :
Wordsworth did not excel is narrative poetry. His success in the domain of lyric though considerable is not of the highest order when compared with Shelley or Keats; but as a writer of sonnets he ranks with the highest. He loved the sonnet form so much that he composed two sonnets on sonnet itself :
In sundry moodes’t was pastime to be bound
Within the sonnet’s scanty plot of ground.
Compton-Rickett has rightly pointed out : “If lyric suited him more than the narrative, the sonnet and the elegy suited him better still.”
This sonnet was written in 1807; twenty years later Wordsworth again wrote a sonnet on sonnet in which he paid his tributes to the great masters of the sonnet form – Petrarch, Tasso, Shakespeare and Milton and asked the critics not to scorn the sonnet.
His best sonnets :
The best sonnets of Wordsworth were written in the early years of 19th century. Quite a few of them written in 1802 and pubisihed in 1807. Some of his most famous sonnets are the following: 1 Grieved for Bounaparte : West-minister Bridge; It is a Beauteous Evening : Milton; Upon the Extinction of Venetain Republic; (all 1802). The World is Too Much With Us (1806) Subjugation of Switzerland (1807) Convention of Cintra (1808) and On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott (1801).
After 1808 there was a decline, not in the workmanship but imaginative power; but right up to the end some time the old fire will flash and splendid sonnets result. Of these latter sonnets of the River Duddon group and one Mutability is the best. Not only Wordsworth wrote a sonnet on Milton and invoked his spirit to come.
“And give us manners virtue freedom power”.
but he also gave the highest praise to Milton as a writer of sonnets, when he said :
In his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul a animating strains – also too few.
Follows the Miltonic pattern :
As a writer of sonnets Wordsworth does not follow the Shakespearean model. Only once does he experiment in this. He follows the Miltonic form based on the traditional Italian structure. In the words of Compton Rickett. “The technical exaction of the sonnet medium, the necessity for clear and orderly development, and the opportunity it afforded for intellectual articulation, all these things lend themselves readily to Wordsworth’s reflective cast of mind and cool clarity of diction….. Wordsworth did the greatest service by thus re-instaring the sonnet; and the poets who followed him Notably Keats and Rossetti were not slow to take the hint and develop its possibilities still further.”
Important Links
William Wordsworth as a Romantic Poet
William Wordsworth as a poet of Nature
Metaphysical Poetry: Definition, Characteristics and John Donne as a Metaphysical Poet
John Donne as a Metaphysical Poet
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: (explained in hindi)
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Charles Mackay: Poems Sympathy, summary & Quotes – Biography
William Shakespeare – Quotes, Plays & Wife – Biography
Ralph Waldo Emerson – Poems, Quotes & Books- Biography
What is a lyric and what are its main forms?
