Percy Shelley's "To Wordsworth"

So, up until two days before this blog was due, I had planned to write it on Percy Shelley’s sonnet “England in 1819.” It was practically finished. But then we were handed our Romanticism essay prompts. One of them, the easiest one I was likely to choose, was explicating one of three sonnets. Sure enough, one was Coleridge’s “To the River Otter,” Keats’ “On the Sonnet,” and Shelley’s “England in 1819.” If I chose to write this blog about Shelley’s sonnet, I would have to write my essay on Keats’. But “England in 1819” was so interesting.

The first time I read it, I wasn't really paying attention. It was late and I had other homework. I also knew that we'd talk about it in class the next day so I wasn't completely dedicated to analyzing every word. But then Professor Hague read the poem aloud and I realized the message, the anger. Wow! What a vocabulary. So I did some research, and was well on my way to being done. But at the last minute, I decided to change my mind and wait to write it for the essay. So what to write about this time…maybe Keats’ sonnet? Maybe next time; I read it. I liked it. So now I’ve wasted 200 words telling you what I was going to do…

In keeping with the Shelley vibe, I explicated the sonnet, “To Wordsworth”

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know

William Wordsworth

That things depart which never may return:

Childhood and youth, friendship, and love’s first glow,

Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.

These common woes I feel. One loss is mine

Which thou too feel’st, yet I alone deplore.

Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine

On some frail bark in winter’s midnight roar:

Thou hast like a rock-built refuge stood

Above the blind and battle multitude:

In honoured poverty thy voice did weave

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.

Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,

Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

At first, I thought this was a poem to celebrate Wordsworth after he had died. But he wasn’t dead. His career was, sort of; he’d stopped writing poetry and taken a government job. He’d lost his touch, and might as well “cease to be.” Of course, it’s a sonnet with a regular rhyme scheme up until he says multitude. It doesn’t really rhyme with “stood” unless you’re forced to change your pronunciation of it like one sometimes does when trying to rhyme ‘again’ with ‘train’ or ‘gain’ or ‘rain.’

Percy Shelley

As a “Poet of Nature,” Wordsworth’s technique is used against him by Shelley. The poem is dedicated to praising what Wordsworth once was, only to strike it down—subtlety using words like “lone star,” “frail bark,” and “blind and battling” Shelley suggests weakness—and say “You’ve changed, Hollywood” (ßa reference no one is likely to get but still how I see it). He used to write about “childhood and youth, friendship, and love’s first glow,” and yeah, people liked it. But those are “common woes” and nothing special. In short, Shelley’s poem is a backhanded compliment to Wordsworth. When he was a struggling poet, living in poverty, Wordsworth had his dignity and his voice and work thrived on his telling of “truth and liberty” but he’s deserted these values. People like Shelley would grieve this loss but in writing this poem, Shelley shows the public that he’s there to fill the shoes left behind.

Photo Credits

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley

http://myopicpoets.blogspot.com/2011/04/william-wordsworth.html