英国文学之华兹华斯——我似一朵流云William Wordsworth and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

one of Lake Poets, Poet Laureate资金[荣誉]获得者 , a lost leader.
● “worshipper礼拜[崇拜，爱慕]者 of nature”.
● He thinks that common life is the only subject of literary interest.
●Wordsworth’s best poetry, mainly produced between 1797 and 1807, gives expression to objective truth about nature and about the ordinary men and women who lived in close touch with nature. But in most of his poems Wordsworth as a poet of nature tends to mystify使神秘化nature and to indulge迁就，纵容 himself in pantheistic reverie泛神论的遐想 .
Wordsworth’s major works
（1）Lyrical Ballads 《抒情诗歌集》（1798）
This collection of poems is generally regarded as the landmark in English literature, for it started a poetical revolution by using the common, simple and colloquial language in poetry. Most of Wordsworth’s best short poems are included in this book. The poems were written in the spirit and in the pattern of the early story-telling ballads. They are simple tales about simple life told in simple style and simple language to express the simple emotions in simple lyricism.
Wordsworth’s viewpoints
1) Politically he was a radical democrat激进的民主主义者 in the early days, attracted to the slogans of liberty, quality and fraternity兄弟会； 大学生联谊会； 友爱 but became a conservative保守主义 in his later years. However, in his whole life, he held a critical attitude towards the government and the upper class. He was strongly against the Industrial Revolution which, he believe, had caused the miseries痛苦 of the poor people and destroyed the quiet simple life of the country people. He had great sympathy for the poor and regarded them as the victims of the fortune-hunting capitalists.
（2）Preface to Lyrical Ballads《抒情歌谣的序言》（1802）
The Preface deserves its reputation as a manifesto宣言； 声明； 告示 in the theory of poetry. Most of discussions of the Preface focused on his assertions声称 使用； 主张 about the vivid language of poetry, that is, “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. He attributed to imaginative literature the primary role in keeping man emotionally alive and morally sensitive, i.e. keeping him essentially本 质上，根本上human, in the face of the pressures of a technological and increasingly urban society. He claimed that the great subjects of poetry were “the essential passions of the heart” and “the great and simple affections” as these qualities interact 相 互 作 用 with “the beautiful and permanent forms of nature” and are expressed in a “naked and simple” language that is “adapted to interest mankind permanently”.
● In 1805, William Wordsworth completed a
long autobiographical 自 传 体 的 poem entitled The Prelude前奏曲 .
● To the younger generation, he was a “lost leader”. During the last two decades of his life he sought寻找，探寻to preserve the past and outdated. He opposed parliamentary议会的，国会 的； 议会制度的reform and opposed the Catholic Emancipation天主教解放 .
poetry in the history of English literature. E) Assignment
William Wordsworth
a radical democrat激进的民主主义者 , a conservative（英国）保守党党员 , one of the greatest poets of nature,
● Preface to Lyrical Ballads （ 1802 ） acts as a manifesto宣言 for the Romantic poets.
●The three poets William Wordsworth, Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey once lived in the English Lake District, and become known as the “Lake Poets”.
2) Literarily he was strongly against the neoclassical新古典主义的 poetry, especially that of Dryden Pope and Johnson, and tried to restore the tradition of Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. He was the leading figure of the English romantic poetry. He thought the source of poetic truth was the direct experience of the senses. His definition of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’’ and "emotion recollected in tranquillity" was shared by a number of his followers. He maintained that the senses and events of everyday life and the speech of ordinary people were the raw material of which poetry could and should be made. The most important contribution he has made is that he has not only started the modern poetry, the poetry of the growing inner self, but also changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature.
● He changed the course of English poetry by using ordinary speech of the language and by advocating a return to nature.
● English Romanticism浪漫主义 , as a historical phrase of literature, is generally said to have begun in 1798 with the publication of William Wordsworth and Taylor Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads抒情歌谣集 and to have ended in 1832 with Walter Scott’s death and the pΒιβλιοθήκη Baidussage of the first Reform Bill in the Parliament.
I．TOPIC: William Wordsworth and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
II. OBJECTIVES:
A) Introduction to Wordsworth and his major works B) Special features of his major works C) Study of the poem D) Comment on the significance of Wordsworth’s
● His deliberate故意的； 蓄意的； 深思熟虑的 simplicity and refusal to decorate
the truth of experience produced a kind of pure and profound深厚的； 意义深远的 poetry.
● “all good poetry is the spontaneous自发的； 自然 的 overflow充满； 洋溢of powerful feelings’’, which originates in 起 源 于 "emotion recollected in tranquillity心神稳定 ”.