In Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cLines Written in Early Spring\u201d, he utilizes a consistent ABAB rhyme scheme in each of the six quatrains. This consistent and repetitive rhyme allows the reader to move easily through the poem, the true intention being for Wordsworth to elucidate his thoughts as inspired by his setting. The conclusion he reaches, represented through repetition and contrasts, is that nature is so wonderful it saddens him in remembrance of man\u2019s contrasting faults due to his divergence from the cadence of nature. Wordsworth repeats the word \u201cthoughts\u201d four times over the course of the poem, and the verb form \u201cthink\u201d is twice repeated. Thus, Wordsworth continually foregrounds the importance of his thoughts in the context he is describing; they are the true object of the work. In the first stanza, he immediately introduces the primary conflict, \u201cWhile in a grove I sat reclined, \/In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts\/Bring sad thoughts to the mind\u201d (l.3-4). It is already evident that the setting (pleasing nature) is instigating less pleasing personal thoughts within the speaker\u2019s mind. Additionally, the first stanza is the only in which contrasting words like \u201cpleasant\u201d and \u201csad\u201d are seen together, clearly presenting the conflict right away. Throughout the rest of the poem, positively connotated words are seen in each stanza that describes a specific nature scene, Wordsworth uses \u201cEnjoys\u201d while describing flowers in stanza 3, \u201cpleasure\u201d both when describing birds in stanza 4 and \u201cbudding twigs\u201d in stanza 5. In strict contrast, the stanzas without specific nature imagery contain a repeated ponderance conjoined with negative phrases. At the end of stanza two, Wordsworth writes, \u201cAnd much it grieved my heart to think\/What man has made of man\u201d (l.7-8). At the very end of the poem, he closes with similar lines, \u201cHave I not reason to lament\/What man has made of man?\u201d (l.23-24). Thus, when nature is no longer the focal point of his experience, when retreating inside his mind, this is when the negative thoughts crop up within Wordsworth. His enjoyment of the scene before him pushes him to ponder his own role in the setting\u2013that of man. He deliberately separates his descriptions and surface-level reaction to the different elements of the setting and his deeper thoughts into different stanzas, inserting the simplistic natural stanzas between the iterations of his question about the nature of mankind. Wordsworth thus makes the origin of his thoughts\u2013a lament for the departure of man from the order of the natural world\u2013clear while also maintaining a distance between his outer and inner mental workings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cLines Written in Early Spring\u201d, he utilizes a consistent ABAB rhyme scheme in each of the six quatrains. This consistent and repetitive rhyme allows the reader to move easily through the poem, the true intention being for Wordsworth to elucidate his thoughts as inspired by his setting. The conclusion he reaches, represented through … Continue reading Grove Thoughts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}