Wordsworth and Vaughan Essay -- Poetry Wordsworth Vaughan Essays

Wordsworth and VaughanWhen reading T.S. Eliots critical comment, It is to be observed that the actors line of these poets is as a rule simple and pure, one might need that he was referring to the Romantics (Eliot 2328). Specifically, we could apply this statement to poets the ilk of Wordsworth, who eschewed poetic affectations and tricked out terminology for sentiments that originated and flowed naturally (Wordsworth 270). Yet Eliot hadnt focused his critical eye there, this time. Rather, he squinted a century back to a lesser-referenced literary group, the metaphysical poets (Eliot 2328). That the Metaphysical poets and the Romantics share a characteristically simple/natural diction is important. plot they are undoubtedly distinct schools, if we can show that they are stock-still remotely stylistically similar, then we might have grounds to cognize similarities between a poet from each, respectively. Thus, I propose considering Wordsworth in relation to an foregoing ma n, Henry Vaughan. I am not the first to do so much has been said of the link between these men regarding their analogous poems The recede and Ode Intimations of Immortalityby comparing them I cannot claim any original insight. However, there is more common to these two men than two poems, and in analyzing what Wordsworth desires from song and the poet in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads we see that Vaughan had many of the poetic qualities Wordsworth demanded of himself. change surface more interesting, Wordsworths shifted perspective from Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey to the elegiac Stanza replicates Vaughans shift from To Amoret to The Night. Where Vaughans verse originally addressed worldly revere and natural ... ...h happiness, wherever it be known, / Is to be pitied for tis surely blind (lines 53-56). In these lines, Wordsworth finally counsels that the human world is in reality not so near-sighted. Rather, when a man assumes himself separat e from mankindwhen he reinforces that separationhe actually blinds himself. So finally, the comparison between Vaughan and Wordsworth is not absolute. However, sorting through the lyric of men whove been dead for centuries for evidence of a literary association beyond mere coincidence is never and easy undertaking. But let us assume that, if Wordsworth was right, both he and Vaughan shared universal human experiences. Perhaps, upon grasp a certain middle age, they also shared fear and devotion of the conditions of their mortalityand if one may have looked to the others spoken communication for poetic guidance, the poetic genre is better for it.