Community Chat

[Oznell]

In late December, 1799, William and Dorothy moved into what would become the famous "Dove Cottage" in England's Lake District, remarkable because he wrote many of his most famous poems here.  Here also, he entertained and continued his friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Dorothy wrote her invaluable journals.

They also carved initials, made terraces, cultivated their garden, and roamed the delightful countryside.  Inspired, he wrote the most famous poem in the English language, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud":

https://wordsworth.org.uk/wordsworth/daffodils-and-other-poems/wordsworths-daffodils/

Critics always make much of the sojourn in Dove Cottage, and it seems the quintessential small English cottage, accidentally touched by genius!  So neat that it has been kept intact for visitors to savor and picture what it must have been like. 

https://beesfirstappearance.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/dove/

[dulwich]

@Oznell  I love wordsworth's poetry - Daffodils as mentioned by you being a favorite - but

the one I love most is 'Upon Westminster Bridge' this to me is London and I used to walk over this bridge nearly every day and our daughter was born in the hospital - now no longer there, now offices  - at end of this bridge! 

A book ok of his poems is on my bedside table along with others.

Have a good day.

[Oznell]

What lovely associations to have with the bridge, and the poetry, @dulwich.  Thank you for sharing that story and your love of Wordsworth!

[golding76]

I had the blessed fortune to study the Romantic poets for an entire semester.  

My favorite:

My Heart Leaps Up

William Wordsworth, 1770 - 1850

My heart leaps up when I behold 
   A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began; 
So is it now I am a man; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 
   Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

[just bee]

@golding76

I studied the Romantic Period as a college freshman.  I was 17 and most of my classmates were much older   It was an upper division course, taught by a Blake expert.

I just pulled the ancient text off the shelf (yes, I still have it after 41 years) and I had to laugh at the price.  Hardcover, $14.95.  My quarterly tuition back then was around $69.

Times have changed.  My last college course was $1500 and you can’t buy even a preface for fifteen bucks.

I'd like to think they're still teaching the Romantics in college.  Or has that changed, too?

[golding76]

just bee,

You are not the only one hanging on to favorite college literature texts.  Still have volumes devoted to Keats, Shelley, Matthew Arnold and Seventeenth-century Prose and Poetry, among others.  Some things I cherish and am unable to release.

My course on the Romantic era was an upper-level course, so you obviously tested out of the basic freshman English course.  

There are no prices inside my books.  I don't remember what tuition was for me, but I know it is now high from my sons' higher education bills.

Most likely many colleges and universities have dropped Romantic era courses.  After all (tongue in cheek), what purpose would they serve?  My professor earned his Master's and PhD at Columbia University; he was magnificent.

[golding76]

Apropos of my earlier post of my heart leaping up when, like Wordsworth, I behold a rainbow in the sky, I saw not a single rainbow when shopping later in the day but a double rainbow.  The second rainbow was fainter but mirrored the deeply colored original.

When I walked out of my grocery store, I saw it arcing through a grey sky.  Then, unbelievably, there was an imitator curving immediately over it.  Fainter but there.

I told a complete stranger to look, and he did and stared in wonderment.  The woman behind him heard me and she, too, looked up and stopped to stare and comment. 

Many others then began to stare at what we were viewing.  Phones were brought out to capture the phenomenon.  For a moment, we all took a break from our frenzied Christmas shopping and gazed with awe, letting one another know how stunning the rainbows were.  We then went on about our mundane business as usual.

What a refreshing pause for beauty... 

[just bee]

@golding76

Proof that God reads great literature.

[zanna]

Thank you, @Oznell and all of you poetry lovers!  I never had the opportunity to study The Romantics, but what a wonderful addition to my bucket list!

I think I was born loving literature and poetry. By the age of 8 or 9, I had discovered Aesop's Fables and a collection of  nursery rhymes that came with my family's circa 1950s set of encyclopedias (remember those?).  I kept those books in our tiny kitchen pantry where I could hide and read for hours.  I vividly remember many of the poems and beautiful illustrations.  One, in particular, "Where Are You Going, My  Pretty Maid?", stands out.

A few years ago, I requested and received a few of Mary Oliver's poetry books for Christmas.  I keep them on my coffee table.  Below is an exerpt from her poem "Wild Geese":

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

.

[Oznell]

Thank you for sharing that, @zanna!