Saturday, May 3, 2014

Citically analyse the poem "The Education of Nature," by poet William Wordsworth.

"The Education of Nature," by William Wordsworth, is about
a girl who is blessed by Nature with beauty and vitality, but then suddenly dies,
leaving her lover, the narrator, with only "the memory of what has been, / And never
more will be."


The poem begins with "Nature," personified
as a conscience, speaking person, declaring that it will take "this child"--the girl--to
itself.  Nature promises to bless the girl with beauty, grace, and
nobility:


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"She shall be sportive as the
fawn...


And hers the silence and the
calm


Of mute insensate
things...


And vital feelings of
delight


Shall rear her form to stately
height,


Her virgin bosom
swell"



Suddenly, though,
Nature's "work was done" and "Lucy's race was run!"


She died, and
left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet
scene;


The memory of what has
been,


And never more will
be.







The
poem consists of 7 stanzas of 6 lines each.  The rhyme scheme in each stanza is
AABCCB.


The rhyming pairs of lines 2 and 4, and lines 4-5
generally contain 8 syllables.  The pair of lines 3 and 6 are shorter, containing 6 or 7
syllables.


The entire poem is written in iambics, meaning
that the rhythm resembles: da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM; for example, consider the first line of
the second syllable:


Myself will to my darling
be...

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