1. Lyric Poetry
and
Wordsworth

2. Lyric Poetry
 Expresses the personal thoughts and
feelings of a single speaker
 Earliest lyric poems = sung by ancient
Greeks to the accompaniment of a
lyre
 No longer sung, but still often have a
musical feeling and songlike structure

3. Types of Lyric Poems
 Ode: serious, emotional poem paying
respect to a person or thing; speaker
directly addresses subject
 Elegy: solemn, formal poem about
death; mourns a person or the passing
of a better time
 Sonnet: 14 line poem with a specific
meter and rhyme scheme

4. Elements of Lyric Poetry
 Figurative language
 Sound devices
 Imagery

5. Figurative Language: language
used imaginatively rather than literally
Figures of Speech:
 Simile: comparing 2 unlike things
using like or as
 Metaphor: comparing 2 unlike things
without using like or as
 Personification: giving human traits
to something nonhuman
 Oxymoron: juxtaposing 2 opposite
words that reveal an interesting truth

6. Sound devices: use the sounds of
language to add a musical quality to poetry
 Repetition: repeated use of
sounds, words, sentences, etc. for
emphasis and a musical effect
◦ Alliteration: initial consonant sounds
◦ Consonance: final consonant sounds
◦ Assonance: similar vowel sounds
 Rhyme: repetition of sounds at the ends
of words (eg.: end rhyme)
 Onomatopoeia: use words that imitate
sounds (eg.: ring, boom, growl, etc.)

7. Imagery
 Descriptive language that appeals to
the senses
◦ Sight
◦ Hearing
◦ Touch
◦ Taste
◦ Smell
 Examples: green, humming, cold,
peppery, musty, etc.

8. William Wordsworth
 1770-1850
 Spent childhood in countryside
 13  Parents had died by this time
 17  Cambridge University
 Traveled Europe, mainly France
 Believed in social justice, individual rights
 Considered to be “the father of English
Romanticism”

9. Wordsworth Video
 22:45-30:30

10. “The World is Too Much With Us”
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our
powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune,
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less
forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Sordid = dirty
Boon = favor