Bowden, Brebner, Carney and Chen's group.
‘It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free’ (also named "By the sea")
It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods on the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder−everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
Alright boys so we've gotta get cracking! This is due on monday!!
So I did a little research...
Heres a bit of background information:
This poem is one of the many sonnets Wordsworth wrote in the early 1800s.
Sonnets are fourteen-line poetic inventions written in iambic pentameter, This is a Petrarchan sonnet. A Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two parts, an octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and a sestet (the final six lines). In this case, the octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, and the sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDEDEC.
This poem is one of the most personal of all of Wordsworth's writing, Shortly before Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, Wordsworth returned to France to see his former mistress Annette Vallon, whom he would likely have married ten years earlier had the war between France and England not separated them. He returned to visit Annette to make arrangements for her and for their child, Caroline, who was now a ten-year-old girl. This poem is thought to have originated from a real moment in Wordsworth's life, when he walked on the beach with the daughter (Caroline) he had not known for a decade. The main idea of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” is how Wordsworth views nature and childhood as essentially divine.
So here are all my direct notes on the poem:
It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free; -Fairly straightforward, worsdworth is setting the scene as a beautiful evening.
The holy time is quiet as a Nun - Sunset is a sacred or holy time in many of Wordsworth’s poems. Wordsworth compares the time of day to a holy nun adoring God. And how time seems to stand still in this calmness. The image of a 'nun' indicates how sacred the eveing is.
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun -This suggests that nature possesses underlying energy and power. And also helps create the image of the perfect sunset
Is sinking down in its tranquillity; -Wordsworth is attempting to create the picture in the mind of the reader of the "perfect sunset", and emphasising the calmness
The gentleness of heaven broods on the Sea: -Wordsworth shows the beauty of the evening by suggesting that heaven has nested [(broods) on the sea. He may mean that heaven is hovering over the sea at this time, thinking. Then Wordsworth senses the energy of the sea, maybe thinking that the calm sea has awoken for the night. nesting is about keeping eggs warm could it mean that all though the sun is going down it still provides the perfect warmth?
Listen! the mighty Being is awake -may be interpreted as: God, nature, or God manifested throughout nature, This "mighty being" may be interpreted as: God, nature, or God manifested throughout nature, Wordsworth's ideas in this poem rotating around divinity would back up this concept as Divinity is most definitely evident in God.
And doth with his eternal motion make - 'Eternal motion' means it is constantly changing and evolving
A sound like thunder−everlastingly. -Wordsworth thinks that the motion of the tides makes a sound like thunder on the shore. Thunder is also a symbol of strength and power, so here wordsworth is expressing the eternal might of nature.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, -This is wordsworths first reference to the girl that walks with him, his daughter Caroline. The use of the word 'dear' indicates his affection and care for her
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,-Here wordsworth tells that though she appears untouched by the "solemn thought" that he himself is gripped by, her nature is still divine. He may have ‘solemn thoughts’ about the sacredness of nature, but she is intimately connected to nature. And so she is closer to nature than him.
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:Wordsworth is showing how a childs ignorance is their innocence.
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;-this line portrays the trust and innocence of Caroline. Or suggesting that her soul is blessed by God.
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, -The ‘Temple’ here represents stands for Caroline’s (Wordsworhts daughter) closeness to nature. She is in the ‘inner shrine’ of the temple. Usually only special people, the high priests, could enter the inner shrine of a Jewish temple.
God being with thee when we know it not.-Wordsworth is stating how God seems to be with Caroline in her childish innocence yet not with him or adults. The line above this he suggests how she is intimately connected to nature, because she is 'natural' she is connected to God also .
Themes
Sunset
Wordsworth praises the calmness of evening. He also likes the fact that it is free, a time of leisure. He compares sunset to worship. The image of the nun shows how sacred evening is. It is like a Temple, as he suggests later in the poem. It is a time when heaven touches the earth.
A father-daughter Relationship
The poem shows Wordsworth’s love for his daughter, Caroline. He repeats the word ‘dear’ and praises her natural quality: ‘Thy nature is not therefore less divine’. He suggests that in her innocent and natural state she is close to God.
The Beauty of Nature Reveals God
Wordsworth believes the sunset is so beautiful because heaven is present in the sky at this time. The force behind the sea is a ‘mighty Being’, or God. Also that gazing at a sunset is the same as being present in the Temple to adore God.
Children are connected to Nature
Wordsworth states his child is no less divine than the sunset. She is part of nature and is in the ‘inner shrine’, maybe without knowing it.
Features of the Poem
-Wordsworth compares nature to Christian images: a ‘nun’, ‘heaven’
-When Wordsworth wrote this poem, he used language that was like everyday language. Now, two hundred years later, the words and especially the word order seem old fashioned: ‘Thou’, ‘beauteous’, ‘o’er’, ‘liest’, 'walkest', 'thee'. These words are from the bible too. This emphasises the religious aspect of nature.
-The Similies in the poem are ‘The holy time is quiet as a Nun’ and ‘a sound like thunder’.
-The lone metaphor in the poem is: ‘Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom.’ Is 'the gentleness of heaven broods on the sea' a metaphore?.
Ok fellas so we all needa get our pictures relating to each section sorted and put on here so we can organise our slideshow if thats what we are gonna do?
Poem Summary
On a beautiful evening, the speaker thinks that the time is "quiet as a Nun," and as the sun sinks down on the horizon, "the gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea." The sound of the ocean makes the speaker think that "the mighty Being is awake," and, with his eternal motion, raising an everlasting "sound like thunder." The speaker then addresses the young girl who walks with him by the sea, and tells her that though she appears untouched by the "solemn thought" that he himself is gripped by, her nature is still divine. He says that she worships in the "Temple's inner shrine" merely by being, and that "God is with thee when we know it not."
This poem is one of the many excellent sonnets Wordsworth wrote in the early 1800s. Sonnets are fourteen-line poetic inventions written in iambic pentameter. There are several varieties of sonnets; "The world is too much with us" takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, modeled after the work of Petrarch, an Italian poet of the early Renaissance. A Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two parts, an octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and a sestet (the final six lines). In this case, the octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, and the sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDEDEC.
Commentary
This poem is one of the most personal and intimate in all of Wordsworth's writing, and its aura of heartfelt serenity is as genuine as anything in the Wordsworth canon. Shortly before he married Mary Hutchinson, Wordsworth returned to France to see his former mistress Annette Vallon, whom he would likely have married ten years earlier had the war between France and England not separated them. He returned to visit Annette to make arrangements for her and for their child, Caroline, who was now a ten-year-old girl. This poem is thought to have originated from a real moment in Wordsworth's life, when he walked on the beach with the daughter he had not known for a decade.
Unlike many of the other sonnets of 1802, "It is a beauteous evening" is not charged with either moral or political outrage; instead it is as tranquil as its theme. The main technique of the sonnet is to combine imagery depicting the natural scene with explicitly religious imagery--a technique also employed, although less directly, in "Tintern Abbey." The octave of the sonnet makes the first metaphorical comparisons, stating that the evening is a "holy time," and "quiet as a nun / Breathless with adoration." As the sun sets, "the mighty Being" moves over the waters, making a thunderous sound "everlastingly." In the sestet, the speaker turns to the young girl walking with him, and observes that unlike him, she is not touched by "solemn thought" (details also appearing in the Immortality Ode). But he declares that this fact does not make her "less divine"--childhood is inherently at one with nature, worshipping in the unconscious, inner temple of pure unity with the present moment and surroundings.
Here you go boys the slideshow is done by moi a picture for every sentence. Enjoy the bosom ones. yeeeeeeeeee
Chen: backround notes and Qs:
‘It is a beauteous evening, calm and free’
This beautiful, artistic sonnet was written to Wordsworth’s daughter, Caroline Vallon, who was nine years old when he visited her in 1802. It is one of ten sonnets written during his visit to Calais.
The sonnet is a highly structured form of poetry, imposing a discipline on the poet to regulate the outpouring of emotion into its mould. The sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines. In its traditional form, these are divided into eight lines (the octave) and six lines (the sestet), with a pause between which is called the volta. The division between the octave and the sestet might not appear in a space between the two sections (there is no space between them in this poem) but the two are distinguished by a different rhyming pattern. There is also, traditionally, a change in the direction of thought after the volta. Often the octave will be a description while the sestet will be a reflection on that description.
The octave usually consists of two quatrains (a quatrain is four lines) which are linked together by their rhyming pattern. This is usually abba abba in the Italian form of the sonnet, used also by many English poets. However, an alternative English form is abba cddc
The sestet, in the Italian form, usually took a rhyming pattern such as cdecde, or cdedce, or rhyming couplets. In the English form, it often took the form of a third quatrain and a rhyming couplet.
The sonnet form was used by Milton, Shakespeare and Donne but after their time had been less popular with English poets until the Romantic period, when it was revived by Wordsworth and the other Romantic poets. Wordsworth himself is often considered the best sonnet writer amongst the Romantics. The Romantic poets, though they often rejected the immediate past, tended to look back farther into the past for inspiration, both in terms of content and form. However, consistent with their love of freedom and rejection of the strictures of the past, they often took liberties with the form, as we can see in this sonnet.
The first two quatrains are linked in their rhyming patterns: abba acca. They describe the beauty of the evening as the sun sinks into the sea. In the first quatrain this beauty is described as spiritual: the silence of the moment captured in the simile comparing it to “a Nun/Breathless with adoration”. The feeling of calmness and silence is conveyed through the sound of the quatrain: long vowel sounds, assonance, variation in the metre, enjambment of the second and third lines and the caesura in the third line force the reader to read it slowly.
In the second quatrain, the sound of the sea is juxtaposed to the silence spoken of in the first quatrain. Once again a spiritual element is introduced as the “eternal motion” of the sea, with its everlasting “sound like thunder” is said to be the “mighty Being”.
The sestet is written as an apostrophe to his daughter, who appears “untouched by solemn thought” at the sight of so much beauty. He assures her that her nature is “not therefore less divine”. Children, in Wordsworth’s view are always in touch with nature, where adults have only occasional exquisite moments of understanding it. “Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year”, he tells her. Note: This is a biblical allusion: Abraham’s bosom is a term used in the Bible as a metaphor for closeness to God, for instance in the story of Lazarus, Luke 16: 19-31.
She, as a child, can worship “at the Temple’s inner shrine”, the inner shrine of a temple being where only the most holy or initiated may go, and the temple here being a metaphor for nature which Wordsworth identifies with God.
Activity:
In this exercise, you will revise some important poetic terms and use them to explain the way they shape meaning in this poem.
Explain the ways in which these, and the structure of the sonnet shape meaning in the poem.
Discuss how this poem is typical of a romantic poem with reference to typical Romantic themes.
model essay:
Divinity in “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” During the late 17th and early 18th centuries the style of poetry changed drastically. Poets shifted their focus away from the audience and concentrated on the internal self. This created the expressive, lyric poetry we now recognize as typical of Romanticism. William Wordsworth is one of the most famous of the Romantics, as well as author of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free.” Written in 1807 after a trip to France to visit his daughter, “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” focuses on Wordsworth’s view of nature and childhood as essentially divine. Written as a Petrarchan sonnet, “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” can be divided into two parts, an octet and a sestet. The octet introduces the reader to Wordsworth’s pantheistic view of nature. His reference to “the mighty Being” (6) may be interpreted as: God, nature, or God manifested throughout nature, which exemplifies pantheism. Divinity is evident in God, and in nature through three main qualities: power, eternity and perfection. In “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”, nature is described as being “breathless with adoration.” (3) This suggests that nature possesses underlying energy and power. Further along in the poem, the Being makes “a sound like thunder” (8), another symbol of strength and power. One of the most important features of a divine being is eternal existence. Wordsworth describes nature as being in “eternal motion” (7); it is constantly changing and evolving. A third quality essential to divinity is absolute perfection. One scene in the poem depicts the sun sinking from the heavens down into the sea. Wordsworth creates an image of such harmony and perfection; it is hard to question the divine essence of nature. In the sestet, Wordsworth switches the focus from the divinity of nature to the divinity of childhood. Although Wordsworth is addressing his daughter specifically, his view of her as divine can be applied to all children. While childhood is regarded as a time of ignorance, where serious thoughts are seldom entertained, the Romantics also view childhood as a time of innocence. Wordsworth addresses both these views in “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”. By declaring that, eventhough his daughter is “untouched by solemn thought, [she] is not therefore less divine”(10-11), Wordsworth is saying that a child’s ignorance is his or her innocence. As the poem continues, the child is portrayed as “[lying] in Abraham’s bosom all the year” (12), suggesting that her soul is blessed by God. Wordsworth’s use of the image of the Temple’s inner shrine is perfect in illustrating a child’s innocence and divinity. Normally reserved for the highest priest of the Israelites to visit but once a year, a mere child is portrayed as worshipping there, revealing her closeness to God. In fact, this union is so special that Wordsworth admits that God is with the child even when he knows it not. Upon close examination of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”, it is apparent that Wordsworth views nature and childhood as two of the most divine states known to man. What is not so obvious, are his, as well as the rest of the Romantics, reasons for this belief. During the Romantic era, the French and Industrial Revolutions were causing great changes in the world. Several external supports, such as government and religion, were breaking down. Perhaps it is this turmoil that forced the Romantics to seek solace and inspiration in the stability of nature. However, despite discovering the sanctity of nature, the Romantics realized they were still being corrupted by the world around them. Purity could only be truly maintained in childhood, because of a child’s ignorance towards the problems of the world. It is for this reason, poets such as Wordsworth, revered childhood as divine. Word Count: 642
The Bosom of Abraham, illumination from the Kiev Psalter, 1397. Abraham is depicted seated amid the foliage of Paradise. (Russian National Library, Saint Petersburg.)
The phrase "Bosom of Abraham" refers to the place of comfort in sheol (Greek: hades) where the Jews said the righteous
Abraham's bosom (Luke16:22-23) refers to the custom of reclining on couches at the dining table, which was prevalent among the Jews, an arrangement which brought the head of one person almost into the bosom of the one who sat or reclined above him.
To "be in Abraham's bosom" thus meant to enjoy happiness and rest (Matthew 8:11; Luke 16:23) at the banquet in Paradise. Abraham's bosom, also called the Limbo of the Fathers in this context, is said to be the waiting place for those who "lived by faith" in Yahweh, but died before the coming of Jesus; sometime during the three days between the Crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection, Jesus descended into the realm of the dead and retrieved those in Abraham's bosom.
Abraham's Bosom is a figurative phrase for the presence of God, paradise[1]. It is believed by some Christians to be a former comfortable section of "Hades", that neighbored Hell or Gehenna (the place of torment) prior to the resurrection of Jesus. Others believe the Lucian parable to be mythical and not based on the realities of the time of Jesus' words. (Luke 16:22-23; 23:43
The poem was written at Calais, where Wordsworth and his sister had gone to meet Annette Vallon and her child, his French daughter Caroline. "We walked by the sea-shore almost every evening with Annette and Caroline, or William and I alone" (Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal).
‘It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free’ (also named "By the sea")
It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods on the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder−everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
Alright boys so we've gotta get cracking! This is due on monday!!
So I did a little research...
Heres a bit of background information:
This poem is one of the many sonnets Wordsworth wrote in the early 1800s.
Sonnets are fourteen-line poetic inventions written in iambic pentameter, This is a Petrarchan sonnet. A Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two parts, an octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and a sestet (the final six lines). In this case, the octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, and the sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDEDEC.
This poem is one of the most personal of all of Wordsworth's writing, Shortly before Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, Wordsworth returned to France to see his former mistress Annette Vallon, whom he would likely have married ten years earlier had the war between France and England not separated them. He returned to visit Annette to make arrangements for her and for their child, Caroline, who was now a ten-year-old girl. This poem is thought to have originated from a real moment in Wordsworth's life, when he walked on the beach with the daughter (Caroline) he had not known for a decade. The main idea of “It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free” is how Wordsworth views nature and childhood as essentially divine.
So here are all my direct notes on the poem:
It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free; -Fairly straightforward, worsdworth is setting the scene as a beautiful evening.
The holy time is quiet as a Nun - Sunset is a sacred or holy time in many of Wordsworth’s poems. Wordsworth compares the time of day to a holy nun adoring God. And how time seems to stand still in this calmness. The image of a 'nun' indicates how sacred the eveing is.
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun -This suggests that nature possesses underlying energy and power. And also helps create the image of the perfect sunset
Is sinking down in its tranquillity; -Wordsworth is attempting to create the picture in the mind of the reader of the "perfect sunset", and emphasising the calmness
The gentleness of heaven broods on the Sea: -Wordsworth shows the beauty of the evening by suggesting that heaven has nested [(broods) on the sea. He may mean that heaven is hovering over the sea at this time, thinking. Then Wordsworth senses the energy of the sea, maybe thinking that the calm sea has awoken for the night. nesting is about keeping eggs warm could it mean that all though the sun is going down it still provides the perfect warmth?
Listen! the mighty Being is awake -may be interpreted as: God, nature, or God manifested throughout nature, This "mighty being" may be interpreted as: God, nature, or God manifested throughout nature, Wordsworth's ideas in this poem rotating around divinity would back up this concept as Divinity is most definitely evident in God.
And doth with his eternal motion make - 'Eternal motion' means it is constantly changing and evolving
A sound like thunder−everlastingly. -Wordsworth thinks that the motion of the tides makes a sound like thunder on the shore. Thunder is also a symbol of strength and power, so here wordsworth is expressing the eternal might of nature.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, -This is wordsworths first reference to the girl that walks with him, his daughter Caroline. The use of the word 'dear' indicates his affection and care for her
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,-Here wordsworth tells that though she appears untouched by the "solemn thought" that he himself is gripped by, her nature is still divine. He may have ‘solemn thoughts’ about the sacredness of nature, but she is intimately connected to nature. And so she is closer to nature than him.
Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Wordsworth is showing how a childs ignorance is their innocence.
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; -this line portrays the trust and innocence of Caroline. Or suggesting that her soul is blessed by God.
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, -The ‘Temple’ here represents stands for Caroline’s (Wordsworhts daughter) closeness to nature. She is in the ‘inner shrine’ of the temple. Usually only special people, the high priests, could enter the inner shrine of a Jewish temple.
God being with thee when we know it not. -Wordsworth is stating how God seems to be with Caroline in her childish innocence yet not with him or adults. The line above this he suggests how she is intimately connected to nature, because she is 'natural' she is connected to God also .
Themes
Sunset
Wordsworth praises the calmness of evening. He also likes the fact that it is free, a time of leisure. He compares sunset to worship. The image of the nun shows how sacred evening is. It is like a Temple, as he suggests later in the poem. It is a time when heaven touches the earth.
A father-daughter Relationship
The poem shows Wordsworth’s love for his daughter, Caroline. He repeats the word ‘dear’ and praises her natural quality: ‘Thy nature is not therefore less divine’. He suggests that in her innocent and natural state she is close to God.
The Beauty of Nature Reveals God
Wordsworth believes the sunset is so beautiful because heaven is present in the sky at this time. The force behind the sea is a ‘mighty Being’, or God. Also that gazing at a sunset is the same as being present in the Temple to adore God.
Children are connected to Nature
Wordsworth states his child is no less divine than the sunset. She is part of nature and is in the ‘inner shrine’, maybe without knowing it.
Features of the Poem
-Wordsworth compares nature to Christian images: a ‘nun’, ‘heaven’
-When Wordsworth wrote this poem, he used language that was like everyday language. Now, two hundred years later, the words and especially the word order seem old fashioned: ‘Thou’, ‘beauteous’, ‘o’er’, ‘liest’, 'walkest', 'thee'. These words are from the bible too. This emphasises the religious aspect of nature.
-The Similies in the poem are ‘The holy time is quiet as a Nun’ and ‘a sound like thunder’.
-The lone metaphor in the poem is: ‘Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom.’ Is 'the gentleness of heaven broods on the sea' a metaphore?.
Ok fellas so we all needa get our pictures relating to each section sorted and put on here so we can organise our slideshow if thats what we are gonna do?
Poem Summary
On a beautiful evening, the speaker thinks that the time is "quiet as a Nun," and as the sun sinks down on the horizon, "the gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea." The sound of the ocean makes the speaker think that "the mighty Being is awake," and, with his eternal motion, raising an everlasting "sound like thunder." The speaker then addresses the young girl who walks with him by the sea, and tells her that though she appears untouched by the "solemn thought" that he himself is gripped by, her nature is still divine. He says that she worships in the "Temple's inner shrine" merely by being, and that "God is with thee when we know it not."
This poem is one of the many excellent sonnets Wordsworth wrote in the early 1800s. Sonnets are fourteen-line poetic inventions written in iambic pentameter. There are several varieties of sonnets; "The world is too much with us" takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, modeled after the work of Petrarch, an Italian poet of the early Renaissance. A Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two parts, an octave (the first eight lines of the poem) and a sestet (the final six lines). In this case, the octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, and the sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDEDEC.
Commentary
This poem is one of the most personal and intimate in all of Wordsworth's writing, and its aura of heartfelt serenity is as genuine as anything in the Wordsworth canon. Shortly before he married Mary Hutchinson, Wordsworth returned to France to see his former mistress Annette Vallon, whom he would likely have married ten years earlier had the war between France and England not separated them. He returned to visit Annette to make arrangements for her and for their child, Caroline, who was now a ten-year-old girl. This poem is thought to have originated from a real moment in Wordsworth's life, when he walked on the beach with the daughter he had not known for a decade.
Unlike many of the other sonnets of 1802, "It is a beauteous evening" is not charged with either moral or political outrage; instead it is as tranquil as its theme. The main technique of the sonnet is to combine imagery depicting the natural scene with explicitly religious imagery--a technique also employed, although less directly, in "Tintern Abbey." The octave of the sonnet makes the first metaphorical comparisons, stating that the evening is a "holy time," and "quiet as a nun / Breathless with adoration." As the sun sets, "the mighty Being" moves over the waters, making a thunderous sound "everlastingly." In the sestet, the speaker turns to the young girl walking with him, and observes that unlike him, she is not touched by "solemn thought" (details also appearing in the Immortality Ode). But he declares that this fact does not make her "less divine"--childhood is inherently at one with nature, worshipping in the unconscious, inner temple of pure unity with the present moment and surroundings.
Here you go boys the slideshow is done by moi a picture for every sentence. Enjoy the bosom ones. yeeeeeeeeee
Chen: backround notes and Qs:
‘It is a beauteous evening, calm and free’
This beautiful, artistic sonnet was written to Wordsworth’s daughter, Caroline Vallon, who was nine years old when he visited her in 1802. It is one of ten sonnets written during his visit to Calais.The sonnet is a highly structured form of poetry, imposing a discipline on the poet to regulate the outpouring of emotion into its mould. The sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines. In its traditional form, these are divided into eight lines (the octave) and six lines (the sestet), with a pause between which is called the volta. The division between the octave and the sestet might not appear in a space between the two sections (there is no space between them in this poem) but the two are distinguished by a different rhyming pattern. There is also, traditionally, a change in the direction of thought after the volta. Often the octave will be a description while the sestet will be a reflection on that description.
The octave usually consists of two quatrains (a quatrain is four lines) which are linked together by their rhyming pattern. This is usually abba abba in the Italian form of the sonnet, used also by many English poets. However, an alternative English form is abba cddc
The sestet, in the Italian form, usually took a rhyming pattern such as cdecde, or cdedce, or rhyming couplets. In the English form, it often took the form of a third quatrain and a rhyming couplet.
The sonnet form was used by Milton, Shakespeare and Donne but after their time had been less popular with English poets until the Romantic period, when it was revived by Wordsworth and the other Romantic poets. Wordsworth himself is often considered the best sonnet writer amongst the Romantics. The Romantic poets, though they often rejected the immediate past, tended to look back farther into the past for inspiration, both in terms of content and form. However, consistent with their love of freedom and rejection of the strictures of the past, they often took liberties with the form, as we can see in this sonnet.
The first two quatrains are linked in their rhyming patterns: abba acca. They describe the beauty of the evening as the sun sinks into the sea. In the first quatrain this beauty is described as spiritual: the silence of the moment captured in the simile comparing it to “a Nun/Breathless with adoration”. The feeling of calmness and silence is conveyed through the sound of the quatrain: long vowel sounds, assonance, variation in the metre, enjambment of the second and third lines and the caesura in the third line force the reader to read it slowly.
In the second quatrain, the sound of the sea is juxtaposed to the silence spoken of in the first quatrain. Once again a spiritual element is introduced as the “eternal motion” of the sea, with its everlasting “sound like thunder” is said to be the “mighty Being”.
The sestet is written as an apostrophe to his daughter, who appears “untouched by solemn thought” at the sight of so much beauty. He assures her that her nature is “not therefore less divine”. Children, in Wordsworth’s view are always in touch with nature, where adults have only occasional exquisite moments of understanding it. “Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year”, he tells her.
Note: This is a biblical allusion: Abraham’s bosom is a term used in the Bible as a metaphor for closeness to God, for instance in the story of Lazarus, Luke 16: 19-31.
She, as a child, can worship “at the Temple’s inner shrine”, the inner shrine of a temple being where only the most holy or initiated may go, and the temple here being a metaphor for nature which Wordsworth identifies with God.
Activity:
In this exercise, you will revise some important poetic terms and use them to explain the way they shape meaning in this poem.Explain the ways in which these, and the structure of the sonnet shape meaning in the poem.
Discuss how this poem is typical of a romantic poem with reference to typical Romantic themes.
model essay:
dead awaited Judgment Day. The phrase "Bosom of Abraham" is found in //Luke 16:22-23// in Jesus' //parable// of the Lazarus and the Rich Man.
The Bosom of Abraham, //illumination// from the Kiev Psalter, 1397. //Abraham// is depicted seated amid the foliage of Paradise. (//Russian National Library//
, Saint Petersburg.)Abraham's bosom (Luke 16:22-23) refers to the custom of reclining on couches at the dining table, which was prevalent among the Jews, an arrangement which brought the head of one person almost into the bosom of the one who sat or reclined above him.
To "be in Abraham's bosom" thus meant to enjoy happiness and rest (Matthew 8:11; Luke 16:23) at the banquet in Paradise. Abraham's bosom, also called the Limbo of the Fathers in this context, is said to be the waiting place for those who "lived by faith" in Yahweh, but died before the coming of Jesus; sometime during the three days between the Crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection, Jesus descended into the realm of the dead and retrieved those in Abraham's bosom.
Abraham's Bosom is a figurative phrase for the presence of God, paradise[1]. It is believed by some Christians to be a former comfortable section of "Hades", that neighbored Hell or Gehenna (the place of torment) prior to the resurrection of Jesus. Others believe the Lucian parable to be mythical and not based on the realities of the time of Jesus' words. (Luke 16:22-23; 23:43
The poem was written at Calais, where Wordsworth and his sister had gone to meet Annette Vallon and her child, his French daughter Caroline. "We walked by the sea-shore almost every evening with Annette and Caroline, or William and I alone" (Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal).