Scan barcode
bookishdutchie's review against another edition
4.0
It’s challenging to rate a book of poems as a whole. As (in my opinion) some of these poems deserved five big fat stars, while others deserved maybe two. Overall it was wonderful to get aquatinted with “The Lake Poets” through this collection though.
My favorite were these lines from Wordsworth:
“Then come, my sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress,
And bring no book; for this one day
We’ll give to idleness.”
If you love nature and words and are a romantic type too, I highly recommend this book.
My favorite were these lines from Wordsworth:
“Then come, my sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress,
And bring no book; for this one day
We’ll give to idleness.”
If you love nature and words and are a romantic type too, I highly recommend this book.
peterp3's review against another edition
4.5
It’s good to read the original selection as published by Wordsworth and Coleridge after their year of friendship in Somerset. But it’s a strangely mixed bag - The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere in particular seems very out of place as the first poem in the volume. My favourites here are Wordsworth’s poems of ordinary people facing tough lives - The Female Vagrant, The Thorn, The Last of the Flock, The Idiot Boy.
tienno22's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Some of these poems are beautiful; some of them are a little creepy.
This collection captures the Romantic era of literature well. There is a shift from intense rationality from the Enlightenment (being stuck in your head) to a harmonious relationship and appreciation of nature and human experiences. God is in nature. God is in the beauty of creation and (according to the Romantics of the era) cannot be perceived by only the rational apriori of the mind but must also be felt in creation and within human experiences. Nature plays a large role in the poems of this era. Some deep poems contemplate life or death and the meaning of it. Some contemplate the vanity of humanity and our imposition on the natural world.
Here are my favorites:
-The Nightengale
-We are Seven
-Exposition and Reply
-Tintern Abbey
This collection captures the Romantic era of literature well. There is a shift from intense rationality from the Enlightenment (being stuck in your head) to a harmonious relationship and appreciation of nature and human experiences. God is in nature. God is in the beauty of creation and (according to the Romantics of the era) cannot be perceived by only the rational apriori of the mind but must also be felt in creation and within human experiences. Nature plays a large role in the poems of this era. Some deep poems contemplate life or death and the meaning of it. Some contemplate the vanity of humanity and our imposition on the natural world.
Here are my favorites:
-The Nightengale
-We are Seven
-Exposition and Reply
-Tintern Abbey
ars_poetica's review against another edition
2.0
2'5★ | Lectura nº 018 del 2022
Algunos de los poemas se me han hecho muy cuesta arriba y el carácter tan siniestrillo de algunos de ellos terminaba por dejarme tan mal sabor de boca que lo he tenido aparcado durante semanas. Reconozco la importancia de Wordsworth y Coleridge para la literatura, pero creo que al final tuvo más importancia su prefacio que la propia obra en sí, de la que rescato apenas unos poemas.
Recojo aquí algunos pasajes que más me han gustado.
Algunos de los poemas se me han hecho muy cuesta arriba y el carácter tan siniestrillo de algunos de ellos terminaba por dejarme tan mal sabor de boca que lo he tenido aparcado durante semanas. Reconozco la importancia de Wordsworth y Coleridge para la literatura, pero creo que al final tuvo más importancia su prefacio que la propia obra en sí, de la que rescato apenas unos poemas.
Recojo aquí algunos pasajes que más me han gustado.
As idle as a painted Ship
Upon a painted Ocean.
//
The western wave was all a flame.
—THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE, IN SEVEN PARTS.
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
—THE NIGHTINGALE; A CONVERSATIONAL POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798.
Love, now an universal birth.
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth,
—It is the hour of feeling.
And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above;
We’ll frame the measure of our souls,
They shall be tuned to love.
—LINES WRITTEN AT A SMALL DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE, AND SENT BY MY LITTLE BOY TO THE PERSON TO WHOM THEY ARE ADDRESSED.
The tears into his eyes were brought,
And thanks and praises seemed to run
So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
—I’ve heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning.
Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oftner left me mourning.
—SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN, WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED..
To her fair works did nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it griev’d my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Through primrose-tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trail’d its wreathes;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
—LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.
And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison.
//
His angry spirit healed and harmonized
By the benignant touch of love and beauty.
—THE DUNGEON.
A fire was once within my brain
—THE MAD MOTHER.
“The eye it cannot chuse but see,
“We cannot bid the ear be still;
“Our bodies feel, where’er they be,
“Against, or with our will.
—EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.
His black matted head on his shoulder is bent,
And deep is the sigh of his breath,
And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent
On the fetters that link him to death.
//
But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze,
And conscience her tortures appease,
’Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose;
In the comfortless vault of disease.
—THE CONVICT.
And now, with gleams of half-extinguish’d thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again
//
in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart.
—LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR, July 13, 1798.
eveshilton's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
catolaeclectica's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Me arrepiento de haber esperado tanto tiempo para leer poesía romántica.
rocknrollfun's review against another edition
4.0
I wrote a pretty long review of this work, which you can find at my site, The Two R's!
ostrava's review against another edition
5.0
My reading of this collection is more on and off and I don't have much of an opinion because lack background in english poetry. But yeah, these poems are terrific, and not as inaccesible as I had feared.