1. Skive Gymnasium
Elevopgave midt 3g A niveau - elev over middel
The assignment:
Make an analysis and a comparison of 2 of the poems we have worked with in English
Romantic Poetry. Apart from dealing with the contents of each of the poems, your analysis
should include a comment on formal elements (such as rhyme, rhythm, repetitions, use of
metaphors…) when these are important to the overall impression of the poem. Please note
that “a comment on” means that you should not only identify them, but also comment on
how they influence the way you read the poem.
Ananalysis of and a comparison between
“The Tables Turned” and “To Nature”
When I use textual evidence and examples from the text, I will use full stop to mark
the changing into a new line except for when there is another punctual mark in the
poem already.
The Tables Turned
“The Tables Turned” is a poem written by the romantic poet William Wordsworth.
The poem is created with iambs: the first and third lines are an iambic meter
consisting of four iambs, while the second and fourth are an iambic tetrameter.When
you use an iambic meter you create more of a flow when the poem is read out loud.
The rhyming scheme in the poem is ABAB, for example in the first stanza where
books at the end of the first line rhymes with looks in the third, and where double in
the second rhymes with trouble in the fourth.
Page 1 of 4
Bente Beck
bbs@skivegym.dk

2. Skive Gymnasium
Elevopgave midt 3g A niveau - elev over middel
William Wordsworth uses personifications to connect man and nature more
closely. For example he uses a personification of the throstle in the fourth
stanza:”And hark! How blithe the throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher”. He
also uses the traditional personification Mother Nature in the poem, where he refers
to nature as “she” (stanza five, line one). In the poem Wordsworth uses lots of words
that we usually think of in connection to religion. He uses: preacher, blessand also
says that “One impulse of vernal wood. May teach you more of man, Of moral evil
and good. Than all the sages can”. Moral is also often used in connection with
religion, because religion defines one true way of living. By using the words
Wordsworth makes nature sublime and fills it with spirituality (Mother Nature is
originally thought as being the female part of God). This idea that God is in
everything is called pantheism, and Wordsworth definitely supports the pantheistic
idea.
In the poem Wordsworth criticizes the approach to knowledge, that was practiced in
the Age of Enlightenment and which is still common in for example English classes.
Wordsworth says in the very last line of the poem that “we murder to dissect”.
Wordsworth believes that an analogical approach to knowledge and nature is
destroying the beauty of it. Instead of recognizingthrough rationality, we ought to
recognize through our senses – not tearing everything into little pieces trying to
analyze it. All in all William Wordsworth is against a classical education. He urges
people studying to quit their dull books and go out into nature and gain experiences
of their own. He also says that the throstle is no mean preacher and that the student
should “Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your Teacher”.
Wordsworth cherishes nature as a source of wisdom and our senses as the truest way
to recognition, by doing so Wordsworth is fitting very well into the romantic period.
Page 2 of 4
Bente Beck
bbs@skivegym.dk

3. Skive Gymnasium
Elevopgave midt 3g A niveau - elev over middel
To Nature
This is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem is actually a sonnet
because it lives up the sonnet characteristics: it is composed with an iambic
pentameter, it consists of fourteen lines and it has a couplet in the end. A couplet is
when the two last lines rhyme. The rhyming scheme of the poem is
ABBA/CBBC/DEDE/FF. There is a so-called turn in the rhyming scheme in line
nine to twelve, where the rhyme changes from an ABBA-rhyme into a rhyme, where
one line is separating the line from the one it rhymes with. A sonnet is often used
when the poet wishes to distress the importance of the poem, because the sonnet is so
well-known. In this case it fits very well with the context when Coleridge is making
his poem more solemn.
Similar to Wordsworth, Coleridge uses a lot of religious words such as piety, alter,
belief etc.
In the sonnet Coleridge is outside in nature. Nature brings him joy and he is sensing
that it can learn him “Lessons of love and earnest piety”. He does not know if this is
all something he is imagining or dreaming, but he does not care if it is only a dream
because it feels very real to him. He is making the nature his altar or his church and
he is imaging himself as a priest sacrificing the fragrance from the flowers to God:
“And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields. Shall be the incense I will yield
to Thee” (line eleven - twelve). Like the church the entire nature is a huge celebration
of God’s creation, he is surrounded by the wonders of God and therefore there is bit
of God’s spirit in every bit of nature. He knows that the incense of the flowers is a
small sacrifice, but still he knows that God will not despise even him, that has made
Page 3 of 4
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bbs@skivegym.dk

4. Skive Gymnasium
Elevopgave midt 3g A niveau - elev over middel
it. By saying so he presents God as being gracious, even to the ones that have little to
sacrifice to him.
Both Wordsworth and Coleridge are focused on the divine nature of nature. To both
of the poets pantheism is a central idea in the way they look at the world. They both
believe that nature, because of its divine creator, is a source of wisdom. They believe
that when you are out in nature you can learn lessons of good and evil as well as love
and piety. When you paint a painting some of you is reflected into your creation, and
in the same way God is reflected in nature. Therefore Wordsworth and Coleridge
agree that nature is the best way to true knowledge, if you bring your heart that
watches and receives.
Page 4 of 4
Bente Beck
bbs@skivegym.dk