CaudronA. P. English-Hr. 122 November 1999Tintern AbbeyWordsworth Practices What He PreachesThough written after Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, Wordsworths Preface to Lyrical Ballads, clearly details his writing objectives. In Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth sought to make poetry understandable to the common reader by simplifying the meanings, organizing his pattern of thoughts in a coherent manner, and using poetical devices sparingly. In the poem, Wordsworth reminisces under a dark sycamore about his experiences and realities, while looking down on the ruins of a temple of God. He expresses his philosophy on these experiences and realities, both past and present, relating God and Nature as one entity. He senses God around him though there is no temple or worshipers, perhaps suggesting that if there were, God would cease to grace the area with His presence. Wordsworth goes on to describe the scenery, how its beauty will serve as food for future years, and how only with the insight of his sister, has he developed a great appreciation for Nature.Wordsworth goes on to state in his Preface that every poem should have a worthy purpose. In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth has a variety of purposes, or meanings which he desires to convey, each one of them, worthy in and of themselves. He wants to raise the reader to a new sense of awareness; to let the reader know what Nature is, its affect on us, and that we should live in the moment, with an acute awareness to what is happening around us. He describes God in Nature as A motion and a spirit, that impels/All thinking things, all objects of all thought,/And rolls through all things. Wordsworth expresses Natures affect on him as a wild secluded scene |that impresses|/Thoughts of more deep seclusion; these are the feelings of peaceful ecstasy he feels. The sounding cataract/Haunted me like a passion...were then to me/An appetite--That time is past; here he reminds us to han...
