1. The Romantics: William Wordsworth Shahd Alshammari, Arab Open University

2. The Romantic period, or Romanticism, late 1789s to 1820s. Focused on Individualism, inner imaginative life, the self, and nature. Nature versus society. The Romantics embraced freedom and set themselves apart from the order and rationality of Classical poetry.

3. The Author/Authorship The Author as a concept that covers all of his/her literary biography. Autobiographical sense: a sense of the interpenetration of life and works. This idea was challenged in the 20 th century. ‘New Criticism’ instead. Roland Barthes’ ‘The Death of the Author’ (1968) and Michel Foucault ‘What is an Author?’ (1969) Barthes: the role of the reader Foucault: Author’s cultural status, meaning, why writing had to be read in terms of an author’s life.

4. Author in the Romantic Period The Author in the Romantic period: original genius, a prophet, visionary. Connected deeply with Nature: Oneness/wholeness with it. A spiritual awareness William Wordsworth (1770-1850) subscribed to this belief in the author’s vocation.

5. ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ Probably the most famous poem Wordsworth wrote. Type: Lyric- a short poem, expressing a single moment, or mood. The speaker/persona is the poet. The ‘I’ is significant. Simple, clear, and direct diction. Language is as clear as the experience in the poet’s memory. Know Vocabulary on page 15: Formal Aspects of the poem.

6. The sense of the poet ‘lonely as a cloud’ Relationship between the human and nature. Stanza One conveys the experience. Stanza Two: the reaction. Stanza Three: the way the experience continues to be. Consider Dorothy Wordsworth’s same account of the daffodils in her journal. Biographical elements/voice.

7. ‘Point Rash Judgment’ It also focuses on nature. Blank verse. Poet is not alone. Landscape means something different to the gentlemen and laborers. The men re-name the landscape to ease their class guilt. Point of view. Political/social issues. ‘The Brothers’ and ‘Home at Grasmere’ The theme of homecoming/home/strangers. The character of Leonard is not read as Wordsworth’s persona. Can ‘wanderers’ really come home? Childhood memories/painful reality/changes. For Wordsworth, returning to Grasmere created anxieties. Grasmere is presented as an Eden. Epic poetry.