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COMPARISON OF THE TWO GREAT WORKS OF ROMANTIC PERIOD:

TINTERN ABBEY & FROST AT MIDNIGHT

Romantic Movement was started in the 18th century by two important poets: William
Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge. These two pioneers of the Romantic Movement were also
good friends, and they co-produced “Lyrical Ballads” which is one of the greatest Works of
this period. The two major poems of this important work, Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a
Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”, and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight”, will be analyzed in
terms of speakers’ experiences and wishes for their addressees. While differences can be seen
between the experiences of two speakers, we can see similarities between wishes of the
speakers for their addressees.

The speaker of “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” is mostly
considered to be Wordsworth’s himself. So, when we look at Wordsworth’s earlier life, we
see that he was raised in the pastoral countryside. The link between him and the natural world
was at its greatest in his childhood. As speaker, he remembers his last visit of Tintern Abbey
while he is again in Tintern Abbey after five years. In his five years period, he lives with the
memories of Tintern Abbey in the city. His memories about nature help him to feel nature in
his heart and mind. Coleridge, on the other hand, was raised in London as if he was “pent ‘mid
cloisters dim” [1]. Therefore, he couldn’t be in nature in his childhood. His only connection with
nature was the sky and the stars which he saw when he looked above. We can say that
Wordsworth has good memories and experiences about nature, and this connection with
nature helped his faculty of imagination. Even though Coleridge didn’t have the chance of
being in nature, the idea of being in nature nurtured his imagination.

The wishes of Wordsworth and Coleridge for their addressees have some similarities
in common.“But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breeze/ By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the
crags/ Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,/ Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores/
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear/ The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible/ Of that
eternal language, which thy God/ Utters, who from eternity doth teach/ Himself in all, and all things
in himself./ Great universal Teacher! He shall mould/ Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.” [2] In
these lines, we can see that Coleridge is moaning on the beauty of nature to his young son,
cradled in his arms, and he is promising him that he will not have a life like his father’s
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childhood. He wishes to bring up his son in nature. He desires that he should wander like a
breeze by lakes and shores, beneath the rocks, and peaks, and under the clothes. He dreams
that his son should see the divine sides and hear the lovely sounds of nature, because he feels
that God instructs through nature.

In “Tintern Abbey”, Wordsworth speaks of his own ideas and concerns, but his poem
is addressed to his sister. “My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch/ The language of my
former heart, and read/ My former pleasures in the shooting lights/ Of thy wild eyes. Oh! Yet a little
while/ May I behold in thee what I was once,” [3] He sees his former young and row mood in his
sister. She beholds the nature only with its physical shapes, she doesn’t know anything about
the “blessed mood” that his brother has. “Therefore, let the moon / Shine on thee in thy solitary
walk;/ And let the misty mountain-wind be free/ To blow against thee” [4] He wishes that his sister
live the nature in herself, and he wants her to be a part of nature, because he know that
“Nature never did betray/ The heart that loved her” [5] He wants his sister to remember what he
said to her, when she sorrows, fears or feels lonely, because he believes in that if she
remembers him, he will gain immortality.

In this paper, we tried to analyze two great works of the Romantic period in a
commentary and comparative manner. Both poems reflect the view of nature in this period.
Although these two poets have different childhoods, they approach more or less in the same
way to the nature. Both poets accept the power of the nature. As the last words, we can say
that even though their early experiences are different, they have the same wishes for their
addressees.

REFERENCES

[1]
Coleridge, “Frost at Midnight”, Line 52
[2]
Coleridge, “Frost at Midnight”, Lines 54-64
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[3]
Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”, Lines 119-123
[4]
Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”, Lines 137-140
[5]
Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey”, Lines 125-126
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/coleridge/section3.rhtml
http://www.william-wordsworth.com/
http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/38262.html
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elh/v064/64.1quinney.html
http://www.free-essays.us/dbase/c7/tmw282.shtml
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/psychlit/frost03.html