William Wordsworth Themes

William Wordsworth was born in Cumberland. Wordsworth entered Cambridge University in 1787, the year he completed his first significant poem. Wordsworth is considered to be the most important English romantic poet. Wordsworth has also been praised for his descriptions of nature. But he traditionally claimed that his primary interest was “The Mind Of Man.” His finest poems include “Michael,” the “Lucy” lyrics, “The Solitary Reaper,” and “Resolution and Independence,” dramatize how imagination creates spiritual values out of memory of sights and sounds of nature.

Seamus Heaney is an Irish Poet, educated at St. Columb`s College, Derry, and Queen’s University Belfast. In the 1960`s he belonged to a group of poets in Belfast, who, he said, “Used to talk poetry day after day with an intensity and prejudice that cannot but have left a mark on all of us.” After lecturing on poetry at Queen’s for six years he moved in to the Republic Of Ireland, living first in Co.

Wicklow and then in Dublin.

The first poem which we looked at was William Wordsworth`s “Nutting.” The title of this poem is extremely vague and it does not tell us nothing about the poem itself. As I begin to read the poem we see that it is reflecting on a memory, “It seems a day.” It is a memory of his childhood days and this thought holds an eternal place in his heart and mind.

Reading on we feel that the mood is going to change and he starts to examine his appearance.

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He is proud of the way he is dressed and what he is doing. He is reminiscing his childhood of when he goes out and collects nuts and discovers that he annihilates the whole vicinity. He is saddened that he has destroyed “Dearest Maiden” (mother nature) and he leaves the scene distraught and doesn’t want the sky to intrude on what he has done.

The second poem which we looked at was “Blackberry Picking” by Seamus Heany. The title proposes to us that it is Summer time and he is setting off on an adventure in late August. It begins with, “Late August, given heavy rain and Sun,” which is essential for blackberry growth. The blackberries would ripen which suggests new life and great trepidation because he is taking his time.

The blackberries are as “Hard as a knot.” This is used as a simile so that we know that we are implicated. Throughout the poem various senses are used creating a real-life feeling and experience, “Until the tinkling bottom has been covered,” “The juice was stinking too.”

We see the different stages blackberries go through. We are told of them once they are in their prime, when they are nice and ripe, “For a full week the blackberries would ripen.” We are told how fine the blackberries are but once we reach the closing stages we get a feeling that something dire is going to happen. Everything seemed to be going wrong when they said, “The juice was stinking too” and “The sweet flesh would turn sour.”

This is when the blackberries are destroyed by the fungus because they are of the byre.

In conclusion both of these poems are of recollection of the author’s childhood memories. Wordsworth describes his poetry as “Emotion recollected in tranquillity” as an older man he recollects his journey as a young boy. Seamus Heany on the other hand has a different outlook of his life now than when he was as a child. He was disappointed and his human emotions really personalises the poem towards the readers. In my opinion I feel that Seamus Heany’s “Blackberry Picking” was much more convincing than William Wordsworth’s “Nutting” because Seamus Heany uses different senses which makes the poem seem more real-life and much more pleasant to recite.