![]() ![]() ![]() This does not mean, however, that Wordsworth is trying to make an argument for the primacy of perception over subsequent memory. An image of something is not identical to that thing as it was when it was initially experienced, but a reconstruction in which selected aspects of it are woven together in a new way, guided by “the poet’s dream.” Peele Castle as depicted in Wordsworth’s hypothetical painting is therefore not a representation of it in a particular moment in time, but a representation of it as it never actually existed, a little like Wordsworth’s own description of a painting that never was or will be. The fact that Wordsworth adds “the gleam / The light that never was, on sea or land, / The consecration, and the poet’s dream” to his painting suggests that something as it is retrospectively represented in an image is not the same as that thing when it was perceived. On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss (13-20). I would have painted thee, thou hoary Pileīeside a sea that could not cease to smile The light that never was, on sea or land, To express what then I saw and add the gleam He describes how, had he been a painter, the painting he would have produced would have been very different:Īh! THEN, if mine had been the Painter’s hand In contrast to the tumult of Beaumont’s painting, Wordsworth remembers Peele Castle in a state of unshakeable peace. Wordsworth begins the poem by noting how different his own memory of the castle was from Beaumont’s. “Elegiac Stanzas” was inspired by a painting by Sir George Beaumont of Peele Castle - which Wordsworth lived by briefly - in a storm. They definitely form, as the title suggests, an elegy, although to multiple things rather than one thing in particular, and one of the things being elegized is Wordsworth’s old way of writing poetry. Nonetheless, the “Elegiac Stanzas” attest to a change in Wordsworth’s poetry. Any attempt to present, for example, Wordsworth’s conception of memory as something uniform and complete unto itself, must necessarily be an abstraction, something constructed out of the common strands that underlie the different appearances of this idea in his poetry. There is, in other words, no point in his prior writings in which Wordsworth definitively explains these ideas. These ideas appear in various forms in Wordsworth’s poetry preceding the “Elegiac Stanzas,” sometimes in ways that seem contradictory, and which moreover are set forth in ambiguous language that allows for multiple interpretations. ![]() Now he thinks that such sights as the one depicted here are a useful reminder of human condition, something which has to be borne with “patient fortitude”.William Wordsworth’s late poem “Elegiac Stanzas” brings together a number of ideas and motifs that had already been present in his poetry up to that point: the nature of memory and perception, the theme of substitution, and Wordsworth’s preoccupation with joy and pleasure. He perceives his former happiness as somewhat illusory and alienating. So he tells Beaumont (who, he’s sure, would be John’s friend, too, if they ever met) that his poem is not meant as criticism of his work, because he can appreciate the image of the stormy sea and the struggling ship. Now he can never look at sea the same way. In this context the lines from the beginning: “I could have fancied that the mighty Deep/Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things” sound particularly poignant. If the poet had had a painter’s skill, the picture he would have painted would have been very different: an idyllic painting of “a sea that could not cease to smile…beneath a sky of bliss.” But this image is lost to him, because the poet has suffered a great loss, which he does not name, but we can infer he refers to the drowning of his brother John, who was a ship captain. ![]() His memories of the castle, which he saw every day across the bay, were quite different, since the castle was reflected in the calm water of the sea, slightly trembling at most. Twelve years earlier Wordsworth spent a month in summer in a place directly opposite the castle, whose name is nowadays spelled “Piel”. Beuamont, as the Helpful Footnote explains, was a rich landscape painter and Wordsworth’s friend. One more of Wordsworth’s poems with a generic title, whose meaning has to be explained by a long subtitle – “Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont”. James Joyce – “Ulyss… on James Joyce – “Ulysses” (“Lest… James Joyce – “A Por… on James Joyce – “A Portrait of t…Ĭonsider sunk costs… on Rudyard Kipling –…Ĭonsidering Sunk Cos… on Rudyard Kipling –… James Joyce – “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” (ctd.). ![]()
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