Lesson video

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the lesson.

My name is Dr.

Clayton, and I'm really pleased to be with you today to help guide you through our poetry analysis.

Now, analysing poetry is one of my favourite things to do for two reasons.

Number one, I like to think of it as a puzzle to unlock, and I think there's something so interesting about considering the way a poem is put together and how it creates meaning through the smallest details.

Number two, because poetry is such a short literary form, the writing has to be particularly evocative in order to create an emotional response from the reader in a short space of time.

So you have so many wonderful use of symbolism and imagery in the poetry to really create those connections in us as readers.

So grab your pen or laptop, whatever you're using for this lesson, and let's get started.

So by the end of the lesson, you'll be able to explain how Wordsworth uses language and structure in order to create meaning in his poem "Lines Written in Early Spring." So we have five words there we're going to focus on as our key words.

They'll be identified in bold throughout the learning material, and I'll try to point them out to as well throughout the lesson so you can see them being used in context.

Our first keyword is sublime, and this is a key part of how romantic poets saw nature, as it's the mixed feelings of awe and terror in response to a phenomenon.

Our second keyword is half-rhyme, which is the type of rhyme formed by words with similar but not identical sounds.

This technique is also known as slant rhyme or imperfect rhyme.

Our third word is euphony, which is combining words that sound pleasing together or easy to pronounce.

Our fourth key word is reverence, which means to have a deep respect for someone or something.

Our fifth and final key word is personification, which is the attributation of human characteristics to non-human things.

So I'll just give you a few moments to write down those key words and their definitions.

So pause the video and write them down now.

Fantastic, let's get started with the lesson, so two learning cycles in our lesson today.

For our first learning cycle, we're going to explore how Wordsworth presents the beauty of nature through ideas of euphony and the sublime.

In our second learning cycle, we're going to explore how Wordsworth shows mankind's imperfection, and we're going to do that by looking at ideas of personification and of structure and consider how Wordsworth gives meaning to the poem through those techniques.

So as I said, we're going to begin by looking at how Wordsworth presents the beauty of nature.

This is a key romantic concept because they believe we should have a deep respect for nature and that we should appreciate the beauty and harmony of nature.

So to start off with, I'd like you to read through the poem and think about which words or phrases suggest ideas of beauty in the poem.

So if you're working with someone else, you can read through the poem together and discuss your ideas.

If you're working through this by yourself, you can just think about which words create ideas of beauty for you.

So pause the video and think about which words suggest ideas of beauty.

Fantastic work there, everyone.

It was great to see people looking beyond just ideas of aesthetic beauty and thinking about the idea of what makes something beautiful is not just its appearance.

You might have found a thousand blended notes, her fair works, and from nature.

Now, we're going to consider each of these quotations in turn and think about how they suggest beauty and what the implications of that might be.

So we're going to start with a quotation, a thousand blended notes, and I'd like you to answer the following questions in order to consider the beauty behind this image.

Now, as before, if you're working with someone else, you can talk through these questions together, and if you're working by yourself, you can just think about them.

So the questions are, number one, what are the connotations of a thousand different things being blended, so a thousand different things being combined together? Number two, what does the word notes suggest? And this is in a musical context, not a paper or text context.

And number three, how do the long vowel sounds in thousand and blended complement the connotations of the word notes? So pause the video and answer the questions now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

For question one, you might have said that this suggests many different things coming together in harmony.

We might think of the idea of things coming together and unifying to create something pleasing as a beautiful concept.

Number two, notes gives a musical quality to the image that creates connotations of pleasing sounds.

Classically, we've always associated beauty with music because the way that music can make us feel.

And number three, these are your phonic sounds.

They create a pleasing, harmonious sensation.

Now, euphony is one of our key words.

It means a combination of specific words or sounds that are pleasing to the ear.

So you might notice, if you say a thousand blended notes out loud, there are several long vowel sounds, and those create a euphonic effect.

Now, we're going to do the same thing with our second quotation, her fair works.

So question one, what are the connotations of fair in terms of aesthetics? And number two, what are the connotations of works? So pause the video and answer the questions now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

Now, we might think of fair as meaning just, but it also means beautiful.

Now, this is the more archaic version of the word, and we don't mean it to use beautiful as much nowadays, but classically, to call someone fair means to call them beautiful.

Number two, by combining fair, which means beautiful, and works, which implies that nature has purposely designed these elements, the speaker implies that nature has created beauty that exists harmoniously together.

Now, we're going to move on to our final quotation, which is from heaven.

As ever, you can talk about these questions with a partner or just think about them yourself.

So the questions are, what are the connotations of heaven? So what images, feelings, or emotions do you get from the word heaven? Number two, arguably, Wordsworth is drawing on ideas of the sublime by comparing nature to heaven.

Now, sublime is one of our key words.

It means to feel both awe and terror.

So why might the word heaven inspire both those feelings, and why do you think Wordsworth might be doing that? So pause the video and answer the questions now.

Amazing work, everyone, some fantastic ideas there.

Now, you might have thought that we might think of heaven in a biblical sense as meaning the home of celestial beings, such as God and angels.

But we also might think of how we say something is heaven to mean it makes us feel really happy.

So heaven here implies a beautiful paradise of happiness.

Now, as I said earlier, the sublime is one of our key words.

It means the simultaneous feeling of awe and terror.

So making us think about nature as heaven obviously gives us a pleasant connotation, but it also might make us feel fear because of the idea that heaven is where powerful celestial beings reside.

So through this, Wordsworth could be emphasising how insignificant man is compared to nature, and it implies we should treat nature with respect.

So now we've thought about how Wordsworth presents nature as beautiful.

We now want to think about why he's doing it.

So what purpose might he have behind wanting to present nature as beautiful? So I'd like you to have a think about why you think Wordsworth presents nature as beautiful and harmonious.

You might think about how Wordsworth might want us to see nature, or you might think about what he might be trying to say about mankind through the depiction of nature as beautiful.

So pause the video, take a few moments to consider.

Some amazing discussions there, everyone.

Now, like Sam, perhaps you think that Wordsworth might have done this to present the value of nature and encourage mankind to treat it with respect.

Or like Alex, perhaps you might have thought he's using it to emphasise how chaotic and discordant humanity is in comparison to nature.

Now, a quick check for understanding.

Which of the following words could we connect to ideas of the sublime? So remember, the sublime is the idea of both awe and terror.

Is it A, heaven, B, blended, or C, fair? Pause the video and make a selection now.

The correct answer is A, heaven.

So very well done if you got that right.

Fantastic work so far, everyone.

Well, now to the first task of the lesson.

So for this task, what I'd like you to do is create a single-paragraph outline to plan an answer to the question, how does Wordsworth present the beauty of nature? So before we get started, let's just remind ourselves what a single-paragraph outline looks like and what the different components are.

So you start off with a topic sentence, and that explains the specific focus of the paragraph, and it's written in a full sentence.

The supporting detail is evidence from the language form and structure analysis that supports your arguments, and you write that in note form.

And finally, the concluding sentence is a summary of the paragraph with a clear focus on the writer's purpose.

And again, you write that in a full sentence.

So I'd like you to create a topic sentence that explains how Wordsworth presents nature as beautiful.

Then, consider what evidence from the poem supports the idea that Wordsworth presents nature as beautiful, and finally, a concluding sentence.

Think about why Wordsworth might be presenting nature as beautiful, so pause the video and create your single-paragraph outline now.

Amazing work, everyone.

It was great to see people looking back at our notes to remind yourself of what we've said about the beauty of nature and the poem.

Now, I'd like you to consider Laura's plan and think about, which supporting detail is Laura missing from her plan? So for her topic sentence, Laura said that Wordsworth creates the impression of nature as a beautiful, harmonious entity through his use of euphony and the links to the sublime.

For the supporting details, Laura used a thousand blended notes to show that it implies a harmonious musical quality, but it also shows the euphonic sounds, and that adds the pleasing musicality.

She also used the quotation fair works to show this emphasised the beauty of nature, and she used from heaven and said that implies paradise.

The concluding sentence, she said that Wordsworth may have wished to emphasise the beauty of nature in order to force us to compare ourselves to nature and realise we should treat nature with reverence, meaning deep respect.

So pause the video and consider what aspect Laura is missing from her supporting details.

Now, you might have noticed that Laura's topic sentence states she going to look at ideas of the sublime, but her supporting detail doesn't mention the sublime.

Therefore, we need to add in that the quote from heaven links to ideas of the sublime in order for it to be a cohesive argument.

You always want to keep in mind that you're trying to convince the reader of your argument.

So everything has to work together as a cohesive hole.

So now I'd like you to check your own plan and ensure you have all of the relevant detail.

So pause the video and check your plan now.

Fantastic work, everyone, amazing.

Well done so far, everyone.

We're now into our second learning cycle where we're going to consider how Wordsworth presents the imperfection of mankind as a contrast of beauty and harmony of nature.

So you might have noticed when reading the poem that alongside the beauty of nature, the speaker feels grief and sadness at certain moments in the poem, and those moments of grief are connected to mankind's actions.

So in comparison to the beauty and harmony of nature, Wordsworth arguably presents mankind as imperfect.

So in order to think about that difference, I'd like you to think about how these two quotations show the difference in how mankind and nature are presented.

So for nature, you might have a quotation.

"Every flower enjoys the air it breathes." For mankind, you might have, "It grieved my heart to think what man has made of man." So pause the video and think about how those two quotations show the differences and how mankind and nature are presented.

Some fantastic ideas there, everyone.

Now, by saying every flower enjoys, Wordsworth is personifying.

That means Wordsworth is giving human characteristics to nature, and through that personification, it creates a sense of community.

It implies they're working together to create a joyful whole.

In contrast, the notion of grieving what man has done to man implies that mankind does not work harmoniously and treats others poorly.

Now, we're going to look at the structure of the poem and consider both the rhyme scheme and the rhythm.

I often find that students find the structure the hardest thing to talk about.

So I want to encourage you to think of the structure as a beat that runs through the poem and how we might interpret the fluidity or the change in that beat.

So we're going to start by thinking about the rhyme scheme of the poem first.

Now, the majority of the poem is written in a regular A, B, A, B rhyme scheme.

So that should mean that notes rhymes with thoughts, and reclined rhymes with mind.

Now, what I'd like to think about is to say the words notes and thoughts out loud to yourself.

Do the words notes and thoughts rhyme, and what might the implications of that be? So pause the video, take a few moments to consider.

Amazing, everyone.

Now, by saying them out loud, you might have noticed that notes and thoughts create a half-rhyme.

So that means they have some similar sounds, but those sounds are not identical, and that creates a slight imperfection in the rhyme scheme, and potentially, we could say that reflects mankind's imperfection.

Now for a quick check for understanding just to make sure we've understood ideas about the rhyme scheme.

So is it true or false that Wordsworth uses a regular rhyme scheme throughout the poem? Pause the video and make your selection now.

The correct answer is false.

So well done if you got that right.

Now, I'd like to justify that answer.

So is it an irregular rhyme scheme because, A, notes and thoughts create a half-rhyme that could represent the imperfection of mankind, or B, reclined and mind create a half-rhyme that could represent the imperfection of mankind? So pause the video and make a selection now.

The correct answer is A, notes and thoughts create a half-rhyme, and that could represent the imperfection of mankind.

So very well done if you got that right.

Now, let's think about the rhythm of the poem.

I think this is possibly the hardest part of analysing poetry.

So we're gonna talk through it step by step together.

Now, the rhythm of a poem is the beat or flow of the poem.

It's created by stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.

A stressed syllable is one you pronounce as louder and longer than an unstressed syllable.

So for example, if you say the word belong, then you stress the second syllable.

You pronounce it louder and longer than the first.

We might represent that like this.

So you might have an X above the be and a slash above the long.

The X represents the unstressed syllable, and the slash represents the stressed syllable.

Each unit of stressed and unstressed syllables creates a foot.

This foot is called an iamb because there's an unstressed and then a stressed syllable.

So now we're going to look at the rhythm of the poem.

So what I'd like you to do is read the line, "I heard a thousand blended notes," out loud, and firstly, see how many syllables there are.

I like to just count it on my fingers, and then see if you can identify which syllables you're putting stresses on.

So which syllables are you saying a louder and longer tone than the others? So pause the video and have a go at reading the line out loud now.

Well done, everyone.

It was great to see people saying the line out loud in different ways to see which sounded the most natural.

So let's count out the line together.

I heard a thousand blended notes.

So we have eight syllables in total.

Now, let's talk through the pattern of unstressed and stressed.

We start out by saying I, and then we go louder on the heard, I herd.

So we're going from an unstressed to a stressed syllable.

If we mark out the stresses, they would look like this, where the Xs show the unstressed syllables, and the slashes show the stressed syllables.

Now, there are four iambic units in this line because we have four pairs of unstressed and then stressed syllables.

Therefore, it's called iambic tetrameter.

Now, what I'd like to do is read the rest of the stanza out loud.

Do all the lines have the same rhythm? So pause the video and say the stanza out loud now.

Well done, everyone.

Now, you might have noticed that the final line of the stanza looks like this.

If we say it out loud, there are only six syllables.

Bring sad thoughts to the mind, but it still follows the same unstressed and stressed pattern.

Therefore, it's called iambic trimeter because there are only three iambic units.

Now, before we think about the poem again, we're going to consider what the effect of this particular rhythm might be.

So you can apply it to other poems as well.

Now, iambic metre is said to mimic the flow of regular conversation because when we speak, we naturally fall into a pattern of unstressed and then stressed syllables.

So what I'd like to think about is, why might a poet choose to use iambic metre? Why might they want to mimic ordinary conversation? What might they be trying to say about their poem by doing that? Pause the video.

Take a few moments to consider.

Amazing.

They might have thought that perhaps they want to imply that the ideas or themes within the poem are relevant to everyday life, and they're important for people.

So why then might a poet use a different metre that doesn't flow in the same way as regular conversation does? So for example, perhaps they might choose trochaic metre instead.

We have a pattern of stressed and then unstressed syllables.

What meaning might that have? So pause the video.

Take a few moments to consider.

They might have thought that perhaps they want to imply that the ideas are elevated and significant rather than ordinary.

Or alternatively, they might want to create an unnatural rhythm to emphasise that something is unnatural or disruptive to normality.

Now, we're going to think about the specific effect of the rhythm of Wordsworth "Lines Written in Early Spring." So what I'd like to think about is, what is the effect of having the majority of the poem written in iambic tetrameter but the final line of each stanza being in iambic tetrameter? So think about what it means to have the majority of the poem as a regular beat, but then one line is different.

What might Wordsworth's intention have been? Pause the video.

Take a few moments to consider.

Some fantastic thoughts there.

Now, like Sam, you might have thought that perhaps the iambic rhythm is designed to show that nature should always be an everyday consideration.

Additionally, having irregular rhythm as well as the imperfection of the half-rhyme could represent the imperfection that man has in comparison to nature potentially because, on the final line of each stanza, it could imply that mankind's imperfection will bring about some sort of ending and have some sort of detrimental effect on nature.

Now, let's take a moment to think about the implications of the rhythm.

We're going to talk about it more generally first, and then we're gonna focus back specifically on "Lines Written in Early Spring." So if we consider the rhythm of the poem as a beat that runs through it, what might a regular beat suggest? What does it generally mean if your voice is steady when you speak? So pause the video.

Take a few moments to consider.

They might have thought that it might suggest the speaker feels content and in control because they're keeping a regular rhythm or a beat to their speech.

Now, let's consider what it might suggest if the speaker breaks the regular rhythm.

So what might it mean if you change the pace of your speech? Pause the video.

Take a few moments to consider.

Amazing.

You might have thought that changing the pace of your speech might indicate you feel a sudden change of emotion or a change in the direction of your thoughts.

Now, hopefully talking through these questions has helped you to see you don't need to identify the exact rhythm of a poem in order to consider its meaning.

If you read through a poem out loud and count the syllables, you'll be able to see if a poem has a regular rhythm, so the same number of syllables in every line, or an irregular rhythm, where there aren't the same number of syllables.

Then, you can think about how you might connect this to the emotion of a poem.

So it might be useful to think about it in terms of a speaking voice.

If you're speaking in a steady, unchanging voice, so a regular rhythm, what might that suggest? If you're speaking in a voice that changes, what might that suggest instead? Now, we're going to return our focus to Wordsworth's "Lines Written in Early Spring" and think about how we might apply these ideas of regular and irregular rhythm to the poem.

So what do you think Wordsworth's intention through the rhythm might have been? Pause the video.

Take a few moments to consider.

Amazing.

They might have thought that perhaps we might say the rhythm reflects the contentment the speaker feels when reflecting on nature, and the change in rhythm might reflect their sudden change in emotion when they consider mankind.

Now, for a quick check for understanding, what I'd like you to do is tell me what the rhythm of to her fair works did nature link is.

So say that quotation aloud to yourself, "To her fair works did nature link." Is that A, iambic trimeter, so there are three units of unstressed and then stressed syllables? Is it B, iambic tetrameter, so there are four units of unstressed and then stressed syllables, or C, is it trochaic tetrameter, so four units of stressed and then unstressed syllables? Pause the video.

Make your selection now.

The correct answer is B, iambic tetrameter.

There are four units of unstressed and then stressed syllables.

So very well done if you got that right.

Fantastic work, everyone.

We're now at the final task of the lesson.

We're going to bring together all these ideas about the personification, the rhyme, the rhythm.

We're gonna use those to write an analytical paragraph to answer the question, how does Wordsworth present the imperfection of mankind? And I'd like to try and include references to how mankind is portrayed in comparison to nature, how the structure of the poem might contribute to ideas of mankind's imperfection, and what the implications of mankind's imperfection might be.

So pause the video and write your paragraph now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

It was great to see people looking back at the first task to remind themselves of the structure of an analytical paragraph.

Now, I'd like you to read back through your work and think about whether you consider the comparison of words such as blended in heaven to describe nature and words such as grieved and lament to describe the speaker's feelings towards mankind.

Did you consider Wordsworth's addition of half-rhymes and the one line of iambic trimeter each stanza and think about how that might represent the imperfection of mankind? Did you consider how the iambic trimeter occurs in the final line of each stanza and how that might perhaps imply that mankind's imperfection will bring about its own ending or the ending of nature? So pause the video and read back through your work now.

Fantastic work, everyone.

You all did amazingly well today, everyone.

Here's a summary of what we covered.

Wordsworth presents nature as beautiful and harmonious through vocabulary and euphonic sounds.

Arguably, Wordsworth presents nature as beautiful and harmonious to suggest we should have a reverence for nature.

On the other hand, Wordsworth may present nature as beautiful to emphasise the chaos of mankind.

Wordsworth breaking the regular rhyme and rhythm could represent the imperfections of mankind.

I really hope you enjoyed the lesson, everyone, and hopefully, I'll see you again for another lesson soon.

Goodbye.