Poems of William Wordsworth (Selected) | It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth summary and analysis of William Wordsworth's poem It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free.


Romantic poet William Wordsworth used a variety of rhyme schemes and poetic structures to convey his thoughts on the natural world and human existence.

As a reaction to the rationality of the Enlightenment, the Romantic movement sought a deeper, more organic connection to the world. Wordsworth's poems, filled with imagery drawn from his environment and from his own imagination, are emblematic of this aesthetic.

From the daffodils of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" to the view of London as described in "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Sept. 3, 1802," Wordsworth's acutely observed verse remains an indelible influence on English literature.

William Wordsworth's poetic career extended from his early adulthood in the 1790s until his death in 1850. He is considered one of the most important Romantic writers. Some critics point to 1798 and the appearance of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads that year as the actual starting point of the movement, though the term “Romanticism” was not applied to this style of writing until the twentieth century.

Important themes in many of William Wordsworth’s poems include the power of nature as a mostly beneficent force in the world, the importance of politics (as Wordsworth believed that governments could protect people and nature), and the magic of childhood, as he believed one was the closest to God and the natural world during childhood.

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[Sas-g-c]

Way of explaining is too impressive...

[pimschiedon]

The rhyme scheme is wrong. The second ABBA should be a ACCA.