To a Nightingale

Charlotte Smith’s sonnet “To a Nightingale” has a distinctly somber and gloomy feeling. I couldn’t help but be a little sad after reading it the first time. But I think my initial feeling of sadness was due to some of the words Smith chose to use. Upon closer observation, I realized this sonnet is sad for a different reason. “To a Nightingale” uses words like melancholy, tender woe, martyr, disastrous love, and mournful melody. These words initially made me feel sad because they have distressing connotations, but the last line Smith says that she is sad because she cannot “sigh and sing at liberty”. This statement is much more depressing than the fact that she describes a poor melancholy bird with sweet sorrow. I think Smith projecting her own sadness onto the nightingale’s song. She was creating the sadness she was feeling into the sounds she heard. This reminded me of the Aeolian harp we have discussed in class. Smith’s experience of nature was affected by her own feelings and because she was sad, nature seemed sad too.

Sonnet Form

Wordworth’s use of the English sonnet conventions affect the way it is interpreted. The first quatrain sets the scene and immediately we understand that Helen Williams crying brings about a response in Wordsworth that is strong and involuntary. Just the sight of her tears causes Wordsworth to have an extra-sensory experience; he can actually feel his blood in his veins and his heart can hardly handle it. The second quatrain continues to describe his bodily response, and Wordsworth returns to his normal physical state. The third quatrain reflects upon this tear of Helen Williams. He compares it to a star that is always in the sky, regardless of whether or not he can see it. The couplet at the end stands out with its irregular rhyme scheme. It ends on a hopeful note. But what if this sonnet was broken up with the conventions of the Italian sonnet? Like this:

She wept.--Life's purple tide began to flow

In languid streams through every thrilling vein;

Dim were my swimming eyes--my pulse beat slow,

And my full heart was swell'd to dear delicious pain.

Life left my loaded heart, and closing eye;

A sigh recall'd the wanderer to my breast;

Dear was the pause of life, and dear the sigh

That call'd the wanderer home, and home to rest.

That tear proclaims--in thee each virtue dwells,

And bright will shine in misery's midnight hour;

As the soft star of dewy evening tells

What radiant fires were drown'd by day's malignant pow'r,

That only wait the darkness of the night

To cheer the wand'ring wretch with hospitable light.

The first octet captures all of Wordsworth’s responses to the tear. The sestet contains all of Wordsworth’s musing of the tear and its comparison to the evening star. I know that the rhyme scheme does not follow Italian sonnet conventions, but I think the breaking of the lines makes more sense. The eight and six line divisions separate the ideas in a way that make more sense to me.

Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

As I was reading “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” I could not help but consider my own childhood memories of nature. For the majority of my life I lived in Oakwood, Ohio. While many people loved the variety of architecture, the fantastic schools, or the fact that Oakwood had practically become Stepford, I always loved the explosion of green that covered the community. On a sunny day, you can drive down a street in Oakwood and be completely shaded by the thick canopy of oaks overhead. In the center of Oakwood is a bird and wildflower preserve named Hawking's Swing and I immediately thought of this place when I reading the ballad. Wordsworth has these strong feelings of nostalgia when he visits Tintern Abbey five years later. I went to Hawking’s Swing last summer, and I felt the same way. I was thinking about all the fond childhood memories I had there, while experiencing the place in a different way than before. Wordsworth considers his childhood experiences of Tintern simple and effortless. Now that he is older he views the nature differently, and he has to be a more conscious of what he is seeing and feeling. I think in this ballad, Wordsworth is not only paying homage to the beauty of this area, but he is also being very upfront about his nostalgic attitude towards this place.