Thornton Wilder
27 Gennaio 2019Palazzo dei Normanni e Cappella Palatina di Palermo
27 Gennaio 2019
William Wordsworth is a famous and important poet; famous because he wrote with Coleridge The Lyrical Ballads, the Manifesto of Romanticism and important because he introduced, in the second edition of The Lyrical Ballads, the idea of a new poetry that should deal with everyday situations and ordinary people, in particular humble and rural people.
The poet is a man among men; writing about what mankind is interested in, but with a greater sensibility and the ability to penetrate the heart of things. The power of imagination lets him communicate his knowledge, so that he becomes a teacher showing men how to understand their feelings and improve their moral being. His task consists on drawing attention to the ordinary things of life, to the humblest people, where the deepest emotions and truths are to be found. Wordsworth gives the poet a new function; the poet becomes a prophet, a moral guide that spread the message of love and joy to the other men.
It is possible to read in A Certain Colouring Of Imagination that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility”. The authors message is not so simple but he keeps on explaining it us in several of his poems. While reading it is usual to find common outlines in several of his poems: a natural element is able to arouse feelings and emotions when seen by the poet; furthermore, in a moment of tranquility, he remembers what he has seen and recollects his sensations by writing them down. He could do this thanks to a gift, a special one, that only poets have: imagination; the great power to reproduce reality and to convey readers the same emotions felt by the poet, that could give a better perception of reality.
TEXT: Daffodils
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Rainbow
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
( Composed Upon Westminster Bridge. A Certain Coluring Of Imagination)
