Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

With the publication of their joint collection of poems, Lyrical Ballads (1798), William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge sparked the Romantic movement in literature. Their aim through their poetry, according to Wordsworth in the “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” was to produce a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” through “emotion recollected in tranquility.” In 160 lines of blank verse, the poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798,” successfully conveys this kind of overwhelming emotional response. In the poem, Wordsworth’s speaker recounts a serene moment surrounded by nature. As he peers down into the valley of the River Wye, located in Wales, he ruminates on the unbounded beauty of nature. This quiet scene, combined with his recollections of standing in the same spot five years prior, prompt a meditation on memory, perspective, and the interdependence of nature and man.