Michael turns to Isabel, his wife, and tells her that he thinks Luke, their son can earn the money they need to keep their land from being sold. Such was his first resolve he thought again, and his heart failed him.”(221-226) Here Michael struggles with the thought of having to lose the land he so dearly loves. “It seemed the Shepherd’s sole resource to sell at once a portion of his patrimonial fields. When Michael receives word that he must relinquish his land because of his nephews’s misfortune, “The shepherd had been bound in surety for his brother’s son, “A man of an industrious life, and ample means but unforeseen misfortunes,”(211-213) he is terribly saddened and proceeds to think of what can be done to save the land he loves. The narrator tells us how much Michael loved the land by stating, “(The sight of his land) were to him a pleasurable feeling of blind love, the pleasure which there is in life itself.”(75-76) The love of nature and the surroundings is also shown to the reader by Michael. Starting with the main character Michael, “An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb,”(42) the reader experiences a man who almost embodies Wordsworth’s poetic ideas.ĭescribed as “prompt and watchful more than ordinary men,”(46-47) Wordsworth duties to project insightfulness shines through Michael, who represents a sort of wise man within the story. The emotions the main characters experience through their relationship’s help the reader distinguish this lesson. Much like a proverb, the poem ends with a lesson. The reader analyzes them in order to understand why Wordsworth chose to write this Ballad in the first place. It is these emotions in the character’s relationships, which is also the theme. Reading the poem “Michael”, the reader joins the narrator and the characters through various emotions such as sorrow, disappointment, and love. He does not simply fill his poems with emotions just for the sake of writing about emotions, he wants the reader to analyze these feelings, understand them, and ultimately understand human nature. However, Wordsworth does not want the reader to stop there. Emotion and feeling, this is exactly what Wordsworth wanted to fill his Lyrical Ballads with, the common language of men mechanically speaking, but also including the language of the heart. “I will relate the same for the delight of a few natural hearts and, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake of youthful Poets, who among these hills will be my second self when I am gone.”In “Michael” Wordsworth tells us about the Shepard’s unfortunate story of loss and heart ache, hoping to emit some sort of heart felt reaction from the reader. He clearly states this at the beginning of the poem. This represents the connection he feels with the common people of the story, and wants to make with those who shall read it in the future, by way of inspiring them to feel and think through his tale. To continue with the language of “Michael”, Wordsworth writes in the narrative form. Throughout this essay is evidence showing just how he accomplished this, with full respect toward the common man, using language and imagery that was not only easy for the everyday person to comprehend, but connected Wordsworth to them as well. An enthusiast of new ideas at the time, Wordsworth pushed for a new type of poetry of and for the common person, which he famously did. The poem “Michael”, demonstrates Wordsworth’s talent in blending together all of his poetic ideas and ultimately creating a beautiful Lyrical Ballad with the ability to touch the soul of everyone who reads it. Through the popularity of his works he contributed to the Romantic Period tremendously, ushering out the age of Neo-Classic concepts. William Wordsworth was a revolutionary man who sought to create poetry that was personal, imaginative, and spiritual in nature.
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