Title: Wordsworth’s Poetical Works Themes | GradeSaver
Headings: Wordsworth's Poetical Works Themes
Wordsworth's Poetical Works
by William Wordsworth
Wordsworth's Poetical Works Themes
Nature
Memory
Mortality
Humanity
Transcendence and Connectivity
Morality
Religion

Content: Wordsworth looks at the event from several angles. In "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" he focuses on the unexpectedness of her death, and the unpredictability of life and death in general. In "Three years she grew" Wordsworth creates a fanciful rationale for her death: Nature became entranced by her and promised to give her an incredible life, but once all of her promises were fulfilled Lucy had to die. In "We are Seven" Wordsworth looks at a young girl who had six siblings but now lives at home with only her mother, because two of her siblings have died and the others have moved away. The little girl seems not to understand death throughout the poem, but in the end the reader learns that she may have a clearer understanding than the speaker. In "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" Wordsworth is comforted by the thought that he will live on after his death, because his sister Dorothy will remember him lovingly. Humanity
One of Wordsworth's greatest worries is the descent of humanity. As man moves further and further away from humanity he seems to be losing more and more of his soul. Often when Wordsworth is in nature he is saddened because he is forced to think about the people trapped in cities, unable or unwilling to commune with nature.