In the Wild: Wordsworth + An imaginary Life (1 Viewer)

[~Fire Jade~]

Heya, I'm a new member and have no idea about Wordsworth's poems and An Imaginary Life. *Help* me! Ummm... can anybody tell me about the difference and the similarities between the two (quotes would be nice)?

Got a half yearly coming up on this...very scared....:jaw:

Thanx!

 

[veloc1ty]

Check out the resources section, while the few files there (WW/M is apparently not a popular choice) are not excellent in quality, the general ideas are a good starting point.

Here are a few quotes I find good, remember to quote equally from both composers, people tend to focus on the poet but I think Malouf writes even better.


Wordsworth
Tintern Abbey
- ‘that serene and blessed mood’
- ‘the still, sad music of humanity’
- ‘in Nature and the language of the sense / the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul of all my moral being’
- ‘I, so long a worshipper of Nature’
- ‘the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy’
- ‘These steep woods and lofty cliffs, and this green pastoral landscape’
Prelude
- ‘low breathings coming after me’ ‘strange utterance’
- ‘Wisdom and spirit of the universe! Thou soul that art the eternity of thought’
- Nature as a teacher: ‘By day or starlight thus from my first dawn of childhood didst thou intertwine for me the passions that build up our human soul’
- Nature has moulded him spiritually: ‘make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts’
- ‘free as a bird’ ‘breathe again’
- Human out of place: ‘I was alone, and seemed to be a trouble to the peace that dwelt among them’


Malouf
- ‘We are centuries from the notion of an orchard or a garden made simply to please.’
- ‘Now I too must be transformed.’
- ‘I have become sturdy and strong again and have stopped mooning about and regretting my fate. I go for long walks in the brushwood, which is full of tiny animals and insects, all of them worth observing.’
- ‘Our further selves are contained within us, as the leaves and blossoms are in the tree.’
- ‘Seeing the world through this other tongue I see it differently.’
- ‘feeling the rush of air into my lungs, feeling the joy of it, the leaping, the being cleansed and gathered into the web of things’
- ‘The spirit of things will migrate back into us. We shall be whole.’
- Language of village expresses ‘the raw life and unity of things’
- The emptiness of the landscape ‘feeds the spirit, and leaves it with no hunger for anything but more space’
- ‘I shall settle deep into the earth, deeper than I do in sleep, and will not be lost.’

 

[DownInFlames]

Malouf definitely explores the Wild more vividly. Wordsworth walks around in 'the wild' and then goes home to his comfy house. Malouf portrays Ovid as thrown into the wilderness: he is directly in it, enough so to experience its inconveniences and harshness rather than just its beauty and peace.

You've probably been told this a million times before, but...
Remember to focus on the COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TEXT AND CONTEXT. This is essential. I got a glorious mark of 5/20 for an exam on this topic, for a four page essay (and as for some others, it IS possible to get 0). This was because I (and almost everyone else in my year) focused on techniques. You need to bring in context fairly heavily, and use the text/quotes to support your argument. Do not go in to your exam armed with four quotes for each text you're preparing to use, and expect this to be enough.

Also: the poppy scene, which I think is at the end of part one in Malouf, is quite a good section to compare with Wordsworth. The theme of discovery is pretty strong here, and you can compare it with the way Wordsworth talks about nature as an old friend, while Ovid feels as if he is discovering it for the very first time. This is because Wordsworth grew up in the lakes district, and Malouf grew up in Brisbane, generally lived in the city, then came back to Australia and went... Wow... Australia. Note the similarities between the colours/ features of the Landscape Malouf describes, and what you see out the window on a long car trip.

Best of luck to you. Don't worry too much about these exams though. They were a nice introductory set for us because we'd only covered two topics. It's the trials that are a bitch, but by then you're so familiar with the content that you feel fine for them ayway.

 

[~Fire Jade~]

Ouch...a 5/20...not good....but hey thanx for wishing me luck! I'm gonna need every luck I have. I don't usually do well in English cos I'm a sucker in English essays (it can't be helped...it's in my nature).
Though, anybody willing to explain how to write a very good essay (as seen in the POV of a teacher and not the student writing the essay)? Are there any certain elements which have to be added or the teacher might just take a peek and give you a big red low mark?....Ummm....=)

 

[Rhanoct]

Check out the resources section, while the few files there (WW/M is apparently not a popular choice) are not excellent in quality, the general ideas are a good starting point.

Here are a few quotes I find good, remember to quote equally from both composers, people tend to focus on the poet but I think Malouf writes even better.


Wordsworth
Tintern Abbey
- ‘that serene and blessed mood’
- ‘the still, sad music of humanity’
- ‘in Nature and the language of the sense / the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul of all my moral being’
- ‘I, so long a worshipper of Nature’
- ‘the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy’
- ‘These steep woods and lofty cliffs, and this green pastoral landscape’
Prelude
- ‘low breathings coming after me’ ‘strange utterance’
- ‘Wisdom and spirit of the universe! Thou soul that art the eternity of thought’
- Nature as a teacher: ‘By day or starlight thus from my first dawn of childhood didst thou intertwine for me the passions that build up our human soul’
- Nature has moulded him spiritually: ‘make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts’
- ‘free as a bird’ ‘breathe again’
- Human out of place: ‘I was alone, and seemed to be a trouble to the peace that dwelt among them’


Malouf
- ‘We are centuries from the notion of an orchard or a garden made simply to please.’
- ‘Now I too must be transformed.’
- ‘I have become sturdy and strong again and have stopped mooning about and regretting my fate. I go for long walks in the brushwood, which is full of tiny animals and insects, all of them worth observing.’
- ‘Our further selves are contained within us, as the leaves and blossoms are in the tree.’
- ‘Seeing the world through this other tongue I see it differently.’
- ‘feeling the rush of air into my lungs, feeling the joy of it, the leaping, the being cleansed and gathered into the web of things’
- ‘The spirit of things will migrate back into us. We shall be whole.’
- Language of village expresses ‘the raw life and unity of things’
- The emptiness of the landscape ‘feeds the spirit, and leaves it with no hunger for anything but more space’
- ‘I shall settle deep into the earth, deeper than I do in sleep, and will not be lost.’

Bumping because of how amazing these quotes are.

 

[deton8er]

I'm doin both of these texts... AHHH... it really does suck doing them.

 

[~Fire Jade~]

I'm doin both of these texts... AHHH... it really does suck doing them.

Agreed. I don't like it either.
Reading, memorising and writing about these texts are a real pain. Why can't texts be a teeny weeny bit easier? *sigh*

 

[siddharthlaha]

look in the resources section. it has some good stuff.

 

[~Fire Jade~]

Siddharthlaha, I would look at the resources but my login is stufffing up for some strange reason (and the system keeps on thinking I haven't logged in). So I can't even get the resources even though I can see them in front of me...grrrrr....annoying....

 

[siddharthlaha]

this is one i found usefull. im not sure if it will work or if you can download it but still.

have fun

 

[dancing_mermaid]

Ouch...a 5/20...not good....but hey thanx for wishing me luck! I'm gonna need every luck I have. I don't usually do well in English cos I'm a sucker in English essays (it can't be helped...it's in my nature).
Though, anybody willing to explain how to write a very good essay (as seen in the POV of a teacher and not the student writing the essay)? Are there any certain elements which have to be added or the teacher might just take a peek and give you a big red low mark?....Ummm....=)

my teachers generally like it if you use the rubric terms from the beginning of the topic or focus area, and as long as we use proper essay structure and answer the question without using too many overused words or misusing terms that we think sound smart, they give us good marks.

my teacher at the moment has a pet hate of semi-paragraphs, you know how sometimes you have a paragraph thats only half disconnected from the other one, where all the others leave two lines? those. I'd find out all I could about whoever's marking it, and what they really hate in a piece of writing, and avoid that. Generally, I find, if it sounds well-written and just flows as I write it, it gets ok marks, and if it does that and answers the quesiton, it usually gets almost full marks.

also, if you actually know what they mean, use the technical jargon, but don't misuse it in the sentence. it sounds awful when people try to sound smart and fail at it. one of my friends did that in our last speech, and it was so sad.

and i've been looking at my friends' writing, too, so it's not that I'm just good at english or have a nice teacher, it seems to be a pattern across all the classes.