Hello and welcome to the Discourse. 'It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free' is a sonnet by William Wordsworth, the nineteenth poem in the section Miscellaneous Sonnets published in the collection Poems, In Two Volumes in 1807. Wordsworth wrote the sonnet in 1802.
William Wordsworth visited France in 1791 where he met Annette Vallon and fell in love with her. Together, they had a child named Carolina Vallon. Because of the uneasy relationship between France and Britain, Wordsworth had to return and then he married Mary Hutchinson.
In 1802, he revisited France with Mary Hutchinson, and his sister Dorothy Williams to meet Annette and Carolina. Caroline was 9 years old then. It was the first time Wordsworth saw his daughter. Wordsworth was strolling with his daughter when he thought of this sonnet. The poem expresses his deep love for the child in significant spiritual terms.
Structure of It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free:
'It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free' is a sonnet with 14 lines written in Iambic Pentameter with unstressed-stressed syllable pairs. There are variations as the first foot of Lines 3 and 6 is Torchee (stressed-unstressed). These lines are divided into two stanzas, the first is an Octave (with 8 lines) and the second stanza is a Sestet (with six lines). The transition from Octave to Sestet brings a thematic shift (Volta). In the beginning Octave, the speaker celebrates the majestic and mesmerizing natural beauty around him that appears divine and spiritually enthralling to him. In line 6, the speaker addresses someone untouched by the majesty of nature. In the Sestet, the speaker suggests how children remain unaffected by the mesmerizing beauty of nature while any adult feels awe. He says that Children are a part of the divinity and God is always with them. The speaker sees this child (and perhaps children in general) as more in tune with God and nature than the speaker is.
The Octave follows a rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA, and the Sestet follows a rhyme scheme of CDEDEC.
The speaker remains unidentified and unnamed but one may presume that the speaker is Wordsworth himself, addressing his daughter Caroline as ‘dear child.’
The poet used Personification, Simile, Alliteration, Allusion, Assonance, Enjambment, Paradox, and Caesura in the poem.
Summary of It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free:
Octave’s (1st quatrain) Lines 1-4
“It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;”
The speaker begins by describing a calm, beautiful evening. The speaker observes the sunset from a beach along the sea. He describes that the sun is setting peacefully as the sky hangs over the sea. Though described as calm and free, the description suggests a certain tension. The beauty is awe-striking, mesmerizing, divine, and influential. In the second line, the poet uses Simile, comparing the period like "a Nun / Breathless with adoration."
The speaker describes the moment as a ‘holy time’ and the atmosphere as a woman worshiping so intensely that she is breathless and perfectly calm. The Personification of ‘holy time’ suggests that the speaker himself is awestruck by the beauty and peace of the atmosphere in those moments.
In lines 2-3 the poet used Enjambment (continuation of a sentence across a line break).
Octave’s (2nd quatrain) Lines 5-8
“The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.”
The speaker mentions that the ‘gentleness of heaven’ spreads all around covering the sea. The whole atmosphere, the world as far as he could see appears divine to him during the ‘holy time.’ In the sixth line, the speaker addresses someone who turns out to be a young girl. He tells her to listen, that "the mighty Being is awake" and making a "sound like thunder" that lasts forever. The child is walking beside him on the beach, and she is also observing the same divine atmosphere and the mesmerizing scene. However, he notices that she is not as awe-struck as dumbfounded and mesmerized as he finds himself. The child couldn’t understand what he meant when he addressed her to listen to “the mighty Being.’ The mighty Being could be the Christian God or the personification of Nature itself. Reference to the ‘eternal motion’ shows immortality; nature will survive where man does not.
Sestet Lines 9-14
Dear child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
“If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;
And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.”
In the Sestet, the poet introduces the Paradox of the poem. He already mentioned that he is awestruck by the divine beauty of the evening, however, the child walking beside him remains untouched. One may assume that the poet may be the most divine, not the child. However, the speaker clarifies that the truth is just the opposite.
The speaker says that the child walking beside him that even though she isn't affected by the solemn ideas of divinity he has when he comes face to face with nature, she is no less divine. In fact, she "liest in Abraham's bosom all year," because God is with her even when she is unaware of Him. She is closest to nature, and the divine, not the speaker because she is a part of Nature or the Divine. And thus, she isn’t awestruck, it is so normal for her, while it is not the case with the adult speaker. The poet suggests a constant connection between children and the natural world, between children and the divine, that Wordsworth believed adults lose as they grow older.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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