Hello and welcome to the Discourse. ‘The Tables Turned’ is a poem by William Wordsworth written in 1798 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in the same year. In the poem, the speaker critiques the reliance on academic learning and books, advocating for nature as a superior teacher. The speaker urges his friend to abandon the "dull and endless strife" of books in favor of the wisdom and beauty found in the natural world. The speaker says that books are just barren leaves that provide empty knowledge and that nature is the best teacher which can teach more about humans, evil, and good.
The poem thus, appears to juxtapose to its own as the reader is reading the poem in a book while the poem suggests he should leave the book. The title of the poem clarifies that contrast. The poet counters the argument that books are the best way to learn and to do so, he goes to the opposite extreme (The Tables Turned), suggesting that books are not as worthy and the true teacher is nature. However, his true feelings probably lie somewhere in the middle, which is evident from the fact that he is writing the poem for a book to be published in 1798. The speaker isn't saying books themselves are bad or not worth reading. Instead, the speaker believes that everyone should experience the pleasure of learning from the natural world. He counters the excessive stress on academic reading and says that excessive reading can be harmful. one who is erudite but has no experience of practical life is as good as an imbecile.
Structure of The Tables Turned:
The poem consists of 32 lines set in eight quatrains following ballad meter or common meter. The first and third lines of each stanza use iambic tetrameter while the second and fourth lines are written in iambic trimeter. However, there are some variations where the poet used spondee instead of iambs. The poem follows the regular ballad rhyming scheme of ABAB. The poem is written in a conversational tone, the speaker urges his friend to give up the world of books for a while and have some niceties of real nature.
The poet used consonance, alliteration, imagery, metaphor, symbolism, personification, parallelism, juxtaposition, and enjambment in the poem.
Summary of The Tables Turned:
Stanza 1 Lines 1-4
“Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?”
The poet begins the poem with a stressed beat a foot with two stresses in a row (Spondee) (Up! Up!) offering a sense of urgency. The speaker tells his friend (the reader) to give up the book in which he is reading the poem itself. The speaker says that if the reader keeps sitting and reading like always, their weight will double down on them. He exhorts his friend to get up and clear their face and asks why they choose to be so serious while outside there is a beautiful evening scene. (the repeating sound of ‘l’ in lines 2, 3, and 4 offers a nice example of consonance.)
Stanza 2 Lines 5-8
“The sun above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.”
In this stanza, the poet expresses the beauty of nature outside while juxtaposing the beautiful sunset against the dull and anxious world of the books. It is an example of parallelism. The speaker says that while the reader, his friend is troubled by his heavy books, he is missing the beautiful sun setting over the mountain, which in turn lights up the green fields below it with stunning fading sunlight. The stanza prompts the reader to ponder upon why he should be troubled at all when he is surrounded by such natural beauty and serenity.
Stanza 3 Lines 9-12
“Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.”
The poet again changes the feet in the first line of this stanza (trochee replacing iamb) to offer stress. The speaker begins this stanza with an exclamation Book! He calls books dull along with endless strife. To him, reading books is like a long conflict against an enemy that never ends and is useless. Wordsworth invited his friend to come and listen to the woodland linnet (birds). He swears that there is more wisdom in the song of a bird than in books. The poet claims that books make us dull as we struggle with the difference between the bookish world and the real world, while on the other hand birds, nature’s creatures, are free from this duality. He says that there is distortion in humans due to bookish knowledge. Based on knowledge, humans have divided themselves.
Stanza 4 Lines 13-16
“And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.”
In this stanza, the speaker further solidifies his argument by offering the example of another bird, a hark. He says that both birds, linnet and hark, are excellent preachers of their words. The speaker then asks the reader, his friend, to come out into the light, meaning the sun instead of a lamp or flame, and claim nature as your teacher instead of books.
Stanza 5 Lines 17-20
“She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.”
The speaker tells his friend that Mother Nature is full of wealth and that she is ready to bestow her fruits on our minds and hearts. He also says that in nature wisdom comes from being happy and healthy. The speaker establishes nature is superior because it can teach us wisdom through moments of spontaneity that can only come from engaging with the outside world, as books will never provide such activities. The speaker also mentions that truth in nature is infused with happiness, as it is part of nature’s very breath.
Stanza 6 Lines 21-24
“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”
The speaker argues that one component of nature can offer more than any book, written by man, on the earth. a forest around springtime will teach you more about humanity and society, as well as morals of evil and good than any other instructor could. According to the poet, spending time in nature will not provide you only with mental peace and health but also teach you more about humanity, goodness, and evil as well. On the other hand, books are supposed to be written by wise men, however, these can’t teach you what nature can do. The poet keeps on offering parallelism in each stanza.
Stanza 7 Lines 25-28
“Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.”
The speaker tries to bring the reader back to his primary argument in the penultimate stanza and suggests that even though nature brings humanity sweet traditions of intelligence, we tend to ruin that knowledge by dissecting it. Every knowledge and wisdom that nature brings is full of sweet feelings and expressions that bring peace to the human mind and soul. But humans, with their intellect and knowledge, miss-shape the attractive things. When they try to understand the meanings of natural beauty, they murder things as “we murder to dissect”. Humans tend to search objective/purpose of each and everything around and this takes the beauty of things away.
Stanza 8 Lines 29-32
“Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.”
The speaker ends the poem by suggesting that it is enough of science and arts for now. He asks the reader, his friend, to close the barren leaves, the book pages that were probably made by the trees cut down by humans to produce paper. He says that those pages have no actual knowledge of those trees anymore. He then simply invites the reader to come into nature ready to learn with "a heart / That watches and receives".
The idea is that the nature will offer true knowledge of things that will enlighten the bookish knowledge that reader attains and will empower the reader more.
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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