The Troubadour Podcast

SMP #24 Expostulation and Reply by William Wordsworth

October 27, 2019 Kirk j Barbera
The Troubadour Podcast
SMP #24 Expostulation and Reply by William Wordsworth
Show Notes

In his conversation poem, "Expostulation and Reply," William Wordsworth brings the art of argument into poetry. 

A school teacher, Matthew, trained in the classical method of jamming facts into people's foreheads, admonishes young William for sitting out in nature and contemplating it. “Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath’d / “From dead men to their kind," he says. 

In other words, get out of nature and read your books young Willy!

Well, you can imagine the young romantic poet had something to say about that!