Lyrical Ballads Themes

The Ancient Mariner

Physical journey...

'The ship was cheer'd, the Harbour clear'd-'

'A Wind and Tempest strong! For days and weeks it play'd us freaks-Like Chaff we drive along'

'The Ice was here, the Ice was there, The Ice was all around'

'Into that silent sea'

'Water, water, every where Ne any drop to drink'

"Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sail'd softly too:'

'We drifted o'er the Hsrbour-bar.'

Mental/Spiritual Journey'

Albatross- brings hope and life, freedom, sign from God. 'And an it were a Christian Soul'

Spirits arising from the dead, the crew and two spirits.

'His bones were black with many a crack'

'her skin is as white as leprosy,

And she us far liker Death than he.'

'The dead men gave a groan.'

'They groan'd, they stirr'd they all uprose'

'We were a ghastly crew'

Moral journey- sacrifice, living with evils ( 'I shot the Albatross')

The wedding guest is 'a sadder and a wiser man'

The Foster-Mother's Tale

Physical Journey

Leoni 'he found a baby wrapt in mosses'

'A pretty boy, but most unteachable-' he could not be taught a prayer but knew all names of the birds. he was close to nature - idealic state.

Friar then brought him up to be a very intelligent boy, but they thought of forbidden ideas ' heretical and lawless talk' and so the Friar was arrested and the boy goes free back to nature

Mental/Spiritual Journey

Religious Journey- unorthodox views. the sign of the eathquake

Tintern Abbey

' five years have passed: five summers with the length/ of five long winters; and again I hear these waters, rolling from their mountain springs'

He loves being surrounded by nature and all the emotions that comes with it

'i have owed them,/ In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,/

The memories of nature have helped him throughout the 5 years , the memory has become part of him

' I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides/ Of the deep rivers...'

Nature bringing him happiness

'From joy to joy:for she can so inform /The mind that is within us'

nature has the ability to bring joy all the time

'Is full of blessings'

Expostulation and reply

nature through learning

'the eye it cannot chuse but see, /We cannot big the ear be still;

You learn through naure even when you dont know it. you cannot prevent seeing, hearing, and feeling.

The Tables Turned

'let nature be your teacher'

'one impulse foma vernal wood/may teach you more of a man/ of moral evil and all of good, than all the sages can.'

nature as a moral guide

'sweet is the lore that nature brings;'

The Foster-Mother's Tale

'When you two little ones would stand at eve/ On each side of my chair, and make me learn/ All you had learnt in the day;

Children as teachers, romantics believed children are close to nature the teacher, that they can then teach adults.

'And all the autumn 'twas his only play/ To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them/ With earth and water, on the stumps of the trees.

Children close to nature. They learn through it.

But Oh! poor wretch!- he read, and read, and read/ 'Till his brain turned-

The romantics though their was harm in too much learning, tou should learn from nature.

We are Seven

Children close to nature

'she was wildly clad

''rustic woodland air.'

Innocence

' there upon the ground I sit, I sit and sing to them.'

'Their graves are green, they may be seen.'