William Wordsworth at 28 by William Shuter2

"Strange fits of passion have I known" is a seven-

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...

poem

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

by the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Romantic poet

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

. Composed during a sojourn in Germany in 1798, the poem was first published in the second edition of ''

Lyrical Ballads ''Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems'' is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literatur ...

'' (1800). The poem describes the poet's trip to his beloved Lucy's cottage, and his thoughts on the way. Each of its seven stanzas is four lines long and has a rhyming scheme of ABAB. The poem is written in

iambic tetrameter Iambic tetrameter is a poetic meter in ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of ''a rhythm'', iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form , x – u – , , consisting of a spondee and an iamb, or two iambs. There ...

and

iambic trimeter The Iambic trimeter is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic units (each of two feet) per line. In ancient Greek poetry and Latin poetry, an iambic trimeter is a quantitative meter, in which a line consists of three iambic ''metra''. Eac ...

. In the poem, the speaker narrates a night time ride to the cottage of his beloved

Lucy Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Luci ...

, who always looks as "fresh as a rose in June". The speaker begins by saying that he has experienced "strange fits of passion" and will recount them only to another lover ("in the Lover's ear alone, / What once to me befell."). In the five following stanzas, he recounts how he wended his way on horseback "beneath an evening-moon". He crossed a lea, passed through an orchard, and began to climb a hill, atop which was Lucy's cottage. As he "came near, and nearer still" to "Lucy's cot", the sinking moon appeared to follow suit. As he closely approaches the cottage, the moon vanishes from sight behind the roof. A morbid thought rises unbidden to the speaker's mind: "O mercy!" he thinks. "If Lucy should be dead!" "Strange fits of passion have I known" is simple in form but complex in content. The dramatic first stanza (the speaker "will dare to tell" of his "strange fits of passion," but "in the Lover's ear alone") quickly captivates the reader. Wordsworth then creates tension by juxtaposing the sinking moon and the approaching rider, the familiar landscape with the speaker's strange, dreamy feelings. It is uncertain whether the Lucy of the poem was based on a historical person or was a creation of Wordsworth's fertile imagination. If she is real, her surname and identity are unknown, though they have been the subject of much "diligent speculation" in literary circles. "The one certainty is that she is not the girl of Wordsworth's ''

Lucy Gray "Lucy Gray" is a poem written by William Wordsworth in 1799 and published in his ''Lyrical Ballads''. It describes the death of a young girl named Lucy Gray, who went out one evening into a storm. Lucy Gray gives her name to the lead female cha ...

''." An earlier version of this poem ended with an extra verse: :I told her this: her laughter light :Is ringing in my ears: :And when I think upon that night :My eyes are dim with tears.Hayden, John O. (1994) ''William Wordsworth: Selected Poems'' Penguin Classics

Citations

Bibliography

* Jones, Mark. "The 'Lucy Poems': A Case Study in Literary Knowledge". The University of Toronto Press, 1995. * Murray, Roger N. ''Wordsworth's Style: Figures and Themes in the Lyrical Ballads of 1800''. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967. * Rolfe, William J. ''William Wordsworth, Select Poems of William Wordsworth'' (New York: American Book), 1889. * Woodring, Carl. "Wordsworth". Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. {{DEFAULTSORT:Strange Fits Of Passion Have I Known Poetry by William Wordsworth 1798 poems 1800 poems