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The Old Cumberland Beggar, A Description
''The Old Cumberland Beggar, a Description'' is a poem written by William Wordsworth. It was composed around 1798 and published in 1800, in the second edition of his and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s '' Lyrical Ballads''. The poem discusses the nature of mendicancy and charity through a description of a beggar and instances of help which he receives from a local community. It is considered to be a political comment against the amendments of the Poor Laws in the 18th and 19th century Britain. Wordsworth himself wrote that “The Old Cumberland Beggar” relates to that issue. The poem’s political engagement and ambiguous moral message have elicited disparate reactions among critics and have been a subject of debates. Writing and publication The poem’s writing process began in the second half of 1796. In its earliest form, the work existed under the title “Description of a Beggar”. A part of the text, which was originally situated after sixty-six lines of today’s version ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ''magnum opus'' is generally considered to be '' The Prelude'', a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. Early life The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in what is now named Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland, (now in Cumbria), part of the scenic region in northwestern England known as the Lake District. William's sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth. He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd. He wrote the poems ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' and ''Kubla Khan'', as well as the major prose work ''Biographia Literaria''. His critical works were highly influential, especially in relation to William Shakespeare, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking cultures. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including "suspension of disbelief". He had a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson and American transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life, Coleridge had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder, which had not been defined during his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ... and poetry. Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written by Wordsworth, with Coleridge contributing only four poems to the collection (although these made about a third of the book in length), including one of his most famous works, '' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner''. A second edition was published in 1800, in which Wordsworth included additional poems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Tranquillity And Decay, A Sketch
"Animal Tranquillity and Decay, A Sketch", also known as "Old Man travelling" is a poem written by William Wordsworth. It was published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads – a collection of poems created in collaboration with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem is estimated to have been composed either in late 1796 or early 1797. Owen 2007, p. 91. "Old Man Travelling" used to be a part of another poem by William Wordsworth, called "The Old Cumberland Beggar", devised as a description of the eponymous beggar; however, "Old Man Travelling" was completed earlier and made into a separate piece. Owen 2007, p. 91. Chandler 1980, p. 770. The poem has been referred to as "a short sequel" to "The Old Cumberland Beggar", and Wordsworth himself regarded it as "an overflowing" of it. Langbaum 1982, p. 329.Qtd. in Shaw 2020, p. 161. The form of the poem has been described as "a sonnet-like poem in two acts". Wolfson 2020, p. 161. It consists of one stanza written in blank verse. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
The ''Poor Law Amendment Act 1834'' (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the ''Poor Relief Act 1601'' and attempted to fundamentally change the poverty relief system in England and Wales (similar changes were made to the poor law for Scotland in 1845). It resulted from the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws, which included Edwin Chadwick, John Bird Sumner and Nassau William Senior. Chadwick was dissatisfied with the law that resulted from his report. The Act was passed two years after the ''Representation of the People Act 1832'' extended the franchise to middle class men. Some historians have argued that this was a major factor in the PLAA being passed. The Act has been described as "the classic example of the fundamental Whig-Benthamite reforming legislation of the period". Its theoretical basis w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Rate
In England and Wales the poor rate was a tax on property levied in each parish, which was used to provide poor relief. It was collected under both the Old Poor Law and the New Poor Law. It was absorbed into 'general rate' local taxation in the 1920s, and has continuity with the currently existing Council Tax. Introduction The Poor Relief Act 1601 consolidated earlier poor relief legislation and introduced a system of rating property. The introduction of the poor rate required the authorities, known as a vestry, in each parish to meet once a year to set the poor rate and to appoint an overseer of the poor to collect the rate. The justices of the peace at the quarter sessions had a role in checking the accounts of the poor rate. Reform The system of rating was subject to reform, such as excluding property outside of the parish in which a rate was paid. Because the poor rate was collected and spent locally within a single parish the notion of settlement was confirmed by the Poor Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workhouse
In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that "we have erected wthn our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work". The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Statute of Cambridge 1388, which attempted to address the labour shortages following the Black Death in England by restricting the movement of labourers, and ultimately led to the state becoming responsible for the support of the poor. However, mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers in particular, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established system of poor relief was proving to be unsustainable. The New Poor Law of 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fenwick Notes
Isabella Fenwick (1783 – 1856) was a 19th-century British amanuensis, and a confidante, advisor, and friend of William Wordsworth and his family in his later years. She is the scribe behind the ''Fenwick Notes'', an autobiographical and poetic commentary Wordsworth dictated to her over a six-month period between January and June 1843. Her friendship inspired Wordsworth to write "On a Portrait of I.F., painted by Margaret Gillies" and "To I.F."—a sonnet in which he calls her "The star which comes at close of day to shine," a reference to their bond formed late in life. Biography Isabella Fenwick was born in 1783. She was the daughter of Nicholas Fenwick of Lemmington Hall, and Dorothy (Forster) Fenwick. Fenwick met William Wordsworth when she was in her late forties. She first signed the visitor's book at the Wordsworth family home, Rydal Mount, in June 1831, though it is likely that she was acquainted with the family beforehand through her cousin, the dramatist Henry Tay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blank Verse
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse". The first known use of blank verse in English was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the ''Æneid'' (composed c. 1540; published posthumously, 1554–1557). He may have been inspired by the Latin original since classical Latin verse did not use rhyme, or possibly he was inspired by Ancient Greek verse or the Italian verse form of '' versi sciolti'', both of which also did not use rhyme. The play '' Arden of Faversham'' (around 1590 by an unknown author) is a notable example of end-stopped blank verse. History of English blank verse The 1561 play '' Gorboduc'' by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville was the first Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iamb (poetry)
An iamb () or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in () "beautiful (f.)"). This terminology was adopted in the description of accentual-syllabic verse in English, where it refers to a foot comprising an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in ''abóve''). Thus a Latin word like , because of its short-long rhythm, is considered by Latin scholars to be an iamb, but because it has a stress on the first syllable, in modern linguistics it is considered to be a trochee. Etymology R. S. P. Beekes has suggested that the grc, ἴαμβος ''iambos'' has a Pre-Greek origin. An old hypothesis is that the word is borrowed from Phrygian or Pelasgian, and literally means "Einschritt", i. e., "one-step", compare '' dithyramb'' and '' thriambus'', but H. S. Versnel rejects this etymology an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrrhic
A pyrrhic (; el, πυρρίχιος ''pyrrichios'', from πυρρίχη ''pyrrichē'') is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of two unaccented, short syllables. It is also known as a dibrach. Poetic use in English Tennyson used pyrrhics and spondees quite frequently, for example, in '' In Memoriam'': When the blood creeps and the nerves prick. "When the" and "and the" in the second line may be considered as pyrrhics (also analyzable as ionic meter). Pyrrhics alone are not used to construct an entire poem due to the monotonous effect. Edgar Allan Poe observed that many experts rejected it from English metrics and concurred:The pyrrhic is rightfully dismissed. Its existence in either ancient or modern rhythm is purely chimerical, and the insisting on so perplexing a nonentity as a foot of two short syllables, affords, perhaps, the best evidence of the gross irrationality and subservience to authority which characterise our Prosody. War dance By extension, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spondee
A spondee (Latin: ) is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables in modern meters. The word comes from the Greek , , 'libation'. Spondees in Ancient Greek and Latin Libations Sometimes libations were accompanied by hymns in spondaic rhythm, as in the following hymn by the Greek poet Terpander (7th century BC), which consists of 20 long syllables: "Zeus, Beginning of all things, Leader of all things, Zeus, I make a libation to Thee this beginning of (my) hymns." In hexameter poetry However, in most Greek and Latin poetry, the spondee typically does not provide the basis for a metrical line in poetry. Instead, spondees are found as irregular feet in meter based on another type of foot. For example, the epics of Homer and Virgil are written in dactylic hexameter. This term suggests a line of six dactyls, but a spondee can be substituted in most positions. The first line of Virgil's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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