17 pages • 34 minutes read
William WordsworthIt Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
The poem is in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, which is divided into an octave (eight lines) followed by a sestet (six lines). The meter is iambic pentameter. An iamb is a poetic foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, and a pentameter comprises five feet. There are a few variations, mostly involving a substitution of a trochaic foot for an iamb in the first foot of the line. A trochaic foot is the reverse of an iamb, consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. Thus Line 3 (“Breathless”), Line 6 (“Listen!”) and Line 14 (“God being”) all begin with a trochaic foot.
The Petrarchan sonnet also features a volta, or a turn in the thought at the beginning of the sestet. The sestet may present a different approach to the problem or situation that has been described in the octave. The turn is very clear in Wordsworth’s sonnet. Line 8, the last in the octave, ends with a period, the only line other than the final one to do so. The octave has described the peaceful scene in nature, and the sestet consists of a direct address to a child.
Rhyme
In a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, the octave usually rhymes ABBAABBA and the sestet usually rhymes CDECDE or CDCCDC. Wordsworth varies this. In his sonnet, the first quatrain is regular, in that Line 1 rhymes with Line 4 and Line 2 rhymes with Line 3 (ABBA) but in the second quatrain he introduces a new rhyme, “awake” (Line 6) and “make” (Line 7), so the octave rhymes ABBAACCA. Wordsworth also varies the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sestet. Line 9 (“here”) rhymes with Line 12 (“year”); Line 10 (“thought”) with Line 14 (“not”); and Line 11 (“divine”) rhymes with Line 13 (“shrine”). Thus, the sestet rhymes DEFDFE. This makes six rhymes in all, whereas the Petrarchan form allows only five. It is not unusual, however, for English sonneteers to vary the rhyme scheme.
Apostrophe
An apostrophe is a figure of speech in which the speaker directly addresses a person, abstract quality, or inanimate entity. In Line 6, “Listen!” is an apostrophe, even though no specific listener other than the reader is identified. Lines 9-14 comprise an apostrophe to the girl who is walking with the speaker: “Dear Child! dear Girl!” Usually, the person addressed in an apostrophe is absent (as in Wordsworth’s sonnet, “London, 1802”, which is an apostrophe to the poet Milton), but in this poem, the child being addressed is present, at the side of the speaker.
Enjambment
Poetic lines are mostly end-stopped, which means they form complete units in terms of grammatical structure and sense. In enjambed lines, in contrast, the sentence or grammatical unit continues without a pause into the following line. The reader must get to the following line to grasp the meaning. In this poem, Line 3 is an enjambed or run-on line: “Breathless with adoration; the broad sun”; Line 4 completes the meaning: “Is sinking down in its tranquility.” Line 7 is also a run-on line: “And doth with his eternal motion make”; the following line completes the meaning: “A sound like thunder—everlastingly.” Using enjambment creates a sense of urgency or overwhelm, here mirroring the awe the speaker feels at the scene.
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that compares two unlike things in a way that brings out a similarity between them. It can usually be recognized by the words “like” or “as.” Wordsworth uses two similes in this sonnet. First, “The holy time is quiet as a Nun” (Line 2) and second, he compares the “eternal motion” (Line 7) of the “mighty Being” (Line 6) to “a sound like thunder” (Line 8). Both similes equate traditional or institutions trappings of religious expression with elements of nature that Wordsworth—and his fellow Romantics—believed more fully captured the divine. Here, the first simile suggests that the quiet of the evening is imbued with the same hushed reverence one might expect from a nun deep in prayer, elevating the sunset into a sacred moment. The second simile finds that the ceaseless motion of the waves that creates a crashing noise akin to thunder links the power of the ocean and storms to the unending work of God.
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By William Wordsworth
