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The Tables Turned (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)

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The Poem

“The Tables Turned” is subtitled “An Evening Scene on the Same Subject,” indicating that it forms a pair with the poem published immediately ahead of it in Lyrical Ballads, “Expostulation and Reply.” A reader should understand one to understand the other.

In “Expostulation and Reply,” William Wordsworth’s friend Matthew, finding the poet sitting on a stone, urges him to quit dreaming and to read those books through which the wisdom of the past sheds essential light on the problems of the present. William replies that while he sits...

[The entire page is 1291 words long]

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