What are the figures of speech in Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"?

Wordsworth uses apostrophe when he addresses his sister with the following words:

For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend.

This direct speech to another person makes the poem feel more personal and heartfelt.

Romantic poets like Wordsworth wished to write lyrical poetry, poetry that expressed emotion. Wordsworth's speaker shows his deep emotion and love for his sister (his friend) when he uses repetition to call her "dearest Friend" and then "dear, dear Friend." Later, he uses an exclamation—"Oh!"—to express strong feeling, and once again repeats he word "dear, dear" to show how much his sister means to him.

Wordsworth employs antithesis to contrast the "dreary" quality of everyday life with the "cheerful faith" the speaker and his sister develop through communing with nature.

The poem uses metaphor, a comparison that does not use like or as, when the speaker compares his sister's mind to a mansion. He also uses alliteration in the repeated "m" sounds, which creates a sense of rhythm and puts the emphasis on the following words beginning with "m:" mind, mansion, and memory in the lines below:

when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory.

Wordsworth uses the literary device of polysyndeton, which is when words are connected with a series of conjunctions that are not strictly necessary. This slows the reader down and puts emphasis on the words divided by the conjunction. An example is the following, which repeats "or:"

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief ...

Finally, Wordsworth weaves imagery throughout the poem. Imagery is description that appeals to any of the five senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. An example is:

these steep woods and lofty cliffs.

We can see the visual images above in our mind's eye.

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In Wordsworth's poem, "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," in his Lyrical Ballads collection, figurative language abounds as he uses a variety of literary devices to create a personal experience within the reader who may not be with him during his experiences and observations.

In these lines, Wordsworth uses personification:

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.

Water does not murmur: only people do this. Another example of personification is shown in the following lines as Wordsworth speaks of nature "clad" in green, meaning "dressed."

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue...

Wordsworth uses the poetic device of alliteration, found in the repeated sounds of "h's." Note the bolding I have added with these sounds, which provide a musical quality to the poem, most noticeable when read aloud:

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows...

Imagery is something that Wordsworth makes stunning use of in the descriptions of this place—note the "green" and the "wreaths of smoke:"

...these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees...

The author uses repetition, which is generally included to draw the reader's attention, sometimes like a list. This repetition is also a sound that draws the reader's ear:

In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight...

Wordsworth uses a metaphor (which is also paradoxical) when he describes something like death, which is actually a coming to life:

…that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul...

In essence, a peace overcomes the observer of nature, and stills him as if he were dead. Note the reference to "this corporeal frame," "the motion of...blood / Almost suspended," a reference to "sleep" that is often associated with death, but also the "becoming a living soul" which very much seems like a description of death, except that the "blood" is "almost suspended"—"though the mind is awake." In this moment, the body rests so that the soul may take over, live, and—in this quiet—experience:

...harmony, and the deep power of joy...

This Romantic poet, so taken with nature, also uses a simile in comparing himself in his travels through nature and the waterways to the eggs of fish:

...when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led...

Wordsworth, like his partner Samuel Coleridge (with whom he wrote Lyrical Ballads) had a deep appreciation for nature, as can be seen throughout the poem—descriptions and references to a world alive around him as seen at Tintern Abbey.

What Romantic elements are in Wordsworth's depiction of nature in "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"?

Three elements of "Tintern Abbey" are especially Romantic in a way particularly characteristic of Wordsworth, though also typically Romantic. First, nature is a redemptive force, a place where we feed our souls and commune with the divine. Second, it is a place of memory. Third, it arouses our emotions.

Wordsworth speaks to the powerful spiritual effects of nature on his soul when he writes that in the environs of the ruined abbey, the body:

become[s] a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

He calls nature, this "green world,"

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Next, nature is a place that can nurture us through memory. Not only is the initial encounter with nature a pleasure and a spiritual experience, the memory of it can feed us over and over again. For example, Wordsworth says that when he is away from nature:

when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

He wishes, too, for his sister to store up similar her memories for herself. He states:

let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies

Finally, the poem is deeply lyrical, reflecting the way nature elicits an emotional response from the poet. Exclamations, such as "oh" and "dear, dear," as well as exclamation points underscore the deep emotions he is feeling from returning to the abbey ruins and the surrounding countryside:

Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy ...

The Romantic writers thrived predominately between 1800-1837. Three of the movement's most well-known writers—Byron, Shelley and Keats—all died tragically before they were forty. However, the amount of writing produced by these men is amazing, as is the wealth and quality of writing from the earliest Romantic writers: William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

There is a great deal of controversy regarding the characteristics of Romantic writing. A few examples include the "idealization of women and children," "champions of personal freedom," and especially a return to valuing nature. (For instance, in the famous epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, many of the characteristics of Romantic writing are included.) The story deals with a mariner's (sailor's) wanton destruction of a sea bird and the punishment visited upon all the members of the sea vessel on which he travels—punishment which only stops when the mariner learns to deeply appreciate nature and realize what a horrible thing he did in destroying a beautiful piece of nature.

In "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth spends a great deal of time describing the beauty of nature, and speaking even of its power over him when he is away from this place he so loves, and how much better he feels just thinking about it.

We learn at the beginning that it has been five years since Wordsworth visited the area, but he has had it in his mind on many occasions during that time. To make his imagery effective, Wordsworth uses literary devices. For example, as the poem begins, the author describes the water that he hears:

...and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.

"Murmur" is a human characteristic, so the device used is personification, allowing us to imagine the gentle rumbling of the water as it moves, almost like the murmuring of a voice.

Another aspect of Romanticism is that of the supernatural or the occult. In Wordsworth's descriptions, the ability of nature to "speak" to him across the years and miles takes on a magical element. He even speaks to the effects of nature on the body and the soul:

…And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul...

In this case, it is only the communion with nature—putting away the activities and distractions of the world—when one's soul truly comes alive. A reference to, or interest in, the past (another of the Romantic elements) speaks of days when he was a young man...

...my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements...
...I cannot paint
What then I was.

Melancholy is also an aspect of Romantic writing. Here Wordsworth speaks about how sadness sometimes comes to him when he thinks of the "music of humanity."

...hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.

There are a number of Romantic characteristics in the poem, and they are all tied to having an appreciation for nature.

What is the diction in "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"?

Diction is the kind of words a writer chooses to use.

In "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth uses simple diction, words an average reader can easily understand. The first lines of the poem illustrate this:

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs,
With a soft inland murmur.