Select the correct answer.

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

from "Tintern Abbey"

by William Wordsworth

Read these lines from William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" on the left. What is the speaker contemplating?

A.

a cityscape

B.

a former love

C.

a lonely room

D.

a remembered landscape

D. A remembered landscape

Explanation:

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is one of the greatest romantic poets of the romantic age. He wrote "Tintern Abbey" in 1798 a few miles above the abbey as the full title of the poem "Lines Written (or Composed) a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798". Wordsworth had previously visited Tintern Abbey in 1793 as a troubled and directionless young man of 23.

In these lines he mentions those five years as a long absence from these beauteous form (abbey landscape). He was not seeing that landscape when writing the poem but contemplating the scenery seen five years ago. According to Wordsworth poetic theory, the poetry is best when its is written by observation, contemplation, and emotions recollected through tranquility.

Wordsworth ideally wants to write about natural scenery long after he has seen and observed it. According to him, this practice removes all the minor and less important things from memory, and only the best of the observations find an expression in the form of words.