Perspectives

When analysing the poem “The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth, it is important to be able to engage in a meaningful dialogue by putting the poem into perspective.

Painting: “The Hay Wain” by John Constable

The painting “The Hay Wain” was painted by John Constable in 1821. John Constable was a Romantic painter, mostly famous for his landscapes. The painting you have to analyse represents a landscape in which a hay wain (a sort of cart drawn by a horse) stands in the middle of a body of water.

When analysing the painting, you might want to look at the following aspects:

• Colours – What kind of colours does Constable use? Which colour is dominant? Why?
• Contrast – Is there a specific contrast in the painting? Do you observe a contrast between light and dark or between colours?
• Composition – Does any element strike you as being strange or not supposed to belong in the painting? Also, what are the effects of the sky, the leaves and especially the water? Notice how the water seems very real and how the clouds suggest a specific type of weather.

All in all, what do you make of John Constable’s painting? Does it add to your understanding of “The Tables Turned”? Notice that both in the painting and in the poem, nature is seen as the centre of things, the element worth contemplating, and the one that draws things together. In the painting, notice how the people in the hay wain are small and almost invisible at a first sight. This may suggest that man should stay small and humble when dealing with nature. Is this view similar to the one expressed in “The Tables Turned”? Also, do you think that the modern view of nature is similar to the one expressed by Constable in his painting?

Literary context: “My Heart Leaps Up” by William Wordsworth

The poem “My Heart Leaps Up” presents the poet’s feelings at the sight of a rainbow in different stages of his life. The joy of seeing a rainbow is felt with the same intensity whether the poet is a child or an adult. One line in the poem becomes contradictory: “The child is father of the Man” (p. 2, l. 6). What do you make of it? We can assume that there is still a trace of childhood innocence even in the mind of the adult poet. The final verses of the poem “My Heart Leaps Up” suggest the author’s desire of being ab...