English
Stefanie Warnke
The Function of Tense in Lyric Poetry
Case Studies
Seminar paper
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
HpS: Theory and Practice of Poetry Analysis
WS 2006 / 2007
THE FUNCTION OF TENSE IN LYRIC POETRY
- CASE STUDIES -
Name:
Warnke, Stefanie
Subjects studied:
English, German (LA Gymn.)
Semesters studied:
7
Handed in:
April 24, 2007
Table of contents
1.
Introduction......................................................................................................... 2
2.
Theory: Tense in lyric poetry .............................................................................. 3
3.
2.1
Present tense ............................................................................................... 3
2.2
Past tense .................................................................................................... 4
2.3
Future tense ................................................................................................. 6
Case studies....................................................................................................... 7
3.1
William Blake: ‘London’ ................................................................................ 7
3.2
William Wordsworth: ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’................................... 11
3.3
An experiment: the switch of tenses........................................................... 13
3.3.1
‘London’ in past tense ......................................................................... 14
3.3.2
‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ in present tense................................... 16
4.
Summary / Conclusion ..................................................................................... 18
5.
Literature .......................................................................................................... 19
1
1.
Introduction
If one takes a look into a dictionary to find out how the word ‘tense’ is defined, one
can find the following definition: ‘[Tense is a cover term for] any forms of a verb that
may be used to show the time of the action or state expressed by the verb.’1In another dictionary, tense is defined as a ‘grammatical form which shows whether you
are referring to the past, the present or the future.’2 Defining tense with my own
words, I would roughly describe it as a grammatical way of expressing temporal relations between various events and the time of speaking or writing. Tense, so to say,
signals to the listener or the reader how the writer or speaker views an event.
Thus, tense plays an important role not only in every day’s communication but also in
that kind of language which deviates from every day language, namely the language
of lyric poetry. Thus, tense may also have an influence on the way one perceives a
poem.
This term paper is concerned with the topic ‘Tense in lyric Poetry’. Initially, I would
like to discuss the function and the occurrence of tense in lyric poetry as well as the
way the reader experiences tense in poems. Therefore, I have chosen two wellknown poems by William Blake and William Wordsworth. These poems will be studied not only with regard to tense, but also with respect to the meaning.
To achieve this goal, I will, first of all, give a theoretical contribution about the theme
‘Tense in lyric Poetry’ which includes small illustrations of English and German poetry. Secondly, I will discuss the theoretical statements with the help of the two poems selected.
This paper is the written form of an oral report which I gave in the seminar ‘Theory
and Practice of Poetry Analysis’ together with two fellow students.
1
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Ed. A.S.Hornby. 6th ed., 2000, 1339.
2
Cobuild English Learner’s Dictionary. Ed. John Sinclair. 1990, 1014.
2