Tristan's Essay

Tristan Yerkes

Mr. Salsich

English 02

26^th May 2009

Memory Lane:

A Last Essay on the Powers of Memory

There are places I remember, I come back to, and float through, for a second becoming the smiling toddler that no one talked to. Magical places, everyone shares as time capsules of wound up memory, ready to tumble loose into the unwary mind. For William Wordsworth, these old feelings, along with new ones are discovered upon return to Tintern Abbey just as they would be if I were to return to Pine Point in the future.

In “Tintern Abbey”, Wordsworth describes how he relives all of the feelings he had in his youth and how he discovers new ones. Wordsworth may not have been in his youth anymore, “five long years” may have passed, but he still felt and saw the same things he felt and saw five years ago. Wordsworth has “thoughts of more deep seclusion” than he had when he was last at Tintern Abbey. These feelings are brought back up from Wordsworth's well of emotion and the revisit to Tintern Abbey is just a catalyst in the equation. Wordsworth also discovers new emotion on his revisit to Tintern Abbey, new things within himself. When Wordsworth says, “here I stand […] with the sense /..
of present pleasure” he refers to his current emotion, and how he feels upon his revisit. This shows that Wordsworth, while reliving his old emotions, has sub-emotions brewing that are more current. The complexity of the emotions displayed in “Tintern Abbey” are so severe, that the birth of such a poem is almost expected.

These ideas Wordsworth experiences upon re-visitation of Tintern Abbey, would also apply to my re-visitation of Pine Point in the future. I would relive my old feelings while roaming the old halls. I would observe the classrooms, and remember the stressful feelings, the anger, the pressure felt in years past, just like the feelings of joy Wordsworth relives when he walks near Tintern Abbey. I would roam past the rock climbing wall, remembering all of the hours spent thinking of clever announcements. As I drink in my old school, I would also be feeling new things and thinking new thoughts. As I look into small classroom windows, I may realize things I haven't before, like Wordsworth saw new sights in the old sights of Tintern Abbey. I would wonder how my memory lived: Did the school I remembered end up remembering me? The memories Wordsworth had of Tintern Abbey were not the same as those I would have of Pine Point, but they retain the structure of new and old thoughts.

Many old dusty vaults of thought can be unlocked by returning to old places. Just as much, shining, new, beautiful thoughts can be created when one is returned to old places. This happens in both my fictional return to Pine Point, and Wordsworth's very real return to Tintern Abbey. In both, these thoughts are celebrated.

Key:

Fast Word

Tricolon

Loose Sentence

Chiasmus