Major and Minor Narratives in “Tintern Abbey”

Abstract

“Tintern Abbey” tells two distinctly different stories about Wordsworth's visits to the Wye valley in 1793 and 1798. While the poem's major narrative traces a clear developmental arc from youthful spontaneity to mature wisdom, an oblique minor narrative tells a cautionary tale about reawakening dormant memories. The major narrative moves “from joy to joy,” beginning with the memory of being “like a roe” in 1793 and arriving at the discovery of “something far more deeply interfused” in 1798, but the minor narrative remembers a different “something” in the 1793 visit; it recalls being “more like a man flying from something that he dreads.” The engagement with this dreadful, enigmatic “something” draws the poem into what Keats called its “dark passages,” where Wordsworth becomes uncertain about his standing in “the ballance of good and evil.”