Talk:The Tables Turned
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Poem is part of a pair
[edit]I don't know why so few sources on the web mention that this is poem is a jocular debate about rationality vs. emotion. I always interpreted it as showing that Wordsworth endorses both aspects, not only spontaneity, but also reflection. Mballen (talk) 00:37, 10 June 2020 (UTC) Mballen (talk) 00:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
We ought to recognize, though some of us still do not, that Wordsworth’s “Come forth into the light of things, / Let Nature be your teacher” (The Tables Turned, 15—16) is not Wordsworth himself, but one side of a whimsical dramatic debate between “William” and “my good friend Matthew” (Expostulation and Reply, 1, 15). The dramatic tone of this poetic manipulation is signaled in the subtitle Wordsworth appends to The Tables Turned: “An Evening Scene on the Same Subject.” . . . This play, further is a comedy. -- L. J. Swingle, Romanticism and Anthony Trollope: A Study in the Continuities of Nineteenth-century Literary Thought (University of Michigan Press, 1990), p. 99.