Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;/or surely you’ll grow double.”
-- The Speaker

Importance: These opening lines are important because they are a direct petitioning of the reader, thus promoting reader engagement with the poem. The speaker’s use of the word friend to address the reader forges an initial connection between the two that leads the reader to feel like a participant in the poem. As a result, they are more likely to value or at least consider Wordsworth’s message.

Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife.”
-- The Speaker

Importance: This line is significant because it succinctly communicates the speaker’s feeling toward the type of prescribed knowledge found in books. Rather than provide knowledge, books, they say here, offer nothing but strife. Furthermore, in comparison to the brilliance of nature, books are incredibly dull, and thus less worthy of one’s attention.

Let Nature be your teacher.”
-- The Speaker

Importance: This line is...