As humans no one can choose which parents we are born from or what environments we are born into. In addition to this, everyone will have to contribute and work, whether they like it or not. In "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room" William Wordsworth touches on these topics, among others, reminding us that everything is not as bleak as it seems. This text is a shining example of a work that has levels of intricacies and depth far beyond the title or the surface meaning. These unique interpretations are crafted by our own equally unique experiences. The meanings of this work are the aforementioned topics, an encouraging message to all persons of the world, and a poetic sympathy to the plight of the industrial worker. 

Told in the form of a Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet, Wordsworth tells the stories of those who have learned to embrace their lives, positives and negatives. The octave is telling society that true happiness comes from not only the acceptance of self, but the acceptance as well as appreciation for the means in which you exist. While the octave reflects mostly this idea of acceptance, the sextet elaborates upon this idea and expands it, saying that too much freedom can lead to unhappiness, rehashing the age old saying that idle hands are the devils playthings. That without habits or tasks, enjoyable or not, we would bring ourselves to ruin. These are the relatively shallow meanings of this poem. Deeper, and with the context of not only the time period but also Wordsworth's own history we see something more. 

William Wordsworth was born to a relatively well-to-do family and received a high quality education. As Poet Laureate of Great Britain he enjoyed an extremely comfortable life of affluence, if not excess. "Nuns Fret Not ... ." was published in 1807, a time in which Great Britain had almost entirely converted to an industrial powerhouse, some thirty years after the begin of the Industrial Revolution. With that knowledge in mind we can see how this poem goes from simple, eloquent advice to remain busy into a bourgeois "sympathy" to the proletariat class. Wordsworth is encouraging them to thrive in the factories and mills, telling them to love their "prisons" as he eventually came to love the narrow confines of his Petrarchan prison. He is attempting to unite all of the subjects of his poem; the nun, the hermit, the student, the maids, the weavers and the bees, with himself, expressing his own struggles and sorrows. He mentions "prison" and "cell" more than once in this work. Wordsworth's use of "prison" is not meant to be understood in the traditional sense of the word, but in the more metaphorical sense of the word, implying that the subjects are trapped into their ways of life by powers greater than themselves. The use of "prison" also evokes an array of emotions in the reader; fear, loneliness, confinement and perpetual discomfort, to name a few. The use of that word and its connotations is extremely intentional, he wants the reader to feel his words deeply. This message is ultimately extremely condescending and almost laughable, that an aristocrat would have the audacity to compare the lives of artisans and workers to the "plight" and "work" of writing a sonnet in the Petrarchan style. Wordsworth is trying to convince society that the aristocracy has just as many problems as the layperson, that their lives are truly no more fortunate just because they can exist in comfort. He is telling them that in fact, the grass is not greener on the other side. That while children lose fingers in mills and men lose their arms in mines, he is also having a hard time finding words that rhyme correctly and fit the pattern of the Italian sonnet. As another side effect of the time period, the audience would be almost exclusively the educated upper class. People at the time would be all too delighted to read and understand this for what it truly was; that finally someone was defending the upper echelons and exposing their struggles too. 

While not his Magnum Opus, "Nuns Fret Not ... ." Certainly didn't damage his fame or status. The title tells the reader that this could possibly be a poem about religion, about poverty or about obedient working. As we read and digest the text we come to understand that the title is a repetition of the first line of the poem, selected not out of laziness and a lack of creativity but because he wanted the audience to subconsciously venerate his craft, to relate it to divinity and raise it above the simple tasks of man. Historically, authors, poets and playwrights were not viewed as celebrities of their day, and this text shows a bit of Wordsworth's frustrations with perhaps the way he had been viewed in society. 

It can be assumed that the subject of "Nuns Fret Not ... ." is not truly about the people that he mentions but the subject is himself, and what he symbolizes in the context of the poem. The beginning and ending of the poem both hold literary significance. In the first line, we feel sympathy for the nuns, preparing us to sympathize with not only the subjects listed but ultimately Wordsworth as well. In the last line we are left with the knowledge that there is always comfort in any prison. "Pleased if some Souls ... Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, should find brief solace there, as I have found." (Wordsworth 21) We get to leave this poem feeling reinvigorated with the knowledge that there is always peace in any peril, that perhaps nothing is ever truly as bad as it seems. "In truth the prison, into which we doom Ourselves, no prison is." (Wordsworth 21) This line in particular implies the power of free will, the ability of each person to choose how they will react to and feel about their conditions. 

Perception is reality, and if it is perceived that you exist in narrow confines, then you will. If you perceive that your prison is gone, then it is gone, and you are free to live whichever life you choose to. Overall, the central messages of this text were to remain positive in negative situations, to continue trying no matter what and that the "prisons" of Wordsworth and the other members of wealthy society were just as terrible as the "prisons" that those of the working class were subjected to. 

