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William wordsworth treatment of nature
wordsworth's "tintern abbey" as a romantic poem
nature in the romantic poetry essay paper
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"Tintern Abbey" and the Place of Nature
Throughout "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth constructs nature as both a healing entity and a teacher or moral guardian. This paper considers Wordsworth's treatment of nature in relation to both Ralph Pite's discussion of the relationship between the ecology movement and Romantic poetry and Richard Gravil's explication of the historical context of the Romantic era's "system of nature" in relation to "Tintern Abbey."
Nature as Healer?
Wordsworth ascribes healing properties to nature in Tintern Abbey. This is a fairly obvious conclusion, drawn from his references to "tranquil restoration" (31) that his memory of the Wye offered him "in lonely rooms, and mid the din / Of towns and cities" (26-27). It is also evident in his admonition to Dorothy that she let her:
memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies-oh then
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me
And these my exhortations. (142-147)
These passages leave little doubt that Wordsworth treats nature as a recuperative force in the poem, but his treatment of nature moves outside of the idea of nature as healer in that his description of the Wye Valley has some darker undertones.
Nature in this poem is not so much threatening as it is dangerously indifferent to humankind. The impact that nature has on one is, I think, determined primarily by one's position in relation to the natural world. The mention of the "vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, / Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire / the hermit sits alone" (21-24) early in the poem reminds us that a...
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...worth's metaphors at the beginning of the poem "build a bridge between landscape and psyche, while the landscape itself becomes the perfect image of a tranquil mind" (P4). In this way, Wordsworth's state of mind and his subsequent actions form a reciprocal relationship with the beauty that he initially perceives; it is his mind's response to nature that becomes, to use his words, the "anchor of [his] purest thoughts" (110) rather than nature itself.
Works Cited
Gravil, Richard. "Tintern Abbey and the System of Nature." Romanticism: The Journal of Romantic Culture and Criticism 6.1 (2000): 35-54. (electronic version: Academic Search Premier)
Pite, Ralph. "How Green Were the Romantics?" Studies in Romanticism 35 (1996): 367-73.
Wordsworth, William. "Tintern Abbey." Romanticism: An Anthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 265-269.
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” (John Muir). Both John Muir and William Wordsworth demonstrate this through their use of language as they describe nature scenes. John Muir studies nature and in his essay about locating the Calypso Borealis he uses scientific descriptions to grab his reader’s attention and to portray his excitement at finding the rare flower. William Wordsworth on the other hand shows his appreciation for the beauty of nature and its effect on a person’s emotions in the vivid visual descriptions that he gives of the daffodils in his poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud.’ Wordsworth with his appreciation of beauty and Muir through scientific descriptions provide an indication of the influence that nature has had on them as they capture their reader’s attention both emotionally and visually through their personal and unique use of tone, diction, syntax and vocabulary.
In the poem Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth nature’s is portrayed to its readers. The speaker says,
Peters, John G. “Wordsworth’s TINTERN ABBEY” The Explicator(Washington) , Winter 2003, Vol. 61, Iss. 2, pg. 77 : eLibrary. Web 05 Mar 2002
Henry David Thoreau implies that simplicity and nature are valuable to a person’s happiness in “Why I Went to the Woods”. An overall theme used in his work was the connection to one’s spiritual self. Thoreau believed that by being secluded in nature and away from society would allow one to connect with their inner self. Wordsworth and Thoreau imply the same idea that the simple pleasures in life are easily overlooked or ignored. Seeing the true beauty of nature allows oneself to rejuvenate their mentality and desires. When one allows, they can become closer to their spiritual selves. One of William Wordsworth’s popular pieces, “Tintern Abbey”, discusses the beauty and tranquility of nature. Wordsworth believed that when people
In "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," William Wordsworth explains the impact of Nature from Tintern Abbey in his every day life. "Tintern Abbey" shows the great importance of nature to Wordsworth in his writings, love for life, and religion. The memories he has of Tintern Abbey make even the darkest days full of light.
Wordsworth and Hopkins both present the reader with a poem conveying the theme of nature. Nature in its variety be it from something as simple as streaked or multicolored skies, long fields and valleys, to things more complex like animals, are all gifts we take for granted. Some never realize the truth of what they are missing by keeping themselves indoors fixating on the loneliness and vacancy of their lives and not on what beauty currently surrounds them. Others tend to relate themselves more to the fact that these lovely gifts are from God and should be praised because of the way his gifts have uplifted our human spirit. Each writer gives us their own ideals as how to find and appreciate nature’s true gifts.
Wordsworth truly emphasized the influence nature had on human morals and emotion. He spiritualised nature and regarded the environment as a philosophical moral teacher, as a mother and even guardian, as the one true elevating influence that was greater than any other. He believed that between man and Nature there is mutual consciousness and understanding, as well as a spiritual connection. According to him, human beings who grow up in the lap of Nature like he did were the ideal humans, the perfect kind. Above all, Wordsworth emphasized the moral influence of Nature as this pastoral influence. “They are second only to nature, which is "the breath of God." (Wordsworth 221). It was his special characteristic to concern himself, not with the strange and remote aspects of the earth, and sky, but nature in ordinary, familiar, everyday moods.Wordsworth stressed upon the moral influence of Nature and the need of man’s spiritual discourse with it “Great and benign, indeed, must be the power/ Of living nature,” (Wordsworth 167). He did not recognize the scary, hideous side of nature, only its
Nature and God are the main themes in “Robert Frost poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, William Wordsworth’s poems, “The World is Too Much With Us”, and “It is a Beauteous Evening”. The poets portray the themes of Nature and God both explicitly and implicitly, exposing the reader to a variety of ways in which nature and God is synonymous.
When a man becomes old and has nothing to look forward to he will always look back, back to what are called the good old days. These days were full of young innocence, and no worries. Wordsworth describes these childhood days by saying that "A single Field which I have looked upon, / Both of them speak of something that is gone: The Pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"(190) Another example of how Wordsworth uses nature as a way of dwelling on his past childhood experiences is when he writes "O joy! That in our embers / Is something that doth live, / That nature yet remembers / What was so fugitive!" (192) Here an ember represents our fading years through life and nature is remembering the childhood that has escaped over the years. As far as Wordsworth and his moods go I think he is very touched by nature. I can picture him seeing life and feeling it in every flower, ant, and piece of grass that crosses his path. The emotion he feels is strongly suggested in this line "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." (193) Not only is this showi...
Wordsworth recognizes the connections nature enables humans to construct. The beauty of a “wild secluded scene” (Wordsworth, 1798, line 6) allows the mind to bypass clouded and obscured thinking accompanied with man made environments. “In which the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world, is lightened,” (Wordsworth, 1798, lines 40-43). Wordsworth observes the clear and comprehensive mindset conceived when individuals are exposed to nature. Wordsworth construes nature as a force, delving further into the depths of humans, bringing forth distinct universal and spiritual perspectives. Wonder and awe in the face of nature is awakened within even the most stubborn of minds. The human spirit becomes at mercy to nature’s splendor.
It is obvious that through this perception Wordsworth is generally speaking of past experiences. Wordsworth believed that nature played a key role in spiritual understanding and stressed the role of memory in capturing the experiences of childhood.
Through the ingenious works of poetry the role of nature has imprinted the 18th and 19th century with a mark of significance. The common terminology ‘nature’ has been reflected by our greatest poets in different meanings and understanding; Alexander Pope believed in reason and moderation, whereas Blake and Wordsworth embraced passion and imagination.
Tintern Abbey is just an old ruin (William). However, throughout Wordsworth’s poetry Tintern Abbey becomes something slightly more than a ruin. His poem recognizes the ordinary and turns it into a spectacular recollection, whose ordinary characteristics are his principal models for Nature. As Geoffryy H. Hartman notes in his “Wordsworth’s poetry 1787-1814”, “Anything in nature stirs [Wordsworth] and renews in turn his sense for nature” (Hartman 29). “The Poetry of William Wordsworth” recalls a quote from the Prelude to Wordsworth’s 1802 edition of Lyrical ballads where they said “[he] believed his fellow poets should "choose incidents and situations from common life and to relate or describe them...in a selection of language really used by men” (Poetry). In the shallowest sense, Wordsworth is using his view of the Tintern Abbey as a platform or recollection, however, this ordinary act of recollection stirs within him a deeper understanding. In his elaboration in “Tintern Abbey”, he says “For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, s...
In William Wordsworth’s poems, the role of nature plays a more reassuring and pivotal r ole within them. To Wordsworth’s poetry, interacting with nature represents the forces of the natural world. Throughout the three poems, Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey, and Michael, which will be discussed in this essay, nature is seen prominently as an everlasting- individual figure, which gives his audience as well as Wordsworth, himself, a sense of console. In all three poems, Wordsworth views nature and human beings as complementary elements of a sum of a whole, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature. Therefore, looking at the world as a soothing being of which he is a part of, Wordsworth looks at nature and sees the benevolence of the divinity aspects behind them. For Wordsworth, the world itself, in all its glory, can be a place of suffering, which surely occurs within the world; Wordsworth is still comforted with the belief that all things happen by the hands of the divinity and the just and divine order of nature, itself.