Theme Of Good And Evil In William Wordsworth

Since the beginning of time, at the heart of humanity, two opposing forces have both been at war with each other and sought after harmony. Our understandings of and ideas about such forces have changed and been shaped by the era in which we live. Such was the case for concepts of good and evil in the romantic period of British literature. Writers in the Romantic period had different ideas about the division of good and evil, even so, several of these writers’ and poets’ ideas stand diametrically opposed. The struggle of good versus evil remains today, a prominent topic of exploration and discussion but it was more so in British Romanticism through the lenses of nature, women, mental faculties, and challenge. The Romantics had varying ideas

Wordsworth drew much of his inspiration from nature, noting that man, when in nature, could see Heaven again. The dichotomy of good and evil was less about the wars and angels and devils, and more about the external struggle of man attempting to conquer of nature. His thoughts and writings focus far more on the good elements of life, “[describing] poetry as the ‘breath and finer spirit of all knowledge’” (Hartman 555). According to Wordsworth, man was scorning himself in an attempt to play God. In his poem “The World is too Much with Us” Wordsworth illustrates his point of the sacredness of nature in the line “I’d rather be/ a Pagan suckled in a creed outworn” (Wordsworth). At the time, and even in the moral ideals of today, paganism was seen as evil, and the line was meant to shock the audience into realizing the wrongs of their ways. Likewise, Wordsworth’s reverence toward nature is more than apparent in “The Immortality Ode”. Interestingly, he states that the soul is in Heaven before birth and the longer the soul is living the body; the view of Heaven – or the good – becomes further out of reach. Wordsworth, more or less, attributes evil to aging and withdrawal from