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Influence of nature in William Wordsworth poetry
Influence of nature in William Wordsworth poetry
"The World Is Too Much With Us
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William Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much With Us,” is written on the separation of humanity and nature. The speaker claims that humanity has long been distant from nature, but then ponders the beauty of nature, wondering if s/he would appreciate nature more if he were of a different religion or time. The paradoxical theme is heavy within this poem, not only in the situation as the speaker stands before nature, but spiritually as he attempts to connect with the natural world around him. While there is an overlaying situational paradox, the more important spiritual paradox plays a heavier role in the mindset of the speaker.
The physical paradox of the poem is that the speaker stands upon a “pleasant lea” wishing that he could appreciate the
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The speaker feels lost in the world and in his lack of religious beliefs. He stands upon the lea calling upon God and wishing to be a witness to Greek gods such as “Proteus” and “Triton” (ll. 13-14). Through calling out for a deity, he is searching for guidance. He wants to know how he can be standing upon the lea before nature and yet feel “forlorn” (l. 12). In “A Wordsworth Source For Algernon Blackwood’s ‘the Sea Fit’,” Terry Thompson writes that the speaker regrets humanity’s loss of “a spiritual union with the natural world” (180). The loss of such a union troubles the speaker and calls for him to reflect on what has broken this union. He says that because humanity sees “little” of themselves in nature, they “have given [their] hearts away” (ll. 3-4). When humanity lost its love for nature, it also lost its spirituality. While the speaker grasps for different religions such as present Christianity or “outworn” Paganism, he still misses the point of his situation (l. 10). The speaker opens the same situational paradox as he calls on religions, yet does not follow through with their worshipping. He wishes for a time in which he would able to go before nature as a “Pagan suckled in a creed outworn” (l. 10). Knowing that Paganism is the worship of Nature, he longs to be able to look on Nature as deity and thus worthy of reverence. It is his lack of commitment to this religion that holds him back …show more content…
The situational paradox follows the speaker as he stands before nature wishing to find it as admirable as people of a different time would, while the spiritual paradox is his searching for that religious help while not actually inviting spiritual growth within himself. While the situational paradox plays a heavy role in shaping the mindset of the speaker, the spiritual paradox is what shows his inability to appreciate the world around him and that he, too, has been overcome by his place in the world and not the world’s place in
When thinking about nature, Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” John Muir and William Wordsworth both expressed through their writings that nature brought them great joy and satisfaction, as it did Andersen. Each author’s text conveyed very similar messages and represented similar experiences but, the writing style and wording used were significantly different. Wordsworth and Muir express their positive and emotional relationships with nature using diction and imagery.
John Muir and William Wordsworth use diction and tone to define nature as doing a necessary extensile of life. Throughout Muir’s and William’s works of literature they both describe nature as being a necessary element in life that brings happiness, joy, and peace. Both authors use certain writing techniques within their poems and essays to show their love and appreciation of nature. This shows the audience how fond both authors are about nature. That is why Wordsworth and Muir express their codependent relationship with nature using diction and tone.
Throughout the Romanticism period, human’s connection with nature was explored as writers strove to find the benefits that humans receive through such interactions. Without such relationships, these authors found that certain aspects of life were missing or completely different. For example, certain authors found death a very frightening idea, but through the incorporation of man’s relationship with the natural world, readers find the immense utility that nature can potentially provide. Whether it’d be as solace, in the case of death, or as a place where one can find oneself in their own truest form, nature will nevertheless be a place where they themselves were derived from. Nature is where all humans originated,
...y. An astronomer could not give the speaker what he wanted. He did not want the graphs and data. Those bored him to a extent that he left the lecture. He went outside and was satisfied more with just the silence of the stars and night-air. He did not need the notes or an establish astronomer to see the beauty. In “The World Is Too Much with Us” the speaker shows the fault of society and how less of nature in evolved. The speaker, if he could, would try to just for a small portion of nature in his life. He wants a glimpse so he would not feel like he is forgetting about nature. He wants to see the Sea. Proteus or Triton is want he wanted. Even if it makes him “A pagan suckled in a creed outworn.” The beauty in nature is want both speakers wan, and what both writers explain. Nature has more to offer and show than the world, graphs, data, or astronomer can ever show.
During the 18th century, two great companions, William Wordsworth, collaborated together to create Lyrical Ballad, one of the greatest works of the Romantic period. The two major poems of Lyrical Ballad are Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight.” Even though these two poems contain different experiences of the two speakers, upon close reading of these poems, the similarities are found in their use of language, the tone, the use of illustrative imagery to fascinate the reader’s visual sense and the message to their loved ones. The speaker of “Lines Composed of a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” is Wordsworth himself. He represents Romanticism’s spiritual view of nature.
William Wordsworth is easily understood as a main author whom expresses the element of nature within his work. Wordsworth’s writings unravel the combination of the creation of beauty and sublime within the minds of man, as well as the receiver through naturalism. Wordsworth is known to be self-conscious of his immediate surroundings in the natural world, and to create his experience with it through imagination. It is common to point out Wordsworth speaking with, to, and for nature. Wordsworth had a strong sense of passion of finding ourselves as the individuals that we truly are through nature. Three poems which best agree with Wordsworth’s fascination with nature are: I Wandered as a Lonely Cloud, My Heart leaps up, and Composed upon Westminster Bridge. In I Wandered as a Lonely Cloud, Wordsworth claims that he would rather die than be without nature, because life isn’t life without it, and would be without the true happiness and pleasure nature brings to man. “So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me
Moreover, searching for the different mechanics in each of these poems makes it easier for the reader to analysis and interpret them. To begin, in “The World is Too Much with Us” the way the punctuation is fit into the poem is different since there are many semicolons between each line and one period suggesting that the poem is actually one long sentence. Then I believe the speaker to be someone who acknowledges that he too has lost connection with nature since he’s been preoccupied with other things in the world. This is proven throughout the whole poem since he talks in first person using the word “I.” The tone of this poem is angry, frustrated, and dissatisfied because of how the world has changed. The rhyme scheme is also another appealing mechanic here too since Wordsworth only uses fou...
Nature inspires Wordsworth poetically. Nature gives a landscape of seclusion that implies a deepening of the mood of seclusion in Wordsworth's mind.
In his poem, 'Lines Written in the Early Spring,' William Wordsworth gives us insight into his views of the destruction of nature. Using personification, he makes nature seem to be full of life and happy to be living. Yet, man still is destroying what he sees as 'Nature's holy plan'; (8).
For Wordsworth nature seems to sympathise with the love and suffering. of the persona, i.e. the persona. The landscape is seen as an interior presence rather. than an external scene, i.e. His idea is that emotions are reflected in the tranquillity of the nature. On the contrary, Coleridge says that poetry is.
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
Through the poems of Blake and Wordsworth, the meaning of nature expands far beyond the earlier century's definition of nature. "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." The passion and imagination portrayal manifest this period unquestionably, as the Romantic Era. Nature is a place of solace where the imagination is free to roam. Wordsworth contrasts the material world to the innocent beauty of nature that is easily forgotten, or overlooked due to our insensitivities by our complete devotion to the trivial world. “But yet I know, where’er I go, that there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Wordsworth is deeply involved with the complexities of nature and human reaction to it. To Wordsworth nature is the revelation of god through viewing everything that is harmonious or beautiful in nature. Man’s true character is then formed and developed through participation in this balance. Wordsworth had the view that people are at their best when they are closest to nature. Being close creates harmony and order. He thought that the people of his time were getting away from that.
Figurative language is used by William Wordsworth to show the exchange between man and nature. The poet uses various examples of personification throughout the poem. When the poet says:”I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1),”when all at once I saw a crowd” (line 3), and “fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (line 6) shows the exchange between the poet and nature since the poet compares himself to a cloud, and compares the daffodils to humans. Moreover, humans connect with God through nature, so the exchange between the speaker and nature led to the connection with God. The pleasant moment of remembering the daffodils does not happen to the poet all time, but he visualizes them only in his “vacant or pensive mode”(line 20). However, the whole poem is full of metaphors describing the isolation of the speaker from society, and experiences the beauty of nature that comforts him. The meta...
William Wordsworth has respect and has great admiration for nature. This is quite evident in all three of his poems; the Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey and Michael in that, his philosophy on the divinity, immortality and innocence of humans are elucidated in his connection with nature. For Wordsworth, himself, nature has a spirit, a soul of its own, and to know is to experience nature with all of your senses. In all three of his poems there are many references to seeing, hearing and feeling his surroundings. He speaks of hills, the woods, the rivers and streams, and the fields. Wordsworth comprehends, in each of us, that there is a natural resemblance to ourselves and the background of nature.