Tintern Abbey

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Recommended: Nature in literature

Pantheism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “a belief or philosophical theory that God is immanent in or identical with the universe; the doctrine that God is everything and everything is God. Freq. with implications of nature worship or (in a weakened sense) love of nature.” (CITATION) It is quite evident that in “Tintern Abbey” there is an emphasis on nature throughout the poem. Through further research, I have identified the presence of pantheism in the poem. In the poem, Wordsworth is proposing a kind of pantheism in which the divine permeates the natural world, and everything is God-like which can be seen in the quote above. For example, these lines excerpted from the poem demonstrate a pantheistic tone from Wordsworth: “A presence that disturbs me with the joy/ Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime/ Of something far more deeply interfused,/Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,/And the round ocean and the living air,/And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;/A motion and a spirit, that impels/All thinking things, all objects of all thought,/And rolls through all things.” (INSERT CITATION) For further reading on grasping the idea of pantheism and nature throughout the poem, three sources are recommended: “Wordworth, the One Life, and The Ruined Cottage” by Wiliam A. Ulmer, “Pantheism” by T. L. S. Sprigge, and “The Facination of Pantheism” by W. S. Urquhart. Each of these sources grasps the concept of nature and pantheism in Wordsworth’s poem. The first source by William A. Ulmer examines Wordsworth and pantheism ……………..
“Pantheism” by T. L. S. Sprigge goes into great detail about Pantheism, and breaks it down into various categories. In one of the categories, he says that in daily life, both physical nat...

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...n the fact that he wants her to have the same experience he has had with Tintern Abbey:
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress…
(QUOTED IN, CITATION)
This quote is demonstrating Wordsworth pantheistic nature, as he is offering a prayer to nature. He encourages various elements of nature to help protect her, such as asking the moon to shine upon his sister. Wordsworth then says to her that in the future, when she is sad or fearful, the memory of this experience of visiting Tintern Abbey will aid in healing her. He also says that if he has passed on, she can remember the love that he experienced while worshipping nature.

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