William Wordsworth and the Sublime

Although we don’t realize it when we read his works now, William Wordsworth was a revolutionary thinker in his time. He did not believe that the sublime was transcendent. Instead, his opinion was that the sublime could be found in the ordinary, or nature. Simple as this may sound, reaching the sublime did not merely consist of wandering out into the forest and setting up a picnic under the canopy of the trees. Wordsworth believed that Man and Nature could not exist dependent from each other and that to have a true understanding of life, we must join primal sympathy and the philosophic mind. That is, to fully comprehend life, we must combine our memories with our mature experiences. Primal sympathy is found as we look back on our childhood, while the philosophic mind develops in later years, branching off of primal sympathy. If we are capable of synthesizing these, we can rise “up to the height of feeling intellect” or sublime.

It is important to establish Wordsworth’s feelings concerning the sublime in nature. Although the idea of the sublime being found in the ordinary is unusual, and there were many that believed that Wordsworth was not a Christian because of this view, it is a recurring theme throughout his works. In “Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tinturn Abbey,” Wordsworth speaks of a presence that “disturbs him with joy,” which he defines as the sublime “whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns, / And the round ocean and the living air, / And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.” In other words, he is explaining that the sublime is not unattainable. The divine is here, in everything, and can be found everywhere. More importantly, though, the sublime also dwells in the human consciousness. The same idea is seen in Book First of “The Prelude.” Wordsworth defines the sublime as the “passions that build up in our human soul.” He goes on to speak about how the sublime is not found in man’s “mean” and “vulgar” tasks, but in life and nature. Finally, in “Ode: Intimations Of Immortality,” Wordsworth relates that, as a child, nature was “apparelled in celestial light.” This idea is important for two reasons. There is the obvious illusion to the sublime in nature, for one. When he was young, Wordsworth thought that the divine encompassed “every common sight.” He is also making reference to his primal sympathy. When he was a child, there was no distinction between the common and the celestial. Because he has lost his innocence through the experiences of adulthood, though, Wordsworth has more difficulty in experiencing the sublime.

In order to experience the sublime and rise up to the height of “feeling intellect,” we must combine the innocence and naivete of childhood with the experiences of our adulthood. No where is this better explained than in “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” Throughout the poem Wordsworth has been grieving that nothing can bring back the glory of childhood. However, this does not mean that, once we have crossed the threshold into staid adulthood, we should ignore all that we felt and experienced as a child. On the contrary, Wordsworth claims that there is “strength in what remains behind.” The strength in what remains behind is the primal sympathy that Wordsworth alludes to earlier in this work. Primal sympathy, according to Wordsworth, is what connects us, as human beings, to the rest of the world. This is because it comes to fruition in the years when we see the world through untainted eyes. The philosophic mind, however, arises from “human suffering.” Although the philosophic mind is not formed through experiences of the sublime, that does not make it less significant or less necessary in the process of “feeling intellect.” On the contrary, the philosophic mind (along with primal sympathy) is what can reconnect us with the sublime.

“Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tinturn Abbey” echoes the importance of combining primal sympathy and the philosophic mind. Although Wordsworth’s first visit to Tinturn Abbey did not occur when he was a child, there is still the sense of something lost when he returns five years later. He speaks of once again seeing the hedge-rows, “hardly hedge-rows, little lines / Of sportive wood run wild.” Perhaps they really did seem large enough to be labeled as hedge-rows during his last visit, but now he is qualifying his perceptions. He realizes that time has past and the raptures of his first visit are over. Fortunately for him, he also understands that this is not the end of his joys, but merely the beginning. “For I have learned,” he claims, “To look on nature, not as in the hour / Of thoughtless youth: but hearing oftentimes / The still, sad music of humanity.” This small quote epitomizes what Wordsworth meant about synthesizing primal sympathy and the philosophic mind. The first ecstasy of his prior visit has passed but that is not an indication that he is no longer capable of locating the sublime. Instead, he has found a different, but equally fulfilling, way of experiencing the sublime in the “sad music” of “human suffering.”

“The Prelude” follows Wordsworth through the exaltations and disappointments of his life, but in the last book of this autobiographical epic, he finally believes that he has found the answer to how to rise to the height of “feeling intellect.” As Wordsworth understands it, Imagination and intellectual Love are “each in each, and cannot stand inividually.” Imagination is representative of the child’s mind. Children have amazing imaginations that they tend to lose as they grow older. However, they should retain the primal sympathy inherent in the imagination and innocence of childhood. Intellectual Love is representative of the adult, or philosophic, mind. As people mature, they tend to leave imagination behind in search of more intellectual pursuits. These two qualities of the human mind, Imagination and Intellectual Love are, ideally, inseparable. A combination of these attributes will allow an individual to rise to the height of “feeling intellect” or the sublime.

Although Wordsworth believed that there was a sublime presence in the ordinary, attaining the “feeling intellect” necessary in order to locate it was no easy process. Accomplishing the rise to “feeling intellect” did not rest merely in one’s ability to appreciate nature. Wordsworth’s belief was that only through the synthesis of primal sympathy and the philosophic mind could one experience the sublime.