The works of William Wordsworth are as ground-breaking and daring as they are numerous. Through his own unique perception of Nature, creation, and the relationship of the self to these ideas, Wordsworth carries the implications of Romantic Nature poetry above and beyond those of all other poets of his ilk; he goes so far as to defy, though subtly, the dogmas of the Christian faith and assert that Nature and one’s own mind play as much of a role in creating all that one sees as ever could some lofty, all-powerful deity. For Wordsworth, the human eye, ear, and mind are omnipotent, and the great green world of Nature that surrounds us, “what they half create, and what perceive” (ll. 106).
Nowhere is this ideology more readily observable than in one of Wordsworth’s most popular and highly-esteemed poems, “Tintern Abbey.” The course of this poem mirrors the course of Wordsworth’s life; through reflection he beckons the reader to accompany him through the past, to the days of his youth, “when like a roe” he bounded over the mountains and pastoral landscape, in no need of personal introspection concerning what surrounded him. In Wordsworth’s own words, the Nature that he so loved “had no need of a remoter charm, by thought supplied, nor any interest unborrowed from the eye” (ll. 82-83).
As “Tintern Abbey” progresses, however, Wordsworth reveals to the reader the evolution of his own intellect and understanding of Nature in a method that precurses that of his “Prelude.” Wordsworth describes how, over the course of years, he came to view the familiar landscape, his boyhood love, in a more mature, intellectual light, storing it in memory to serve him in times of hardship. Forced to live in an urban setting for several years, Wordsworth came to despise the drudging, filthy throngs of the city, “the fretful stir unprofitable, and the fever of the world,” and felt that such a human condition debased human life (ll. 52-53). While focusing less upon the misery of the human condition in cities of the time period than upon the beauty and freedom of Nature outside those cities, Wordsworth does address it, notably in such poems as “Michael,” London, 1802,” and “The World is Too Much with Us.” He longed for the open, clean air of the pastoral landscapes that were so frequently the topic of his poetry, and because of his inability to leave the city, he was forced to return there only in memory.
Wordsworth explains that through observing Nature, and not merely reveling in its sheer power and beauty as he did as a youth, he has come to appreciate it to an even greater extent, and that it cheers him when he is removed from it for long periods; this concept parallels the early Wordsworthian idea of Nature as a teacher (as exemplified in his “Expostulation and Reply), and the deep appreciation and understanding one can gain through absorbing its teachings “in a wise passiveness” (ll. 24.) This concept is further established in “Tintern Abbey” in Wordsworth’s exhortations to his sister, Dorothy, within the following passage:
“When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy 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” (ll. 138-145).
With Wordsworth’s beautiful image of one’s mind becoming “a mansion for all lovely forms,” he underscores his belief in the power of the human mind to perceive, comprehend, and attribute meaning to the beauty one finds in Nature, as well as its ability to find solace in this power. This concept is central to and defining of his belief in the power of creation through perception.
It is with the passage in which Wordsworth addresses his sister that he brings the reader full circle in the evolution of his own mind and theology. While he begins the poem by reflecting upon the days of his youth and the more simplistic pleasures he took in simply being secluded Nature, he later shifts his perspective to explain the gradual enlightenment that accompanied his intellectual ripening to maturity. After exploring the pleasures bestowed upon him by this maturity and the ability to reflect deeply and internally upon Nature and its profundities, he surprises the reader to a degree by again paying homage to the youthful pleasures of Nature; in his address to Dorothy, he relates to her and to the reader that, through her younger, more untried spirit he is able to see a reflection of himself from five years before, and that he is able to enjoy his old ways yet a little longer through her:
“For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes” (ll. 114-119).
Another notable theme present in many of Wordsworth’s better-known works is his concept of a collective soul, or more specifically, a life to be found in all things. It is known that William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge corresponded quite closely in their writing, so much so that the two sometimes featured the same lines in their individual works. Therefore, it is apparent that the two shared many similar ideals, such as that of Nature in Coleridge’s “Aeolian Harp:”
“And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?”
This pantheistic ideal that all things in Nature, animate or not, contain a life and a deeper significance than readily observable is also evident in Wordsworth’s poem, “Tintern Abbey.” His belief that all Nature is imbued with a life and a consciousness can be found in Wordsworth’s “The Tables Turned,” as well as the majority of his other early to middle poems. It is a wholly Romantic concept and, while not exclusively Wordsworthian, one that that he most fully and effectively explored throughout his writing career, only falling out of focus towards the end of his life (causing many of his compatriots and admirers, notably John Keats, to lament). Regardless of his eventual shift in ideals away from the pantheistic musings of his younger life, Wordsworth remains the point of the vanguard in Natural Romantic poetry, his prose inspiring generations after him to greater heights of emotion than any other poet of his era and reminding mankind of the simple beauties awaiting one willing to feed the mind “in a wise passiveness” and pause a while, to “see into the life of things.” Read more >> Options >>
