For those in the 18th century who read poetry, there existed an idea called The Sublime, which had to deal with the feeling(s) a reader, or often someone in person, got when experiencing the natural world. There were two parts to this philosophy: the Dynamic, and the Mathematical. The Dynamic, for example, was “felt” upon experiencing a natural phenomenon bigger than oneself, such as a hurricane, which then caused simultaneous feelings of awe and fear or doubt. The Mathematical focused on things more infinite, like looking up into the night sky. Upon looking, the same feelings of uneasiness coupled with awe and understanding would occur. One of the questions that arises when thinking about The Sublime is one that William Wordsworth attempted to work with in his poetry: What does nature do for him in terms of his spirituality, and what can we as readers learn from what Wordsworth attempted to discover within himself?
Wordsworth speaks directly of the philosophy behind the idea of The Sublime. In his poem, “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth wrote that, to him, the Sublime was “that blessed mood/In which the burden of the mystery/In which the heavy and the weary weight/Of all this unintelligible world/Is lightened” (lines 38-42) and that because the Sublime exists, “We see into the life of things” (line 50).
I think that Wordsworth in these moments feels as though the Sublime is something to hold onto, not necessarily something to fear, as he characterizes the feeling the he has while looking down upon the ruins of Tintern Abbey as “blessed.” He doesn’t characterize his thoughts in these moments as frightening or any such word, but rather he furthers this initial thought of blessedness by continuing, telling us that the ways he is feeling and how he perceives the world around him to be feeling are much the same. His next line conveys to me that he feels as though whatever it is that is troubling his heart is in a sense holding him down, perhaps even holding him back, because he uses the specific word “burden” and seems aware that a word such as that carries with it a certain tone; a tone which in this case makes me feel as if the world, it’s people, is being held back in our understanding of why what goes on in it is not often fully understood.
However, as he explains several lines later, Wordsworth clearly seems to believe that all these feelings he is having in these moments, these feelings of uncertainty and doubt, are all perhaps necessary. I believe that Wordsworth is attempting to help us feel that in order to truly understand the nature of things, we need to continually ask questions of our feelings, and if we do that, we then, as he says, “see into the life of things.” I thought this particular moment also should be looked at further in the context that in line 50, and within those previous lines, Wordsworth doesn’t say that we will find answers, but rather that we will instead come to a better understanding of how the world works, which leads us to further question this journey upon which Wordsworth leads us; a journey which I argue doesn’t lead us to one particular destination within our minds like religion can, but instead toward something more spiritual in its makeup; something less rigid and formal.
In the beginning of the poem, Wordsworth talks about mountain springs, and their “sweet inland murmur” (line 4). As he does later in the poem, Wordsworth chooses a single word, “murmur,” reminiscent of his choosing “burden” in later lines, to convey to me another specific feeling, even a specific image in this case. Wordsworth seems to personify nature at this particular moment, which leads me to believe that, because I feel like he is attempting to have me imagine as though the mountain spring is “saying” something to me (as a “human” figure of some sort), it is as if perhaps Wordsworth is using the spring as a way to teach something important to me, or show me something. Furthermore, because Wordsworth described the mountain spring as “murmuring,” I am led to believe that I am not necessarily hearing clearly whatever it is that the spring is supposedly saying. Therefore, as a reader I get the feeling that I am perhaps obliged to “listen” more carefully, a metaphoric tool I think Wordsworth is using here to help convey the idea of the journey of questioning ourselves and looking deeper into the meaning of nature and our spirituality that I noticed with later lines.
As he sits overlooking Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth writes that the cliffs near where he is “impress/Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect/The landscape with the quiet of the sky” (lines 7-8). I think that the complex Wordsworth, as he often is, creates here a couple of simultaneous ideas for us as readers to ponder and attempt to make sense of, an important distinction I feel is essential in Wordsworth’s poetry, because as I have argued earlier, Wordsworth seems intent on allowing us to figure out meanings for ourselves, and to gain our own understanding, rather than simply follow suit and only notice the meanings that are along the surface, wherein we would perhaps miss the meanings that are at a deeper level.
First of all, Wordsworh makes a point to say that to him it is the nature surrounding him, and more importantly, a rather immense part of nature-“steep and lofty cliffs” (line 5)-that create within him these “thoughts of more deep seclusion” (line 7). I feel that the point Wordsworth is offering for the take here again speaks toward the philosophy of The Sublime. He chooses to re-reflect on that part of nature that speaks to that part of him which is obviously still searching for something-his Sublime self. Because he tells us later that he believes that that which is sublime has the ability to show or tell us something about ourselves which we cannot perhaps see as clearly, the image of the cliffs seems to fit well in this particular moment, as they function as that thing in nature which The Sublime tells us creates an uneasy feeling-the cliffs are the Dynamic part of the Sublime.
Wordsworth continues to look deeper into this uneasy feeling, and seems to discover something, as he uses the specific word “seclusion.” To me, at this particular moment, the word “seclusion” speaks toward a more negative feeling within Wordsworth, as I feel the same strange way. It’s as if at the moment he chooses to use the word “seclusion” that he perhaps has not yet found the strange comfort within that feeling, and subsequently also has not come to the realization that there may perhaps be something to learn from feeling this way.
Lastly, he seems to again search further through his mind in the final line of this particular riff upon seeing the cliffs. At this point, he makes an attempt to blend his uncertain feelings, those of deep seclusion, with those about which he is more certain (the landscape). He also in this moment makes careful note of “the quiet of the sky” (line 8) in conjunction with the land, as though he has made the connection within himself, and perhaps he sees the more peaceful sky as an implicit connection to realizing that he has discovered that he finally understands his spiritual self a bit more clearly, and the sky is a reflection of that realization.
Tintern Abbey is not the single source we as readers have to examine Wordsworth’s struggle with The Sublime and what it means in his life as a lover of nature. His poem Nutting also has some key moments I felt were necessary to look at concerning my bigger question of Wordsworth’s spirituality. Again, my focus in Nutting has to do with an education, learning, and an understanding, and how these three ideas, while they seem the same, are perhaps serving different purposes for Wordsworth.
In line 35 of Nutting, Wordsworth comments upon an image of stones he wrote of earlier, saying that the stones “Lay round me scattered like a flock of sheep” (line 35). At this point, I felt that this particular imagery was certainly meant to allude to religion of a more formal nature, such as the specific comparisons the Bible makes to its readers being like flocks of sheep that Jesus is tending to. But, I still wonder why Wordsworth so plainly chose this comparison to that well-known allusion? He makes a point to say that the flock is “scattered,” so perhaps he is saying that he is unsure of his feelings, that they are not necessarily contained totally within him, and that they are perhaps further from his grasp than he would like.
He continues to move through the complexity of this moment because he describes to us that the stones seem to exist by themselves, but upon a closer reading, I saw that yes, the stones were mentioned first, but they weren’t simply mentioned and then forgotten about. Instead, Wordsworth says that they were “fleeced with moss” (line 34), and to further complicate things, he also says that he discovered the stones “beneath the shady trees” (line 34).
I think that Wordsworth may have been trying to make sense of the emotions he was feeling in these moments. Here undoubtedly there is a layering of nature’s details upon its larger self (in the case of the moss upon the stones), and sometimes, those details are hidden from us by other larger points (as is the case with the shade trees). Each of these images he could see, but the image he couldn’t see, the sense he couldn’t feel in this moment, was that larger picture, which was beyond the trees.
It’s not exactly clear what Wordsworth goes through in his mind here in Nutting, but he makes a oonnection to earlier discoveries he made within nature at Tintern Abbey, as he refers to the “murmur and the murmuring sound” (line 36), and revisits that murmur, the Sublime, here in this poem, calling it a “sweet mood” (line 37). Therefore, in the moment in line 41 when he makes the choice to take down the hazelnut tree, I argue that he has made the decision to continue trying to understand his relationship with nature, to continue searching for his spirituality. Again, because he admits he feels pain upon tearing down the tree, I think he is then given an opportunity to learn from this experience, to understand himself more clearly. He has been shown that sometimes the Sublime fails in its teaching, but that failure is part of the journey. Wordsworth perhaps was confused when he tore down the tree, but as we know, with the Sublime, a feeling of peace often exists alongside the fearful, and I think that within that peaceful feeling there is an opportunity to pass on understanding. Wordsworth, in the final stanza, seems to take this opportunity, as he tells the woman to take her careful touch (certainly a different touch than that which Wordsworth used with the tree), and go on a journey within herself, with nature as her guide, and discover her own spirit. As I read Wordsworth, I believe that’s what he wants us as readers to do.
