...Question of Nature to Wordsworth and Shelley One of the defining features found in the poems from the age of Romanticism is the prevailing use of nature as a subject for poets to express themselves. Nature is treated as a sacrosanct and inexhaustible source of inspiration. Among the pioneers of these nature-inspired poets are William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Wordsworth, the Poet Laureate who thrust English literature to the age of Romanticism through his poems, spent most of his days living in the countryside and enjoying the splendor of nature. His love for the great outdoors is expressively written in his poems which often concern his fascination on the allure of nature. A few of such works are “Daffodils‘，”I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and “The Solitary Reaper” (Diao 9). Correspondingly, Shelley in the same spirit of appreciation of nature made nature his primary subject. The Finest Lyrical Poet conveyed his purest emotion to the readers through the description of all kinds of natural phenomena. For instance, “To a Skylark”, “Mont Blanc”, “The Moon”, and his masterpiece, “Ode to the West Wind” (Diao 57). Although it was clear that both poets use nature as their subject of fascination, the way nature was treated in their poems displayed two distinct styles of both poets. To Wordsworth, nature was the key to spiritual comfort, a symbol of love and harmony, as described in the poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (Zhao 35). In this poem, Wordsworth compared...
Words: 1414 - Pages: 6
...as it implies, through metaphorically expressing the abstract idea, “ the love of nature” creating the theme for the poem. The imagery of the rainbow creates feelings which help Wordsworth communicate his ideas and feelings. Which in this case are his contemplative ideas of growing up but never changing, like the rainbow never changes. The register of the poem is very simplistic, with short simple lexis which creates a stead pace. Also the gentle soft lexis ‘life’ ‘heart’ ‘sky’ creates a great contrast to the hard harsh word ‘die!’ which is where Wordsworth is at the climax of expressing his emotion towards the thought of not feeling the same way about nature. The majority of the poem is monosyllabic which suggests simplicity but the verbal constructs “was it/is it/be it/could wish” along with the lexis “piety” modifies the simplicity. This suggest the sense of humility and awe Wordsworth feels if the presence of nature and the monosyllables express the grandeur and weight of that feeling. The pattern in the phonology within the poem also suggests awe but soon shows excitement. The beginning of the poem contains long-vowelled syllables such as ‘heart’ and ‘behold’, portraying wonder and bewilderment, where as ‘was it’ ‘is it’ and ‘be it’ creates a rush as enthusiasm grows. The monosyllabic simplistic style of the poem could also represent the idea of childhood as he has had the feelings for nature since he was a child and he doesn’t want those feelings to change. Although the...
Words: 1043 - Pages: 5
...Saloni Mishra Prof. K. Dang English, Research Paper 22nd October 2015 Wordsworth and European Society “Rapine, avarice, expense, this is idolatry: and these we adore: Plain living and high thinking are no more” – William Wordsworth. From his choice of words, Wordsworth expresses nothing but disgust and despair. The idea behind this quote effectively summarizes William Wordsworth’s opinions regarding European society during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and acts as a medium for Wordsworth to voice his beliefs pertaining to the world that surrounded him. Humans, on their journey towards evolution, have been distancing themselves from spiritual pursuits to be lured by the never-ending thirst for wealth. Wordsworth is a poet...
Words: 1575 - Pages: 7
...animistic perception of nature that underscores Romantic poetry. In The Prelude, Wordsworth uses the spots of time concept as an organizing element, structuring both individual passages and the poem as a whole, a pattern that resembles the arc of dramatic tension in classical tragedy. For Wordsworth, spots of time are instances of life experience where one’s common perception of Nature and people is suddenly wrenched into a disturbing new perception that ultimately gives a deeper insight into oneself and the universe. The recurrence of this pattern of expectation, disappointment, and understanding is a structural element of The Prelude that extends from subtle allusion to explicit description. Closely connected to the concept of the spot of time is Wordsworth’s conception of a “border creature” which is a personification of the initiation into a new, often troubling realization. The resonance of a spot of time is such that it cuts through past, present, and future and provides a foundation in memory for poetic expression and also for reading into the mystical aspect of the human psyche or soul. The most overt description of a spot of time that is present in The Prelude is found in Book Eleven in lines 278-89. Before describing the memory directly, Wordsworth states explicitly that the coming passage will be an example of a spot in time. He writes “There are in our existence spots of time/That with distinct pre-eminence retain/A renovating virtue,” (Wordsworth, 208-210). It is important...
Words: 1120 - Pages: 5
...William Wordsworth is the Romantic poet most often described as a "nature" writer; what the word "nature" meant to Wordsworth is, however, a complex issue. On the one hand, Wordsworth was the quintessential poet as naturalist, always paying close attention to details of the physical environment around him (plants, animals, geography, weather). At the same time, Wordsworth was a self-consciously literary artist who described "the mind of man" as the "main haunt and region of [his] song." This tension between objective describer of the natural scene and subjective shaper of sensory experience is partly the result of Wordsworth's view of the mind as "creator and receiver both." Wordsworth consistently describes his own mind as the recipient of external sensations which are then rendered into its own mental creations. Such an alliance of the inner life with the outer world is at the heart of Wordsworth's descriptions of nature. Wordsworth's ideas about memory, the importance of childhood experiences, and the power of the mind to bestow an "auxiliar" light on the objects it beholds all depend on this ability to record experiences carefully at the moment of observation but then to shape those same experiences in the mind over time. We should also recall, however, that he made widespread use of other texts in the production of his Wordsworthian (Keats said "egotistical") sublime: drafts of poems by Coleridge, his sisterDorothy's Journals, the works of Milton, Shakespeare, Thomson...
Words: 1953 - Pages: 8
...is a poem about the relationship between nature and human beings: how nature can affect one’s emotion and behavior with emotion and sound. William Wordsworth uses simple, yet profound, words to convey his message of the connection between nature and the universe. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud tells the emotional life of William Wordsworth as it reflects his alienation, memory, and healing. Alienation is a terrible feeling of isolation which is healed by solitude or reflection. Solitude allows for floods of memories to remind us of our reason for living. Solitude is our saving grace which is essential for reflection, a time in which we discover things about our past which were previously unknown. Being in a state of solitude brings many memories from our past to the stage, allowing us to celebrate the joys of past experiences once more. Memory is an extremely powerful force which defines us and creates our identity, thus giving us a reason to live. Through a process of solitude and reflection the much needed power of healing can be achieved. Healing can be found in reflection on memories and in the beauty of nature. Nature allows the feelings of alienation and isolation to escape our tranquil minds and therefore rejoining us with society. Wordsworth was a poet of nature and his struggles made him develop a deep connection with the world around him. Healing from the sufferings of the world can be found in reflection, memories, and nature. Alienation, a terrible feeling of isolation...
Words: 1175 - Pages: 5
...I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth In the first stanza of the poem, Wordsworth is wandering a lake along when he comes upon a crowd of daffodils. In this first stanza, Wordsworth characterizes the daffodils to be “golden” rather than just yellow. This suggests a sort of glowing, just as angles would. He also gives the flowers human characteristics when he describes them to be “fluttering” and “dancing.” The personification of the daffodils creates a In the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth, techniques such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and personification are used to display Wordsworth’s deep love of nature and the joy it brings to him. This lyric poem recalls the deep feelings and emotions of Wordsworth while he was walking beside a lake and came upon a “never-ending” line of daffodils. The emotions expressed by Wordsworth through these techniques suggest that nature’s beauty uplifts the human spirit. By using metaphors and similes, Wordsworth creates these associations between himself, nature, and spirituality. Wordsworth begins using these techniques in the title and first line of the poem when he says “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1). The poet feels lonely in the sense that he is separated from the rest of the world. We all know that clouds cannot be lonely, which is why it seems that the speaker is projecting his own loneliness onto the clouds. In stanza 2 of the poem, Wordsworth creates a simile between the daffodils...
Words: 730 - Pages: 3
...philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.(Brooklyn College) The early Romantic period begins with the first edition of Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth - co-written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I'm going to specifically refer to three poetic works by Wordsworth when referring to the imagination, nature, and emotion used as components of Romantic Literature: "The Tables Turned", "My Heart Leaps Up", and "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud." Imagination was considered to be one of the highest faculties of the mind during the Romantic era. The Romantics used their imaginations as the ultimate shaping tool for their literature. It was their creative power in that it was dynamic, active, and provided many functions for creating all art. Wordsworth suggested that it is also the faculty that helps humans to constitute reality for we not only perceive the world around us, but also in part create it. The Romantics are also extremely concerned with the healing nature of the imagination in that it can reconcile differences and opposites in the world of appearance. It inextricably enables us to "read" nature as a system of symbols. (Brooklyn College) Wordsworth uses all aspects of the Romantic view of imagination in "The Tables Turned." I am specifically drawn to the healing aspect of the imagination that he is trying to push on the person whom this poem is written for in the first two stanzas...
Words: 1295 - Pages: 6
...Viewing Thoreau through the eyes of Wordsworth There are times when reading an essay that it is confusing to understand what the author is trying to purvey. Later, gaining more knowledge of the subject through other authors, it is easier to see what previous authors that have been read where trying to say. Looking at Henry David Thoreau’s “Solitude” after reading William Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much with Us” brought clarity to many aspects of Thoreau’s essay. Wordsworth’s poem brought clarity to what Thoreau believed some people are missing or closing themselves off to when they sever their ties to the natural world, the bond that Thoreau himself has with nature and why it seems he has found happiness. There are many aspects of nature that many people miss that both Thoreau and Wordsworth see. When Wordsworth speaks of “getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / little we see in nature that is ours” (356), it clarifies a conversation Thoreau has within his essay with one of his “townsmen, who has accumulated what is called a handsome property” (50). The conversation that Thoreau has with this townsman leads the man to asking Thoreau how he could “give up so many of the comforts of life” (50). When Wordsworth’s quote is applied, it helps to illuminate the point that many people are so busy trying to gain material possessions that they can no longer see simple beauty in nature; everything has to have a monetary value to make it worthwhile for many people to pursue...
Words: 1032 - Pages: 5
...Wandered Lonely as a Cloud William Wordsworth uses many literary devices in his poetry; especially in “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. In this work, Wordsworth uses personification, metaphors, and repetition. Wordsworths uses these three literary devices to get the reader interested in what he has to say . Wordsworth even shows how he feels when he uses these in a certain way. By doing these things Wordsworth begins to build a picture of his surroundings in the audience’s mind. “I Wandered as Lonely as a Cloud” becomes more than just a poem it becomes art. The first line portrays a wonderful use of personification “I wandered lonely as a cloud”(line 1) immediately creates a sense of melancholy.Wordsworth compares himself to a cloud, a cloud being lonely and wandering across the sky. He starts his poem bold by immediately making the reader wonder if he might be sad. Being compared to a cloud is like being compared to the air, a whole bundle of nothing. He makes readers understand that he is more of a serious writer “his style tends more toward an Arnoldian “High Seriousness” than toward a playful tour de force of language” (Joplin 1). Personification is used once more in the first stanza he writes of floating over hills and valleys and looking down and seeing “A host of daffodils...fluttering and dancing in the breeze”.(line 4-6 ) It starts to show that daffodils have significance to him it makes the reader wonder “why?”. When Wordsworth talks of the host or crowd of daffodils...
Words: 1024 - Pages: 5
... Abstract Wordsworth was of the view that ‘Poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. When reading this statement, one might think that, for Wordsworth, poetic composition is solely based on the expression of emotions, excluding any reflection about them. But Wordsworth gave equal importance to the element of thought in poetry and says that poems to which any value is attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, has also thought long and deep. Wordsworth believes that artistic process is combination of thought and emotion. This research article will study Wordsworth’s concept of poetic creation Wordsworth believes that artistic process is combination of thought and emotion . During the poetic process, the poet is possessed by powerful passions but he undergoes a period of emotions reflected in tranquility. During this process the influxes of feelings are modified and directed by thoughts. The direction of thought adds a depth of meaning and truth to poetry. For Wordsworth poetry is a method of interpreting the reality or the meaning of life. Introduction Generally the critics criticize the Romantics for being too emotional. They quote Wordsworth’s famous statement, ‘Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ (Wordsworth,1989:57)1 as evidence but overlook Wordsworth’s entire concept of creative process of which emotions are a part. Wordsworth makes this statement ...
Words: 2924 - Pages: 12
...I behold / A rainbow in the sky" (1-2). Wordsworth is overjoyed at nature, a common theme in all of his work, but what's more is that he states: "So was it when my life began; / So it is now I am a man; / So be it when I shall grow old, / Or let me die!" (3-6). As a child, ("when my life began") Wordsworth felt the same way about rainbows and nature as he does now, completely awestruck and in reverence. Moreover, Wordsworth hopes his adoration of nature will continue as he matures, even to his death bed. If not, Wordsworth would rather die prematurely. The last three lines contain one of Wordsworth's most famous phrases: "The Child is father of the Man; / And I could wish my days to be / Bound each to each by natural piety" (7-10). Wordsworth is happy enough to have kept his appreciation of nature and only wishes it will last him forever, in "natural piety." With the line: "The Child is father of the Man", Wordsworth evokes a number of ideas. To start, Wordsworth details how the child is father simply through greatness. The child falls in love with nature as soon as it is born. This admiration is both an inherent trait as well as something to be gained when the child first looks at the world in its majesty. Thus, in one sense, the child is father to the man because it has an understanding of nature's pure energy, while men can lose this awareness all too easily (as they lose their childlike innocence). Men who do not appreciate nature therefore are in such a regressed state...
Words: 438 - Pages: 2
...The Concept of Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost : A Comparative Study Chapter One Introduction 1. Background Poets have long been inspired to tune their lyrics to the variations in landscape, the changes in season, and the natural phenomena around them. The Greek poet Theocritus began writing idylls in the third century B.C.E. to glorify and honor the simplicity of rural life--creating such well known characters as Lycidas, who has inspired dozens of poems as the archetypal shepherd, including the famous poem "Lycidas" by John Milton. An idyll was originally a short, peaceful pastoral lyric, but has come to include poems of epic adventure set in an idealized past, including Lord Alfred Tennyson's take on Arthurian legend, The Idylls of the King. The Biblical Song of Songs is also considered an idyll, as it tells its story of love and passion by continuously evoking imagery from the natural world. The more familiar form of surviving pastoral poetry that has retained its integrity is the eclogue, a poem attuned to the natural world and seasons, placed in a pleasant, serene, and rural place, and in which shepherds often converse. The first eclogue was written by Virgil in 37 B.C.E. The eclogue also flourished in the Italian Renaissance, its most notable authors being Dante and Petrarch. It became something of a requirement for young poets, a form they had to master before embarking upon great original work. Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Edmund Spenser’s...
Words: 6645 - Pages: 27
...these experiences connection with nature, embrace of pride, and a rejection of social standards. This essay will focus on connections with nature and the authors of the times who emphasized glory, beauty, and power of the natural world. In the poets of this era there is a development in the works, the celebration of nature for its own sake in doing so the authors have broken with their predecessors. Although writers, such as Dante or Chaucer would have viewed nature as part of God’s creation and a reflection of divine power in the world in regard to its beauty and a reflection of evil in the world in regard to its dangers. As man moves into the modern romantic age the natural world of Europe has changed dangerous border regions and highways have been put under control, making travel safer and easier than ever before leading to new recreational sports such as hiking. Urban cities have grown larger, and that leads many people to desire a return to nature in all its simplicity, it is nostalgia for an old Europe. The perfect example of an author who mixed a desire for simplicity with nostalgia for the past is Williams Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey both these impulses can be seen when he writes, “Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills; when like a roe I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams” (as cited in the Longman Anthology of World Literature). Wordsworth take on nature may be naive and his views on...
Words: 1066 - Pages: 5
...One: Theme Analysis of “The world is too much with us” by William Wordsworth In the poem “The world is too much with us” written by William Wordsworth, the speaker is almost condemning the human race as a whole for not appreciating the everlasting beauty of the nature around us. There was many themes in this poem but the one that was most prominent was the relationship between man and nature. The reader is given the feeling of guilt and I believe he was trying to open eyes of those that could not see this beauty. Wordsworth’s wordplay and metaphors in his poem reveals the importance of nature and the lack of appreciation we give it. The speaker in the poem wastes little time to begin to show his frustration with those that “lay waste our powers” (2). We are “Getting and spending” too much and are so caught up with consumerism that we are blind to the world around us (2). We spending all of our time and money on material things and are so selfish to not enjoy what beauty nature can give us for free. Wordsworth’s wordplay shows the faults that we possess and is hoping to change our ways. Even though this poem was written more than 200 years ago, Wordsworth still presents an issue that can relate to today. The speaker continues his rant and expresses his frustration even further when stating, “Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!” (3-4). People have taken nature for granted and it is not even a part of their daily lives anymore...
Words: 548 - Pages: 3
