# Relation
between man and nature in Wordsworth’s poetry
# Treatment
of nature in Wordsworth’s poetry
# Wordsworth
as a poet of nature
Nature has a dominant role in Wordsworth’s
poetry. So, he is called the poet of nature. He finds out as well as
establishes in his poems a cordial, passionate, impressive, emotional,
intellectual, spiritual and inseparable relationship between nature and human
life. According to him, all created things are parts of a unified whole.
Actually, the love of nature leads Wordsworth to the love of man which is
noticeable in many of his poems.
In ‘Tintern
Abbey’, (composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of
the Wye during a tour), through his personal experience, Wordsworth expresses
his philosophy of nature and some
relationships between man and nature.
Wordsworth
believes in the Pantheistic view
–God is all, and all is God. He feels the existence of a sublime divine spirit
pervading all objects of nature – in the setting sun, the round ocean, the
living air, the blue sky, the mind of man etc. He says-
“A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all
thoughts
And rolls through all things.”
Thus, nature including man is related to
God.
According to
Wordsworth, nature plays the role of
giving joy to human heart, of purifying human mind and of a healing influence
on sorrow stricken hearts. Wordsworth takes pleasure in contract with nature
and purifies his mind, ‘in lonely rooms,
and mid the din of towns and cities,’ with the memory of nature. Moreover,
nature has not become ‘a landscape to a
blind man’s eye’ to him. It indicates that the eyes of the city people are
blind because they cannot get anything from nature.
Wordsworth
mentions the moral influence of Nature
on human being; there is a spiritual intercourse between man and nature. He
regards nature as –
“The anchor of my purest thought, the nurse
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”
Wordsworth advises his sister, Dorothy,
to put herself under the influence of nature, and assures her that
“Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.”
Moreover, Wordsworth
shows three stages of human soul in
relation with nature. In the first stage Wordsworth’s love for nature was only
of physical passion and animal pleasure. In the second stage, he loved only the
sensuous and outward beauty but the philosophy of nature. But in the third
stage, he can now understand the hidden meaning of nature and can hear ‘the still, sad music of humanity.’ That
is, nature not only attracts man with her beauty but also makes him conscious
of the fact that there is something wrong in mankind which is responsible for
all suffering.
There is an ode,
“Intimations of Immortality,” showing Wordsworth’s philosophy of preexistence of soul; the soul in relation with
nature in childhood and gradually in mature ages:
Wordsworth’s philosophical implication in this poem
is that our sousl come from Heaven or God; After traveling through nature and being
mature they go back to God again.
Wordsworth
regards childhood as the best time of
human life which is very much close to nature as well as to God. He
addresses the child ‘best Philosopher,’
‘Mighty Prophet’ and ‘Seer blest.’
Because the child unconsciously knows those deep truths of life and nature
which learned philosophers among men are trying find out ‘in darkness lost, the darkness of the grave.’ The cause of the
child’s knowing these well is that he has been a ‘Foster- child’ of nature, and has a direct vision of the divine
glory. [Criticism of the views of childhood]
According to
Wordsworth, when the child grows up, he gradually departs from nature as well as God. But, Wordsworth is not worried
about it. Because, there is a possibility of change by nature: he is optimistic
that the immortal memories of his childhood would convert him to nature. Moreover, being grown up, he has been sober,
mature and philosophical, instead of his having the rapturous vision of
childhood. He can perceive something nobler and wiser even in the humble and
common objects of nature. He says –
“To me the meanest flower that blows can
give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears”
So, the implicit suggestion for us is
that the suffering humanity can solve his problems by returning to nature.
Romanticism is
actually a movement for common people.
It adopts the language of common class for literature. Wordsworth influenced by
the democratic impulse of the French Revolution, eagerly greets the revolution
as a poet of humanity he writes a poem namely ‘French Revolution’ expecting “the world/ of all of us, - the place where
in the end/ we find our happiness.’’
Wordsworth connects human life with nature also in
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” or “Daffodils’’. Here Daffodils represent the
impermanence of human life. Once the poet experienced a ‘jocund company’ with
numerous daffodils. But that pleasant moment does not accompany him all time.
Wordsworth visualizes them only in his ‘vacant
or pensive mode.’ He says-
“For oft when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils’’
Robert Herrick also compares the
impermanence of human life with daffodils in his ‘To Daffodils’ –
“We have short time to stay, as you
We have as short a spring.’’
Therefore we see
that Wordsworth is ‘a worshipper of Nature,’ a devotee of nature. He feels no
problem in nature, while Shakespeare in his ‘Under the Green Wood Tree’ shows
some problem of nature. He ignores the negative aspects of nature which defers
from our experience, while Shelley considers nature to be both ‘destroyer and
preserver.’ He regards nature as a preacher, teacher, father and a healing
power, while Byron in his ‘Don Juan’ shows that Juan cannot get rid of his
mental problems even after going close contact with nature. Anyway, his love of
nature leads him to hear the ‘still, sad
music of humanity’ and to welcome the beginning of the French Revolution.
So evaluating his treatment of nature, he can be said as the poet of nature as
well as the poet of humanity.
William Wordsworth as a Romantic Poet
Wordsworth’s Theory of Poetry : The Poet and Poetic Process
Wordsworth as a poet of nature
Role of memory and childhood in Wordsworth's poetry
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William Wordsworth as a Romantic Poet
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