Relation between man and nature in Wordsworth’s poetry

# 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.  

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