Wordsworth as a Poet of Nature || Wordsworth as a Romantic Poet || Romanticism in English Literature

 

William Wordsworth as a Poet of Nature

William Wordsworth as a Romantic Poet

 

INTRODUCTION:

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) was the founder-leader of the movement of Romanticism along with S. T. Coleridge. Influenced by French Revolution, he became a great devotee and worshipper of nature, of rural life and of simplicity of life. His love of Nature was probably truer, and tender, than that of any other English poet in English literature. Just as Alexander Pope was the poet of the town and artificial life during the 18^th century, Wordsworth was the poet of nature and rural life during the 19^th century.

 

MAJOR POETICAL WORKS OF WORDSWORTH:

·      As a university student, Wordsworth composed several poems under the influence of Alexander Pope. ‘An Evening Walk’ and ‘Descriptive Sketches’ published in 1793 were worth noticing.

·      ‘Lyrical Ballad’ published in 1798 was a trumpet that heralded a new era of Romanticism. It consisted of twenty three poems of which nineteen were written by Wordsworth.

·      He started writing ‘The Prelude’ in 1799 and was completed in 1805. It was posthumously published in 1850. It is an autobiographical poem consisting of fourteen books.

·      ‘The Excursion’ runs in nine books and was published in 1814.

Among all these books of poems several of his poems have become immortal in English literature. They are as under.

1.   The Solitary Reaper

2.   Tintern Abbey

3.   Daffodils

4.   Ode on the Intimations of Immortality

5.   Ode on Duty

6.   The Sparrow’s Nest

7.   To the Cuckoo

Three points in his creed of Nature may be noted:

 (a)  Wordsworth took Nature as a living personality. He believed that there is a divine spirit pervading all the objects of Nature. This belief in a divine spirit is well expressed in ‘Tintern Abbey’ and in several passages in Book II of ‘The Prelude’.

 (b)  He believed that the company of Nature gives joy to the human heart and he looked upon Nature as exercising a healing influence on sorrow-stricken hearts.

 (c)  Above all, Wordsworth emphasized the moral influence of Nature. He spiritualized Nature and regarded her as a great moral teacher, as the best mother, guardian and nurse of man.

  

THREE STAGES IN WORDSWORTH’S TREATMENT OF NATURE:

Wordsworth popularly known as the poet of nature was not such a devotee of nature from his childhood days. He became a worshipper of nature slowly and gradually all through his life. While examining the career of Wordsworth as a poet, we come across three clear stages of his development as a lover and worshipper of nature. He is attitude towards nature may be classified under three heads:

 

1) FIRST STAGE: THE PERIOD OF THE BLOOD:

Wordsworth spent his youth in the company of nature's beautiful surroundings. In this first stage, his love for nature was without any mystical or spiritual touch. He loved nature with a passion which was all physical without any touch of intellectual or philosophical association. He writes:

"In youth from rock to rock i went

From hill to hill in discontent

Of pleasure high and turbulent

Most pleased when most uneasy."

 

2) SECOND STAGE: THE PERIOD OF SENSES:

In his middle age Wordsworth developed some sweet sensations with nature he was thrilled and delighted by the sights and sounds of nature. Now, he had appetite furniture and a strong attachment and love for nature. He writes in 'Tintern Abbey':

 

"the tall rock

The mountain and the deep gloomy woods

Their colour and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love."

 

THIRD STAGE: THE PERIOD OF SPIRITUALITY:

It was during this period that Wordsworth starts finding a soul and a living spirit in all objects of nature.  Is sensuous attachment with nature now takes the form of a spiritual and mystical apprehension. Wordsworth now feels the presence of god in all objects of nature. Now he starts believing that there is a soul and living principle in all the forms and shapes of nature. He writes:

 

"to every natural form, rock, fruit or flower

Even the loose stones that cover the high way

I gave a moral life: I saw them feel."

 

In the Immortality Ode he tells us that as a boy his love for Nature was a thoughtless passion but that when he grew up, the ob­jects of Nature took a sober coloring from his eyes and gave rise to profound thoughts in his mind because he had witnessed the suffer­ings of humanity:

 

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

 

 

WORDSWORTH AS A DIDACTIC POET:

Wordsworth had rightly said once:

“Ever great poet is a teacher; I wish either to be considered as a teacher, or as nothing.”

Wordsworth was not like those poets whose main object in writing poetry was simply to please and delight the lower feelings of the reader. He was a poet with a heart of a philosopher who believed that it was his prime responsibility to teach the mankind as a poet. In a letter to Lad Beaumont, he mentioned that the purpose of poetry was “to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight b making the happy happier, to teach the oung and the gracious of ever age.”

 

NATURE AS A GREAT TACHER:

The first thing that Wordsworth teaches us is the adoration or worship of nature. It is his great message that nature can be the teacher of humanity and nature can fill our heart with pleasure. He believed that we can learn more of man and of moral evil and good from Nature than from all the philosophies. He writes:

“One impulse from a vernal wood

Ma teach you more of man

Of moral evil and of good

Than all the sages can.”

 

In his eyes, “Nature is a teacher whose wisdom we can learn, and without which any human life is vain and incomplete.” He believed in the education of man by Nature.

 

WORDSWORTH’S MYSTICISM:

Wordsworth’s mysticism was something new during the 19^th century which was missing among the neoclassical poets of the 18^th century. Wordsworth saw the presence of the Divine spirit in every flower, bud, insect and stone. He had sublime experience in all elements of nature. Mark his words:

 

“I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime.”

 

CONCLUSION:

At the end, we may say that Wordsworth’s attitude to nature was much different from that of the other great poets of Nature. He did not prefer the wild and stormy aspects of nature like Byron nor did he prefer the purely sensuousness in nature like Keats. Wordsworth was a priest of nature who worshipped nature in all her forms and felt the presence of God in nature. For him, nature was a great teacher for the mankind.

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