Poet as Prophet
When I spoke last, I ended with the image of Wordsworth as a monk or priest-like figure zealously converting Dorothy and, by extension, the reader into a position within his vision of the world. But even more than priest, Wordsworth often depicts the romantic poet as prophet. This depiction is demonstrated more clearly in "The Prospectus to the Recluse" than in "Tintern Abbey." In the 1814 version of the "Prospectus" he writes:
Paradise, and groves
Elysian, Fortunate Fields -- like those of old
Sought in the Atlantic Main -- why should they be
A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was?
For the discerning intellect of Man,
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple produce of the common day. (47-55)
Similar to his vision in "Tintern" where perceptions are both half created by the imagination and half perceived by the senses, here Wordsworth declares that for those who recognize its power, the human mind, or imagination, can meld with nature, can heal the split between nature and mankind, the sublime and the beautiful, to re-create an edenic heaven on Earth.
Wordsworth then goes on to assert:
-- I, long before the blissful hour arrives,
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse
Of this great consummation -- and by words
Which speak of nothing more than what we are,
Would arouse the sensual from their sleep
Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain
To noble raptures (56 - 62)
Wordsworth, as the romantic poet-prophet, has a preview of ...
... middle of paper ...
...e romantic era ends with the sublimated subject removed from any experience outside that reflected by the romantic centre -- an ironically alienating end to a movement that began in an attempt to unite with the universe.
Bibliography
Abrams, M.H, General Ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 4th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton and Company, 1979.
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Lenin and Philosophy and other essays. Translated from the French by Ben Brewster. London: New Left Books, 1971. 121-173.
Wordsworth, William. "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey." Abrams, Gen. Ed. 155-158.
---. Preface to Lyrical Ballads." Abrams, Gen. Ed. 160-175.
---. "Prospectus to The Recluse." Abrams, Gen. Ed. 227-230.
---. The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind. Abrams, Gen. Ed. 257-313.
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York; W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Abrams, M.H., et al. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. 2 Vols. New York: Norton, 1993.
*Abrams, M.H., ed., et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Sixth Edition. Vol.I. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.
In “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” we find the purest expression of Wordsworth’s fascination with friendship.
Wordsworth visualized scenes while he was away, a way for him to feel a spiritual connection until he was able to return. Wordsworth states, “As a landscape to a blind man’s eye: But opt, in lonely rooms, and mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them” (Wordsworth 25-27). Wordsworth gives a sense of conformity and loneliness while being in the towns and cities. That he had his memories of when he was younger to keep him hopeful to return to nature and all the memories he had grasped the memories of. As the society today focuses merely on what they can profit from cities, Wordsworth understood the true meaning of memories. Memories today are mostly captured through social media, and in return being taken for granted. Wordsworth had nostalgic bliss as he replayed his memories, and knowing that in the future he could look back on that day and have the same feeling again. Social media today is destroying our memories and what we can relive in our minds as memories. We can know that when things are posted within social media it will get likes and be shared. However, there are not many people in society today that will remember the true essence of what nature has given to
Wordsworth begins the journey into "Tintern Abbey" by taking the reader from the height of a mountain stream down into the valley where the poet sits under a sycamore... ... middle of paper ... ... together even after his death. Over two hundred years after it was written, "Tintern Abbey" continues to uphold the essence of William Wordsworth's beliefs and continues to touch the emotions of its readers. Even though, here in the twenty-first century, the term real-world has a connotation of life in the fast-lane, the real world - the natural world - of Wordsworth's time still holds a place of eminence both in literature and in the hearts of its readers.
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.
Abrams, M. H., et al., The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 1986.
Abrams, M. & Greenblatt, S. 2000. The Norton Anthology of English Literature 7th ed. Vol. 2. London: Norton.
Primarily in Lines composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey the mortality of creativeness and imagination is expressed by Wordsworth. This is a poem about the beauty of an old cathedral called Tintern Abbey. He hasn’t been there in five years and he brought his sister along. Even though imagination isn’t immortal, there is a way to reclaim it, “That time is past, / and all its aching joys are ...
William Wordsworth has respect and has great admiration for nature. This is quite evident in all three of his poems; the Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey and Michael in that, his philosophy on the divinity, immortality and innocence of humans are elucidated in his connection with nature. For Wordsworth, himself, nature has a spirit, a soul of its own, and to know is to experience nature with all of your senses. In all three of his poems there are many references to seeing, hearing and feeling his surroundings. He speaks of hills, the woods, the rivers and streams, and the fields. Wordsworth comprehends, in each of us, that there is a natural resemblance to ourselves and the background of nature.
In "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey," William Wordsworth explains the impact of Nature from Tintern Abbey in his every day life. "Tintern Abbey" shows the great importance of nature to Wordsworth in his writings, love for life, and religion. The memories he has of Tintern Abbey make even the darkest days full of light.
Durrant, Geoffrey. Wordsworth and the Great System, A Study of Wordsworth’s Poetic Universe. Cambridge: University Printing House, 1970.
His poem recognizes the ordinary and turns it into a spectacular recollection, whose ordinary characteristics are his principal models for Nature. As Geoffrey H. Hartman notes in his “Wordsworth’s poetry 1787-1814”, “Anything in nature stirs [Wordsworth] and renews in turn his sense of nature” (Hartman 29). “The Poetry of William Wordsworth” recalls a quote from the Prelude to Wordsworth’s 1802 edition of Lyrical ballads where they said “[he] believed his fellow poets should "choose incidents and situations from common life and to relate or describe them.in a selection of language really used by men” (Poetry). In the shallowest sense, Wordsworth is using his view of the Tintern Abbey as a platform or recollection, however, this ordinary act of recollection stirs within him a deeper understanding.
It is obvious that through this perception Wordsworth is generally speaking of past experiences. Wordsworth believed that nature played a key role in spiritual understanding and stressed the role of memory in capturing the experiences of childhood.