Individuality and Transcendence in Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Joyce
The development of the scientific method started a revolution in thought
that changed how people viewed the world. Scientists tested theories by
creating experiments and carefully observing the results. The importance
of scientific discoveries raised questions about the role of the observer.
According to Ralph Koster, the importance of observation in science led to
the rise of the individual and an awareness of subjectivity. Society
realized that the individual could determine the outcome of an experiment
and that people could interpret events differently depending on prior
experience.
In addition to changing the role of the individual, science also changed
people's views on religion. By contemplating experimental results,
scientists created rules for how the universe operated. Nature became a
knowable force that scientists described in a logical collection of laws.
Thus, science took away much of the world's mystery and changed how people
viewed God. If the universe operated by rules, it wasn't necessary for God
to be involved every moment. God became a clockmaker who started the
universe and sat back to let it run.
The rise of individuality and changing views on religion resulted in
insecurity and isolation. Before the Romantic era, achieving oneness was
often thought of as an act of grace given in mysterious moments. God was
ineffable, but just. Because science encouraged the clockmaker view of ...
... middle of paper ...
...nity. He embraces it all in a unique
vision. Amazingly, in this total embrace, he recovers mystery lost in
modern civilization.
Works Cited
Joyce, James. "The Dead." The Norton Anthology English Literature. Ed.
M.H. Abrams. New York: WW Norton, 2000. 2240-68.
Koster, Ralph. "Seeking the Beyond" 29 March 3003.
http://www.legendmud.org/Ralph/papers/transcendence.html
Wordsworth, William. "Preface to Lyrical Ballads." The Norton Anthology
English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: WW Norton, 2000. 238-50
Wordsworth, William. "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey." The
Norton Anthology English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: WW Norton,
2000. 235-237.
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Life is full of change, it is the natural order of things, without change life would be at a standstill, without cause, just an empty world. Change is how new ideas arise, how things become better or worse, without it we wouldn’t be here on this earth. In opposition, there is also a world of changelessness, it is the only thing that remains constant in our lives, there is always change and that gives us the allusion of changelessness. Things are moving so fast that they seem to be standing still as a car flying down the road at sixty-five miles an hour, without the background we wouldn’t be able to tell of the movement. Each of these famous poems by Yeats express this view of the world in their own different stories His first being, “When You Are Old” a poem to a lost lover, in his past that he want to speak to her future person. Next there is the peace searching for him in, “Lake Isle Innis free” where he goes to escape the cities constant change, and his poem written at the same place, “The Swans at Lake Coole” as he watches the seemingly eternity living swans live forever. He finishes with the greatness of, “The Second Coming” where he strictly talks about what the human nature is losing, religion as in “Sailing to Byzantium” whereas the relation of changelessness would be the greatest ending to a life, instead of living that life over again. William Butler Yeats, has a fantastic way of expressing the opposition of the two mediums in life, Change and Changelessness.
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