In any form of art, some of the most valuable skills to posses are a keen eye to detail and a great sense of accurate depiction. Whether it is a poem or a painting, throughout (art) history audiences have witnessed various talents that show strength in description and depiction, either through words on paper, or a brush on canvas. Two pioneers of such imagery, although showing diverse types of projects, are William Wordsworth and John Constable. Wordsworth, a famous poet known for many popular poems during the romanticism era, shows the audience his beautifully descriptive wordplay no purer than that in his conversation-style poem known as “Tintern Abbey”. While although an inferior poet to Wordsworth, John Constable was a talented English romantic painter, best known for his detailed paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home. Although Wordsworth and Constable contrast in numerous ways, both share a bond with nature and a great love for depicting it.
William Wordsworth, a prized English romantic poet, was known for various talents and works ranging from poems to his own theatrical plays. While all of Wordsworth’s art showed his range of talents, one blank verse poem referred to as “Tintern Abbey” showed his way of using beautiful wordplay and imagery to depict a nature scene that makes the audience feel as if they have lived in this very place their whole life. Wordsworth begins the poem informing the audience he has not seen this said place for five years, and is beginning to feel the serenity that this place has brought him in the past. He takes the audience through the “quiet of the sky” and paints a mental picture of clumped orchids “with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue”. He writes about ...
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...orld around them. Outside of the skyscrapers and fast cars, lies a simplistic, natural world; the same, although transformed, beautiful world that caused John Constable and William Wordsworth to pursue its nature further. Even though the differences shown between Constable and Wordsworth’s works, the blatant similarities is the love for the raw natural world and the importance of nature in one’s life. In both works, Constable and Wordsworth indirectly ask the audience to pursue a similar appreciation and further understanding of the beautiful world people often take for granted.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bailey, Anthony. John Constable: A Kingdom of his Own. 2nd. London: 2007. Print.
Parkinson, Ronald. John Constable: The Man and His Art. London: V & A, 1998. 9. Print.
Thornes, John E. John Constable's Skies. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 1999. 51-56. Print.
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” (John Muir). Both John Muir and William Wordsworth demonstrate this through their use of language as they describe nature scenes. John Muir studies nature and in his essay about locating the Calypso Borealis he uses scientific descriptions to grab his reader’s attention and to portray his excitement at finding the rare flower. William Wordsworth on the other hand shows his appreciation for the beauty of nature and its effect on a person’s emotions in the vivid visual descriptions that he gives of the daffodils in his poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud.’ Wordsworth with his appreciation of beauty and Muir through scientific descriptions provide an indication of the influence that nature has had on them as they capture their reader’s attention both emotionally and visually through their personal and unique use of tone, diction, syntax and vocabulary.
In the poem Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth nature’s is portrayed to its readers. The speaker says,
Percy Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” (1816) and William Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” (1805), both tell the story of the individuals meetings with an impressively, beautiful mountain landscape. In Mont Blanc, Shelley describes the icy glacial capped peaks of the Swiss Alp’s, whereas in The Prelude, Wordsworth describes his meetings with nature and his interactions with the landscape. Both these poems focus on the beauty of the landscape, and thrive off their own personal experiences which they have had with nature. These poems however have a strong representation of the sublime and the effects this theory has on them personally and sensually. Beauty is also present in these poems; however there is a difference as beauty indulges in the aesthetic experience of equilibrium and synchronization, whereas the sublime focuses on the senses such as your mind and imagination. Leighton (1984) believes you can see the difference as, ‘the picturesque world would be exemplified by variety, the beautiful by smoothness and the sublime by magnitude’, showing just how differentiated they are. Both these poems both have different meanings and morals, and both authors have different beliefs
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 ...
Henry David Thoreau implies that simplicity and nature are valuable to a person’s happiness in “Why I Went to the Woods”. An overall theme used in his work was the connection to one’s spiritual self. Thoreau believed that by being secluded in nature and away from society would allow one to connect with their inner self. Wordsworth and Thoreau imply the same idea that the simple pleasures in life are easily overlooked or ignored. Seeing the true beauty of nature allows oneself to rejuvenate their mentality and desires. When one allows, they can become closer to their spiritual selves. One of William Wordsworth’s popular pieces, “Tintern Abbey”, discusses the beauty and tranquility of nature. Wordsworth believed that when people
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.
In “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” William Wordsworth accomplishes his ideal of nature by using personification, alliteration, and simile within his poem to convey to the reader how nature’s beauty uplifts his spirits and takes him away from his boring daily routine. Wordsworth relates himself in solidarity to that of a cloud wandering alone, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (line 1). Comparing the cloud and himself to that of a lonely human in low spirits of isolation, simultaneously the author compares the daffodils he comes across as he “floats on high o’er vales and hills” (line 2) to that of a crowd of people dancing (lines 3-6 and again in 12). Watching and admiring the dancing daffodils as he floats on by relating them to various beauties of
In conclusion, there are clear similarities between the painter Constable and poet Wordsworth. These artists mimicked one another in their works and influenced the other to remain consistent to the depictions of nature and landscapes. In telling a story of feelings and emotions the artists capture the audiences’ bodies and minds, instilling a sense of dreaminess. The paintings by Constable, Barges on the stour: Dedham Church in the distance, 1812 and Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, 1831 perfectly depict this idea of the dreamy, whimsical feeling represented in nature. Wordsworth’s poem, Tintern Abbey similarly highlights these airy, dreamy feelings that nature exhibits. These works perfectly represent the state of mind of John Constable and Williams Wordsworth and in comparing them one can duly note their similarities.
Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey'; is the poetry of consciousness and becoming aware of this state, and the understanding of where one fits into the scheme of everything within the world. Wordsworth looked into life as an active participant ready to grasp all knowledge and understanding that was available to him. So although he missed the abbey and lost some of his youth, he had gained ten-fold by being able to interpret his feelings through his own perception and knowledge. He had found a way to console himself, he had found a basis for hope in 'Tintern Abbey';. Wordsworth had become more thoughtful and saw the abbey in a different way than in his youth. He had learned how to appreciate things and wanted to instill those values in his sister/';Dear Friend';. Wordsworth had found the true comfort in nature and had incorporated that respect for nature in his life.
When William Wordsworth writes, he writes about Earth and nature. Nature is the most important thing to him; it is something to preserve and not change or damage. Writing about nature and its beauty reflects the writing era of Romanticism. The writers in that era value nature very much. Society is always flawed, and will always have something to change and fix. Nature is perfect though, and things around it need to change, to not damage it. In Wordsworth’s poems, “The World Is Too Much with Us” and “London, 1802” he writes as though he feels that the human race is corrupting the Earth and its natural beauty, and that the people need to become part of the Earth, not just dwell upon it.
Both Shelley, in "Ode to the West Wind," and Wordsworth, in "Intimations of Immortality," are very similar in their use of nature to describe the life and death of the human spirit. As they both describe nature these two poets use the comparison of how the Earth and all its life is the same as our own human life. I feel that Shelley uses the seasons as a way of portraying the human life during reincarnation. Wordsworth seems to concentrate more on the stages that a person goes through during life. Shelley compares himself to such things as clouds, leaves, and waves. He is writing the poem as if he were an object of the earth, and what it is like to once live and then die only to be reborn. On the other hand, Wordsworth takes images like meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being what ever a person needs to move on, and with out those objects can't have life. Wordsworth does not compare himself to these things like Shelley, but instead uses them as an example of how he feels about the stages of living. Starting from an infant to a young boy into a man, a man who knows death is coming and can do nothing about it because it's part of life.
Wordsworths “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” is his ideas on how he is going to be writing his poetry. In the “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” The Principal Object of the Poems. Humble and Rustic Life (Wordsworth 434) he discusses how in his poems he wants to create a situation in common life and have all different kinds of people relate them to a personal experience they once had in a common language,“ To throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mid in an unsual way; and ,further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing them truly through not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.” by saying this in this stanza one can directly relate it to how he then writes “Tintern Abbey”. In “Tintern Abbey” Wordsworth uses this imagination to make things like walking through a abbey with your sister can become a magical incident that sends...
Tintern Abbey is just an old ruin (William). However, throughout Wordsworth’s poetry Tintern Abbey becomes something slightly more than a ruin. His poem recognizes the ordinary and turns it into a spectacular recollection, whose ordinary characteristics are his principal models for Nature. As Geoffryy H. Hartman notes in his “Wordsworth’s poetry 1787-1814”, “Anything in nature stirs [Wordsworth] and renews in turn his sense for 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. In his elaboration in “Tintern Abbey”, he says “For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, s...
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.
Wordsworth wrote about nostalgia in place he loved, but unlike Dylan who wrote about nostalgia for the childhood. In “Lines Composed a Few Miles above the Tintern Abbey” (1798), which also know as Tintern Abbey”, Wordsworth reflects the feeling that he feels visiting the same place. In “Fern Hill” (1945), Thomas’s looks back to his childhood, and how he misses the naïve and carefree child. Wordsworth, who known as the Romantic poet, expresses his emotion clearly in the first visits the Wye River above Tintern Abbey in early ages, and when he revisits it again. Comparing the two sensations is the structure of the “Tintern Abbey.” Wordsworth remembers the feeling from the last visit where there was passion and enjoyment of the nature around “In hours of weariness, sensations sweet”, and how he changes since then “learned, to look on nature, not as in the hour”. On the other hand, Thomas recalls himself as child in Fern Hill, where he was happy, carefree, selfish, and no worrying about the