Wordsworths Use Of Nature Essays - British Poetry,

Wordsworth's Use Of Nature William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, West Cumberland, located in the northern part of England's Lake District. This area of England is famous for its splendid array of natural landscape. After losing his mother when he was just eight years old, Wordsworth was sent to live with Ann Tyson, who allowed Wordsworth to freely roam the beautiful countryside near Esthwaite Lake. The freedom Ann Tyson gave young Wordsworth allowed him to experience nature, and led him to a deep affinity and love for it. As critic Matthew Arnold says in his essay on Wordsworth, ?It is Wordsworth's relationship with nature that regards him as one of the most important poets of the Romantic period, allowing him to create great poetry because of the extraordinary power in which he feels joy is offered in nature?and because of the power in which he shows us this joy and renders it? (Encarta Encyclopedia online criticism). In 1798, the fist edition of Lyrical Ballads was published. Although the work incorporates some of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poetry, the majority of the pomes belong to Wordsworth. With the publication of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth was able to publicly proclaim his belief of the importance of nature. The following paragraphs discuss some of Wordsworth's poems, as found in the 1802 edition of Lyrical Ballads, and how they reflect Wordsworth's use of nature. The first poem I will discuss is Wordsworth's ?Ode: Intimations of Immortality.? The theme of the poem deals with childhood memories of nature incorporating into the adult mind. The poem focuses on Wordsworth's belief that life on earth is a faint silhouette of an untainted existence recollected in childhood, yet it is forgotten through Rierson 2 the process of becoming an adult. In the first stanza, the speaker reflectively says there was a time when all of nature seemed dreamlike, yet that time has past. In the second stanza, the speaker says he still sees the rainbow, and the rose is still lovely. He says the moon looks across the sky with pleasure, and the ?sunshine is a glorious birth? (1.16). In the third stanza, while listening to birds sing and watching lambs play, the speaker is wounded with a painful thought, but the sound of a nearby waterfall and the music of the gusting wind brings back his strength. He announces his sadness will no longer ruin his experience. In the fourth stanza, the speaker announces to nature that his heart takes part in the blissful celebration surrounding him, and he is wrong to feel sullen on such a sweet May morning. However, a field in the distance and a pansy at his feet makes him think of something that is gone? (4.53). He asks what has happened to the visionary gleam,? and wonders, ?W here is it now, the glory and the dream? (4.56-57). The speaker of the poem is at odds with nature, yet Wordsworth consciously constructed the poem in this fashion to make the speaker an example of how unhappy a man can be if he is not connected with nature. Understanding that his grief comes from his inability to experience the May morning, as he would have as a child, the speaker attempts to be joyful. However, he is only able to experience happiness when he realizes he does possess the ability to understand nature. My next example of Wordsworth's use of nature is found in his poem ?I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.? The speaker of the poem relates himself to a cloud. He says he is wandering like a cloud floating above hills and valleys when he sees a host of daffodils beside a lake. The dancing flowers flutter along the lake's shore, while the waves of the Rierson 3 lake dance beside them. The speaker says, ?A poet could not but be gay,?(15) in such a joyful company of flowers. The speaker goes on to say that he gazed and gazed, but thought little of the wealth the scene would bring him. But now, whenever he feels vacant or pensive, (20) the memory of the dancing daffodils flashes upon that inward eye / That is the bliss of solitude, (21) his heart fills with pleasure, and dances