William Wordsworth: ‘seeing into the life of things’
ONSIGHT into the Greats - Priya David
Wordsworth (1770-1850) is so often referred to as a ‘Nature Poet’
that it seems convenient to accept this description and examine its
appropriateness. Let us therefore begin with what is probably his best
known ‘nature’ poem, ‘Daffodils’:
“I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and
hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the
breeze......
“The waves beside them danced; but they Outdid the sparkling waves in
glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company:”
 |
|
William
Wordsworth |
To resort to some helpful Hopkinsian terms, Wordsworth has here
captured the ‘inscape’ of the mass of daffodils, the way in which they
seem actually to enact their distinctive and dynamic identity. The
corresponding ‘instress’ whereby the poet himself dynamically responds
to the inscape, remains latent in him and, as he tells us in the rest of
the poem, he is able to recapture it “oft, when...In vacant or in
pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of
solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the
daffodils.”
Even this little poem enables us to see that Wordsworth presents
Nature in an entirely new light.It is no longer a passive and convenient
backdrop or medium for poetic reflection, Gray’s ‘Elegy’ being a case in
point just as Marvell’s ‘Garden’ is a rare exception.. Here, Nature is
seen to have an independent presence of its own which is capable of
exerting a profound and far-reaching influence on the sensibility of the
perceptive beholder.
We realise the extent of this presence and influence when we come to
‘Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey’, on the occasion of the
poet’s revisiting the banks of the Wye. In the intervening years, the
memory of the landscape has brought him pleasurable sensations
comparable to those occasioned by the daffodils. But beyond this, the
happy remembrance of Nature’s harmony has brought with it “that serene
and blessed mood in which,” through a virtual suspension of the
conscious mind, “we see into the life of things.”
This is very like Marvell’s garden experience where the contemplative
mood induced by Nature confers the ability to reduce the complexity of
life to its simplest essentials, “annihilating all that’s made to a
green thought in a green shade.” Nature provides an insight into the
meaning of life otherwise unavailable to man. But this is not the end of
the story.
Wordsworth goes on to report a further aspect of Nature’s influence,
its ‘power to chasten and subdue’ by causing him to ‘hear oftentimes the
still, sad music of humanity.’ Nature is seen to have a humanising
effect on the poet, compelling him to look beyond himself and consider
the plight of mankind in general. Coming now to the climactic portion of
this extraordinary poem, he tells us that under Nature’s influence he
has ‘felt a presence’, experienced “a sense sublime Of something far
more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And
the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind
of man, A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all
objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.”
Some have criticised the repetitions of the words ‘and’ and ‘all’,
but these actually underline the almost indescribable transcendence of
Nature’s influence. It has a moral power in that it both ‘reveals’,, as
Lawrence would have put it, “the relation between man and his
circumambient universe at the living moment”, and implies the existence
of a greater and, to Wordsworth, indefinable presence beyond itself that
informs alike the universe and the mind of man. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Wordsworth, as he winds down from this climax,
acknowledges Nature as “The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The
guide, the guardian, of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.”
In exploring the lot of humanity, Wordsworth deals with the lives of
simple, rustic folk whose natural affinity to Nature gives them an
innate nobility. The shepherd, Michael, in the long narrative poem
bearing his name is the outstanding example. He bears the heartbreak of
the disgrace caused by the beloved son of his old age with an endurance
learnt from his long association with Nature. He continues building the
sheepfold up in the mountains by himself although, pitifully, “many a
day he thither went And never lifted up a single stone.”
The phrase borrowed above from Lawrence actually relates to “the
business of art.” That Wordsworth should have prompted its application
to Nature’s effect on himself is a tribute to his own art. It
successfully communicates to us his own sense of oneness with Nature and
the universe. In this poem, as in the long autobiographical work, “The
Prelude”, we find Wordsworth adapting the form of non-dramatic blank
verse pioneered by Milton in “Paradise Lost” to his own subject matter.
However, the poetic diction is unique to him. The language is bare of
figurative complexity and virtually literally describes and explains the
moods, feelings and experiences inspired by Nature. This is in keeping
with Wordsworth’s joint resolve with Coleridge to eschew conventional
poetic phraseology and employ the “language really used by men.”
In addition to revitalising poetic diction and presenting Nature in a
fresh and living way, as in “Daffodils”, Wordsworth pioneered a style of
thoughtful self-expression whose influence would reach all the way to
the 20th century, eg. the Eliot of the “Four Quartets.” Along with
William Blake, his entirely unlike but still fellow spearhead of the
Romantic Era, he effected a change in poetic sensibility and poetic
expression that would profoundly affect the future course of poetry in
English.
In the little poem that forms the epigraph to “The Prelude”
Wordsworth says, “I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by
natural piety” In the light of the above we can understand very well
what he means by natural piety, and it is in this sense that Wordsworth
could appropriately be called a Poet of Nature.
|
