Comment on the Personal Elements in Wordsworth’s ‘tintern Abbey’?

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SHOULD ONE READ WORDSWORTH’S ‘TINTERN ABBEY’ AS A SIMPLE POEM ON THE BEAUTY OF NATURE ? JUSTIFY YOUR ANSWER.

As a poet of Nature, Wordsworth stands supreme. He is ‘a worshipper of Nature’, i. e, Nature’s devotee or high priest. Nature occupies in his poems a separate or independent status and is not treated in a casual or passing manner. Tintern Abbey is a poem with Nature as its theme.

Wordsworth has a complete philosophy of nature. What points in his creed of Nature may be noted ? He conceived of it as a living Personality. He believed that there is a divine spirit pervading all objects of Nature. This belief finds a complete expression in Tintern Abbey. There he tells us that he has felt the presence of a sublime spirit in the setting sun, the round ocean, the living air, the blue sky, the mind of man etc. This spirit, he says, rolls through all thing ;

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts

And rolls through all things

This belief in a divine spirit pervading all the objects of Nature is called Pantheism.

Next, Wordsworth believed that the company of Nature gives joy to the human heart. In Tintern Abbey he expresses the joy he feels on re-visiting a scene of Nature. Not only is the actual sight of this scene pleasing, the very memory of this scene has in the past soothed and comforted his mind. He has gained “sweet sensations from these objects of Nature in hours of weariness. Nature has healing influence on troubled minds, as he tells his sister. Wordsworth looked upon Nature as excercising a healing influence on sorrow-stricken hearts.

Above all, Wordsworth emphasized the moral influence of Nature. He spiritualised Nature and regarded her as a great moral teacher, as the best mother, guardian and nurse of man, as an elevating influence. He believed that between Man and Nature there is a spiritual intercourse.

In Tintern Abbey he says that Nature is ;

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nursr,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all moral being.

According to him, Nature deeply influences human character. He tells his sister Dorothy that ‘Nature never did betray the heart that loved her’; that Nature can impress the human mind with quetness and beauty; that Nature gives human beings lofty thoughts. He advises Dorothy to let the moon shine on her and the winds blow on her, i.e, to put herself under nature’s influence.

In his eyes, Nature is a teacher whose wisdom we can learn if we want, and without which any human life is vain and incomplete. He believed in the education of Man by Nature. In this he was somewhat influenced by Rousseau. This inter-relation of Nature and Man is very important in considering Wordsworth’s philosophy. In Tintern Abbey he also distinguishes his love for Nature was a physical passion; as a grown-up man, his love for Nature is intellectual and spiritual. As a boy, Nature was an ‘appetite’, with its aching joys and dizzy raptures; as man, his love is thoughtful because of the ‘still, sad music of harmony’ which he has heard. There are Miltonic echos in it, no doubt, but how different is the movement of Wordsworth’s verse from Milton’s. ‘With a rolling blank verse, well condensed and solemn, Tintern Abbey makes the most revealing document of Nature, philosophy and the final testament of the soul’s journey from sensuous to the spiritual’.

SHOW WITH REFERENCE TO ‘ODE TO THE WEST WIND’ AND ‘TO A SKYLARK’, HOW SHELLY USES OBJECTS OF NATURE AS VEHICLE OF HIS OWN PERSONALITY AND THOUGHT.

Percy Bysshe Shelley is a lover of nature. Love for nature is one of the key-notes of his poetry. His poetry abounds in Nature imagery. Shelley believes that Nature exercises a healing influence on man's personality. He finds solace and comfort in nature and feels soothing influence on his heart. He treats poetry as a tool for pouring his thoughts to the world. He presents the changing and indefinite moods of Nature e.g. clouds, wind, lightening ,rocks and caves the fury of the storms, waves dancing fast and bright etc.Shelley makes a request to the west wind to make humans beings happy.In his Ode to the West Wind, he appeals:

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!(63-64)

He appeals to the west wind, the most forceful agent in nature to drive away his dead thoughts (old memories) from him like shrunken leaves in order to start a new life ,the life of happiness. These words are not only for Shelley to remain happy but for all men and women in the world to be happy. Another poem of Shelley ‘To a Skylark’.He describes skylark as a "blithe Spirit "rather than a bird, for its songs comes from Heaven, and from its full heart pours "profuse strains of unpremeditated art". He brings the attention of bird and teaches us to enjoy natural attitude of it. Skylark sings like a poet hidden in the glow of his thoughts and influencing the whole world. He says no song that man sings can ever match the raptures of the birds. Shelley urges human beings to get bliss with nature through this bird. He consider the Skylark the source of its happiness:

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

what shape of sky or pain(71-74)

Shelley accepts that natural (fountains, fields, waves, mountains etc) things are the source of happiness. He feels human beings are beyond the happiness of this bird. If they give up hate, pride, fear and sorrow they will reach the steeps of joy like Skylark. He writes:

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear(86-89)

Shelley points out another fear of mankind are fear of death which is completely ignored by by the bird while flying high on the sky. The bird rises higher and higher from the earth a continues singing as it soars up. This poem teaches that man should not have fear of