William Wordsworth and Nature: Poetry of Wordsworth: Role of Nature... A Piece describing the connection of these two

It is well-known in the world of poetry readers and literary persons that nature and Wordsworth more or less work like synonymous to each other. Without nature, the poetry of Wordsworth is nothing; since the beginning of his poetic career to the end of his poetry, one can easily find the impression that nature marked upon him and his poetry. Nature is the inevitable force when we talk about the poetry of Wordsworth; it works like the central object around which the cobweb of Wordsworth’s poetry is weaved. Nature to Wordsworth means everything in his last stage… however, it was not a sudden ‘flash’, rather it was a gradual process that integrated nature to the poetry and even the life of Wordsworth. Nature in the beginning was only of a ‘secondary pursuit’ to the poet and eventually it became the ‘mistress’ and later ‘mother’ and sustainer of the poet. All the story, Wordsworth records in his celebrated autobiography – The Prelude.

To Wordsworth, nature does not only mean the object to see and be pleased with; he perceives nature as offering security and protection to the world, to humankind, and acting like an authority to manage the movements of the environment. Writes an author about this unique trait of Wordsworth:

“In Wordsworth’s The River Duddon: A Series of Sonnets (1820), the speaker is again drawn to the thought that nature actively protects – as the stream descends from bare upland, ‘to form a shade / For Thee, green alders have together wound / Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around; / And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade’. In the sequence, individual sonnets present different parts of the landscape, often raising the possibility of an allegorical meaning for them, sometimes making it unmistakable. In this case, the trees are like parents watching over and nurturing the young stream; the course of a life, charted by the stream, has reached childhood and nature’s nursing of the human soul is visible in the trees’ protective efforts and again, a moment later, in the cottage nearby where a ‘mother’s eyes / Carelessly watched’ her children at play (Sonnet 5). This movement of thought is typical of the sonnets and, as here, the fancifulness of Wordsworth’s language draws attention to the mind creating the allegorical sense at the same time as it claims that that sense is genuinely present.” ¹

Indeed, to Wordsworth, ‘human soul is visible in the trees.’ Wordsworth is a unique poet with such blessed eyes that can actually see nature and human so commingling that one without the other cannot exist! When the sister of the poet calls him to stay with her, he composes a poem and writes the first line:

“On Nature’s invitation do I come,” ²

For Wordsworth, it was not merely the call of his sister, rather it was the call of Nature unto him… it was in the habit of Wordsworth, in his poetry and his sensibility to relate everything to Nature. A serious poetry reader can find certainly the quality in the poetry of Wordsworth that mingles human emotions and sufferings with nature – nature that endures all; nature that returns only good; and nature that acts like the guardian to humankind! It is the company of nature that lets Wordsworth listen –

“The still, sad music of humanity,”

And for the asylum, for the peace Wordsworth releases himself in the arms of nature and so he advises to everyone else. Wordsworth is the genuine flag-holder of the romantic revival’s call that advocates ‘return to the nature’.

Wordsworth wished always the development of humankind and the mutual harmony between man and man, and man and nature, ‘By Nature’s kind and ever-present aid’.

At last, to conclude this dissertation, there is no better way than quoting his lines that muse the Nature:

“The spot was made by Nature for herself;

The travellers know it not, and 't will remain

Unknown to them; but it is beautiful;

And if a man should plant his cottage near,

Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees.

And blend its waters with his daily meal,

He would so love it, that in his death-hour

Its image would survive among his thoughts:” ³

REFERENCES

1.     Stephen Gill, The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth. p. 193.

2.     William Wordsworth, The Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth (New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919), p. 213.

3.     Ibid. p. 310.