William Wordsworth

Romantic Poetry

William Wordsworth: A Biographical Survey

William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, on April 4, 1770. He was the
second son of John Wordsworth, attorney-at-law. William was a boy of moody and violent temper.
Wordsworth’s mother died in 1778; and in that year he was sent to the ancient grammar school of
Hawkshead. According to Wordsworth, his father never recovered his cheerfulness after the death
of his mother. His father died five years later. Wordsworth, then, was placed under the
guardianship of two uncles.

At Hawkshead, in the beautiful lake region, Wordsworth learned more eagerly from flowers,
hills and stars, than from books. To appreciate the influence of Nature upon him in these early
years, we must read his own record in The Prelude. Three things clearly emerge from our reading
of this poem: first, Wordsworth loved to be alone, and never felt lonely with Nature; second, he
felt the presence of some living spirit, real though unseen: and thirdly, his impressions of Nature
were delightfully familiar.
In 1787 Wordsworth joined St. John’s College at the University of Cambridge. Already he had
developed both the habit of verse and the temperament of poetry. Among his published works are
included two sets of verses written as early as 1786. He had been well-taught at Hawkshead so
atSt. John’s College, he gave most of his time to reading nothing but classic authors according to
his fancy, and Italian poetry.
At St. John’s College, During his freshman year, he composed a large part of the Evening
Walk. The third book of The Prelude contains a realistic account of his student life at college, with
its trivial occupations, its pleasures and general aimlessness. Even in these years, he was
meditative, and responsive to the beauty of natural scenery. In spite of the regret he afterwards
expressed about the thoughtlessness of his youth in paying too little heed to the impressive
surroundings of the college, he has recorded many of the charms of the University. Of his
Cambridge friends, the chief was Robert Jones, who subsequently took orders, and with whom,
in 1790, he undertook the walking tour in France and Switzerland.
In January 1791, Wordsworth took his B.A. degree. His guardians had chosen the
ecclesiastical profession for him. But it made no strong appeal to him. Perhaps before taking his
degree, he had experienced some disturbance in his religious and moral beliefs. He pleaded for
delay and convinced his guardians that he should spend a year in learning French.
He went to France at the end of November 1791, and remained there till the end of 1792, for
the most part in Orleans and Blois. France was at that time in the grip of the Revolution. He took
to France a keen sympathy with the principles of the Revolution. His faith in the revolutionary
idea was deepened and intensified by the intimate friendship which he formed in Blois with
Michel de Beaupuy, a captain in the republican army.
Wordsworth wrote a remarkable poem on the French Revolution—a poem reflecting the
hopes and ambitions that stirred all Europe in the early days of the mighty upheaval. Perhaps if a
suitable opportunity had presented itself, he would have thrown himself into a life of soldiering
at this time. He had been a keen student of military history: and his passionate, head-strong
nature was greatly attracted by the idea of commanding troops, and fighting for the revolutionary
cause.
In Orleans, Wordsworth had a love-affair with Marie-Anne Vallon, a girl of a royalist family,
by whom he had a daughter, Anne-Caroline. During his stay in France, Wordsworth wrote the
greater part ofDescriptive Sketches. Isolated passages truly expressed his sympathies with the
Revolution, his deep moral dejection, and even a mood of religious unbelief.
In February 1793, Wordsworth published both Descriptive Sketches and An Evening
Walk. Of both poems perhaps, the principal interest resides in the conflict between style and
substance: things freshly and romantically observed struggle for expression within the limits of a
diction which has all the faults of the worst eighteenth century work. In the same month, England
declared war upon France. This was the first real shock which his moral nature received. At once
he ranged himself on the side of France.
February 1793 was further notable in that it saw the publication of Godwin’sPolitical
Justice. Under the influence of Godwin, Wordsworth began now to deify reason. In the autumn
of 1793, he started writing Guilt and Sorrow, his first considerable poem, and many parts of it
distinctively “Godwinian”. It was finished in 1794. In 1795 he began, and in 1796 finished,The
Borderers, A Tragedy, of which the gloomy perversities show him struggling out of the
‘Godwinism’ in which he had been for two painful years involved.
For two years since his return fromFrance, Wordsworth had led a wandering life making no
effort to find for himself a provision. In the early part of 1795 occurred the death of a friend
(Raisley Calvert), who left him a legacy of nine hundred pounds. He used the independence
afforded to him by this money to settle with his sister Dorothy at Racedon, Crewkerne. It was here
that The Border, era was finished; and here Margaretor The Ruined Cottage was begun. The
poem was finished at Alfoxden where, in the summer, of 1797, William and Dorothy moved, in
order to be near Coleridge at Nether Stowey.
Wordsworth traces the recovery of his moral and poetical health to the influence, first of his
sister, and secondly of Coleridge. It was while these “three persons and one soul” were living close
together in Somerset that the Lyrical Ballads were conceived and written. During this period of
his life Wordsworth produced his best work. Dorothy, though a silent partner, supplied perhaps
the largest share of the inspiration which, resulted in the Lyrical Ballads (1798). The publication
of the Lyrical Balladsconstitutes the most important event in the history of English poetry since
Milton.
After the publication of the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth and his sister set sail for Germany.
The six months’ stay there did little to broaden Wordsworth’s mind or intensify his powers ;
because, unlike Coleridge, he was not sensitive to the thought of his age, and not responsive to
new influences. But it proved an agreeable holiday, and perhaps the detachment from English
surroundings served to throw the poet more exclusively upon his imaginative memories. Certainly
the poems he wrote during this time, such as Lucy Gray andRuth, are especially happy in their
simplicity and charm. On his return from Germany, he and his sister went to live in Grasmere; in
the Lake District. There rest of his life was spent, except for occasional tours in Scotland and on
the Continent.
In 1802, Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinsoir of Penrith. It was not a remarkable event in
his imaginative life. However, it proved a happy union. She made a good wife and an interesting
companion, but as an influence cannot rank either with his sister Dorothy, or with Coleridge.
 In 1802—3, Wordsworth’s political interests revived, as is clear from the sonnets of that year.
He wrote a series of political sonnets which form a new and important development of his work.
The effect of the revival of political feeling on Wordsworth’s poetry is open to debate.
Conventionally, his sonnets on public affairs are numbered among the great ones of the language.
Gerard Manlay Hopkins complained that there was too much sententious moralising in them. If
we compare them with the French parts of The Prelude,we feel that Wordsworth is now simply
telling us about his political opinions, not re-creating his political passions. When he writes from
the more superficial layers of his mind, he is capable of horrid flatness.
In 1807, Wordsworth published thePoems in Two Volumes. These show a wide extension of
his poetical power. New life is given to the sonnet and to the ode. The sonnet is used with fine
effect to express lofty patriotic sentiment. Here were printed, for the first time, the Ode to
Duty and the immortal Ode on Intimation of Immortality.
The volumes of 1800 and 1807 established Wordsworth as one of the great inventors of
poetical forms. But, from apart these volumes, taken together with The Prelude, The
Recluse fragment, Margaret or The Ruined Cottage (written by 1807), constitute a body of
poetical work of which the compass and original power are such as to place him among the
greatest poets.
The last period of Wordsworth’s life saw a decline in his poetic powers. By 1807, in fact, his
best work was done. The death, in 1805, of his brother John Wordsworth had affected deeply his
temperament, and he went back to religious orthodoxy. By the end of 1820, his thinking in religion
and in politics lost that speculative rebel quality from which it drew so much of its early strength;
and his imagination tended to hoard barren incidents and trivial perceptions to be the material of
later poetry.
In 1814, appeared The Excursion, about which Jeffrey said, “This will never do”. Yet Keats
thought it “one of the three things to rejoice at in this age”. But a general decline of poetic powers
is unmistakable. In 1815 was published the first collective edition of Wordsworth’s works. In the
same year appeared the White Doe of Rylestorie; in 1819, Peter Bell (written in 1798), and The
Wagoner’; in 1820, The River Duddon, andMiscellaneous Poems.
A further decline of power was witnessed, in 1822, by the Ecclesiastical Sonnets and
the Memorials of a Tour on the Continent. To the last, however, it is unwise to regard Wordsworth
as negligible. At any moment the old power is likely to reassert itself. It is to the period of his
decline that we owe, in The Prelude, the magic of the famous description of Newton’s statue:
The marble index of a mind for ever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.
Many, again, of his best sonnets come from the late period. Here and there, from the Evening
Voluntaries (1835), the old greatness flashes out. After 1835, Wordsworth published nothing new
in poetry.
Much of Wordsworth’s easy flow of conversational blank verse had true lyrical power and
grace. His finest work was permeated by a sense of the human relationship to external nature that
was religious in its scope and intensity. To Wordsworth, God was everywhere manifest in the
harmony of nature. He felt deeply the kinship between nature and the soul of humankind.
The tide of critical opinion turned in his favour after 1820, and Wordsworth lived to see his
work universally praised. In 1842 he was awarded a government pension. In 1843 he succeeded
Southey as poet laureate. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, April 23, 1850, and was buried in the
Grasmere churchyard.
William Wordsworth as a Poet of Nature:
As a poet of Nature, Wordsworth stands supreme. He is a worshipper of Nature, Nature’s
devotee or high-priest. His love of Nature was probably truer, and more tender, than that of any
other English poet, before or since. Nature comes to occupy in his poem a separate or independent
status and is not treated in a casual or passing manner as by poets before him. Wordsworth had a
full-fledged philosophy, a new and original view of Nature. Three points in his creed of Nature
may be noted:

(a) He conceived of Nature as a living Personality. He believed that there is a divine spirit
pervading all the objects of Nature. This belief in a divine spirit pervading all the objects
of Nature may be termed as mystical Pantheism and is fully expressed in Tintern
Abbeyand in several passages in Book II ofThe Prelude.
(b) Wordsworth believed that the company of Nature gives joy to the human heart and he
looked upon Nature as exercising a healing influence on sorrow-stricken hearts.
(c) 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,
and as an elevating influence. He believed that between man and Nature there is mutual
consciousness, spiritual communion or ‘mystic intercourse’. He initiates his readers into
the secret of the soul’s communion with Nature. According to him, human beings who
grow up in the lap of Nature are perfect in every respect.
Wordsworth believed that we can learn more of man and of moral evil and good from Nature
than from all the philosophies. In his eyes, “Nature is a teacher whose wisdom we can learn, 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 view of both.
Cazamian says that “To Wordsworth, Nature appears as a formative influence superior to any
other, the educator of senses and mind alike, the sower in our hearts of the deep-laden seeds of
our feelings and beliefs. It speaks to the child in the fleeting emotions of early years, and stirs the
young poet to an ecstasy, the glow of which illuminates all his work and dies of his life.”.
Development of His Love for Nature
Wordsworth’s childhood had been spent in Nature’s lap. A nurse both stern and kindly, she
had planted seeds of sympathy and under-standing in that growing mind. Natural scenes like the
grassy Derwent river bank or the monster shape of the night-shrouded mountain played a
“needful part” in the development of his mind. In The Prelude, he records dozens of these natural
scenes, not for themselves but for what his mind could learn through.
Nature was “both law and impulse”; and in earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Wordsworth was conscious of a spirit which kindled and restrained. In a variety of exciting ways,
which he did not understand, Nature intruded upon his escapades and pastimes, even when he
was indoors, speaking “memorable things”. He had not sought her; neither was he intellectually
aware of her presence. She riveted his attention by stirring up sensations of fear or joy which were
“organic”, affecting him bodily as well as emotionally. With time the sensations were fixed
indelibly in his memory. All the instances in Book I of The Prelude show a kind of primitive
animism at work”; the emotions and psychological disturbances affect external scenes in such a
way that Nature seems to nurture “by beauty and by fear”.
In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth traces the development of his love for Nature. In his boyhood
Nature was simply a playground for him. At the second stage he began to love and seek Nature
but he was attracted purely by its sensuous or aesthetic appeal. Finally his love for Nature acquired
a spiritual and intellectual character, and he realized Nature’s role as a teacher and educator.
In the Immortality Ode he tells us that as a boy his love for Nature was a thoughtless passion
but that when he grew up, the objects of Nature took a sober colouring from his eyes and gave rise
to profound thoughts in his mind because he had witnessed the sufferings of humanity:
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Spiritual Meaning in Natural Objects
Compton Rickett rightly observes that Wordsworth is far less concerned with the sensuous
manifestations than with the spiritual significance that he finds underlying these manifestations.
To him the primrose and the daffodil are symbols to him of Nature’s message to man. A sunrise
for him is not a pageant of colour; it is a moment of spiritual consecration:
My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me; bound unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated Spirit.
To combine his spiritual ecstasy with a poetic presentment of Nature is the constant aim of
Wordsworth. It is the source of some of his greatest pieces, grand rhapsodies such as Tintern
Abbey.
Nature Descriptions
Wordsworth is sensitive to every subtle change in the world about him. He can give delicate
and subtle expression to the sheer sensuous delight of the world of Nature. He can feel the
elemental joy of Spring:
It was an April morning, fresh and clear
The rivulet, delighting in its strength,
Ran with a young man’s speed, and yet the voice
Of waters which the river had supplied
Was softened down into a vernal tone.
He can take an equally keen pleasure in the tranquil lake:
The calm
And dead still water lay upon my mind
Even with a weight of pleasure
A brief study of his pictures of Nature reveals his peculiar power in actualising sound and its
converse, silence.
Being the poet of the ear and of the eye, he is exquisitely felicitious. No other poet could have
written:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In springtime from the cuckoo-bird,
 Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Unlike most descriptive poets who are satisfied if they achieve a static pictorial effect,
Wordsworth can direct his eye and ear and touch to conveying a sense of the energy and move-
ment behind the workings of the natural world. “Goings on” was a favourite word he applied to
Nature. But he is not interested in mere Nature description.
Wordsworth records his own feelings with reference to the objects which stimulate him and
call forth the description. His unique apprehension of Nature was determined by his peculiar
sense-endowment. His eye was at once far-reaching and penetrating. He looked through the
visible scene to what he calls its “ideal truth”. He pored over objects till he fastened their images
on his brain and brooded on these in memory till they acquired the liveliness of dreams. He had
a keen ear too for all natural sounds, the calls of beasts and birds, and the sounds of winds and
waters; and he composed thousands of lines wandering by the side of a stream. But he was not
richly endowed in the less intellectual senses of touch, taste and temperature.
Conclusion:
Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature can be clearly differentiated from that of the other great
poets of Nature. He did not prefer the wild and stormy aspects of Nature like Byron, or the shifting
and changeful aspects of Nature and the scenery of the sea and sky like Shelley, or the purely
sensuous in Nature like Keats. It was his special characteristic to concern himself, not with the
strange and remote aspects of the earth, and sky, but Nature in her ordinary, familiar, everyday
moods. He did not recognize the ugly side of Nature ‘red in tooth and claw’ as Tennyson did.
Wordsworth stressed upon the moral influence of Nature and the need of man’s spiritual
discourse with her.

William Wordsworth: As the Poet of Man

“There have been greater poets than Wordsworth but none more original”, says A. C. Bradley.
Wordsworth’s chief originality is, of course, to be sought in his poetry of Nature. It must not be
supposed, however, that Wordsworth was interested only in Nature and not in man at all. Man,
in Wordsworth’s conception, is not to be seen apart from Nature, but is the very “life of her life”.
Indeed, Wordsworth’s love of Nature led him to the love of man. Scarcely a poem of his is solely
concerned with nature-description. His poetry is expressive of the formative, restorative,
reassuring, moral and spiritual influence of Nature on the mind and personality of Man. Nature,
of course, may dominate, but “the still sad music of humanity” is never ignored.

Wordsworth’s passion for Nature is well-known and it is also known that his attitude to
Nature underwent a progressive evolution— from ‘the coarser pleasures’ of the boyish days to an
unreflecting passion untouched by intellectual interests or associations to the transitory stage of
human-heartedness accompanied by a lasting and more significant stage of spiritual and mystical
interpretation of Nature.
Nature, according to Wordsworth is a living entity. Unlike other poets of Nature, he believes
that Nature is endowed with life and consciousness and has the capacity of thinking, feeling and
willing. The entire Nature is permeated by the feelings of joy and happiness, harmony and peace
and there are no strifes, no cares and worries, no jealousy and hatred to disturb the peace and
harmony, reigning in the heart of Nature:
Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing
From earth to man, from man to earth—
It is the hour of feeling.
Wordsworth’s approach to Nature is that of a mystic. He believed that God pervades the
entire universe and all the varied phenomena are the outward manifestations of the same Eternal
Reality. This belief of his has been termed as Pantheism and it was the last stage in the progressive
evolution of his approach to Nature. Warwick James says, “At this stage the foundation of
Wordsworth’s entire existence was his mode of seeing God in Nature and Nature in God.”
In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth realises the ‘presence of the Eternal spirit’:
Those 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.
It is tine that Wordsworth was a lover of Nature but he was also a lover of Man, though his
love of man developed at a later stage in his poetic career. It was the French Revolution that made
Wordsworth a poet of Man. Wordsworth lost his faith in the French Revolution as a political creed,
but its effect remained intact on his mind. The Revolution humanised his soul and built him into
a poet of Man. The singer of the beauties of Nature became the singer of the majesty of common
humanity.
It is the humble and rustic life that is invested with glory and grandeur in his poetry. The city
proletariat lay beyond his ken; it was not for him to sing the fierce confederate storm
Of sorrow barricaded evermore
Within the walls of cities
But rather
To hear humanity in woods and groves
Pipe solitary anguish
because the life of such people is not screened by conventions of society. It is their simplicity
that brings out the hidden beauty of their characters—calm, independence, fortitude, mutual
affection and self-sacrifice. They have a noble character because they live in close and constant
company of Nature.
Nature constantly communicates its elevating thoughts to man. When the soul of man is in
tune with the spirit of Nature, it receives impressions of virtue and wisdom that exercise an
ennobling influence on human nature. Nature is “the best and truest of all teachers”.
Away from Nature city life deadens human perceptions. The Sonnet on Westminster
Bridge underlines the same idea. The scene of London in the early hours of the morning impresses
the poet and heightens his sensibilities because at the moment London is dressed in Nature and
silent, hare.
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
 When man becomes indifferent to Nature and her elevating influences then, according to
Wordsworth, the miseries and misfortunes of mankind arise. He laments the loss of man’s contact
with Nature when he writes:
The World is too much with us: late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours :
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.
We are out of rune with Nature. But when the individual mind and external nature are in
harmony, it is natural that there is a communion between Nature and Man. Nature has the power
to console mankind. It is when man’s mind is in harmony with the natural objects that a sudden
flash of revelation comes upon him and he becomes aware of the unifying spirit behind everything.
In Tintern Abbey,Wordsworth tells us how the best part of human life is shown to be the result of
natural influences. Nature’s healing power was a rapturous experience for Wordsworth and he
conveys it in Tintern Abbey; the recollection of the scenes seen five years ago soothes him in
tormented moments:
...in lonely rooms, and ‘mid I he din of towns and cities
And he owes to them not only ‘sensations sweet’ but another gift also that is more sublime. It
is:
that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery.
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of this unintelligible world,
Is lightened
In these moments of illumination, he has an insight into the life of things and finds that all is
wrapped in a state of joy and harmony.
It is easy to associate Wordsworth only with the “joy” and “happiness” of human destiny. But,
in fact, he was fully conscious of the “cloud of human destiny” and presents it in his poems.
In Tintern Abbey, he speaks of the “still sad music of humanity” which colours the mature mind
and makes Nature all the more significant. In the Immortality Ode again we read of the “soothing
thoughts that spring out of human suffering”. Indeed, it is suffering that leads to the philosophic
mind which finds meaning even in the “meanest flower that blows”. Thus, to conclude in the words
of Herbert Read, “Man and Nature, mind and the external world, are geared together and in
unison complete the motive principle of the universe. They act and react upon each other, ‘so as
to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure.” The functioning of this interlocked
universe of mind and Nature is for Wordsworth the highest theme of poetry.

Wordsworth’s Poetic Style

Style is a debatable thing about Wordsworth. Many critics say that he has two styles. A few
argue that he has many styles and still some even go to the extent of saying that he has no style at
all.
 Wordsworth had a belief that poetic style should be as simple and sincere as the language of
everyday life, and that the more the poet draws on elemental feelings and primal simplicities the
better for his art. He advocated the use of simple language in poetry. He said that poetry should
be written in a “language really used by men in humble and rustic’’. He set himself to the task of
freeing poetry from all its “conceits” and its “inane phraseology”. He made certain very effective
and striking experiments in the use of simple language.
According to Lytton Strachey, Wordsworth was the first poet who fully recognised and
deliberately practised the beauties of extreme simplicity; and this achievement constitutes his
most obvious claim to fame. Hardly any interested reader misses the beauty of his simplicity.
One could quote numerous examples of the successful and effective manner in which
Wordsworth handled simple language. All Lucy poems offer striking examples. A poem like the
one on daffodils represents the successful simple style too.
Wordsworth’s use of the nobly-plain style has something unique and unmatchable.
Wordsworth feels his subjects with profound sincerity and, at the same time, his subject itself has
a profoundly sincere and natural character. His expression may often be called bald as, for
instance, in the poem Resolution and Independence; but it is bald as the bare mountain tops are
bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur.
Wordsworth prefers generally to employ an unostentatious, ascetic style. It demands a
mature and thoughtful reader to appreciate the power and comprehensiveness.
But many are the occasions when Wordsworth’s simplicity deteriorates into triviality. While
the daring simplicity is often highly successful, there is also the other kind of simplicity which has
been called the bleat, as of an old, half-witted sheep. This creates a strange inequality in
Wordsworth’s verse, an inequality which has been noted and commented upon by almost every
critic.
His deficient sense of humour is responsible for many banalities, but the chief reason for this
mixture of puerility and grandeur is his poetic theory. According to this theory, Wordsworth was
to use “a selection of the language really used by men in humble and rustic life,” while at the same
time he was to throw a certain colouring of imagination over his subjects.
Wordsworth’s experiments in a simple style were intended to arouse the ordinary man’s
sympathy for his fellow men. He sacrifices the idiomatic order of words to preserve simplicity of
diction and the demands of rhyme. He undermines his purpose with amazing effects. Sometimes
he offends merely by the use of such metre as—
Poor Susan moans, poor Susan groans
Fortunately Wordsworth’s splendid imagination was often too powerful for his theory; and
in his best work he unconsciously ignores it altogether.
As Graham Hough points out, in Tintern Abbey Wordsworth is far more willing than his
theories would suggest to use the full resources of the English vocabulary. In the more exalted
passages of this, as of most of the reflective blank verse poems, the influence of Milton is apparent.
We sometimes find Wordsworth using a Latinised and abstract vocabulary, commonly supposed
to be most uncharacteristic of his work, and directly due to Miltonic influence.
According to a critic, Wordsworth has not “two voices”, but many; and even relatively short
poems such as Resolution and Independence, Yew-Trees, and Fidelityshow a considerable range.
To hold, as Arnold does, that Wordsworth has no style is a dangerous simplification.
 The journals of Dorothy Wordsworth show what pains Wordsworth took to find the right
expression. Few poets spent more time searching for the right word or revising their poems. The
result of such strenuous application was often exhaustion leading to dull prosaic verse; but the
same labour produced the wonderful poetry of Tintern Abbey which was written in a few hours
and hardly altered, and great extempore works, even in his declining years, such as the 1835
effusion on the death of James Hogg.
The famous dullness of Wordsworth which measures the grave in The Thorn and finds it
three feet long and two feet wide is all part of his fearless search for a diction which should bypass;
the pomposity of literature, and take a sort of photograph or recording of experience itself, not
just the scene but the emotion connected with the scene.
Wordsworth was right in his banalities, given the premises from which he started. Only the
metre and the inversions employed to contain ordinary conversation in short lines create an
unhappy effect in some of the ballad poems.
Wordsworth often used imagery which is more visual, especially in similes from Nature. But
generally, he demands more of the reader’s imagination than most poets do. His poems frequently
echo Milton, Shakespeare, Burns, the Elizabethan poet Daniel, Pope, Thomson, and Gray; but not
a single work had as lasting an influence on him asParadise Lost. Instead of being dazzled with
words, he had looked steadily at his subject. The imagery he used is derived from his own
experience and thought.
We can aptly sum up Wordsworth’s style thus: “Wordsworth’s language is usually worthy of
his themes. At its best it has restraint, quietness and integrity, a refusal to be clever or fanciful in
order to attract the reader. But there are other times when it is not so much serious.
Wordsworth was practising his theory that poetry should be written ‘in a selection of language
really used by men’; but not paying enough attention to ‘selection’. Again, when his powers failed,
he fell back on bombast as a substitute.
According to Cazamian, Wordsworth never seriously believed that a poet’s means of ex-
pression should coincide altogether with those of the most familiar speech. He does not try to
identify entirely the language of poetry with that of conversation among men of the low or of the
middle class.
Poetry of the preceding period suffered from the artificiality of a language in which the means
of conveying intensity had been worn out by the deadening effect of custom and had lost all their
power of suggestion. To shake off these chains, to dare to employ the language of pure passion,
such a step meant a return to the practice of the old masters. Their style, when compared with
that of the eighteenth century at its close, was of a relatively simple quality, just as it was ever racy,
frank, and spontaneous.
The cult of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare is part and parcel of the faith animating the
literary reform of which theLyrical Ballads are the symbol. To the pages of these writers,
Wordsworth and Coleridge go in quest of materials for the making of a “permanent” style.
Although unequal, and full of flaws, of lapses into the prosaic or into a tedious accuracy of
statement, Wordsworth’s shorter poems of the best period undoubtedly possess a unique value,
however mixed they may be. Among them are pure masterpieces, in which the tension of the style
is delightfully relaxed: an ecstatic or divinely childlike spontaneity replaces the effort of
concentration. These poems bring to a decisive realisation the revival towards which the previous
literary transition was tending.
 Wordsworth broke the spell of an antiquated tradition, and his work inaugurated the reign of
liberty. England awoke to this fact, not indeed at once, but by degrees, and in the course of a
generation. All the English poets o f the nineteenth century are indirectly his heirs.

William Wordsworth As a Poet

Wordsworth’s greatness as a poet has universally been recognised. Ransom has called him
one of the giants of English poetry. J.C. Smith has called him a mountain, the most massive in
that lofty range which is called the Romantic Revival.

Matthew Arnold, the greatest critic of the Victorian age, called Wordsworth “one of, the chief
glories of English poetry”. At the same time, it has been pointed out by almost every critic that
Wordsworth’s poetic work is singularly uneven and that there is a lot of his work that is dull,
prosaic and bathetic. It was for this reason that Arnold felt it necessary to edit Wordsworth and
to remove “the common clay that disguised and obscured the durable gems” of Wordsworth’s
poetry.
If we go through Wordsworth’s poetry as presented by him in his collected works, we shall
find that pieces of high merit are mingled with pieces very inferior to them. Work altogether
inferior, work quite uninspired, flat and dull, was produced by him with evident unconsciousness
of its defects, and he presented it to the readers with the same faith and seriousness as his best
work. In order to enable readers to judge the true quality of Wordsworth, Arnold and others have
made selections of Wordsworth’s poetry, trying to exclude work that is altogether inferior.
By publishing the Lyrical Ballads in collaboration with Coleridge in 1798, Wordsworth
inaugurated the Romantic Movement in English poetry. He, therefore, occupies a very important
rank in the history of English poetry. With him began a new era in English, poetry.
Wordsworth rebelled against the poetic principles of the 18th century. He held that the
common life of the poor, simple people can serve as fit material for poetry and that the diction
(words and phrases) to be employed in poetry should be drawn from the everyday speech of
human beings. This was the formula with which he led the revolt against the artificial and
bombastic diction of the 18th century neo-classical poetry. Further, he wanted to throw a
colouring of imagination over the simple material chosen for treatment in poetry.
Michael, The Solitary Reaper, To a Highland Girl, and several other poems, illustrate this
theory. In his Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, Tintern Abbeyand various other poems,
however, he departed from the formula of the use of everyday, simple words in poetry and actually
used a grandiloquent style. A poem like Ode to Duty actually contains several qualities of the 18th
century poetry against which Wordsworth led a revolt. But, on the whole, Wordsworth’s poetry
marks a complete break with the school of Pope. Wordsworth, indeed, effected a revolution in
English poetry both as regards its subject-matter and its language.
A Poet of Nature
As a poet of Nature, Wordsworth stands supreme. He is the worshipper of Nature, Nature’s
priest. He gave to Nature an independent status in poetry. Of all the poets who have written of
Nature there is none that compares with him in the truthfulness of his representation. He had a
full-fledged philosophy of Nature.
 Tintern Abbey is the complete expression of his Nature-creed. Three points in his creed of
Nature may be noted:
(a) He believed that the company of Nature gives joy to the human heart and exercises a
healing effect on troubled minds.
(b) He conceived of Nature as a living personality. He believed that there is a divine spirit
pervading all objects of Nature. In other words, he approached Nature as a mystical Pantheist.
(c) Above-all, he emphasized the moral influence of Nature. Nature, he believed, is a teacher
whose wisdom we can learn if we want and without which human life is vain and incomplete. He
believed in the education of man by Nature. Besides Tintern Abbey, his other poems like The
Highland Girland Three Years She Grew also express this view of Nature.
A Poet of Childhood
Wordsworth idealized childhood. According to him the child sees in Nature a heavenly glory
which a man cannot see. This is so because the child is near Heaven and has distinct memories of
his heavenly life. The child is thus a “mighty philosopher”, a “seer blest”. All these views find a
superb expression in the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.
His Lyric Gift
Wordsworth wrote several graceful and melodious lyrics like The Solitary Reaper, To a
Skylark, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and the Lucy poems. These lyrics convey by simple means
the impression of intensity and are very melodious. The following lines from The Solitary
Reaper, for example, are unsurpassed in simplicity, melody, intensity and suggestiveness:
Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
Wordsworth breathed new life into the lyric form. He had not the force and versatility of
Shelley, but he helped to prepare the way for that superb lyric genius by adopting themes of rural
life.
It is noteworthy that Wordsworth, unlike Shelley, is reflective rather than passionate in his
lyrics. He is calm and tranquil and not frenzied. On the other hand, his lyrics are closer—to real
human life than Shelley’s. Wordsworth brought to his lyrics a freshness and pensive sweetness
that give them quite an original place in lyric literature.
A Narrative Poet
As a narrative poet also Wordsworth achieved distinction. His narrative poetry is sometimes
cast into heroic metre, sometimes into that of the ballad. His ballad verse has not the fire and flint
of Scott, but exhibits often a simple force and tenderness unmatched by his contemporaries. His
narrative powers are considerable; and his simple directness helps the narrative.
Yet he is not at his best in the narrative poetry for the simple reason that his deep interest in
spiritual crises rather than physical, his tendency to meditate over his subject and delay obscure
the story. It makes him effective in snatches, but not effective as a good narrative poet should be.

As a Sonneteer:
 The sonnet form suited Wordsworth even better than the lyric. According to a critic, his
sonnets contain some of his best work. He is one of the three or four greatest sonneteers in English
literature. He wrote approximately five hundred sonnets.
Wordsworth was first attracted towards sonnet-writing by hearing his sister Dorothy read
some of Milton’s in 1801; and from this time to the end of his life he was profuse in sonnet-writing.
The best of these were written during the early years of the nineteenth century, mostly in 1802
and include: Milton; Westminster Bridge; It is a beauteous evening, and The World is too much
with us (1806).
After 1808, there is a decline, not in workmanship but in imaginative beauty; but again and
again he flashes out with something of the old passion and splendour. Of the later sonnets, some
of the River Duddon group and one on Mutability are among his best. The technical requirements
of the sonnet medium, the necessity for clear and orderly development suited to Wordsworth’s
mind and his cool clarity of diction.
The particular form Wordsworth chose was not the Shakespearean kind, but the Miltonic
form based on the traditional Italian structure. Wordsworth did valuable service to English poetry
by reinstating the sonnet.
The re-appearance of this form had been one of the signs of the romantic revival, and most
of the poets of the time practised it more or less. His sonnets contain almost his best work, outside
the two unapproachable poems Tintern Abbey and Ode on Intimations of Immortality, with
perhaps a very few others.
Sense of Structure or Poetic Shape
The structure of a Wordsworth poem is an organic form growing naturally out of the thought
of the poet, related at each stage to the poetic emotion, and fusing together the metrical pattern
and the whole complex of sounds and meanings.
In his shorter poems, Wordsworth is peculiar in his faculty of creating an impression of
almost architectural outline and solidity. This is the case, too, with the numerous poems in which
the subject is a complex union of memory and present feelings.
Wordsworth employs in his shorter poems an organizational device which may be called the
double-exposure technique. He makes us dramatically conscious of the degree of growth that has
taken place between two stages widely separated from each other point of time. Between two
stages, subtle changes have always place. These may involve a simple transition of a character
from conditions of the country to those of the city as in the early lyric “The Reverie of Poor
Susan”‘, in which the drab present and the green past are juxtaposed.
In Tintern Abbey, the light in the eyes of his sister seems to reflect for Wordsworth the very
state of mind in which, five years before, he had rejoiced over the beauties of this natural scene.
As he looks at the scene once more, he is made doubly aware of a sense of loss (the past will not
return) and a sense of compensation greater than the loss (the new maturity and insight which
the advancing years have brought). By this device the interior drama of the time—a parable,
essentially, of experience and innocence—is made to transpire.
The same principle is at work in The Two April Mornings, She was a Phentom of
Delight, and The Ode to Duty. It gives special dramatic impact to a number of the best sonnets
including Composed Upon Westminster Bridge.
As a Metrist
Wordsworth is a great metrist. His gifts of language are matched by great skill and variety in
the use of metre, though he does not possess the exquisite sense of rhythm of Spenser or Milton.
Wordsworth’s blank verse owes much to the Miltonic tradition, but he endows it with a wholly
individual character. The ballads, however rustic, have life and speed, and often a haunting use of
the refrain.
His Healing Power
Matthew Arnold says that Wordsworth’s poetry is great because of the extraordinary power
with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in Nature, the joy offered to us in the simple
primary affections and duties, and because of the extraordinary power with which, in case after
case, he shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it.
In a poem called Memorial Verses,Arnold pays a glorious tribute to Wordsworth when he
says that in course of time we may have another Goethe and another Byron but that it is not
possible for us to have another Wordsworth with his healing power:
But where will Europe’s latter hour
Again find Wordsworth’s healing power?
The phrase ‘healing power’ aptly describes the effect that Wordsworth’s poetry makes upon
our minds. Wordsworth’s poetry relieves our minds of worries, and soothes and comforts us. It
relieves us by virtue of its melody and music.
Several stanzas of the Immortality Odeexemplify the musical and singing quality of
Wordsworth’s poetry; and music, as everyone knows, cures human beings of many ills. Another
feature of Wordsworth’s poetry that contributes to his healing power is the beautiful and
refreshing descriptions of Nature.
Wordsworth makes us feel that we are roaming about in the open fields with the wind and
rain touching our foreheads, and this is indeed a pleasant experience. Wordsworth’s views of
Nature may have little appeal to the twentieth century.
But at no time in history has his revolt from a mechanistic explanation of the universe, and
his belief in the worth of the individual and “man’s conquerable mind” been more relevant and
more necessary for our survival. His creed is a lofty Pantheism—the belief that behind all the
objects of Nature there is a Divine Spirit and that human beings can attain peace of mind and
contentment by a habitual contact with Nature.
Thus Wordsworth has an anchor to rest upon, a prop to support him and although, as Arnold
says, he had fallen upon “a wintry clime.”, upon “this iron time of doubts, disputes, distractions,
fears,” yet he remained untouched by these depressing doubts and fears and preached the healthy
gospel of communion with Nature, communion with the Divine Spirit behind Nature.
The poetry of Wordsworth is the poetry of happiness”. A cheerful temper pervades the whole
of it. There is no note of interrogation, no cry of despair, no anguish and no morbid melancholy.
There is perfect contentment in Wordsworth’s poetry. There may be just the hint of a passing
regret here and there but on the whole it is good cheer that greets us. Even the sad narratives of
Wordsworth do not depress us and serve to teach us the lesson of courage and endurance.
The Reverie of Poor Susan by Wordsworth

Introduction
‘The Reverie of Poor Susan’ is a simple poem about a poor girl, Susan.
Wordsworth says that the idea of the poem was suggested to him by the “affecting” singing
of birds in the streets of London. The purpose behind writing of this poem is to show the contrast
between the life in the countryside and the life in the city. Wordsworth is able to successfully assert
that the blessed sights and sounds in nature that are easily found and enjoyed in the countryside
can only be discovered in the city only through imagination.

Poor Susan is an emigrant from the countryside. She passes daily by a spot where a thrush
sings loudly at daylight. The thrush has been singing in the same fashion for three years. She is
completely enchanted with the song of the bird. Her imagination is stirred, so stirred that she has
a vision of a mountain, trees and a flowing river. She sees the green pastures where she used to
walk and the cottage she lived in while she was still in the country.
‘Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Loth- bury glide.
But as she looks, in the midst of her visionary exaltation, the scenes pass away from her sight.
She can no longer see what she had seen.
Critical Appreciation
The poem focuses a poor country girl who has come to London to earn her living. She has
been living in the countryside and very much acquainted with the natural scenes and sounds.
When she hears the enchanting song of a thrush in the quiet time of morning she falls into a
reverie. In her imagination appears her home district with its hills, fog and green meadows. The
idea behind the portrayal of these natural scenes is to show the pleasure Susan feels when she
imagines these things. Another thing presented in the poem is one’s love for one’s home.
There is an obvious opposition established in this poem between the life in the country and
the life in the city. All of the beautiful sights and sounds in nature are so easily found and enjoyed
in the countryside. But these can only be discovered in the city through an act of imagination. The
setting and character of the village is that of openness and freedom. These qualities give one a
sense of belonging and a sense of security. Such gifts are not to be discovered in the city. This
sense of belonging and security is so pleasant that it takes the heart of Susan to the heaven:
And a single dwelling on earth that she Loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven
Wordsworth, being the highest admirer of nature, has selected as much natural images as
possible, in this poem. His image of the flowing river serves his poetic purpose in conveying to
the reader the feeling of space and movement. The poem is an apt example of Wordsworth
theory of poetry. He speaks for a common girl in a simple language. The subject, technique,
imagery and diction: everything is according the theory of Wordsworth. There is nothing
ornamental or artificial in the poem.
Sonnet: Composed Upon Westminster Bridge by Wordsworth
Introduction
Wordsworth said, late in life, thatComposed Upon Westminster Bridge was ‘written
on the roof of a coach, on my way toFrance’. This statement does not agree with the date
‘September 3, 1802’. We know from Dorothy’s Journal that they crossed Westminster
Bridge on their way to France in the early morning of July 31. But they were back in
London from August 31 to September 22. Perhaps this sonnet was cast in its final form on
September 3.

Wordsworth is of the view in this sonnet that the sight of London in the light of the
morning sun excels any other beautiful scene of the earth. He who remains untouched by
such a grand and impressive sight is dead to all senses of beauty. Now the city is clothed
in the bright light of the morning as with a garment. Ships, towers, domes, play-houses
and churches can now be seen spreading into the horizon and becoming one with the
surrounding fields and the sky above. The air is free from smoke and all objects of the city
look bright and shining.
The rays of the rising sun never fell so beautifully on the valleys, rocks, or hills as they
fell on London that day. The poet has not experienced such a wonderful quietness in the
atmosphere at any other time. The Thames is moving freely without being disturbed by
boats and ships. It appears to the poet that even the houses are asleep. He feels that the
mighty heart of London has stopped beating and it is lying calm and quiet.

Critical Appreciation
As a poet of Nature, Wordsworth was allergic towards the commercial life of London.
The confusion of London taught him to recognize the fragments of rustic things and
aspects of eternal things found amidst the rush and roar.
In Composed Upon Westminster Bridge we find Wordsworth as a poet who
considers London as a part of the country. Here nature has reasserted her dominion over
the works of all the multitude of men; and in the early clearness the poet beholds the great
City—’not as full of noise and dust and confusion, but as something silent, grand and
everlasting’.
In this poem we find Wordsworth as a poet of solitude also. For him all solitude and
all solitary things had an extraordinary fascination. The sonnet breathes the calm depth,
the pervading majesty of silence that descends on Nature’s dawn. Nowhere has the poet
ever experienced so intensely the sensation of utter solitude as at the sight of the vast city
lying in the bright sunlight. As he says:
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
 The sight of London he held from Westminster Bridge as described in the sonnet
finely illustrates his theory of Imagination. As Rader puts it, “here is no aggregate built
up stepwise by the association of simple constituents, nor a serial order either logical or
causal. Rather there is au intense emotional synthesis achieved in a single moment of
intuition—the vision of a great city wrapped in a calm so deep that its mighty heart is
almost suspended.”
Dorothy’s description of the scene is the best comment on the sonnet: “We mounted
the Dover coach at Charing Cross. It was a beautiful morning. The City, St. Paul’s, with
the river, and a multitude of little boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed
Westminster Bridge. The houses were not over-hung by the cloud of smoke and they were
spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly, with such a fierce light, that there was
even something like the purity of one of nature’s own grand spectacles.”
This sonnet is a fine example of Wordsworth’s simple and natural poetic diction. In it
a chaste diction and a simplicity of utterance are wedded to the beauty of the images. Here
the images of the sun and the river are so fresh that they appear to be the report of
something actually seen.
Composed Upon’ Westminster Bridge remains one of the most delightful sonnets of
Wordsworth. We turn to this sonnet again and again because it shows a return to
Wordsworth’s early freshness of response to landscape.

Ode: Intimation of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood

by Wordsworth
Introduction
The Ode was begun in March, 1802, discontinued at the end of the fourth section, and
finally completed in March, 1804. In the intervening period Wordsworth wrote the short
poem My Heart Leaps up When I Behold, and Resolution and Independence.
The epigraph of the poem is taken from My Heart Leaps up When I Behold. Implicit in
it is the idea of growth, and of the continuity of man. The theme of the poem is the
immortality of the human soul of which one is aware in childhood but which fades from
one’s mind with growing years. The child’s knowledge of immortality is based upon the
memories of his life in heaven before his birth. This view forms the core of the poem.
The long title of the poem clearly expresses the theme: our knowledge of the soul’s
immortality is based on our memories of childhood when we still remembered our life in
heaven. Whether Wordsworth’s theory is plausible or convincing is a controversial
matter but the poem has been recognized as a masterpiece of philosophical or
metaphysical poetry. The poem is based upon Wordsworth’s actual experiences. As a
child he could not conceive that the human soul could die. He used to feel certain that
after death he would be transferred to heaven. One of the basic ideas of the poem is that
the soul lived in heaven before coming into this world. But Wordsworth did not mean to
inculcate this as a kind of faith. He looked upon this belief merely as an instinct felt by
most people. A belief in a pre-existent state (a life before birth) is part and parcel of
many religions. However, Wordsworth has not treated it as a belief.
 Critical Appreciation
This great poem gives expression to the human instinct for a belief in immortality.
The poem is built around what may be called the doctrine of reminiscence. The child
remembers the life he led in heaven before his birth in this world. The child is, therefore,
surrounded by a heavenly glory. His memories of a pre-natal existence invest all Nature
with a divine light. In other words, when the child looks at Nature, he finds all objects of
Nature wrapped up in a dream-like splendour. But, as the child grows, he falls more and
more under the influence of this world and, therefore, his memories of heaven become
dimmer and dimmer till they fade out of his mind.
The child remembers that he lived in heaven before his birth, while the grown-up man
has no such recollection. Therefore the child is greater than the man. The child may be
called a great prophet, a great seer, a great philosopher. But there are occasions in the life
of a grown-up man when his memories of childhood bring him certain vague intimations
of immortality. In other words, while the child’s feeling of immortality is based upon his
memories of a heavenly life, the grown-up man’s feeling of immortality is based on his
recollections of childhood.
In maturity one misses the heavenly light which one saw as a child in the objects of
Nature. But maturity has its own compensations. With maturity comes the faith in a life
after death. Maturity, too, brings reflection (or “the philosophic mind”); while the sight of
human suffering gives rise to “soothing thoughts”. In this temper, even the meanest
flower can arouse in a man thoughts which are so deep that they cannot be expressed even
through tears.
As an ode, Intimations of Immortality has an irregular form. However, it is by
general consent one of the greatest of Wordsworth’s poems. It is built on a simple but
majestic plan. The first four stanzas tell of his spiritual crisis; of a glory passing from the
earth, and end by asking why this has happened. The middle stanzas (v-viii)examine the
nature of this glory and explain it by a theory of reminiscence from a pre-natal existence.
Then the last three stanzas show that, though the vision has perished, life has still a
meaning and a value. Wordsworth has very vividly described the psychology of the
child. The child is an imitator, an actor who performs all parts, and who copies every
action and gesture that he sees.
The poem is mainly autobiographical and reminiscent of the poet’s past life. The
radiance and glory of Nature, which he declares as having seen in his childhood, was a
part of his own personal experience, while he also felt the unreality of the outward objects
to which he refers in the ninth stanza. We have his own statement in support of this.
Wordsworth’s pictorial gift or image-making power may be noticed in this poem.He
gives vivid pictures of the rainbow, the rose, the moon shining in a cloudless sky, the star-
light falling on waters, the children collecting fresh flowers, the babe leaping on his
mother’s arm, etc. Wordsworth was a keen worshipper of Nature. He is the greatest
Nature poet in English Literature. ‘The ode clearly brings out the difference between his
love for Nature as a child and his love for Nature as a man. As a child, he had a passion
for Nature, and he experienced intoxicating joys on seeing it. But he developed a spiritual
love for Nature when he became a man. His love for Nature was now meditative, sober
and reflective and even the most ordinary objects of Nature gave rise to deep and
profound thoughts in him. Having witnessed human suffering, he looked at Nature
thoughtfully.
The ode is not written in the language Wordsworth regularly used in his poetry. Its
tone is high and stately. Wordsworth thought his subject so important that he treated it
in what was for him an unusual manner, and for it he fashioned his own high style. The
poet has used such rhythmic and effective phrases that many of them are now commonly
employed in the English language. Words used to express thoughts and emotions in this
poem are very appropriate. The grandeur of language befits the grandeur of
theme. There is thus a perfect harmony between thought and expression.
Although the ode contains a metaphysical doctrine, yet there is in it adeep and sincere
personal emotion which gives it a lyrical character. The first four stanzas in which the
poet expresses his sense of loss and the last two stanzas where he refers to the compen-
sations which make him happy are intensely emotional and possess a singing quality. This
has been expressed in the ode. The poet refers to human suffering which he has witnessed
and the sympathy which he feels for his fellow human beings. This sympathy for mankind
is common to almost all the romantic poets.
The sober close of this great ode has been compared to the close of a splendid evening.
In other words, the reflective mood of the poet deepens in the last stanza. No one can
remain untouched by the restful and soothing effect of the music at the close.

Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth

Introduction
This poem appeared in the Lyrical Ballads published in 1798. Wordsworth writes: “No poem
of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began
it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in
the evening, after a ramble of four or five days with my sister. The visit to Tintern called forth
memories of a previous visit in the summer of 1793 and led Wordsworth to review the change
which had affected his attitude to Nature in the interval. Apart from its personal interest, the poem
possesses a special historical value as the first clear statement of the emotional change in poetry
of which the Romantic Movement was the climax.

Tintern Abbey is a great reflective poem. Wordsworth first restates his moral doctrine: The
memory of this beautiful scene has not only been calming and restorative, but has aroused almost
unnoticed sensations of pleasure. Wordsworth does not explain or defend this doctrine; he merely
states it as an experience, in verse of such serene loveliness that it carries with it its own guarantee
of authenticity.
In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth reaches his best style, unadorned but rising to sustained
heights of eloquence and grandeur. He opens with quiet description, but he is no longer limited
to the language of “low and rustic life”.
 The poem may be regarded as an essay in verse, and one of the finest achievements of a
“feeling intellect”. It expounds some of the leading views of Nature which Wordsworth had
developed with Coleridge and which were to form the basis of much of his most important work.
Critical Appreciation
The poem is a statement of Wordsworth’s complete philosophy of Nature. The Memory of the
beautiful scene of Nature round Tintern Abbey has been affording relief to the poet in moments
of trouble and distress.
The opening lines give us a vivid description of the scene visited by the poet—the waters
rolling from their mountain springs; the steep and lofty rocks; the dark sycamore; the plots of
cottage ground; the orchard with its unripe fruits; the hedge-rows; etc. These lines show
Wordsworth’s minute and close observation of Nature. He was extra-ordinarily sensitive to the
sights of Nature and his pictures of Nature are a record of his observation.
The second part of the poem traces the growth of the poet’s mental and emotional attitude to
Nature. The memory of the scene, he says, has been a source of great joy to him and has acted on
him as a stimulus to kind and sympathetic deeds. The beauteous shapes of Nature have also served
to put him in that blessed mood in which one begins to understand the mystery of life. Whenever
the poet felt oppressed by fretful stir and fever of the world, he felt relief by thinking of this scene
of Nature. Thus Wordsworth looks upon Nature as a healing influence on a troubled mind.
Then he contrasts his attitude to Nature as a boy with his attitude to Nature as a man. As a
boy, his love for Nature was purely sensuous and physical. The” objects of Nature were then an
appetite, and they haunted him like a passion. They appealed only to his senses, and his love for
them was thoughtless. But now his love for Nature is spiritual. He has now witnessed the
sufferings of mankind (“the still, sad music of humanity’) and that experience has made him
thoughtful. He has now discovered in all Nature the existence of Divine Spirit “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.” This is Wordsworth’s pantheism (the belief that a Divine Spirit pervades all objects of
Mature). He goes on to refer to the moral and educative influence of Nature. Nature, he says, is a
great moral teacher. Nature is the nurse, the guide, the guardian of his heart, and the soul of all
his moral being.
In the last part of the poem, he pays a glowing tribute to his sister Dorothy. His feeling of love
for Nature is combined with a. feeling of tenderness for Dorothy. “Nature”, he says, “never did
betray the heart that loved her.” He advises Dorothy to submit herself completely to natural
influences because Nature has a purifying, ennobling and elevating effect on man and leads him
from joy to joy. He asks her to let the breeze blow freely against her cheek and the moon shine
freely on her brow. He calls himself a worshipper of Nature and urges Dorothy to develop an
intimacy with Nature because the sweet - memories of this intimacy with Nature will be a comfort
to her in the misfortunes and troubles of life. Wordsworth here again expresses his belief in the
education of man by Nature,
It is a great poem, of a flawless and noble beauty. It is also one of Wordsworth’s most personal
pieces written from the inmost stuff of his mind and heart. It sums up all that Nature, man and
his own development meant for him in the light of his ripe thinking. In other words, the poem
contains Wordsworth’s faith and is valuable chiefly as a statement of his Nature-philosophy in
highly lyrical verse.
The opening lines show Wordsworth’s pictorial or descriptive quality. We are given a vivid
description of the scene visited by the poet—the waters—the waters rolling from their mountain
springs; the steep and lofty cliffs; the green trees with their unripe fruits; the hedge-rows; the
column of smoke rising from amongst the trees.
The second part of the poem contains the Nature-philosophy of Wordsworth. The memory of
this scene of Nature has been a source of great joy to him. Whenever the poet was oppressed by
the “fretful stir and fever of the world”, he felt relief by thinking of this scene of Nature. Thus
Wordsworth looks upon Nature as a healing influence on troubled minds.
Then he contrasts his attitude to Nature as a boy with his attitude to Nature as a man. As a
boy, his love for Nature was purely sensuous and physical. But now his love for Nature is spiritual.
He has now witnessed the sufferings of mankind (“the still, sad music of humanity”) and that
experience has made him thoughtful. He perceives in all Nature the existence of a Divine Spirit
and expresses his pantheistic belief. And he goes on to dwell upon the moral influence of Nature,
Nature as a great moral teacher. Nature is the nurse, the guide, the guardian of his heart, and soul
of all his moral being.
In the last part, the feeling of love for Nature is combined with a feeling of tenderness for his
sister Dorothy. He advises her to submit herself completely to natural influences because Nature
has a purifying ennobling, and elevating effect on man and leads him from joy to joy. He believes
in (he education of man by Nature and thus establishes a close inter-relation between Nature and
man.
Wordsworth appears here, in his own words, as a “Worshipper of Nature”, or Nature’s priest.
He has stated his view of Nature in highly poetic lines charged with the deepest sincerity. The
poem is written in a meditative mood and is full of perfectly calm and tranquil joy, and as we go
through it we are greatly moved by its sentiments. We begin to see greater ‘beauty in Nature, more
grandeur, more majesty, and a profound significance. It is a poem that turns our lazy indifference
towards Nature into a vital feeling of admiration and awe.
The backward-looking character of the poem is also apparent. Wordsworth dwells upon his
memories of this natural scene and reveals how these memories sustained him. He also recollects
his boyish passion for Nature and all his glad animal movements. Much of Words worth’s poetry
possesses this reminiscent or backward-looking character.
The poem is marked by Wordsworth’s gift of making beautiful and highly expressive phrases.
Some of the phrases and lines of this poem have become so famous that they are often quoted.
“We see into the life of things”; “Fretful stir unprofitable”; the fever of the world”; “the sounding
cataract haunted me like a passion”; “aching joys and dizzy raptures”; “the still, sad music of
humanity”; “the shooting lights of thy wild eyes”; “Nature never did betray the heart that loved
her”—these are some of the best known phrases and lines in the poem.
“The music of the poem is also noteworthy. The sublimity of verse suits the loftiness of theme.
The blank verse of the poem is majestic and we see here an instance of Wordsworth’s grand style.

Discuss Wordsworth’s views of childhood as expressed in the Ode:

Intimations of Immortality.

According to Wordsworth, the child is an actor because the child imitates whatever
he observes. The child will imitate a wedding, a festival, a mourning, a funeral; in short,
whatever he witnesses. He will imitate the words he has heard in the course of a business
discussion or in the course of a dispute. He will imitate persons of all kinds, their oddities,
whims, follies. He will even imitate an old man trembling with palsy. Thus the period of
childhood is like a theatrical stage on which different roles and parts are presented. The
child’s whole vocation is endless imitation. This analysis of the child is psychologically
true. In fact it is because of this imitative quality that the child learns to walk, run or talk.

Secondly, Wordsworth finds a divine significance in the child. Having recently come
from his original home which is heaven, the child is still very near to God. ‘‘..trailing clouds
of glory do we come from God, who is our Home”. “Heaven lies about us in our infancy”.
As such the child has vivid memories of his heavenly life and is wrapped up in a dream-
like glory. Therefore, the child sees a divine glory in all objects of Nature. It is his
memories of his heavenly life which invest Nature with a dream-like splendour. Because
of these very memories, the child is conscious of a truth which the grown-up people are
always struggling to discover; namely, the immortality of the soul. In other words, the
child’s awareness of his immortality is based upon his recollections of heavenly life.
The child is, therefore, spiritually greater than man because, as one grows older and
older, one becomes more and more absorbed in the pleasures of this world and more
forgetful of one’s heavenly origin. It is this spiritual greatness of the child that makes
Wordsworth write one of the most splendid apostrophes to childhood in all literature. In
the eighth stanza he addresses the child as the ‘best Philosopher’, ‘mighty Prophet’, ‘Seer
blest’, ‘Eye among the blind’, and referring to its soul’s immensity says that it knows those
truths of which even the most learned persons are ignorant and that it is aware of the
immortality of the human soul. In the next stanza, Wordsworth refers to a personal
experience of childhood. “Fallings from us, vanishings” and “those obstinate questionings
of sense and outward things” take us back to poet’s own childhood when he used to feel
that his flesh had melted away and when he had to grasp a tree or some other object in
order to bring himself back to reality. As a child, Wordsworth felt the unreality of the
world of senses (i.e., the external World of which we gain a knowledge by means of our
five senses).
However, it is often stated that Wordsworth has been carried rather too far by his
enthusiasm. His glorification of the child in the eighth stanza is a little too much for us.
One critic justly objects that what Wordsworth has said in praise of the child leaves
nothing to be said of great philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. One may believe that the
child is probably vaguely conscious of its nearness to God, but it is rather hard to believe
that the child is the best philosopher, seer blest, etc. Wordsworth has idealized childhood.
It is not possible for the average reader to accept the doctrine of reminiscence.
Wordsworth might have had memories of a heavenly life but we do not see any sign of an
ordinary child having any such memories. But though this theory is rationally
unconvincing, it may be regarded as poetically true.
Discuss the main ideas presented in the ‘Ode: Intimations of
Immortality’.

The most important idea of this poem is the doctrine of reminiscence. The soul of
man comes into this world from heaven where it was living. The birth of a child means
the journey of a soul from heaven into this world. But the child is not utterly forgetful of
his life in heaven. On the contrary, the child comes here “trailing clouds of glory”; that is,
the child is wrapped up in a heavenly light. “Heaven lies about us in our infancy”.

The child’s memories of heavenly life invest the objects of Nature and every common
sight with a dream-like splendour. But, as the child grows, he falls more and more under
the influences of this earthly life. The attractions and allurements of this material world
drive out from the mind all memories of heaven so that the mature man cannot see the
dream-like glory which, in his childhood, he saw in the objects of Nature. But even in
maturity there are moments in a man’s life when his mind travels back to his childhood
and gets vague intimations of immortality from his memories of childhood. Thus the
memories of childhood serve as a basis for our belief in the soul’s immortality just as
memories of heaven give the child a sense of his immortality.
We may next consider the compensations of maturity. With maturity comes a loss of
the divine radiance which the child sees in Nature. But there are compensations for this
loss. The inborn human sympathy which never dies in the heart; the soothing thoughts
that spring out of human suffering, the belief in a life after death, the habit of reflection
which comes with the advance in age—these are the consolations for the loss of divine
glory in Nature.
Another important idea in the poem is the contrast between Wordsworth’s attitude
to Nature as a child and his attitude to Nature as a grown-up man. As a child he saw a
dream-like splendour in Nature. But as a grown-up man he finds Nature constantly
reminding him of humanity and the sorrows of humanity.
The poem contains a striking analysis of the child-mind. The child is essentially an
actor who imitates every part that he observes and all kinds of human beings including
an old man suffering from palsy. A wedding, a funeral, a mourning, a festival, business,
love, strife—the child imitates everything he sees. It is imitating the grownups that the
child generally becomes part and parcel of the conventional life of this world.
The child has been glorified and idealized by the poet. The child is regarded as much
greater than man. The child is a great philosopher, a blessed seer, a mighty prophet. The
reason why Wordsworth lavishes these epithets upon the child is that the child knows
certain truths which the grown-ups do not know. The child has vivid memories of
heavenly life and is, therefore, very near to God but the grown-up man has travelled far
away from God and has forgotten all about his pre-natal existence.
Tintern Abbey shows the three stages of development in Wordsworth’s
attitude to Nature. Discuss.

The first stage in the development of Wordsworth’s attitude to-Nature was marked
by a simple delight, in freedom and the open air, at the first stage, Wordsworth found
pleasure in roaming about in the midst of Nature. Like a deer, he leaped about over the
mountains, by the side of the deep rivers, and along the lonely streams. He wandered
about wherever Nature led him. He felt more like one who flees from something that he
dreads than like one who seeks the thing he loves. His wanderings in the midst of Nature
are described by him as “glad animal movements1’ and the pleasure he enjoyed in the
midst of Nature is called a coarse pleasure.

At the second stage, Wordsworth’s love for Nature was purely physical. Nature now
appealed chiefly to his senses. He felt pleasure in seeing the colours of Nature in smelling
the fragrance of Nature, in touching the objects of Nature and in hearing the sweet sounds
of Nature. The colours and shapes of mountains and wood to him were an appetite. The
noisy waterfall haunted him like a passion. Thus he loved Nature with an unreflecting, or
thoughtless passion. He experienced aching joys and dizzy raptures in his contact with
Nature.’ It was the external, outward sensuous beauty of Nature that delighted and
gladdened him.
Ultimately, at the third stage, Wordsworth’s love for Nature became spiritual and
intellectual. He had now seen the sufferings of mankind and heard “the still, sad music of
humanity.” He now became thoughtful. Therefore, when he looked at Nature, he was filled
with deep thoughts. He now found an inner meaning and a hidden significance in Nature.
The external beauty of Nature he still appreciated; but it was the inner or hidden
significance of Nature which chiefly attracted him and quickened him into thought. He
now found a living presence, or a divine spirit, in all the objects of Nature. He found that
living presence in the light of the setting sun, in the round ocean, in the blue sky, and in
all things. At this stage, he also realised the educative influence of Nature, and the power
of Nature to mould the human personality and human character. He looked upon Nature
as the nurse, the guide, the guardian of his heart, and the soul of his moral being. Thus,
at the third stage, Wordsworth was a “pantheist” and a believer in a spiritual
communication between man and Nature.

“Ode on intimations of immortality” by Wordsworth is lyrical and

emotional besides philosophical. What is your estimate? (P.U. 1998,
2001.)
‘Ode on imitation of immortality’ by Wordsworth is built on a simple but majestic
plan. The poet began it at the height of his genius in the middle of the splendid decade
between 1797 and 1807. He had recovered his balance after the failure of his hopes in the
French Revolution. The poem was started in the spring of 1802 and by summer the first
four stanzas had been completed. It was finished from two to four years later. In spite of
the delay in its composition, it retains its unity. Stanzas (I-IV) tell of spiritual crises. The
middle stanzas (V-VIII) provide an explanation and a theory of recollection from a pre-
natal existence. The last three stanzas (IX-XI) give a consolation that life has still a
meaning a value even if the vision is lost. In all three parts of the long poem Wordsworth
speaks of what is most important and most original in his poetry.

The poem is an ode and majestic lyric. It is personal in tone and deals with a lofty
meditative theme. Both the elements of thought and melody are in it. It is made of
irregular stanzas. In the first few stanzas the diction is simple but in the last few stanzas
the diction rises to a pitch of high contemplation and philosophy. The poem is about man
and nature. In the first few stanzas Wordsworth gives us all the sights and sounds of
nature, the rainbow and the rose, the moon and the starry nights, the birds and the young
lamb, the mountains and winds. In the last few stanzas he talks of the human child, the
immortal soul or the pre-natal existence, the earthly pleasure, palsied age and shades of
the prison house, and human life on earth.
The poem is full of contrasts which serve as a poetical device. Wordsworth speaks of
Platonic shadowy recollections which suggest a connection, a continuous existence of the
soul, from the part to the present through birth. Another contrast is used between
lamentations in the first part and exultations in the latter part of the poem. In the opening
stanzas the poet laments the loss of celestial heights he possessed in his childhood. In the
closing stanzas he exults in the strength that he derives from his present recollections of
the past. The purpose is to heighten by contrast the victory of soul against its temporary
losses, the joy of its permanent possessions. Spiritual life is contrasted to physical life, the
heavenly to the earthly. The world is conceived as a prison house which closes up the soul.
Earthly pleasures and habits of invitation deepen the prison gloom. But spiritual powers
resist the earthly. These powers of the mind remind man that he is a creature moving
about in a world of larger compass than this earthly one. They are high instincts that fight
successfully the tendencies of our mortal nature. They lead us to that immortal sea that
brought us hither.
This ode reflects the glorification of childhood, belief in the immortality of the human
soul, transmigration of soul from one world to another and the influence of worldly
experiences or earthly pleasures. It deals philosophically the gradual loss of innocence,
purity and sublimity of childhood and the advance of years. It also brings out the sweet
benediction of the philosophic mind and lastly the nights and sounds of nature. The poet
shows his passion for the company of nature, his contemplative mind and his great faith
in the sacredness of the human soul. We find in this ode more of Wordsworth as a
philosopher than as a poet. We see him more as a moral teacher than as a singer. We
acknowledge the poetic imagery and the music of the verses that flow. We are impressed
by the mystery and calm of the atmosphere which the poem creates as it rolls from stanza
to stanza. The immortality ode is a great philosophical poem. The first four stanzas of the
poem are lyrical and emotional. They offer no reason or explanations. In the fifth stanza,
the poet embarks on philosophy. The middle part of the poem gives Wordsworth’s
philosophy of childhood. He tries to reduce his scattered impression and convictions into
an orderly system.
 His philosophy has been compared to Plato’s. But it describes his own personal
experience of life and the process of ageing. He expounds that the new born soul comes
‘from an imperial palace’. The little child still has clear memories and visions of this other
heavenly place. But as he grows old, they begin to fade. Earth does her best to make him
forget this other place and its glories. The child himself, too, hurries on this process of
forgetfulness. Eventually he grows up and forgets this vision but still has rare glimpses of
this glory. When he is mature, these glimpses are best and ‘fade into the light of common
day’. The poet expresses his sense of loss and recovery through the image of light. The
imagery of night presides over the whole poem. Two other images of sea and of flowers,
are also used.

Bring out Wordsworth’s love of nature from any two poems included in
your course. (P.U. 2002)
Wordsworth is, indisputably, the greatest poet of Nature. There is a systematic
development in his attitude towards nature. At first he loves Nature for its external
loveliness. He appreciates it through his senses and revels in the colour, the smell and the
form of natural objects. He loves ‘sounding cataract’ for its sound, and the rose for its
beauty. This is the stage of ‘thoughtless youth’. Later on he begins to worship Nature for
its inner meaning. He now looks on Nature as ‘an embodiment of the Divine Spirit’. In
other words he spiritualizes Nature. He thinks that Nature is not lifeless but possesses a
life and spirit. He further believes that there is a spirit in nature as well as in the mind of
man. It is possible for man to have communion with Nature. Anyone who communes with
her would gain in power, beauty and holiness. He says in ode on the Intimations of
Immortality:

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
He regards Nature as the nurse of his moral being and worships it as a teacher, guide
and friend. He describes Nature in such a way as to suggest that nature can mould and
ennoble human life. He places nature on a high pedestal. Nature is like a goddess who
compels admiration and worship.
Wordsworth’s philosophy of Nature, being systematic, is based on some well-defined,
fundamental principles. Nature is instinct with life. In other words, there is an indwelling
spirit behind every flower, tree and river, and indeed every commonplace object of
Nature. According to Wordsworth, Nature exercises a two fold influence upon man. It is
to man first impute and then law. As an impute, she inspires the human mind; as a law,
she restrains and chastens man’s thoughts and emotions. There is a pre-determined
harmony between the Spirit of Nature and the mind of man. The deep and essential
harmony between Man and Nature works in two ways;
1. It enables Nature to communicate its message to Man.
2. It enables Man to repeat on the message.
 As we have said earlier, Wordsworth realizes this deep spiritual significance of Nature
through three successive stages;
(a) The sensuous (b) The intellectual
(c) The moral and spiritual.
Wordsworth’s love of Nature becomes at the last stage ‘holy’. He loves Nature as a
devotee loves his God. No poet of Nature has been more truthful than Wordsworth in his
representation of the various objects of Nature. He paints natural objects but never reads
his emotions in them. He offers us the bird and the flower, the tree and the river, the wind
and the rain just as they are. He sees nothing ugly or mean. He exalts and glorifies even
the most ordinary things of life and Nature. He recognizes the sentient and personal life
of Nature and not merely her physical growth or outward changes. In his childhood, the
flowers, the streams, the hill and even the winds are regarded as his companions.
Let us now study the two important poems of Wordsworth, namely, ‘Tintern Abbey’
and ‘Immortality Ode’ to expound the observations made above. We see Wordsworth in
Tintern Abbey as a worshipper of Nature. He shows his romantic passion for nature. He
gives highly emotional descriptions of the effects of the outer world upon his inner life.
The main theme of the poem is the poets’ relationship with Nature and his indebtedness
to her. In fact, we know everything about Wordsworth as a poet of Nature from Tintern
Abbey. He recounts how Nature influenced him, brought him peace and tranquillity of
mind even when he was in the din and bustle of the city. We find him as the poet and
mystic of Nature. He describes how the contemplation of Nature brought to him a blessed
mood and miner vision that enabled him to see into the life of things. He gives the
different stages of development of his love for Nature. He takes delight in Nature. He
achieves a contact with the still sad music of humanity’. And finally he feels an all-
pervading spirit in her. In this poem he clearly states his faith in Nature: Nature never did
betray the heart that loved her’. This poem reveals his mysticism and pantheism. Nature
becomes the passion for the picturesque:
I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
In Immortality Ode the poet faces a crisis in his life. He has been a worshiper of
nature. But with the advance in years, he seems to lose his close contact with nature. He
remembers that there was a time when meadow, grove, stream, the earth and every
common sight was a matter of glory and a fresh dream. He has now arrived at a stage of
his life when he says:
 ‘The things which I have seen I now can see no more.’ He further acknowledges that
the rainbow, the rose, the moon, the starry might, the sunshine are all the same but he
feels that there has past away a glory from the earth.
He is visited by sad thoughts but he has given vent to his sorrow and feels relieved.
He has recovered his former composure. ‘And I again am strong’. The winds, the earth,
the sea all are filled with joy. The poet invites the shepherd-boy to share his delight. He
feels the heavens laugh, the earth is adorning itself and the children are culling fresh
flowers in a thousand valleys far and wide. But he asks: where is that loveliness, that
beauty and delight which used to haunt everything in his childhood. Wordsworth, as the
poem proceeds, gives an explanation as to why this loss of touch with Nature has
happened. He has survived with this timely expression of his grief and takes courages in
the thoughts that even though he has suffered a loss, other gifts of life have followed. Thus
he has got a consolation.

In ‘The Reverie of poor Susan” we find Wordsworth a champion of the

cause of the destitute and the downtrodden. Elaborate. (P.U.
1999,2000)
The poem, “The Reverie of poor Susan” has undertones of the “urbanisation phase”
that London was passing through in the last years of the 18 th century. There is only one
character in the poem, Susan, who probably belongs to a small town in England. She
belongs to the ‘destitute’ working class.
This is suggested through the line, “….it has sung for three years;
Poor Susan has passed by the spot…” She must be passing the spot daily when she
goes to work. The poem has been divided into three portions, each one having 5 lines. The
first portion is a sketch of the melancholic atmosphere not only of the scene in London
but also of the poem itself. Through Susan’s eyes, Wordsworth is able to see the transition
in London (Wood Street). The second portion (line 6-10) establishes the scene of trance
that Susan visualises. This trance–like mood though pure imagination, yet has a touch of
reality in it as London was before the ‘urbanisation’. While the third and last part of the
poem is complete picture of the disappointment, destitution and emotional
transformation of Susan.
The basic idea in the poem is urbanization and the effect of industrialization on
different individuals. The people who were most effected were the down-trodden people
of the society who used to live in the countryside. Instead of financial and domestic
concerns that people had in those days, in this poem Wordsworth has managed to etch
the aesthetic concerns of one of the many individuals. The landscape that has changed by
the changes in civilization has become the setting scene for the poem. Apparently this
poem discusses effects of industrial revolution on a rustic mind.
The phrase, “Hangs a Thrush” depicts loneliness of the thrush that is isolated from all
the birds. It is alone and is ‘loudly’ singing. Though the bird has been singing for three
years, Susan can still feel its isolated “songs”. The moment she hears the song, she goes
into the trance–like sequence because the song has a connection with the real landscape
of London that is replaced by the industrial revolution. She is transported to the past
through the sound of the voice. She sees mountains and trees.
Yet the vapours can be depicting pure dew drops or even the mistiness of her
imaginary scene. This moment of ‘Reverie’ has clearly drawn a contrast between the two
phases of her home town that Susan has seen. First there was the beautiful countryside
filled with the splendours of Nature while the other one is the desolate Thrush singing on
the branch of a tree. The gait in which Susan ‘tripped’ in the old days has also transformed
for her. After the revolution, Susan instead of happily tripping, merely ‘passed’ from the
spot.
Wordsworth captures all the reverie of the downtrodden as well as the transitional
phase of civilization in a small town of England. Wordsworth also makes it a point in the
poem that the ‘single collage’ left is secluded, quiet and peaceful. Her world after the
revolution was restricted to her collage alone. Before the urbanization process, her world
was extended out to the landscape and scenic atmosphere all around her. Her private
world is now invaded by the rush of urbanization. Her love now is limited to her home
and the rest to her is an alien-land where she feels herself out of place.
While the poet makes the readers visualize the scene along with Susan, he also brings
both the readers and Susan back into the real life where the picture fades away. Susan is
deprived of the privileges. It is only the reverie through which Nature can be kept alive
otherwise, the visual perceptions do not allow Susan to feed her eyes on mountains, trees
or the river flow.
William Wordsworth, hence in the poem describes the mental and psychological state
of the downtrodden in England after the Revolution. The ideas in this poem that make
the poet a ‘Champion’ of the cause of such people is a peep into their souls.
It was not only economic or domestic transformation that was troubling the people.
It was also the aesthetic conflict as well as a sense of alienated atmosphere that troubled
the people. Wordsworth in the poem paints the whole picture, thus eyeing the world from
the eyes of a commoner.

Discuss how Wordsworth gives importance to imagination. (P.U. 1997)

Wordsworth associates imagination with the creative power or the poetic principle. He selects
incidents from humble and rustic life for the themes of his poetry. He throws over them a
colouring of imagination to make them appear in an unusual light. Imagination is thus a
transforming power. It has the ability to change the usual and the ordinary in an unusual and
uncommon way. Poetry is a modified ‘image of man and nature’. The poet is able to impart ‘the
glory and freshness of a dream’ to ordinary things of nature. He can present in his poetry the light
that never was on land and sea.
He is able to do so through the creative faculty of imagination. It is thus an active power. The
poet is not a passive reflector of the images formed from nature.
Wordsworth holds that the poet is a man who not only feels strongly but also thinks long and
deeply. He is able to treat absent things as if they are present. He can imaginatively visualise
objects which are not present before his eyes in their concrete forms. Poetry originates in emotion
that is recollected in tranquillity.
The recollection of emotions enables the poet to ‘see’ the object which evokes the emotions.
Imagination enables the poet to look deep into the heart and soul of things. It is through the
imaginative faculty that he arrives at the general truths basic to human nature. Through the
imaginative power, the poet is able to present emotions which he has not directly experienced.
But he presents them in such a way that they seem personally experienced.
Imagination is a faculty which transforms the external world in a creative manner. It is a
power that enables the poet to arrive at a realization of the connection between the particular and
the eternal. It helps the poet to dig deep into the core of human existence and to get at universal
truths. These appeal to us quite instinctively. This is what separates the poetic truth from scientific
truth. Imagination transforms the apparent world into a world of higher import. The poet
conceives the essential nature of his object and sees it in its basic reality. He is a philosopher.
Wordsworth never ignores the importance of thought and reason. He calls imagination a
‘higher reason’ –’reason in her most exalted mood’. He stresses on the importance of imagination
in the process poetic creation. For him, it is the most important gift that a poet can have.
Imagination to him is a divine power. It is ‘the vision and the faculty divine’. It transfigures sense
impressions. It makes the poet a visionary. To Wordsworth, imagination is inventive, serious and
superior. It is active and half-creates the world it perceives. The faculty of mind which creates is
the faculty of the imagination. To Wordsworth, the mind has two faculties—the passive fancy and
the active imagination. Fancy merely reflects the external world. Imagination has the poetic power
to confer, abstract and modify the original impressions in order to give them a fresh significance.
True knowledge is obtained through insight. Imagination gives us the unified vision of reality.
Wordsworth relates truth and poetry through imagination. It is the mental power that transforms
the literal to the figurative.
The Solitary Reaper, Tintern Abbey, the Immortality Ode and To the Cuckoo—all seem to
have been composed according to emotions recollected in tranquillity. These are intensely felt and
well contemplated poems. The imagination is at its highest. The poet recreates the whole
atmosphere and recreates it with the help of his imagination. He can recall his childhood passion
for the Cuckoo which was a voice, a mystery and an invisible thing.
‘Thou bringest to me a tale
O visionary hours.
Tintern Abbey has been re-visited after five years but his imagination is so active that it
seems:
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye.
Wordsworth’s imagination is so powerful that he can remember the vision, the joy and then
its loss in his early life.
The vision splendid
On my way was attended.
Wordsworth is opposed to gross materialism in his poems. Explain
(P.U.1997)

William Wordsworth is opposed to gross materialism in his poems. He does not approve of
the sordid pursuits of life. He wants human beings to keep away from the life of sordid
materialism. This sort of life is neither useful to the individual nor good for the society. In his
sonnet ‘The World is Too Much with us’ the poet expresses his resentment against the life of
materialism. He points out that getting and spending—a life of materialism—isolates a man from
Nature.
This separation of man from the beauties of Nature is a curse for his own spiritual development.
Materialism and engrossment take away man from the path of Nature. Close contact with
Nature brings consolation and peace to his soul. Wordsworth gives the message that a man
should keep away from the gross materialism of worldly people. He should live in close
proximity to the beauties of Nature and lead a life of simplicity.
He is a worshipper of the beauties of Nature. If we are too much engrossed in amazing the
worldly things, we just lay waste our powers. We expend our energies in sordid activities.
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The poet warns his countrymen of the evils of worldliness.
He attaches so much importance to the appreciation of the manifestations of Nature that
if we are lost in the pursuits of worldly enjoyments at the cost of Nature, he would like to renounce
even his religion and prefer paganism in order to maintain strong link with Nature. Look at his
preference:
Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan such led in a creed outworn;
Wordsworth never likes London life. Urban life corrupts a man whereas Nature purifies and
moralizes him. It fills his mind with sublime thoughts and acts as his guide, teacher, friend and
well wisher. He is for ever spiritualising the moods of Nature and winning from them moral
consolation. A poet like Wordsworth finds it difficult to worship the world of materialism instead
of the world of Nature. His diverse interests are opposed to materialism. He believes that even a
superstitious veneration of the priest of Nature is better than apathy born out of absorption in
material things.
Wordsworth is also a poet of man. He gives his thoughts to the feelings of man. He is a
philosophical poet whose ultimate theme is the heart of man. Humble and rustic life provides him
with the essential passions of the heart at their purest and simplest. He is interested in the “still,
sad music of humanity”. His rustic characters like Michael are corrupted in the town but are
alright when they are in touch with Nature. He is a poet of human growth. This theme is widely
expressed in such poems as Expostulation and Reply, Tintern Abbey and Immortality Ode. ‘The
Prelude’ deals with the growth of a poets’ mind. Before he prepares to compose his long poem,
The Prelude, Wordsworth prefers the country side—to live away from the boisterous life of
London. He gets financial help from his friend and feels content with his lot. He is never worried
about materialism. This liberty, rather, from financial constraints enables him to pay utmost
attention to the composition of this great autobiographical poem.
 He is a great love poet. His love poetry readily appeals to our hearts. Love is the theme of
poems such as The Thorn, and the Idiot Boy. He is also interested in child life. His interest in child
life is evident in poems like ‘We are Seven’, The Immortality Ode, Lucy Gray, The Cuckoo and The
Prelude (Books I and II). He is the poet of solitude. All solitary things have an extraordinary
fascination for him. He introduces solitary figures in his poetry, for example, The Leech Gatherer
and The Solitary Reaper.
The above discussion of different aspects of Wordsworth as a poet shows that his interests
are quite varied and are not at all expressive of his slightest materialism. He is a didactic poet. He
says, “every great poet is a teacher: I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing.”
Wordsworth gives the message of a moral and virtuous life in his poetry. He has got nothing to do
with material gains. His most significant message to humanity is the message of ‘plain living and
high thinking.’ Wordsworth is the first among the philosophic poets of the Romantic Movement.
His place is with Coleridge and Shelley. Wordsworth is a mystic in the true sense of the word. He
is a seer and a practical psychologist with a subtle mind and an unusual capacity for feeling. It is
not the beauty of Nature which brings him joy and peace but the life in Nature. He himself catches
a vision of that life. In his poems like Tintern Abbey and Immortality Ode, the mystic note is very
strong. The faith that divine spirit is present both in the objects of Nature and in the mind of man
is mystically expressed by the poet in Tintern Abbey. His mystic conception of childhood is
expressed in the Immortality Ode.
From the above detailed discussion we can conclude that Wordsworth is a great poet with
other aspects and considerations than materialism. His interests are vast and varied but not
materialistic. He is opposed to worldliness but inclined to Man and Nature. For Wordsworth,
Nature and God are the objects of the philosophy of his poetry, cognition and life. From a view of
Daffodils to the River Derwent, spirituality envelopes his vision. This aspect of his poetic
considerations lifts him high above the ‘gross materialism’ of the world.

Discuss Wordsworth as a poet of Nature.

There have been greater poets than Wordsworth, but none more original,” says A. C. Bradley.
Wordsworth’s chief originality is, of course to be sought in his poetry of Nature which is expressive
of the formative, restorative, reassuring, moral and spiritual influence of Nature on the mind and
personality of man.
The other Romantic poets have also been the lovers of Nature but whereas Shelley
intellectualises nature and Keats is interested only in the colour and fragrance of Nature rather
than seeking a meaning in it, it is only Wordsworth who spiritualises Nature. Intense spirituality
is the distinctive quality in Wordsworth’s Nature poetry. But it is constantly to be kept in mind
that before reaching this stage of intense spirituality, Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature un-
derwent a progressive evolution—from ‘the coarser pleasures’ of the boyish days to an
unreflecting passion untouched by intellectual interests or association to the transitory stage of
human heartedness accompanied by a lasting and more significant stage of spiritual and
mystical interpretation of Nature. This last stage has been termed as Pantheism and Warwick
James says, “At this stage the foundation of Wordsworth’s entire existence was his mode of
seeing God in Nature and Nature in God.”
Wordsworth’s passion for Nature is well-known. The ordinary sights and sounds of Nature
usually ignored by us bring to the poet’s imagination a wealth of beauty and bliss. For instance,
his heart is captivated by the sights of the waves and flowers dancing in sympathetic unison in
their glee and remembers the scene with rapturous delight:
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Nature, according to Wordsworth, is a living entity. This belief distinguishes Wordsworth
from other poets of Nature. Unlike other poets of Nature, he believes that Nature is endowed with
life and consciousness and has the capacity of thinking, feeling and willing. The all-pervading soul
of Nature imparts its own consciousness to all the different objects of Nature —
Fruits and flowers, stones and streams, rocks and rivers
To every natural form, rock, fruit and flower,
Even the loose stones that cover the highway
I gave a moral life: I saw then feel
What are their feelings? According to Wordsworth, entire nature is permeated by the feelings
of joy and happiness, harmony and peace. The flowers enjoy the air they breathe, the waves and
the daffodils dance together in glee and the sea bares her bosom to the moon in the ecstasy of her
love. And there are no strifes, no cares and worries, no jealousy and hatred to disturb the peace
and harmony, reigning in the heart of Nature. On the other hand, it is the feeling “I love and
kinship that animates every object of Nature:
Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing
From heart to heart is stealing
From earth to man, to earth—
It is the hour of feeling
Thus we find that Wordsworth regards Nature as a living entity radiating joy and happiness
all around.
Wordsworth’s approach to Nature is that of a mystic. His mysticism is based on his conviction
that God pervades the entire universe and all the varied phenomena are the outward
manifestations of the same Eternal Reality. Every flower, bud and insect, every tree, hill and
stream is imbued with Divine presence. In Tintern Abbey he describes his experience when he felt
Immanent through the universe,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought
All rolls through all things
He experiences these mystic moments when:
The gross and visible frame of things
Relinquishes its hold upon the sense,
Yea, almost on the mind itself, and seems
All unsubstantialised.
The spiritual reality that lies beyond the world of senses is revealed in many of his poems. It
is there in To the Cuckoo, in theOde on Immortality, in Tintern Abbey and in several passages
in The Prelude. The cuckoo appears to the poet to be ‘a wandering Voice’ which bring him ‘a tale
of visionary hours’. It is not a bird, ‘but, an invisible thing, a voice, a mystery’. In the Ode on
Immortalitythe poet speaks of a time when meadow, grove, and stream and every common sight
seemed apparelled in a celestial light. InTintern Abbey, the poet realises the ‘presence of the
Eternal spirit
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.
Wordsworth believes that there is a pre-existing harmony between the mind of Man and
Nature. According to Herbert Read, “Man and Nature, mind and the external world, are geared
together and in unison complete the motive principle of the universe. They act and react upon
each other, ‘so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure’.” But when man becomes
indifferent to Nature and her elevating influences then, according to Wordsworth, the miseries
and misfortunes of mankind arise. He laments the loss of man’s contact with Nature when he
writes:
The World is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours:
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.
Nature is constantly communicating its elevating thoughts to man. When the soul of man is
in tune with the spirit of Nature, it receives impressions of virtue and wisdom that exercise an
ennobling influence on human nature. Nature is “the best and truest of all teachers”.
Nature not only develops the mental and moral qualities of man but also helps him establish
communion with the spirit that pervades the universe. Nature is thus not only a moral teacher but
also a spiritual guide to man.
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused
Wordsworth’s attitude towards nature has been called unrealistic. It has been said that if
Wordsworth had known the tropical jungle, his philosophy of Nature would have been different.
But the truth is that Wordsworth is not blind to the stern and cruel aspects of Nature. He can also
depict the graver aspects of Nature. Wordsworth receives inspiration from his faith that there is
an eternal spirit of peace and happiness at the heart of Nature and that this spirit can be
communicated to the soul of man: Central peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation.
Henry Duffin has rightly said, “His (Wordsworth) creed did not necessitate a nature
uniformly benign. His claims were that all nature, animate and inanimate, shared in that
‘principle of joy’ which man himself overmuch neglected, that the spirit of nature, imaginatively
known, could be an inspiring companion to the human spirit; that nature was a manifestation of
the “Being of God.”