Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798, or otherwise known as simply Tintern Abbey, by William Wordsworth is a poem in monologue form about Wordsworth's return to the Wye Valley after five years. This poem is written in blank verse which gives it a very fluid and natural flow and as we read it, the poem seems to have been written as a simple dialogue or a flow of thoughts by the speaker, and doesn't seem forced at all. The language within the poem is also very simple and easy to understand which suggests that Wordsworth wasn't concerned with showing off his breadth of vocabulary, but rather have the readers know that he is simply speaking from the heart and letting the audience gain a good understanding of his thoughts right as they leave his mind and are placed onto paper.
The common shortened title of this poem (Tintern Abbey) has a very small connection to the actual subject matter of the poem. Instead of the religious undertones surrounding the idea of the Abbey, a religious and spiritual place, which is expected, Wordsworth uses nature in the form of forests, pastures, mountains, and springs as his own type of religious and spiritual place. I noticed many religious undertones throughout this poem, one of which can be seen in lines 109-111, Wordsworth explains that nature is, "The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,/ The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul/ Of all my moral being."
The connection to God can be seen through this language as many of us has probably seen before the idea of God being an anchor, a guide, and/or a guardian, however in this case this connection is in reference to nature in Wordsworth's life. We can again see an example of Wordsworth's spiritual experience in the poem in lines 93-102 where he reflects on feeling a sense of joy from presence that he can feel from simple things such as the light from a setting sun, the air, and the blue sky. He notes that this "presence" that he feels is in "all thinking things, all objects of all thought,/ And rolls through all things." He continues on to say that therefore he loves all aspects of nature because of the thoughts it invokes in him. In this case, nature is being personified almost like God gets personified as more than a spirit but as a creator.
I definitely can see the religious undertones in this poem to. I think that nature is kind of its own religion to Wordsworth; that the spiritually he feels from nature is more real and strong than anything else he could worship or devote time to thinking about.
ReplyDeleteTo me, this poem takes a ton of Wordsworth's thoughts from "The World is Too Much with Us" and makes them much more personal--if we are to assume that the speaker is indeed Wordsworth. He explains that his connection wit and memories of the woods has made him happy when he was not there. This reminded me of "The Wolrd is Too Much with Us" in that perhaps these memories of the woods are what grounded Wordsworth when the world became too much for him, when he realized that he was not appreciating nature to the fullest, he looked back on a time when he had that kind of connection with nature and it reminded him that he needs to take a moment to remember it. He also explains that now, he looks upon nature while hearing "The still, sad music of humanity." This makes me think that Wordsworth is just coming to the realization that humanity can no longer connect with nature as he once did, due to all that they are caught up in.
I really enjoyed this poem and your comments on it as well! It was a nice change of pace to read Wordsworth because of the simple language, and the strong imagery and allusions that added to the poem's fluidity. While I had to look up a few words and phrases, it was a much easier read than some of the other writers we have read so far. I also thought it was interesting that Wordsworth jumps from the present to the past and then future. This adds a new element that I think we haven't seen too much of yet in our readings. It also was beneficial for him to do this because it drives home the point that nature will always remain. It is something you can remember experiencing as a child, or adult. For Wordsworth, nature is both a comfort and spiritual place that he shares with not just his sister in the poem but with his readers as well.
ReplyDelete-Megan Harpel