The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World

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6 CHAPTER 27 The Romantic View of Nature

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Wordsworth championed a poetic language that resem-

bled “the real language of men in a state of vivid sensa-

tion.” Although he did not always abide by his own

precepts, his rejection of the artificial diction of

Neoclassical verse in favor of this “real language” antici-

pated a new, more natural voice in poetry—one informed

by childhood memories and deeply felt experiences.

Wordsworth’s verse reflects his preference for lyric poetry,

which—like art song—describes deep personal feeling.

One of the most inspired poems in the Lyrical Balladsis

“Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” the

product of Wordsworth’s visit to the ruins of a medieval

monastery situated on the banks of the Wye River in

southwest England (Figure 27.3). The 159-line poem con-

stitutes a paean to nature. Wordsworth begins by describ-

ing the sensations evoked by the English countryside; he

imagination... and above all, to make these inci-

dents and situations interesting by tracing in them,

truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of

our nature.

The leading nature poet of the nineteenth century,

Wordsworth was born in the English Lake District. He

dated the beginning of his creative life from the time—at

age fourteen—when he was struck by the image of tree

boughs silhouetted against a bright evening sky.

Thereafter, what he called “the infinite variety of natural

appearances” became his principal source of inspiration

and the primary subject of his poetry. Nature, he claimed,

could restore to human beings their untainted, childhood

sense of wonder. Moreover, through nature (as revealed

to us by way of the senses), one might commune with the

elemental and divine forces of the universe.

Figure 27.3J. M. W. TURNER,

Interior of Tintern Abbey, 1794.

Watercolor, 12^5 ⁄ 8  97 ⁄ 8 in. At age

nineteen, Turner explored the

Wye Valley in search of

picturesque subjects. This

thirteenth-century abbey had

fallen into ruin after the

dissolution of the monasteries

by Henry VIII in the 1530s.