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On Wordsworth and Emerson’s Conceptions of Nature

Abstract:By comparing and analyzing their two poems, I will try to define Wordsworth and Emerson’s respective conception of nature. The reason why they formed such conceptions of nature is, to the former, lies in his passiveness; and to the latter, in German philosophy and bold individualism. Key Words:conception of nature;NATURE;philosophical conception of nature;common conception of nature;passiveness;individualism Outline I. Introduction II. Wordsworth’s conception of nature III. Emerson’s double conceptions of nature IV. Conclusion

Ⅰ. IntroductionIn the 19th century, romanticism prevailed as the literary mainstream throughout the European continent. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was one of the pioneers in the romanticist movement. As a great poet of nature, he wrote many famous poems to express his love for nature, one of which is “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. In the narrative poem, the poet successfully compared his loneliness with the happy and vital daffodils. The daffodils, the symbol of the nature, bring great joy and relief to the speaker. So Wordsworth’s conception of nature is that nature has a lot to do with man, it can not only refresh one’s soul and fill one with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort one’s heart when in solitude. In 1832 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), an American Unitarian minister, left the ministry for Europe to pursue a career in writing and public speaking. There he acquainted Wordsworth and got influenced by him. When he returned to New England, he accomplished his masterpiece Nature, in which he speaks loud his love for nature and explicates his philosophical ideas that earned him the reputation as Transcendentalism’s most seminal force. However, Emerson did not just imitate Wordsworth or any other European romanticist’s minds, rather, his conception of nature is a different and more complex one, which we can see from his poemRhodora. Emerson holds that man and nature all come from the same power. So philosophically, this poem shows Emerson’s transcendentalism is a kind of idealist monism. And his NATURE not only includes the common nature, but also includes man’s body. So Emerson’s conception of nature has double meaning, one is philosophical, the other common. After further exploration, we can find that Wordsworth’s conception of nature originates from his passive attitude toward life, while Emerson’s owes to German philosophy and his strong individualism.

Ⅱ.Wordsworth’s conception of natureOn July 14,1789, the Parisian people stormed the Bastille, which marked the outbreak of the French Revolution. Before long its great influence swept the whole European continent. In England all social contradictions sharpened in the meantime. Workers, peasants, and indeed all people of the lower classes as well as the progressive intellectuals hailed the French Revolution and its principle “ liberty, equality and fraternity”. In company with the political movement in progress, a new trend also arose in the literary world, namely, romanticism. It prevailed in England during the period 1798-1832. In 1798, “Lyrical Ballads”, with only about ten thousand words, came out as the manifesto to the English Romanticism, marking a new era in English literature. And its authors, William Wordsworth and his confidant Samuel T. Coleridge (1772-1834) became widely known as the “Lake Poets”. In the Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads”, Wordsworth set forth his principles of poetry, which reads “ all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling.” This forms a contrast to the classicism that made reason, order and the old, classical traditions the criteria in its poetical creations. Wordsworth holds that firstly the contents of a poem should focus on common country life and the beauty of nature, while the diction of a poem should be plain and vivid with the application of lower-class persons’ daily language. The two main principles posed a strong challenge to the “upper-class only” Neo-classicism and quickly went popular. In the eighteenth century poems were supposed to serve the upper class, and the theme usually had something to do with the upper-class life. In contrast, romanticism gave much attention to the nature. As a great poet of nature, he was the first to find words for the most elementary sensations of man face to face with natural phenomena. These sensations are universal and old, but once expressed in his poetry, become charmingly beautiful and new. His deep love for nature runs through such short lyrics as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”: I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the thess, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. In the first two stanzas the narrator, one version of the poet, tells us that one day when wandering through a landscape, he was struck by the sight of a field of daffodils. The first line “I wondered lonely as a cloud” immediately establishes the speaker’s loneliness. And in sharp contrast with the poet’s loneliness, the daffodils are happy and bristling with life: they are “dancing”, and “tossing” their heads. In addition, the daffodils are in large numbers. Their vast number is emphasized in the second stanza when the poet describes them as “continuous” and in a “never-ending line”. Actually, the emphasis on the happiness of the daffodils and their large number serves to foil the isolation and dispiritedness of the speaker. But this contrast between the speaker and the landscape soon becomes fused or integrated in the third stanza, where the relationship between the poet and the landscape is one of intimate union, suggesting an identity of mood between subject and object: A poet could but be gay, In such a jocund company; And later, in moments of solitude, he recalls the experience, seeing the field again in his mind. For oft, when on my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. Loneliness once again seizes the poet as he lies on his couch. Though physically he is far from nature, he somehow feels sort of connection with it through the power of imagination. A single brief event which occurred in a distant summer landscape is recaptured in the poet’s mind. Meanwhile, the emotional mood attached to that scene is also revived. The diction of this poem is, in general, simple, direct, and clear. The image of the daffodils conveys qualities of movement and radiance through carefully chosen words. At first sight, the flowers are seen as “fluttering and dancing”; then the poet compares the flowers to the “stars that shine/And twinkle on the milky way”, and then to the “sparkling waves” of a nearby lake. The daffodils are described as “golden”, not yellow, because “golden” suggests more than a color; it connotes light. These words of movement and radiance create a picture of nature as vital, animated, and glowing. Words for joy (glee, sprightly, gay, jocund, bliss) are used in a crescendo that suggests the intensity of the speaker’s happiness. A different kind of repetition appears in the movement from loneliness to solitude. Both words denote aloneness, but they are radically different. The poem moves from the sadly alienated separation felt by the speaker in the beginning, to his joy and satisfaction in re-imagining the natural scene, a movement characterized in such words as “loneliness” and “solitude.” A similar movement is depicted within the final stanza by such words as “vacant” and “fills”. The emptiness of the speaker’s spirit is transformed into a fullness of feeling as he “remembers” the daffodils. Wordsworth develops the vision of the daffodils; and through this simple event, he tries to explore the relationship between humanity and nature. Therefore, in his eyes, nature can not only refresh oneself and fill one with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort one’s heart when in solitude.

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