A poet to whom nature is deemed most highly as a means of spiritual revitalization and recollection should naturally produce a piece of work such as 'Tintern Abbey'.

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A poet to whom nature is deemed most highly as a means of spiritual revitalization and recollection should naturally produce a piece of work such as ‘Tintern Abbey’. Indeed, no poet would appear as esteemed in achieving their poetic objectives as Wordsworth whose theories of romantic poetic structures have been often accepted and highly criticized.

To comprehend Wordsworth one must have a cultural understanding of the period in which he was writing. The rational and rather uncreative neo-classic period of Swift and Pope had given way to Romanticism in the late eighteenth century. The English literature of the Romantic period is reputed to be influenced by the “revolutionary reaction against the social, political and literary norms of the eighteenth century enlightenment” (Aiden Day – ). The British Romantic writers lived through a period of rapid social change and violent political upheavals, thus they had their roots in an age of revolution and were able to respond fully through their writing.

A prominent feature of Romanticism was its use of the pathetic fallacy, associating the moods of man with the moods of nature;

“…these steep and lofty cliffs,

Which on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion;” (Tintern Abbey 5-7)

The personification of the River Wye illustrates again how Wordsworth views his life in relation to nature;

“O Sylvan Wye! That wanderer through the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!” (Tintern abbey 57-8)

Coleridge saw poetry as “shaped by the organic laws of imagination, not by external canons” and Wordsworth reiterated this view, believing that poetry should be “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (William Wordsworth, Preface to the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ 1800). This emphasis on feeling, creativity and imagination (believed by Coleridge to be the supreme poetic quality) was the basis for much romantic thought and many therefore believe that Romanticism began in the 1790’s with the publication of the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge. Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ exhibits many widely accepted elements of the Romantic Age exemplifying Wordsworth’s belief that “poetry should flow form one’s emotional experience” (Romanticism: An Anthology (2nd Edition) 2001, Blackwell Publishers, Duncan Wu (Intro XXXII).

Low and rustic subjects were generally chosen by Romantic poets who believed them to be closer to nature and therefore closer to the Divine. The separation from nature to an ‘artificial society’ was considered to be mentally and spiritually debilitating, therefore “romantic writing abounds in criticism of the city as a dehumanising and alienating force and therefore discredits the growing urbanisation of the time” (‘Romantic Criticism 1800-25’ 1989 Peter Kitson, B.T. Batsford Ltd. Pg 28). Wordsworth believed he was able to speak a “plainer and more emphatic language” (Wordsworth, Preface to the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ 1800) in his poetry of ...

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‘Tintern Abbey’ deals with the subjects of childhood as a memory within the adult mind, a belief that childhood’s lost connection with nature can be preserved in the adult mind only.

“(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,

And their glad animal movements all gone by,)

To me was all in all. – I cannot paint

What then I was.” (Tintern Abbey 74-5)

Wordsworth perceives a contrast in the landscape he now witnesses and that of his remembrance;

“The picture of the mind revives again:

…when first I came along these hills;” (Tintern Abbey 62-8)

Standing pensively on the banks of the River Wye, Wordsworth recapitulates his memory of the scene demonstrating how our feelings are influenced and directed by our thoughts and memories, representative of all our past feelings;

“Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,

And what perceive;” (Tintern Abbey 106-7)

In the aforementioned lines Wordsworth suggests an important romantic concept; the mind not only receives sensations from the outside world but it also half-creates through its own operations of memory, imagination and perception the scene before the eyes. The ‘mighty world’ of eye and ear is based on nature but is also shaped by the poets mind!

As in much poetry of the Romantic Era, ‘Tintern Abbey’ associates nature with the hopes of humanity, thus Wordsworth’s empathy with the natural world is fundamental throughout the poem;

“…For I have learned to look on nature as

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought” (Tintern Abbey 89-102)

Wordsworth believed in a pantheist perception of nature “as unified by a universal life force in all things” (‘Romanticism: Anthology’ 2nd edition 2001, Duncan Wu; Blackwell Publishers, pg 266). Wordsworth’s interest did not lie primarily in external nature but rather in how the mind relates to nature and the external world, sharing with other Romantic writers a mode of seeing and perception that was shaped by human meanings and values (an ability to transform the ordinary into the ‘sublime’).

‘Tintern Abbey’ is Wordsworth’s mystical vision possessing sublime aspects and manifestations. The classical historical tradition says that the sublime implies that man can, in emotions and in language “transcend the limits of the human condition”. In order to understand the sublime one must “have some notion of what exists beyond the human, empirical experience” (‘The Romantic Sublime’ 1991 Thomas Weiskel, pg 105).

In the Romantic Era, poet’s use of metaphorical and figurative language in poetry often suggested a “possession of a spirit not one’s own” ();

“A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,” (Tintern Abbey 95-7)

The oxymoron found in line ninety-five alludes to a greater being, a presence that encompasses and interconnects nature, that is at once terrific and ecstatic. Wordsworth perhaps is thus emphasising the oneness of nature, poetry and religion and suggesting how all are intertwined in discovering ‘self’. Indeed, the world to the Romantic poet was unknowable and could be deciphered only by mystical enlightenment;

“…the burthen of the mystery

…of all this unintelligible world” (Tintern Abbey39-41),

opposed therefore to the world of the neo-classicists who believed the unknowable could be understood through rational thought.

Whilst undergoing a resurgence of pleasant memories, Wordsworth state of mind is peaceful and calm. The visit to the Abbey invokes many serene thoughts of awe, wonder and tranquillity reinforcing the saturation of emotion throughout the poem. To Wordsworth, nature holds benevolent powers and has ‘sublime majesty and transcendence” (‘Great Period Poems: Four Essays’ 1986 Marjorie Levinson, Cambridge University Press, pg 53) and in this Wordsworth is asserting a “dichotomy between the city dulled by the ‘weary weight of all this unintelligible world’ and the living soul ‘able to see into the life of all things’” (‘Wordsworth: Intensity and Achievement’ 1992 Thomas McFarland, Oxford Clarendon Press, pg 5-6).

Throughout the poem, Wordsworth explores an intimate correlation between mankind and nature, achieved only upon one leaving the city and emerging oneself in the redemptive potential of nature;

“the mystery…the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world…is lighten’d” (Tintern Abbey 38-42)

Wordsworth has no need of a redeemer as he views mankind as inherently capable of redemption through acts of self-realisation therefore demanding an ‘unspecific presence/spirit’ in relation to God.

John Keats however was highly critical of Wordsworth ‘Egotistical Sublime’, suggesting that the poet should be able to dismiss ‘self’. Keats found in ‘Tintern Abbey’ an unbearable presence of egotism of which Wordsworth was the centre of the poem. Such criticism has often been noted (‘Monthly Review XXIX’ {extract) Dr Burney).

The conversational and colloquial style is implicit upon reading ‘Tintern Abbey’, which is a poem in the style of a monologue occasionally addressing the spirit of nature and the poet’s sister. The language is simple yet forthright, written in the natural language of common speech rather than the lofty and elaborate diction that was the norm of the time. Wordsworth deliberately wrote in an unaffected diction, appealing therefore to the ordinary mass and allowing for his writing to be more accessible to the people of England.

Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ can be regarded as the manifesto for Romanticism, a poem in which Wordsworth recapitulates his life as a series of stages in the development of nature. Wordsworth is a poet seeking transcendence through natural awareness and perception and this is most apparent in ‘Tintern Abbey’ in which rich and vivid imagery is largely confined to the natural world with metaphors intertwining natural scenery, religious symbolism and the relics of the poet’s rustic childhood (cottages, hedgerows and orchards) where humanity gently intersects with nature.

William Wordsworth is generally regarded as the vanguard poet of the Romantic Movement. Included as the last item in the collection of ‘Lyrical Ballads’ the poem expresses Wordsworth’s pantheistic love of nature and yearning for humanities eventual reunification with the natural world. Many criticisms have been cited at ‘Tintern Abbey’ echoing Keats ‘Egotistical Sublime’ nevertheless Wordsworth, through his concentration on emotion, common life and passion for nature produces many works of immense contemplation and introspection.

“Poetry is the expression of an overflowing of feelings and emerges from a process of imagination in which feelings play the crucial part”

(‘Romantic Manifesto’ 1991, M.H. Abrams

McMillian, PG 175)