WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

A. Wordsworth's commitment to nature's significance as result of his life experience and his desire to rebel against scientific world-view.

1. Desire to go beyond life's suffering

2. Love of nature's mysteries and wonders

3. Criticism of poet's evasion of pain

4. Nature as means to higher realm

7. Man/nature, mind/heart relationship

1. Debate over Wordsworth's pantheism

B. Serenity and tranquillity as basis of poetry

C. Actual spiritual experience vs. dogmatism

This study will examine the ideas and works of William Wordsworth in terms of his status as a nature-lover, a pantheist, and a transcendentalist.

As we read in Bush's piece in Kumar, Wordsworth's commitment to the significance of nature in man's life and specifically in his approach to God and immortality is both "a natural sequel to that (experience) of his childhood and youth (and) . . . a strong and conscious revolt against the scientific view of man and his world . . . Wordsworth . . . saw the universe and man as enveloped and interpenetrated by mystery and by the all-comprehending unity of

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h about himself by studying nature. In "The Excursion," for example, we read these lines which demonstrate Wordsworth's argument in this regard: Happy is He who lives to understand, Not human Nature only, but explores All Natures,--to the end that he may find The law that governs each; and where begins The union, the partition where, that makes Kind and degree, among all visible Beings; The constitutions, powers, and faculties, Which they inherit,--cannot step beyond,-- And cannot fall beneath; that do assign To every class its station and its office, Through all the mighty commonwealth of things (Hopkins 315-16). Wordsworth focuses, then, on the communion between man and nature, and on demonstrating with great details of observation and appreciation the various aspects of that communion (Hopkins 317). Wordsworth sought simultaneously to show the relationship between man and nature and between the mind and the heart of man. He was not so much arguing, in his rejection of the scientific approach, against the mind's capacities as he was arguing for a communion of the mind and heart. As we read in Kauvar and Sorenson, the "violent separation" of the heart and mind and of man and nature thr
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Approximate Word count = 1879
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)