A Critical View of the Role of Nature in Wordsworth

The poetry of William Wordsworth has been seen from a variety of critical perspectives since his death in 1850. In 1817 Wordworth's contemporary and friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote in his 'Biographica Literaria' that "Wordsworth stood nearest of all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton; and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed and his own" (Hayden, 1994, xiv).

Wordsworth was "misunderstood and disliked by many, but gradually through the years he was given a place in English letters commensurate with his endowments and achievements" (Monarch Notes, 1/1/1963). The poet was well aware he was breaking new ground without a body of critical opinion to support him, and therefore felt the need throughout his life to justify and defend his poetic works.

The Romantic Movement to which Wordsworth gave voice represented a break with the more formal structures and traditions of English poetry that had preceded it, and like all radical innovations in the arts suffered its share of detractors, mockers, denouncers, and debunkers. Wordsworth included long notes about the sources, circumstances and location of composition, and meaning of many of his poems, presumably to make them more palatable to his readers. The notes with which he introduces We Are Seven, for example, are longer than the work itself. He describes his encounter with the "little cottage girl" whom he calls the "heroine" of the poem, then diverges into a

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universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day" "Home at Grasmere" 1798. Commenting on this poem in his book "Genius" Harold Bloom remarks that the earthly paradise can be "a simple produce of the common day" according to the poet-prophet for whom "simple" and "common" were words of highest praise and honor" (377). This Romantic concept of seeing universal nature operating in the nexus of individual subjective human consciousness has had a great effect on the subsequent history of literature. It is reflected in the words of American writer Henry Miller, who after condemning the Philistine conformity and anti-intellectualism of America and its shameful lack of appreciation of its artists of genius writes: "The worst is not death, but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous" (Miller, 'Stand Still Like Hummingbird', ix). Wordsworth answers his friend in the manner of Lao Tzu or a Zen Buddhist by saying "Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our mind impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness". Critic Christopher Nassaar sees a Christian reference in 'Expostulation and Reply'. Jesus' cond
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Approximate Word count = 1557
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)