The Theme of Return to Nature in Poets of the Romantic Age
The theme of the need for a return to Nature is a predominant theme during the Romantic Age. Each of the major poets of the Age employ the theme as a vehicle for demonstrating a movement toward self-knowledge. However, the employment of the theme is usually for the purpose of elaborating on a possibly more significant theme in Romantic poetry--the workings of the human mind. Each poet employs the theme in different ways to accentuate his or her overlying premise of the need for reflection and thought.
William Wordsworth appears to be the "Father" of the employment of the theme in the sense that his use of the theme seems the most complete and deliberate. Nonetheless, the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley closely follows Wordsworth's as far as this particular theme is concerned, and Shelley even specifically references Wordsworth's poems in poems of his own that most explore this theme. Lord Byron and John Keats also offer clever and interesting variations on the theme; however, Samuel Taylor Coleridge seems to advocate maintaining some distance from Nature to demonstrate reverence for God's power.
In his "Preface to Lyrical Ballads," William Wordsworth states his belief that the poet considers "man and nature as essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting qualities of nature" (Abrams 149). Nature is a recurring theme in Wordsworth's poetry; it is matched in significance only by the theme of "remembrance of things past" (Abrams 128) after being excited by some current events. However, more often than not, Wordsworth combines these two themes. The result is the impression that the understanding of oneself gained from recollecting past events is best accomplished by and ultimately leads to a return to Nature.
In "The Ruined Cottage," Wordsworth states the following:
At length towards ...