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William Wordsworth

WordsworthÆs ideal human values, as expressed in ôTintern Abbey,ö include the portrayal of nature as encompassing the power that ôàimpels / All thinking things, all objects of all thought, / And rolls through all thingsö (1). In our youth, Wordsworth contends we are ôthoughtlessö and look on nature in a way that cannot show us how we should think, feel, or act in relation to each other and nature (Wordsworth 1). However, in our mature years we are able to connect to this power in nature through our senses (ôeye and earö), in a way that enables us to ôàrecognize / In nature and the language of the sense / the anchor of [our] purest thoughts, the nurse, / The guide, the guardian of [our] heart[s], and soul / Of all [our] moral beingö (Wordsworth 1). In this we see that nature and not social institutions or society provides human beings with the example of how to think, feel, and act in relation to each other and nature. This chief value in WordsworthÆs ôTintern Abbeyö stands in direct contrast to the neoclassical, pre-enlightenment views of Jonathan Swift in ôGulliverÆs Travels.ö

ôTintern Abbeyö reveals WordsworthÆs belief that human beings have the capacity through the senses to discover in the example of nature how to think, feel, and act in relation to each other and nature. We are all connected at our core humanity and this example is evident in the universal harmony and natural order of nature. As Wordsworth writes, ôAnd I have felt / A presence that disturbs me with the joy / Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime / Of something far more deeply interfused, / Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, / And the round ocean and the living air, / And the blue sky, and in the mind of manö (1). Thus, Wordsworth posits a Zen-like interconnectedness of all human beings and nature. Such a value equates to the Golden Rule of treating others how one wishes to be treated, r

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William Wordsworth. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 19:49, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710271.html