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Jonathan Gray
Final Exam Option #2
Dr. Thomas Jeffrey Vasseur
ENGL 2130
Fall 2011
Nature
Nature is all around us. Overtime nature grows but it never changes from what it started
doing in the beginning like the natural life cycle, but as for humans we do change constantly over
a period of time. Starting with the Enlightenment period which focused on the light of reason and
sharing knowledge. This period really pushed literature as the equipment for living. Then
centuries passed, then came The Romantic period which rebelled against writing in dead forms
to a newer direction. That direction really focused on a new way of communicating to
humankind through poetry. This connects the point that we as humans change overtime. But
nature itself stays stagnant. Nature is a major theme that is discussed by William Wordsworth,
William Blake, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, who were major writers in the romantic period.
These three famous writers really interpreted nature in a way that really explains the connection
between human life and nature.
Williams Wordsworth wrote two famous masterpieces that really spoke on nature
deeply.” I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and” Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern
Abbey,” were the two Lyrical ballads that I chose in the explanation on nature. I wandered
Lonely as a cloud was a lyric poem which focused on the writer’s response to the beauty of
nature. The poet focuses more on what he is observing rather than anything else. In the first
stanza the poet uses a simile and compares himself to a cloud wandering in the air that came
across daffodils blowing in the wind. The speaker is just focusing mainly on the nature itself. In
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the second stanza the speaker describes how many daffodils there are which is so many that they
resemble the Milky Way. Stanza three the daffodils out dance the waves of the lake and the
writer really does not appreciate what he is observing at the moment. In the final stanza the
speaker finally appreciates what he saw when he daydreams in his head. So William mainly is
speaking on what he actually sees the visual picture. He connects daffodils to humans when he
says there dancing. Lines 15, 23, and 24 show that nature’s beauty uplifts the human spirit. Lines
17, and 18 show that humankind does not appreciate nature as they live in their daily lives. The
lyric ballad Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey was about the speaker revisiting
a an area a few miles from abbey, which he has not been there in 5 years. He basically describes
what he sees. The speaker talks about how this place gave him sweet sensations when he was
lonely in the city. The place lifted him up when he was down. The speaker also talks about his
spiritual relationship with nature when he says “Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, And
even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid sleep In body, and become a
living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
we see into the life of thing (Wordsworth 793). The speaker is happy because now returning to
this special place he has a new approach on nature than he had 5 years ago. The speaker seems to
feel they have a wiser view on nature and when he was there 5 years ago he appreciated more of
what he actual saw but now the speaker looks more at the big picture of nature and the
connection to humanity. So Wordsworth uses his sister in the end of the ballad to remind him of
what he once was.
William Blake whom is another romantic writer focused his writing on questioning our
place in the universe with social questions about the nature of human responsibility (Blake 780).
In The Lamb the speaker tries to connect human religion with the natural worlds. The speaker
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says this in line 3 of The Lamb gave thee life & bid thee feed (Blake 783). This resembles the
book of Genesis and how we were created as mankind. Line 14 also tells us the lamb is Jesus
Christ. In the beginning of the lamb we are given the theme which is who made the lamb. The
Sick Rose is about a worm symbolizing the serpent of the earth corrupting the rose’s life. But the
rose is unaware that the worm is present. This is the same sense when Adam and Eve were
deceived by the serpent. Once again William Blake’s poem pulls from a Biblical background.
Last Jean-Jacques Rousseau the Confessions was a bibliography of himself. He speaks
about his age until he was 53. He does not leave out any embarrassing moments in his life at all.
He describes how he lusted on how he was beaten by his nanny as well. Rousseau stays very true
to nature and hides nothing. In a way Rousseau shows how humans are not flawless just like
nature is not perfect either. He also proposed that it was natural that he did the things he did
because he is human. He also says that even though he did some bad duties in the past that he
was still an overall general good person.
Nature is in all aspects of life. Whether your being yourself or just watching nature and
enjoying it for the sake of it. Nature can teach us so much and yet we as mankind take it for
granite. One major theme that nature teaches me is to value life more than materialistic values
and to appreciate all what is around you that was created for you because all what is beauty
reflects our creator. Wordsworth, Blake, and Rousseau all wrote great masterpieces that
explained the theme of nature. Nature is art and art is in the eye of the beholder so how I
interpreted the poems that were chosen from these writers was what really came to mind and that
is the connectivity of the theme of nature.
Works Cited
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Blake, William. WILLIAM BLAKE. 2nd. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1984.
780-82. Print.
Blake, William. The Lamb. 2nd. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1984. 783. Print.
Wordsworth, William. Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey. 2nd. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1984. 792-95. Print.