઼ ϲ ੼ ฯ र ቑ ̂ ጯ
高雄師大學報 2014, 36, 17-30
威廉・華滋華斯自然詩中的互惠與不安
郭章瑞 1
摘 要
由於華滋華斯自稱是「自然的祭司」，不少人在研讀其詩作時，傾向認為人與自
然的關係是和諧的；但本論文將處理此一傾向所可能衍生的問題。換言之，真有天人
合一與互惠？人類真能從自然裡得到希冀之物？因此，本論文將以華滋華斯的〈我像
孤雲般的漫步〉與〈聽潭寺〉為例，探討其自然詩中人與自然的和諧與記憶的功能。
本論文結論將指出，雖然華茲華斯提倡接近與喜愛自然，但對人與自然的和諧與互惠
卻頗深感不安；而人類可依託的可能是回憶。
關鍵詞：自然、人、和諧、互惠、不安、回憶
投稿日期：2014/03/19；接受日期：2014/06/20
1
國立中央大學英美語文學系副教授
18 高雄師大學報
第三十六期
Reciprocity and Anxiety in William
Wordsworth’s Nature Poems
Chang-jui Kuo*
Abstract
As William Wordsworth calls himself “Nature’s Priest,” we tend to think that the
relationship between nature and man in his poetic works is harmonious. This paper,
however, attempts to tackle the problems resulting from such a tendency. In other words,
are there really harmony and reciprocity between nature and man? Can we human beings
really get what we expect from nature? Thus, this paper, using “I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud” and “Tintern Abbey”.as examples, will investigate man's harmony with nature and
the function of memory in Wordsworth’s nature poems. It will end with the conclusion that
while advocating love for nature, Wordsworth is in the end anxious about the harmony and
reciprocity between nature and man and that one thing man can resort to may be his
memory.
Keywords: Nature, man, harmony, reciprocity, anxiety, memory
Submission: 2014/03/19; Acceptance: 2014/06/20
*
Associate Professor, Department of English, National Central University
威廉・華滋華斯自然詩中的互惠與不安 19
Reciprocity and Anxiety in William Wordsworth’s Nature Poems
As Wordsworth is usually seen as “Nature’s Priest”1—“a devotee of nature” (Beer 4), it is natural
that in tackling his nature poems many readers tend to emphasize or at least discuss a great deal the
harmony and reciprocity between nature and man in Wordsworth's poetic world. Notwithstanding,
are there really harmony and reciprocity between nature and man?
In other words, can we human
beings really get what we expect from nature? Do we have any other alternative—any other way out?
And what is the function of memory?
These questions are what this paper will address.
It is nothing unusual to talk about Wordsworth as a“worshiper of nature” (TA 152). In many of
his poems nature is not only a spring of joy and comfort but also a source of inspiration and
enlightenment. He has eyes and ears extraordinarily sensitive to the slight and elusive impressions
which most people overlook and finds abundant beauty in nature.
To him nature is pervaded with the
spirit of God and speaks mystically to the spirit in us, working on us through kinship and mutual
understanding. Therefore, nature has the power to soothe, inspire and ennoble the human soul. It is
everywhere sparked with the divinity of God, and by immersing ourselves in nature we can become
wiser, for in nature there are “Truth” and “Spontaneous wisdom” (“The Table Turned” 20-21) to be
acquired by the man who, opening himself, “watches and receives” (“The Table Turned” 32).
In
other words, Wordsworth believes that God exists in nature, and all the natural phenomena are
reflections of him.
in her.
Throughout nature there is diffused the active spirit of God, living and working
Therefore, in many of his poems we may find three major themes: the eternal beauty of
nature, waiting everywhere to haunt and startle us; the power of that beauty to heal, comfort, gladden,
and fortify whoever welcomes it; and the source of this power, the spirit of God, hidden yet apparent
in all visible creations and existing in the hearts of simple and unselfish men.
Wordsworth has not only sight but also insight. Not only does he observe clearly, but also he
penetrates deeply into the heart of things, investigating their essence and finding some meaning
beneath the surface. In his view, poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Perkins
328).
These “powerful feelings” are triggered while the poet is concentrating on perceiving the
natural object before him.
When the object “has at last become 'spiritualized' it [will pass] into the
core of the subjective intelligence” (Wasserman 25), be stored in the poet's memory, and in the future
put his mind “in a state of enjoyment” (Perkins 328).
So, to Wordsworth, memory is not merely the
mother of poetry but also the supplier of “life and food / For future years” (TA 64-65). In the
following discussion, I will study, as examples, two representative2 nature poems, “I Wandered
Lonely as a Cloud” and “Tintern Abbey,” by exploring the power of memory as well as harmony and
reciprocity between nature and man.
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is a poem about “the joys of the life of feeling, the pleasures of
living close to nature” (Mahoney 177). In it the power of memory is celebrated greatly, and the
harmony and reciprocity between nature and man are expressed vividly.
I say “vividly” because
even before we finish the first stanza, our mind is already filled with vivacity and joy:
20 高雄師大學報
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I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
(IW 1-6)
The cloud is a symbol of freedom, and when Wordsworth says that he “wandered lonely as a cloud, /
That floats high o'er vales and hills,” he evokes in us the mood of freedom and ease while we are
roaming aimlessly and happily in a valley, insensible to the world around us.
This mood of
carefreeness is broken, however, “[w]hen all at once [he] saw a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils.”
The poet's mind is now at work. When Wordsworth first came upon those daffodils, they are
described as “a crowd,” but now with a sudden focus of attention, the poet rearranges the pattern they
impress in his mind and calls them “a host.”
The shapelessness, as of an unorganized crowd, is
turned into a pattern by the mind. When the poet observes the daffodils closely, his mind is ordering
the experience and giving it coherence and vividness. The vividness is intensified by the heightening
of the daffodils' color from yellow to goldenness.
This process shows the simultaneity of the
presence of the beautiful forms of nature and the imaginative functioning of the poet's mind.
The poet also feels joyful when he sees the daffodils tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The
joy he gets from such a lively companionship is the counterpart of the loneliness which he
experienced at the beginning of the poem.
Now his mind is set into motion by the daffodils.
So we
can see “a leap of the mind from seeing the movements of the daffodils as a mere disorganized
‘fluttering’ to a perception that it is a kind of dance, a harmonious movement [in] which a pattern can
be discerned” (Durran 21). In this way, the sight of the daffodils becomes a new revelation of order
and harmony in nature.
The daffodils are compared with the waves on the lake. The waves also dance because of the
breeze; however, since water is a simpler substance, its response to the blowing of the breeze is
limited as compared with that of the daffodils. The daffodils, being more organic forms of life,
dance in more vividness and in a more complex pattern in the blowing of the breeze. This is the
reason why Wordsworth finds more joy in the flowers and dances with them.
breeze is important in this poem.
It is a symbol of the creative activity of the poet.
Furthermore, the
The breeze not
only blows on the lake and makes the waves as well as the daffodils dance happily, but also blows
through the lake of the poet's mind and sets his imagination into work.
beside the Ullswater, he sees the daffodils
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company.
(IW 6-10)
Thus, as the poet walks
威廉・華滋華斯自然詩中的互惠與不安 21
The poet is cheerful because his mind is once again active. A moment ago he was lonely, but now he
is in a “jocund company.” Wordsworth does not say that everyone will be happy in such a company
because he uses “a poet.” Only a poet, who is more sensitive and meditative than ordinary men, can
enjoy this creative joy when he is in such a situation.
When the daffodils first come into the view of the poet, he gazes at them with little thought
because as he gazes, he is performing an act of concentration which is so complete that it leaves no
room for thinking: “I gazed—and gazed—but little thought / What wealth the show to me had
brought” (IW 17-18).
But very often when he lies
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then [his] heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
(IW 20-24)
What is described here is that the poet has power not merely to organize his experience in nature so as
to make it coherent and delightful, but also to relive the experience through memory whenever he
wishes to.
The delight offered by natural phenomena revives in his mind when he lies “[i]n vacant or
in pensive mood.” As a result, the daffodils “flash upon that inward eye / Which is the bliss of
solitude.” Though the poet was lonely at the beginning, he now speaks of the solitude as a bliss
because such kind of solitude is far different from the melancholy loneliness at the beginning of this
poem.
In this solitary situation the poet finds, through recollection and meditation, that his heart
dances with the daffodils and is filled with joy.
Nature can give us comfort and delight, and we can receive them by steeping ourselves in it,
meditating on its phenomena and recollecting the impressions it makes in our mind. Wordsworth,
thus, in this poem is recording an experience which all of us who have a poet’s sensitivity and
perceptive power are capable of, but which is increasingly neglected as we are impinged on by
industry and commerce. Thus, it is immersion and reflection that enable us to enter into nature, to
get joy, comfort and inspiration from it.
In “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” the reciprocity as well as the harmony between nature and
man is affirmatively expressed; in “Tintern Abbey,” however, though the harmony and reciprocity are
still greatly celebrated, Wordsworth seems not so affirmative. Paul D. Sheats remarks that though
the poem celebrates one of the home-comings which is one of the great milestones in the poet's life,
yet it is not just a “ritual of gratitude, affirmation, and benediction, but the struggle of the speaker to
adhere to it, in the presence of adversaries. . .” (228-30).
Harold Bloom regards “Tintern Abbey” as “a miniature of the long poem Wordsworth never quite
wrote, the philosophical and autobiographical epic of which The Prelude, the Recluse fragment, and
The Excursion would have been only parts” (132). In this sense, we may regard “Tintern Abbey” as
Wordsworth's autobiography: a history of “the influence of nature in forming and sustaining the mind
22 高雄師大學報
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and the character” (Perkins 209).
Not a few readers3 have spent a lot of time and energy in investigating the possible allusions
carried by the full title of the poem: “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on
Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798.” It is not unlikely that the title of the
poem alludes to the historical and social background of the poem; nevertheless, it is also possible that
Wordsworth pokes fun at the reader, as Shakespeare does with the title of his play, Troilus and
Cressida. Glancing at the title, the reader may expect Troilus and Cressida to be a play about a great
war (the Trojan War) of honor, glory, and courage; yet, it turns out to be the contrary.
Similarly,
Wordsworth might give a title about location and time, full of historical and social allusions, arouse
our expectation and then frustrate us. Or it is also not impossible that he was not so serious or was
even casual in naming his poem, as some writers do with their titles. None the less, I think Levinson
is rather correct in indicating that “July 13, 1798, marked almost the day of the nine-year anniversary
of the original Bastille Day (the eight-year anniversary of Wordsworth's first visit to France), and the
five-year anniversary of the murder of Marat, also the date of Wordsworth's first visit to Tintern
Abbey” (16). Also Levinson is quite right in pointing out that “'Tintern Abbey's suppression of a
historical consciousness is precisely what makes it so Romantic a poem” (45) and that historical
consciousness may be an undertone of the poem.
Moreover, it is true that when Wordsworth wrote
the poem, the surroundings of Tintern Abbey were wretched: “The grass in the ruins was kept mown,
but it was a dwelling-place of beggars and the wretchedly poor. The river was then full of shipping,
carrying coal and timber from the forest of Dean” (Moorman 402-03). But one thing we should pay
attention to is that though the banks of the Wye River in 1798 may be a stimulus for Wordsworth to
write the poem, the nature the poet wants to present in the poem is not necessarily the wretched
natural scenery of 1798, but the past idyllic nature recollected through memory, for the poem is “a
deliberate attempt to reenact the returns of the past” (Sheats 229). Even the very first two lines of the
poem carry this undertone: “Five years have passed; five summers, with the length / Of five long
winters” (TA 1-2; italics mine).
These two lines expressed by a special type of redundancy “indicate
resistance to . . . progression [into modern industrial civilization]” (Hartman 26), and this resistance
strongly suggests the nostalgia for the idyllic nature stored in the depth of the poet's memory.
My
assertion of what Wordsworth wishes to present in the poem is, to a great extent, further confirmed by
Bloom in that he says, “In the renewed presence of a remembered scene, Wordsworth comes to a full
understanding of his . . . self” (132). As the exploration of the self is a dominant subject in “Tintern
Abbey,” we can see in the poem Wordsworth's tracing the process of his spiritual growth in terms of
his relations to nature.
In this sense, we may say that the central theme of “Tintern Abbey” is the
manner in which the divine force of nature works on man. Nature gives Wordsworth feeling and
understanding of not only the unity of his life but also the continuity of his being, and through
communion with nature he tries to affirm the value of his existence.
So in “Tintern Abbey”
Wordsworth proclaims the principle of reciprocity between the external world and the inner mind.
He loves nature and believes nature in return will give him beauty, joy, inspiration, and lofty thoughts.
威廉・華滋華斯自然詩中的互惠與不安 23
This process of reciprocity, like an endless conversation, never stops, and the identity between nature
and man is established (Bloom 132). Such harmony between nature and man is intensified through
the close kinship between the poet's mind and the landscape, as the poet says:
. . . [A]gain I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.
Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
(TA 2-8)
The mountain springs are the source of refreshment and inspiration, and they have “a soft inland
murmur.” Here the seclusion of the landscape is connected with the seclusion in Wordsworth's mind,
for the seclusion not only pervades the landscape but also deepens the poet's mood of seclusion and
tranquility.
When Wordsworth comes to the banks of the Wye again, his feeling is quite different from the
ecstasy and passion of his first visit.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage ground, these orchard tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses.
(TA 9-14)
The cottages, instead of scattering about, belong to an order which arises from and mingles with the
surrounding natural wilderness.
The orchard tufts are “clad in green hue” and lose themselves in the
groves and copses. Similarly, the hedgerows are not only “hardly hedgerows” but also “little lines /
Of sportive wood” (TA 15-16).
And the smoke rises among the trees.
Everything is part of the
whole natural scenery, yet remains itself with its own life. This panoramic picture depicts a mode of
existence “balanced between the untamed wilderness of nature and the orderly patterns of
civilization . . . [a] harmony, which satisfies at once the desire for order, and the reluctance to be
over-organized” (Durran 36). This is a life that is neither of wild loneliness or savagery nor of the
busyness and confusion of the city.
In a world that is too much with us, no longer can we enjoy an
Arcadian nature; however, we can still make the best use of what remains. In an age of industry and
commerce, no longer is it possible for us to escape completely “the din / Of towns and cities” (TA
25-26), yet we do not want to be shackled by modern civilization, either. We wish to immerse
ourselves in nature at least from time to time. And here in “Tintern Abbey” Wordsworth is creating
24 高雄師大學報
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his own paradise, a paradise which he can really enter only at intervals, but which at least he can
inhabit mentally at his will.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet.
(TA 22-27)
In this passage Wordsworth asserts the lasting value of the scenery.
These beautiful forms of nature
have sustained him in the chaos and loneliness of cities. Though Wordsworth has been absent from
the landscape for a long time, he has not forgotten it and he owes to his memories of the landscape the
sweet sensations. These sweet sensations are “[f]elt in the blood, and felt along the heart; / And
passing even into [his] purer mind” (TA 28-29). Thus, even though in his weariness and amid the
noise of cities, these sensations can give him not only joy and comfort but also purgation and
enlightenment.
Besides the sweet sensations, another gift he gets from his memories is
. . . that blessed mood . . .
In which the affections gently lead us on-Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
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 things.
(TA 37-49)
The tranquil recollection of the beautiful forms of nature “creates in him a mood, and a physical
condition, that are propitious to profound thought” (Durran 38).
Such recollection is aesthetic
contemplation, for all contemplation of objects, except aesthetic, is practical and so directed toward
personal ends. The poet devoted to such aesthetic contemplation is able to see with a quiet and
philosophical mind so as to see into the life and essence of things instead of their practical use (Bloom
134).
The world is unintelligible because it is too complicated and too strange to subject to the
ordering power of human mind; however, the remembered order and harmony of the Wye Valley work
as “a reassurance to the mind in its search for similar order and harmony in the universe as a whole”
(Durran 38). The mood gotten from the recollection of nature is thus not only blessed but also
serene.
威廉・華滋華斯自然詩中的互惠與不安 25
Having celebrated the sweet sensations and the blessed mood nature offers, Wordsworth hopes
that nature can continue to provide him with the same strength in the future.
While here I stand, not only with sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years.
(TA 62-65)
Here we glimpse for the first time in the poem Wordsworth's uncertainty about the sustaining power of
nature for his future, for his vision is built “with gleams of half-extinguished thought / With many
recognitions dim and faint / And somewhat of a sad perplexity” (TA 58-60). If he is so affirmative of
the future, why should he have this “sad perplexity”?
This makes us doubt whether there will really
be “life and food / For future years.” The poet's process of change is one from the past to the present
and again to the future, and he traces the three stages of his growing up in terms of his relations to the
natural scene: The young boy's purely physical responsiveness to the external world-- “[t]he coarser
pleasures of my boyish days, / And their glad animal movements” (TA 72-73)--is over. Then there
was a time when his perception of natural objects brought immediate joy and he experienced the
simultaneity of rapture and vision in this stage as “[a]n appetite: a feeling and a love” (TA 80).
But
that stage is gone, and Wordsworth has already lost its “aching joys” (TA 84) and “dizzy raptures” (TA
85); however, now in his third stage, other gifts have compensated for such loss.
. . . For I have learned
Too look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
. . . a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused. (TA 88-96)
The third stage is the first time he adds thoughts to his perception of natural objects.
By continuous
tranquil recollection of the past, the poet hopes that he can construct in the present a meaningful image
of the self from which he derives his belief in universal harmony and “the continuity of the self
underneath changing surfaces of conscious social existence” (Easthope 37). In this third stage he
gets the intimations of immortality, of the continuity of his being by hearing a “still, sad music of
humanity” when he looks at nature with a soberer eye.
Now, perception and response are not
simultaneous any more; it is imaginative meditation that brings them together (Bloom 135).
meditation is initiated by
The
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A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts . . .
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 man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
(TA 94-102)
This passage suggests strongly the humanized landscape. Wordsworth now views nature in its
relationship to human beings.
As Frances Ferguson points out, nature derives its existence and
significance from the poet's passions as they are projected upon it in his perceptions. And “because
the passions of an individual are neither self-generated nor self-sustaining, there must be a return to
other human beings for the self to re-experience the passion upon which all perception subsists”
(Wordsworth 145). The poet has now obtained a sense of the unity of the universe and of the one life
that interpenetrates all things and all beings (Durran 41). These elevated thoughts and the sublime
sense exist not only in natural objects but also in the mind of man, and are linked with a vision of the
unity of being. Therefore, Wordsworth after many years of absence finds in the valley of the Wye a
reassurance for seeing into the life of things, for the acquiring of philosophical insight and wisdom,
and for the understanding of human love. Besides, the poetic passage quoted above reflects the
pantheism of Wordsworth's poetry.
To Wordsworth, nature is pervaded with the spirit of God that
suffuses every animate creature and even every inanimate object, and speaks mystically to the spirit in
us. The whole nature is sparked with divinity and there is eternal law behind the transparency of
nature.
In this sense nature is the incarnation and minister of God, and man, by maintaining
harmonious relationship with nature and opening his soul, can not only get inspiration and
enlightenment but also link himself to and become akin to God. Therefore, the poet is still an ardent
lover of nature,
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
(TA 103-11)
威廉・華滋華斯自然詩中的互惠與不安 27
Why do the eye and the ear “half create”?
Of course, man cannot create natural phenomena;
however, external objects are perceived vividly, transformed, and then absorbed into the mind
(Wasserman 23).
Our senses and mind are not passive but selective, and our choice among natural
phenomena is greatly guided by memory, which for Wordsworth is the mother of poetry because there
is no creating poetic works without the tranquil recollection of earlier responses to nature. Our
choice among the external objects may be considered half creation (the other half is God's creation of
nature), for without man's perception nature does not exist.
And it is the mind that is primary and
takes the initiative (Abrams 91). In other words, what is external comes into man through his choice;
whatever cannot is irrelevant to his condition (Bloom 137).
very question of harmony between nature and man.
However, this irrelevance leads to the
Since harmony is complete agreement or
pleasing combination (Hornby 533), if certain aspects of nature are irrelevant or incongruous to man,
then complete harmony between nature and man is impossible. Such impossibility of complete
harmony is revealed more clearly in the last part of “Tintern Abbey.”
In the last section of the poem, Wordsworth turns to Dorothy as a reflection of his early self. As
John Michael indicates, in this section the functions of nature in forming and sustaining the poet
materialize in the figure of the person to whom the poem is addressed, the poet's sister Dorothy
(1072):
. . . .[I]n thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes.
Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make.
(TA 116-21)
Here Dorothy not merely fulfills the functions of nature by her presence but also serves as a mirror of
Wordsworth's earlier self. In her eyes he sees the possibility of recovering himself from “evil
tongues, / Rash judgments, . . . the sneers of selfish men, / . . . [and the] dreary intercourse of daily
life” (TA 128-31). He makes the above prayer because “Nature never did betray / The heart that
loved her” (TA 122-23). It has the power to lead us from joy to joy and to “inform / The mind that is
within us” (TA 125-26). We, to gain comfort and “lofty thoughts” (TA 128), only have to wait upon
her, recollect our past joy, and have the faith that she never abandons the man that worships her.
Wordsworth here uses the word “betray” with an amorous connotation which is implied in the opening
lines of this poem, where Wordsworth's revived passion is that of a returning lover. The lover returns,
not to the unthinking delight and wild ecstasy, but to the meditative and sober pleasure of a marriage
with nature (Bloom 138).
However, is the marriage a panacea for all problems?
At least, it is not a definite cure for the
fear of mortality and the worry of the decay of “genial spirits” (TA 113), which have been haunting
the poet—“a crisis always lurking below the surface in Wordsworth” (Mahoney 89):
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. . . .Nor, perchance—
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence—wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together.
(TA 146-51)
In Dorothy's eyes we can see the wild gleam that he no longer has in his confrontation with natural
beauty, for his love for nature has become not only less passionate but deeper and more philosophical;
however, he hopes his former self and his love for nature will continue to exist in her “wild eyes.”
Therefore, he exhorts:
. . . .[L]et the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
. . . when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
. . . with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations. (TA 134-46)
Dorothy is asked to frequent this place of memory and to preserve the image of the poet in it, for “it is
in her memory, and in what he himself will recall of his discovery of the lost self transcribed into her
eye . . . that the speaker's 'I' defines itself and its hopes to persist” (Michael 1074). In this way, the
success of the poet's plea depends not on himself but on his sister; however, we do not know whether
his exhortations will be followed because the “felicity of an exhortation . . . rests . . . ultimately with
the person to whom the exhortation is addressed. . . . [T]he success or failure of an exhortation
depends on the act's reception” (Michael 1076). What will happen in the future cannot be predicted.
Here we see Wordsworth only show his earnest plea but also betray his great anxiety (Brenna 15).
He is not sure whether Dorothy will be as sincere “a worshiper of Nature” as he now. If she, who is
regarded by Wordsworth as materialization of nature's influences on man, is not completely reliable,
are we to believe strongly the reciprocity between nature and man?
Furthermore, the almost
desperate reiteration of “my dearest Friend, / My dear, dear Friend” and “My dear, dear Sister” (211)
emerges as a premonition of her death, the poet's fear of losing yet another human passion which
seems to justify his links to nature (Ferguson 146).
All the uncertainties mentioned above betray that the harmony and reciprocity between nature
威廉・華滋華斯自然詩中的互惠與不安 29
and man are not always to be expected. If Wordsworth needs Dorothy to function as a mediator, then,
there is doubt about the harmony and reciprocity between nature and man.
Furthermore, if we
cannot be sure of Wordsworth's obtaining sustaining force for his future through Dorothy, the
materialization of nature's functions, then, we are justified in casting some doubt about the reciprocal
sustaining power of nature. Since nature is not that reliable, are there really reciprocity and harmony
between nature and man?
Moving from the Ullswater Lake to the Wye River, we see that some doubt has been cast upon
the harmony and reciprocity between nature and man. Though Wordsworth attempts to assert the
goodness of nature, yet he also shows anxiety in acknowledging that nature is a realm of transience
and uncertainty.
And if the harmony and reciprocity between nature and man are not always reliable,
what then do we still have to resort to?
One possible alternative is memory, because “memory is
able to establish continuity in the face of—and through the means of—an ongoing process of
alteration in both [man] . . . and the landscape . . .” (Ferguson, “Romantic Memory” 86). It is
through memory that the “beauteous forms” can offer us “the bliss of solitude” and “sensations sweet”
in the “pensive mood” or “'mid the din of towns and cities,” and it is thus in terms of memory that the
poet's self is affirmed (Easthope 38). Although nature has withered, we can still make as much out
of it as possible, though we cannot be too optimistic.
As Bloom points out, “[i]n the renewed
presence of a remembered scene, Wordsworth comes to a full understanding of his poetic self”
(Bloom 132). Similarly, even if nature cannot always offer as much as we expect, we can at least
resort to our memory, for it can make us transcend “the fretful stir . . . and the fever of the world”
(210). To conclude, though Wordsworth tackles and is even chagrined by the problems of harmony
and reciprocity between nature and man in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and “Tintern Abbey,” he
also proclaims the power of memory, a power that makes the earth inhabitable for man and creates a
paradise in which man can be human (Durran 45).
Notes
1. William Wordsworth, “Intimations of Immortality,” English Romantic Writers, ed. David
Perkins (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967) 72. Hereafter, all quotations from
Wordsworth's poems will be taken from this edition. IW stands for “I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud” while “Tintern Abbey” is abbreviated as TI. Line numbers will be put in parentheses
after them.
2. These two poems are representative in the sense that they have been collected in all editions of
The Norton Anthology of English Literature.
3. For further information, please see Thomas J. Brennan “Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey,’”
Explicator 63.1 (Fall 2004): 13-15.
30 高雄師大學報
第三十六期
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