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Past, Present, and Future: Finding Life Through Nature William Wordsworth
poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” was included as the last
item in his Lyrical Ballads. The general meaning of the poem relates to his
having lost the inspiration nature provided him in childhood. Nature seems to
have made Wordsworth human.The significance of the abbey is Wordsworth’s love of
nature. Tintern Abbey representes a safe haven for Wordsworth that perhaps
symbolizes a everlasting connection that man will share with it’s surroundings.
Wordsworth would also remember it for bringing out the part of him that makes
him a “A worshipper of Nature” (Line 153). Five different situations are
suggested in Lines each divided into separate sections. The first section
details the landscape around the abbey, as Wordsworth remembers it from five
years ago. The second section describes the five-year lapse between visits to
the abbey, during which he has thought often of his experience there.
The third
section specifies Wordsworth’s attempt to use nature to see inside his inner
self. The fourth section shows Wordsworth exerting his efforts from the
preceding stanza to the landscape, discovering and remembering the refined state
of mind the abbey provided him with. In the final section, Wordsworth searches
for a means by which he can carry the experiences with him and maintain himself
and his love for nature. . Diamantis 2 In the first stanza, Wordsworth lets you
know he is seeing the abbey for a second time by using phrases such as again I
hear, again do I behold, and again I see. He describes the natural landscape as
unchanged and he describes it in descending order of importance beginning with
with the “lofty cliffs” (Line 5) dominantly overlooking the abbey. After the
cliffs comes the river, , then the forests, and hedgerows of the cottages that
once surrounded the abbey but have since been abandoned. After the cottages, is
the vagrant hermit who sits alone in his cave, perhaps symbolizing the effects
being away from the abbey has had on Wordsworth. Wordsworth professes to
sensations sweet / Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart (lines 28-29)
which the memories of nature can inspire when he is lonely, just as the hermit
is lonely. Wordsworth desires nature only because of his separateness, and the
more isolated he feels the more he desires it. This is described in “Lines” : As
that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and
the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened:- that serene and
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. (Lines38-47) In the second
stanza, Wordsworth parallels his experience upon returning to Tintern Abbey five
years later to his previous visit.
He has changed from thinking of the present
to the past. He describes using the abbey as a consolation whenever he felt
overrun by the dismal, uniform, urban landscapes he had become accustomed to.
However, after his first visit he began to forget the details of the abbey and
what it meant to him: as gleams of half-extinguished thought, with many
recollections dim and faint, and somewhat of a sad perplexity (Line 57-60) Diamantis 3 In the third stanza, Wordsworth begins a transition back to the
present moment. He enjoys the pleasure of this time and also anticipates that he
will enjoy it again in future memories. In the fourth stanza, however, he starts
to recapitulate his life as a series of stages in the development of a
relationship with nature. At first he roamed as freely as an animal, but as he
grew he felt joy and rapture and passionate involvement with his own youth. Now
he is involved with human concerns. He has become more thoughtful and sees
nature in the light of those thoughts. He still loves nature, but in a more
mature and more emotionally subdued way. Can he salvage the meaning of the abbey
and take it with him as an inspiration? In the second stanza he relates how in
the five intermediate years he would often attempt to remember Tintern Abbey, to
recapture that harmony of mind and environment.
He has spent some time away from
the region and has forgotten the experience, he becomes doubtful and feels
isolated from nature. He recapture the feeling, however, when he refers to these
lines in the fourth stanza: The picture of the mind revives again: While here I
stand, not only with the sense Of pleasant pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food For future years. (Line 62-66) In
these lines he has stopped circling around the past and present, and has begun
to hope for a solution for the future. There follows a comparison of his present
and past selves, how they have changed and remained the same. At first he
possessed a childlike wonder, but as he grew he became more involved with human
concerns. He has become more thoughtful and sees nature in the light of those
thoughts. He has traded the boundless energy for maturity and the still, sad
music of humanity (line 92). Wordsworth ends the poem with the fifth stanza, a
farewell to the abbey and the inspiration it has given him. He realizes that
there may come a time when he may no longer be able to inspire himself with
life-changing situations, and that he will not be able to run back to Tintern
Abbey to find himself again. He does what he can, though. He will also be able
to rely on his sister, who shared these experiences with him and in whose voice
I catch the language of my former heart, and read my former pleasures in the
shooting lights of thy wild eyes (lines 117-120). Eventually even these may fail
him, and in the closing lines of the poem he consoles himself that he and his
sister will be able to look back fondly and at least remember their shared time
together.
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