Thursday 27 October 2016

Representation of Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost



Name: Hariyani Vaidehi C.

Roll no- 18

Year - 2015-17

M.A Semester - 3

Paper no.(10) The American Literature

Email Id: - vaidehi09hariyani@gmail.com


UNIT : - 1

Assignment topic:
 Representation of Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost


Submitted to:
Smt.S.B.Gardi
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH,
MAHARAJA KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI  BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY,
Representation of Nature in the Poetry of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost




Nature is one of the favourite and very recurrently used themes in different arts like poetry, painting and movies. Artist or Writers are always fascinated with nature. All the writers are normally fascinated with nature. Some of them are also habituated to go for a walk in the company of nature and solitude. Nature has always been a part and parcel of literature.

Nature stands as source of inspiration for all the poets, but the poets have represented it differently. The poets of different Era have their own unique way of presenting art.

Here we are going to discuss how the romantic poet William Wordsworth and the American poet Robert Frost differ in representation of Nature in their poetry.

First let us see what is Romanticism?

Romanticism (also known as the romantic era or the romantic period) was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement. It originated in Europe towards the end of 18th century. (Wikipedia)

One of the characteristic of the romantic era was “a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature”. The Romantic Movement in English Literature is generally described as “Return to Nature”. Nature was idealised and there was an artistic freedom.

As it is mentioned in History of English Literature by W.J.Long,

“Find tongue in trees, books in the running brooks,
  Sermons in stones and good in everything.”

Nature was looked upon as mother. Nature is used by the poets to appreciate the beautiful powerful force in human world. Poets like Wordsworth, Shelley, Scout, Keats and many other poets beautify nature in one or the other way.

On one hand there is a romantic poet, William Wordsworth for whom “Poems begins in delight and ends in delight”. On the contrary there is Robert Frost who looks at the nature with different insight.

According to Robert Frost,
“The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”

Representation of Nature in the poetry of William Wordsworth:-

Romantic poets were always fascinated by nature’s power and wonder.
William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).

Nature was one of the great sources of inspiration for William Wordsworth. He was the high priest of Nature .He shows nature to be gentle nurturing force that teaches and soothes humanity.

In his he mentions in “LINES WRITTEN A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY” from “Lyrical Ballads”,
“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”

Throughout Wordsworth’s work, nature provides the ultimate good influence on the human mind. He lived amidst the lap of nature in the Lake District. Thus, nature had been a part of his everyday life. Wordsworth touches the development of his love for nature in “Tintern Abbey”. In his childhood, Nature was simply a playground for him. Then he began to love nature and gradually he realised Nature’s role as a teacher and educator.

I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, ere then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
Un-borrowed from the eye [II. 75-83]

Wordsworth glorifies nature and also reveals inner soul of nature in his work.
“One impulse from the vernal wood
  May teach you more of man
  Of moral evil and of good
  I hand all the sages can.” – “The Tables Turned

In Wordsworth’s poetry we see a natural setting of green pastoral countryside, the simple lifestyle and the beautiful moments with nature “recollected in tranquillity”.  

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. – “The Daffodils

He achieved morality from nature. Here he meant morality as positivity.

“The anchor of my purest thoughts
  The nurse, the guide, the guardians of my
   heart and soul
 And of all my moral beings.” 
-“Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.

Wordsworth believed that nature has object of soul and living spirit. His poetry has a touch of spirituality.

“In all things, in all natures, in the stars
 This active principle abides, from link to link
 It circulates the soul of all the worlds.”

Wordsworth loved nature but he did not fear nature. Thus, Wordsworth was a worshipper of nature. He did not recognize the ugly side of nature like Robert Frost.

Representation of Nature in Frost’s poetry:-

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life.
Robert Frost has many themes in his poetry. One of the main themes is nature.

Frost is a great love of nature, and his love too, like that of Wordsworth is regional. He lived near north of Boston which forms background to his poetry. The poetry of Robert Frost contains two major themes of nature: the exploration of beauty and nature, and the interaction between man and nature.

Frost’s love for nature is more comprehensive, many-sided and all-inclusive than that of Wordsworth. Wordsworth loved to paint the beauty of nature, but Frost has a keen eye for the beauty of nature as well as the harsher and unpleasant side of nature.

“Spring Pools” for example, begins with a innocent description of the pools and flowers which one sees in the woodlands in the early spring. Then suddenly the tone becomes grave:-

“The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods -
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.”

Spring generally is the season of birth but ushers in darkness.
Frost paints nature as dangerous and sinister.

“Design” is a small example which asks who is the murderer???
Of course “Nature”.

“I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.”

The flower hold the moth but nothing can stop the dark vigour of nature; the spider. Frost implies that darkness lurks everywhere. The nature is as dangerous as the spider.
May be that is what is law of nature and it has its own design.
Nature has an eco-cycle which works in its pattern. The law of nature operates and no idealism works in it.

We can see an example of eco-cycle:


One animal is a food of the other. That is how the cycle of nature works.
He speaks about the reality of nature, while Wordsworth idealises nature. 

Here we can compare both the poets with the characters from the film “Life of Pie”. Wordsworth can be compared with Pie Patel and Frost can be compared with Pie’s father.

Pie believed that all the soul in the nature is beautiful and loveable. He goes near the cage of lion and thinks that lion will behave like a friend. His father shows him the reality in a quite dangerous way. He keeps a goat in the cage and the lion eats it away.

 “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” is another great example where we can see how Frost describes Nature:-
“Woods are lovely dark and deep
 But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep”

The “Woods” are “Lovely”. We all like to spend some time in lovely woods, but soon we find paradox here. Woods are lovely but they are dark and deep.
Frost’s poem also has deep philosophical and moral meaning hidden. At this point we can say he is similar to Wordsworth.
The last lines of the poem suggest that whatever might happen but we have to move on.

One can argue that Frost represents nature in a negative style. If we observe minutely, he is more practical than Wordsworth. Wordsworth was blindly in love with nature. Frost keeps a balance and highlights the positive and negatives both the aspects of nature.


William Wordsworth
Robert Frost
    1.) Idealistic
         1.) Realistic
    2.) Positive aspect of Nature
2.)Negative as well as positive aspect of Nature
    3.) Worshipper
3.)Observer

In the poems of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost there are lots of natural elements in their poems. It is right to say that the theme of these two poets is Nature. They have written all their poems based on nature where nature plays a great role in their works. But William Wordsworth and Robert Frost are different in their representation of nature. Binaries of nature can be observed in their poems.


"Same theme, different insights"

References
·       English Literature: Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World:- William J. Long

·       Google Images




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