Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey"

Tintern Abbey
William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England and was educated at Saint Johns College, University of Cambridge. Even though he wrote poems as a school boy, none of them were published until 1793 (at age 23) when An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches appeared in print. His formal style of 18th century English romantic poetry became on of England?s most accomplished poets. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, April 23, 1850. ?Tintern Abbey? was written on July 13, 1798 on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour and the poems? formal name is Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey the theme is nature as it relates to Romanticism.
The Romantic Era lasted from about 1750 to1870 and originally meant ?romance like? related to medieval romances. Moreover as romantic literature developed it praised imagination and emotion over rationality and reason, intuition over science. In ?Tintern Abbey?, Wordsworth wrote about his experience going back to the Abbey but focused his theme on the emotional beauty of nature. Wordsworth believes that ?all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings? and that ?the poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure? (Encarta).
Tintern Abbey was founded on May 9, 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow. It is also one of the greatest monastic ruins of Wales and the second Cistercian foundation in Britain. Although, as part of Henry VIII policy to establish total control over the church in his realm, Tintern Abbey and as many as eight hundred other Abbeys and religious houses were destroyed around September 3, 1536 (?Tintern Abbey?). I will be researching ?Tintern Abbey? from the perspective of six literary critics.
According to Harold Bloom, Wordsworth has a revelation when he encounters the beauty of nature he has not seen for about five years. Bloom believes that Wordsworth comes to an understanding of his poetic self in his ?Tintern Abbey?? ?and this deliberate refusal to seek explanation is itself part of the meaning of ?Tintern Abbey? (46). Bloom goes on to say that ?Tintern Abbey? was written in a time in Wordsworth?s life when he had ?rejected Godwin?s philosophical teachings that denied the power of sense and emotion over reason?, and that concurrently was a factor of why this poem was so popular because it had such emotional power about nature (37). The restorative power of nature this poem celebrates is the major theme in the poem because Wordsworth feels empowered by his nostalgia on his four day tour to the Abbey. Loss and decay are also themes in this poem because his poem is a memory, and memories can never contain the original experience it did. Lines 80-85:
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite: a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye- That time is past
And all its aching joys are now no more
In these few lines of poem Wordsworth is almost in emotional pain on his return because nature?s sense of power as it existed in his memory is lost. Even though Wordsworth hears in nature the still, sad music of humanity, he still prefers memory and the sense of nature to intellect. This is also to say that Wordsworth prefers poetry, as he does not separate memory from poetry (Bloom, 38).
Another literary critic, Michael Cooke said, ?Wordsworth does not describe two separate states of then and now but the present is a more complex and more inclusive version of the past? (72). Furthermore, the present is a more complex and more inclusive version of the past. Cooke also suggests that the phrases ?elevated thoughts? and ?animal movements? give the poem its spiritual ?presence?. This poem also gives way to thinking about purity with two meanings of the word ?elevated, one is ultimate pleasure and the other is ?chasten[ed] and subdue[d]?. The way that Wordsworth writes poetry, it is as if he desires to make the reader see the poem in a whole new light, and to do that he uses the word ?pleasure? almost as a slogan.
The way that Wordsworth uses the style of Romanticism in this poem is seen in how he describes the pleasure of nature abstractly. Cooke proves this by saying, ?Wordsworth supplants ?the sounding cataract? with ?the still madness of humanity?; he supplants what directly exists with something invented and sustained in the mind? (72). Cooke explains another thing about how Wordsworth writes his poetry and how it is broken down into two kinds: imaginative and enthusiastic and secondly, human and ordinary. To complete this theory Cooke concludes that ?Tintern Abbey? is imaginative and enthusiastic (which has the root meaning of ?containing divinity?) and is found in lines 28-31of the poem ?sensations sweet/Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart/And passing even into the purer mind/With tranquil restoration.
Moreover, on Cooke?s theory on pleasure, he quotes Wordsworth declaring that:
The poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity
Of giving immediate pleasure to a human Being possessed of
That information which may be expected of him, not as a
Lawyer ? or a natural philosopher, but as a man. (65)
Another literary critic named Geoffrey H. Hartman argues his theory on ?Tintern Abbey? to be about the slow rhythm of the poem. The words winters, waters and murmur already instill in the reader a sense of a slow, serene pace Hartman connects this rhythm with the ?shying from peripety or abrupt illumination (or climax), we can rarely tell if the ?wave? of the verse is rising toward it or falling from it? (27). Also by this wavering rhythm, the halted consciousness flows unsteadily into the continuousness of meditation. This is the way Wordsworth senses his mortality and realizes that nature can not renew his pleasant spirits as much as he wants them to. Self exploration and self understanding is always present in ?Tintern Abbey? because Wordsworth is in conflict with the natural landscape and his mental landscape, and he is trying to find a mutual depth so that he can find his ?sole self? or his destiny. He is also trying to over come according to Hartman, ?that fear of an absolute death, of a final separation from the sources of renewal (nature)? (28). Though as Wordsworth summons his self consciousness in nature, it is rarely by means of violence or the supernatural; to the contrary, anything in nature renews his sense of it. So, as Hartman explains, Wordsworth write his poetry looking back, in order to move forward, something like settling the scores. In the last paragraph of the poem, his focus turns from nature to his beloved sister, and also accomplished poet, Dorothy Wordsworth and the verse becomes a prayer or a vow for her. In lines 147-160 is an intimation of how that moment (he hopes) can survive his death, he wants Dorothy to have/share his memories so that himself and his love of nature and all it did for him, will live on somehow: /if I should be where I no more can hear thy voice/ nor catch from thy wild eyes gleams of past existence/-wilt though then forget that on the banks of this delightful stream/ we stood together... Hartman concludes that Wordsworth wants to ?foresee the survival of his kind of fidelity to nature? (29).
Geoffrey Durrant said about Wordsworth and ?Tintern Abbey?, ?the opening lines reveal the influence of eighteenth-century poetry and testify to Wordsworth?s intense and loving memory of natural scenes? (87). Durrant explains that the way Wordsworth writes about nature and how the scene is arranged as a pattern of horizontals and verticals so that the total effect gives the reader an image of the scenery relative to space. . Also the color green is the emotional center of the poem and it carries suggestions of power yet protection and peace. This is proved by the description of the cliffs and their ?more deep seclusion? of the valley floor. Along with Hartman, Durrant also identifies the slow rhythm of the poem with the words ?soft inland murmur?, and quiet of the sky?. However, in contrast to Cooke, Durrant believes that this poem does not follow romantic enthusiasm which conveys an emotional response without giving the climax. The poem is not about realism either, but about ?thought and object of thought, feeling and its occasion, are one and the same? (89). Because there is no distance between the valley and Wordsworth?s response to it, there cannot be realism or enthusiasm in this poem.
Durrant also explains how psychological this poem is because Wordsworth says throughout the poem that a man?s eye only ?half creates? what it sees. So how nature is complete in majesty to Wordsworth may only be merely pretty to the eyes of others. Even though the poem lacks any colorful description besides the green grass though clear arrangement of all other details, reminds us that we too have eyes and can create our own majesty from within our conscience. That way we can find some way to relate to Wordsworth from our own experiences with nature.
?Natural philosophy? is how Durrant classifies Wordsworth?s attitude toward nature rather than ?philosophy of nature? because Wordsworth (on his journey back to the Abbey) begins to come to terms with the fact that some day, he is going to die. Besides nature, the greatest preoccupation of Wordsworth according to Durrant is, ?the view of the universe as a great machine, in which life is only to be inexorably and permanently destroyed? (106).
Literary critic Marjorie Levinson who is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania believes that the poem ?both solves and conceals? ?Tintern Abbey?s? nature is a place-a concept- to fly to, not to seek? (16). Wordsworth revisits ?Tintern Abbey? on a day marking four anniversaries: Bastille Day ?that great federal day? (Prelude6, 205), the murder of Marat (French Revolutionary Martyr), Wordsworth?s first visit to France, and his first visit to Tintern Abbey. Therefore ?Tintern Abbey? and its vague description of landscape serves as a repository for outgrown ego-stages. Levinson also states that ?nature? in ?Tintern Abbey? was not meant to be Romantic because it neither dramatizes the principals of self renewal nor enables self-transcendence. So, to any man of Wordsworth?s experience, ?Tintern Abbey? would have represented a get away from the commercial interests of its neighborhood.
Moreover, ?Tintern Abbey? originates in a will to preserve something, Wordsworth knows, is already lost. The Abbey itself marks a constellation of values he feels that are important to his character structure. Therefore, the narrator in ?Tintern Abbey? (or Wordsworth himself) can transcend his subject, but can not redeem it. The poem is a combination of all Wordsworth?s feelings about his past and his love of nature and tries to bring back all the memories he had about his first visit and have an enormous nostalgic moment (emotions and senses included) on his revisit. Because it has been so long, he knows those memories are lost, and he will never feel the same again, in other words. We consider the first lines: Five years have passed; five summers, with the length/of five long winters! And later lines: and now, with gleams of half-extinguished though/with many recognitions dim and faint?though changes, no doubt, from what I was, when first/I dame among these hills? Wordsworth describes the length of time and how disappointed he is upon his return. Levinson in conclusion says, ?Tintern Abbey? represents mind, and specifically memory, not as energy-a subtle psychic ongoingness-but as a barricade to resist the violence of historical (mental aging) change and contradiction? (53).
From another point of view, Carl Woodring, the poem ?Tintern Abbey? relates to the word sublime and redefined it. Woodring suggests, ? ?Tintern Abbey? has already gone further, to point toward the mind?s part in the continuous creating of a sublime universe? the lines written on the banks of the Wye concerns the uses (and misuses) of mankind?s essential sublimity?(13). Wordsworth describes the ?steep and lofty cliffs? and the ?wild green landscape? with neither too much description nor vagueness but enough for the reader to understand how picturesque or sublime the English country side is. Along with Durrant Woodring explains that the sublimity of the landscape by Wordsworth was ?half created? by his own mind, in other words, all objects take definition and value only from the human mind. Though Woodring makes another point about sublimity and peoples minds, ?it?s not the immediate sense of the sublime and the picturesque?but what one does with the experience of awe or pleasure in later moments of quiet reflection?,(20). This suggests that the thoughts of what you saw afterwards and what it means to you according to your experiences, it is nature, sublime, in your own way.
Similar to Hartman and Durrant, Woodring also identifies the slowness of the poem. With the words ?sinks to sleep? and ?soft inland murmur?, the poem is determined to deter you away from a climatic ending, or illumination. This is partly to relate the human emotions and nature to a continuous cycle, waves that neither begin nor end. Woodring states that Wordsworth was ?attempting to get something for nothing-a return without a deposit- but few have gone emotionally bankrupt from Wordsworth?s belief in the sublimity of humble human feelings?(21). This insinuates that everyone who reads Wordsworth, not just ?Tintern Abbey?, learns something new about the human feelings that make it once again, unique.
In doing this research paper, I learned a tremendous amount about this poem and about poetry in general. I learned how to first read a selected poem, because it is completely different than reading a book especially if it does not rhyme, and analyze it from a literary background as well as historical. If I had not researched the author and what Tintern Abbey actually was, a church in England, I would have had a semi-difficult time understanding the poem from a geographical perspective. I learned that this poem was not about the surroundings and what Wordsworth saw on his return to the Abbey, but about how he saw nature, the Abbey, and what it meant to him. A person can read something and comprehend every word, but it will not mean anything unless they can relate to it. I can relate to this poem because the way Wordsworth described the ?lofty hills?, reminds me of my home town.
The poem is also about coming to terms with your mortality, which I am having a difficult time doing right now, but it made me realize that Wordsworths? memories lived on through his poem and he is remembered. Also, going back to a place you have not been to in many years is hard for anyone to do, especially if their feelings for it have gone. It almost makes your reluctant to go there for fear that that might be the case, and to live with the disappointment.
I learned that the words you use can make a big difference in how it is read. For example, when the poem uses words that sound slow, consciously, you read it slower than you would normally! I found myself doing that a few times. The wave like rhythm of the poem also creates the notion that the poem might reach a climax?but then it doesn?t. I do not know why he did this or what Wordsworth meant by this, but I believe he had an epiphany on his trip, though he did not include it in the poem, nevertheless it sounded like he wanted to.
The literary critics I researched were very interesting to read and I could follow along with ease at what they were trying to say. Bloom for example noted that Wordsworth felt pain when he realized that the emotions he felt were not the same as when he first visited the banks of the river Wye. Michael Cooke explained that the poem was about a spiritual presence Wordsworth felt, but used the human feeling of pleasure to bring it about. Geoffrey Hartman was the first I read to note the wavering rhythm of the poem and the refusal to bring to climax. Also he noted that Wordsworth was in conflict with what he saw in his mind, and what he saw through his eyes five years later, that brings me back to the belief that the mind only ?half creates? what it sees, which is also stated by my next critic, Geoffrey Durrant. Durrant also explains that Wordsworth comes to terms with his mortality with the decay of his memories. Marjorie Levinson brought about how Wordsworth can transcend above himself, but can not redeem what he has lost, his memories. Last but not least Carl Woodring suggested that Wordsworth redefined the word sublime and used it to describe nature just as it is, but also how we perceive it is part of the sublimity. In conclusion, some of the perspectives of the six literary critics? views were similar, but contained many ideas of their own to what Wordsworth was thinking when he wrote ?Tintern Abbey?.