William Wordsworth: “Influence of Natural Objects”

I’m going to base my work in the poem: “Influence of Natural Objects” of William Wordsworth.

First of all, I’m going to analyse and comment the poem. In this poem there are two stanzas. The first stanza has forty six lines and the second stanza has seventeen lines all the poem is written in iambic pentameter, which is five feet. Each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. I have tried to find the rhyme scheme but I couldn’t find any established rhyme scheme. Right at the beginning there are words such as “soul”, “everlasting”, “purifying”, “sanctifying” in which William Wordsworth is using a pulpit tone. Through his poetry he wanted to teach us a moral lesson and that is what he is doing by using that kind of words with an abstract meaning. The most important thing for him is nature, the personal development is connected with the nature and it has a transcendental meaning. I think that he wants us to learn from nature. The author is trying to convince us about his thoughts. For Wordsworth there is a perfect connection between nature and himself. He wants to become here our prophet by using exclamation marks (lines 1-2). If we continue reading the poem, we appreciate that the author has chosen a specific date. In line 16, he says: “In November days”. It is in that moment when William begins his autobiographical work. He is bringing us to that point of his life. He is describing the scene as it appeared to him in his childhood. He wants to recreate that scene in the reader’s mind, the same effect that the boy has in his mind).. In that way, he includes the reader and his words in the same situation, so we are taking part of his experiences, recreated in the boy’s mind. How does he do this?

There is a change in the tone, the oratorical tone is abandoned, so, the verse becomes more flexible. As I said before, his introduction of autobiography into poetry was an unprecedented in literary history. Wordsworth is introducing us to the boy’s mind step by step. Now, he uses adjectives that can describe the scene and also the state of mind of the boys. Adjectives like: “lonely”, “calm”, “trembling”, “groomy” etc. The main purpose is to provide the reader the feelings of the boy. This is useful for us for a better comprehension of the poem. From my point of view, in line 28 he says “happy time”. In these lines, I observe a change in the way he is writing his poetry. It’s a good time for him, he is constantly using positive adjectives, for example: “it was time of rapture” (line30). When you read about William Wordsworth, the first thing you learn about him is that his work is influenced by nature. But now, in that point he is submersed in the pleasure of physical sensation. Another aspect I think is important here is the reference to the animal spirits. In line 32 he talks about a horse, in my opinion when we heard a person talking about a horse, we associate this animal to movement. So, when we read “Proud and exulting like an untired horse” the authors intention is to pass to another time, a transition to another period of wordsworth’s life. William Wordsworth is showing us his emotions in the text trough the nature. He is interested in telling us what happened to him in November, probably in 1799 since it was when the poem was written. We don’t have to forget that this is an autobiographical text. Ha says “like un untired horse”, he is free and he feels happy probably he was in love or maybe his arguments against the French Revolution made profit to him. He is spending all the time in nature that is what he wants to teach that, that we have to learn from nature. We don’t have to ask anything, we have to guess it from the hills, mountains, rivers etc. He thought that the river gave him knowledge about writing, to be a poet.

From the beginning of the text we have seen in the first stanza two different attitudes. First of all, in the first lines we can feel the solitude of the author in his words, but then step by step he is recovering these lines with movement, there is a change in his life, he feels happy and he reaches the physical sensation. But we don’t have to forget that always from the boy’s point of view. That is the purpose of Wordsworth, introduce the boy’s self and give a lot of details and arguments. The change takes place when he begins the autobiographical poetry. In November, his tone becomes more flexible, for me it is easier to understand. But now, I would like to pay attention to another change here, from line 38 until the end of the first stanza. Now he is using words with negative meaning, for example he is talking about “darkness”, “din” “crag”. The new vision of the boy is being affected by “an alien sound of melancholy”, something bad is happening to the society and we are able to understand it because it is affecting the nature. He says that “the orange sky of evening died away”. All of these changes influence William Wordsworth’s poetry. Afterwards, I’m going to deal with the social background which I’m sure it’ll help us to understand this change in his writing.

In the second stanza, in line 47 the boy retired: “I retired into a silent bay, or sportively glanced sideway”. The following sentences are difficult to understand as in the beginning of the poem. According to Ford, Boris:[i]

The experience of the star reflected in the ice is

Followed in Influence of Natural Objects by an

Account of another experience which explores the

Same point again, but in a different way still.

[Ford, Boris (Ed.) 249]

In my opinion, the author is trying to avoid the problem I mentioned before, so he uses the example of the star trying to forget what’s happening. As we’ve seen he decides to retire, so the image he is giving to the reader is that he is observing the reflection of the stars in the ice but actually he is escaping from reality. The purpose of Ford, Boris in the previous comment is to warn us to distinguish when the author is talking about his Influence of Natural Objects and when, in that case, is “building up a sense of speed”. He is using the nature to explain that he needs to retire and following the reflection of the star. In that period he is living badly days and he is worried about what’s going on.

And finally, in the last stanza, William Wordsworth tells us that he is going to “retire” from a crow. He looks like he is stressed of all the changes that are taking place in that time. When he is making reference to the star he is trying to take the shortest way to escape, he follows the light of the star. The night is coming and a new day and a new period too. He feels tired; he can’t do more, so he “gives his body to the wind”. I understand it like everything is happening in the society it’s impossible to be explained by nature, so he decides to disappear until “all was tranquil as a summer sea”. In this stanza the concept of movement is important, through his words he is playing with the sound of the poem. It’s like when we are playing and we close our eyes, we feel a little bit dizzy, so the images that arrive to our mind are more or less clear depending on if we have been playing or if we haven’t. In this case all the thoughts are reaching the boy’s mind.

Wordsworth so describe the boy’s experiences as to recreate

In the reader sensations and feelings, the “emotion” experienced

By the boy but the action on the reader […] is to generate a new

Emotion […] It is this complex emotion which, experienced by

The reader, constitutes the poet’s communication of the “influence

Of natural objects”.

[Ford, Boris (Ed.) 251]

Through his poetry he recognizes that natural objects have the same meaning in his emotional life. The theme is the contact and how he reacts in his intimacy with nature since he was a child.

On the second part of my paper, I would like to put the poem in relation with the rest of the poet's poetic production and to comment some important aspects of William Wordsworth life that I think are important for a better understanding of his poetry.

William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 - April 23, 1850) is one of the most important Romantic poets because of his contribution and help to the Romantic Movement.[ii] His masterpiece is considered to be The Prelude. It is an autobiographical poem, which was revised by him many times and that was published after his death. William had a shy attitude towards nature; this was one of his preoccupations. What he wanted was to teach us a moral lesson taking it from his attitude towards the nature. So the reader was persuading through Wordsworth words. As I was saying before, he wrote the Prelude between 1799 and 1805. An autobiographical work was an unprecedented thing in history until William Wordsworth wrote it.

The prelude is a kind of diary where Wordsworth writes about his experiences and feelings but in a distance. He talks about a boy; he wants to keep distance between his private life, his childhood and what he writes in his poetry.

In 1798 he and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote “Lyrical Ballads”[iii].

The second out of five children, he was born in Cockermouth in Cumberland. After his mother’s death, he and her sister the poet Dorothy were split. This is an important point since this fact influenced to Wordsworth a lot. Since he was a child, he grew up around a natural environment, which helps him to escape from this situation. He and her sister did not meet again for another nine years. In 1791, he went to visit the Revolutionary France and supported the Republican movement. In my opinion this is the travel which influenced him a lot and I could understand that in the poem as I’ve commented before that it is a reflection of that experience. For example when he is talking about the bad situation, I have interpreted it like the republicans were losing the battle against the social classes. During this journey he meets a French woman, Annette Vallon[iv], who in 1792 had a child, Caroline. Because of the bad situation between France and England he had to return to England but one year later he came back to marry Annette. During this period he wrote “calm of summer” recalling the great moments they are living. I have extracted this line from the poem I’ve commented. The poem Influence of Natural Objects was printed as apart of The Prelude[v] but the first time it appeared was in Coleridge’s periodical The Friend. The full title of the poem is Influence of Natural Objects in Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and early Youth.

In 1793 William Wordsworth published his first poetry collections: An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. But it was in 1795 when he first met Coleridge in Somerset. Both together produced Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The preface to Lyric Ballads is considered a central work of Romantic literary theory. Here, Wordsworth uses a new type of poetry, the one based on the “real language of men”, and he also gives her definition of poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in tranquillity”. His religious feeling is seen in his later works where he reacts against liberalism and rationalism.

Wordsworth continued writing in his later years. He was awarded from the University of Durman and Oxford University. Finally, in 1843 he won the distinction of being named Poet Laureate.

To start with my social background, first of all I will talk about the romantic global situation in Europe during that period. Treating this theme we will be able to see many changes of monarchy, social classes, power, etc and appoint the improvements and advantages of the French Revolution.

Nearly all the romantic writers had consideration of their environment and thanks to their impulse trying to come to terms with it, they got their best work. When talking about social classes, the middle class, started to grow causing competence because the system did not work. All these confrontations caused the French Revolution.

In 1762, the war taxation and its effects ruined the situation and made it need a reformation. The fall of the Bastille symbolized the regeneration and progress of France. This caused material and Industrial changes such as introduction of mechanical improvements. One of the most impressive was the chronometer which was very useful, allowing determine the longitude of the sea. During this period France and England wanted to open to new worlds, trying to expand their culture. Captain James Cook’s three voyages were the most amazing, in the second one; he discovered Australia and the Sandwich Islands and crossed the Antarctic Circle. There was a big rivalry between England and France to establish the metallurgical industries in these new lands. The metallurgical industries were near the coast, so its communication and its distribution was very difficult, caused by bad roads and the inexistence railway. Finally, this problem disappeared, and it was very east to expand from coast to centre. As a consequence of this, the population of the villages decreased, adding all up to the cities.

All these changes brought advantages to this period; the speedier traffic favoured the periodical as the organ of opinion, although it was the Government who decided what could be published.

Focusing on France, I have to say that it was ruled by an absolute monarch, whom in order to make the business easier, called together the States General. This brought a big number of members that could act against the ruling classes, those who homage to and were favoured by the French court. These men constituted a National Assembly which became more powerful than the French king.

The French revolution ensued: the absolute monarchy and its attending aristocratic order collapsed. After, the storming of the Bastille came across and its assembly adopted the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” and brought up a new constitution, one that allowed for a monarchy.

Moreover, London had diplomatic relations with France, and France invaded England’s ally and declared war. Other countries like Austria, Prussia, Spain and Britain formed “The First Coalition” which was an alliance against France. Lastly, Prussia retired, Spain made peace, and large parts of Belgium and Holland received France as a friend. It was a civil war in which France wasn’t extending a foreign empire over other nations. It was a sect aiming as universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of France.

On the other hand, in England, the reactions of what had happened in France were mixed, but major of them were ready to support the French Royalists. We don’t have to forget about those who regretting the blood and destruction of the French Revolution, still supported the principles for which it stood. These principles were best expressed by Rousseau (“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”, and “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”).

All these notions were very helpful to many poets, including William Wordsworth, who condemned French imperialism in the period after the revolution and his English nationalism improved.

Finally, I would like to say that the purpose of William Wordsworth as we have seen before was to teach us a moral lesson and to be remembered as a great poet. In my opinion, both things have happened because nowadays everybody is worried about the nature and on the other hand I have decided to study his work because in one of the most important Romantic author. I’m telling this because this week I’ve gone to the presentation of the doctorates at the University of Valencia and in that celebration doctor Björn Roos was delivered the “honoris causa” award. He in his discourse talked about the climate changes and that we have to change our attitude and starting to make up our mind about the future consequences. While I was hearing his words I thought in William Wordsworth and in his work. He wanted to influence young generation, the same that Ross was doing three centuries later. We don’t have to forget our ancestors and the past and the most important what they do for the future, for our daily days. William Wordsworth has shown us the past in this catastrophic world and has made simple the close relationship that exists between the nature and the “soul of man”.

William Wordsworth: “Influence of Natural Objects”[vi]

First Stanza.

In Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination
in Boyhood and Early Youth

Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe!
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought!
And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul,
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature; purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such discipline
Both pain and fear, -until we recognize
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart.
Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
With stinted kindness. In November days,
When vapours rolling down the valleys made
A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods
At noon; and mid the calm of summer nights,
When, by the margin of the trembling Lake,
Beneath the gloomy hills, I homeward went
In solitude, such intercourse was mine:
'Twas mine among the fields both day and night,
And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not the summons: -happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! -Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six -I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home. -All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, -the resounding horn,
The pack loud-bellowing, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle: with the din
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while the distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

Second Stanza.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, -or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a Star;
Image that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me -even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WEBGRAPHY.

Ford, Boris (Ed.) The New Pelican Gid to English Literature. 5. From Blake to Byron Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982 (1957).

Khurana, Simran. Your Guide to Quotations. 23 Nov 2007. http://quotations.about.com/od/poemlyrics/a/wordswo rth14.htm

23 Nov 2007 http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang

23 Nov 2007 http://www.uv.es/~fores/mainframeuvp.html

23 Nov 2007 http://aulavirtual.uv.es/dotlrn/classes/c006/14217/ c08c006a14217gA/wp- slim/display/24923561/24923639.wimpy

24 Nov 2007 http://gale.cengage.com/free_resources/poets/bio/wo rdsworth_w.htm

24 Nov 2007 http://www.online- literature.com/wordsworth/

24 Nov 2007 http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/

25 Nov 2007 http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2338.html