Monday, September 19, 2011
Tintern Abbey
While I was reading Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth, I felt a sense that I have read something similar to this poem earlier in this course. It reminded me, in different parts, of one of Charlotte Smith's, which discusses Nature's inability to solve our human problems completely, serving only as a temporary escape. I thought Wordsworth wrote about the same concept in Tintern Abbey, for example, in lines 89-94: "For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity, not harsh or grating, though the ample power to chasten and subdue". Though Wordsworth's description was not as pessimistic as Smith's, he still acknowledged the fact that you cannot completely escape humanity by enjoying Nature. Nevertheless, he credits Nature as being his "anchor of my purest thoughts" (line 98), underlining the importance of natural beauty as a refuge from his everyday life.
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We see this temporary escape through the pure remembrance of Tintern abbey, where WW only remembers this image and the experience of his felt beauty. Nature is a natural relief when mixed with "the din of towns and cities." Nature's temporary escape is both in mental pictures as well as a physical looking. Both produce the same "feelings" of beauty. Except this beauty fades in the stresses of human life, and therefore, something, whatever that may be, is stopping total human satisfaction when in association with the natural environment.
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