Destinations of Self

From Charlotte Smith to William Wordsworth, The Romantic poets our class studied all vividly describe nature experiences; how the self, introduced to serene natural landscape, transformed from its normal sorrow and stressful state to one brimming with delight and beauty! For Romantic poets, the era was a period of self-exploration, attempting methods that could alleviate the soul’s imprisonment in the illusory material world. Searching the distances of their inner powers, these poets constantly traversed the depths of solitude and nature discerning a connection between man’s mind and mother earth. In their poetry, many of the Romantic poets intimately describe a re-modeling, through nature’s profound influence, of one’s predisposed self; how to heighten one’s well being and in turn, manifest higher delighted intelligence. This essay serves to illustrate the complex investigations into self undergone by the Romantic Poets, particularly Whitman, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Smith and how nature served as the medicine for the sickness and desolation of soul.

Most if not all the Romantic poets were acutely aware of humanity’s predicament; a default self that lingered in sorrow and angst, “a dream, which was not all a dream” (Darkness, Line 1). Byron acknowledged that, engulfed in thought-dreams, “this their desolation” (Darkness, Line 8), people were fastened contemplating and worrying about their own means to survival and with selfish thoughts continuously arising, an individual is usually on guard and stressed trying to protect himself from possible danger rather than exploring ways to enjoy life. This instinctual protection of self only sets individuals at odds. Byron’s apocolyptic world of the “normal” self is synonymous to Shelley’s Sensitive Plant society deprived of its ideal Lady; individuals (or plants) lacking the higher ideals of beauty, delight, and love are destined for loneliness and desolate life situation. Byron as well as Shelley thought that a continuance of a diseased worry-filled self would inevitably lead, as portrayed by Darkness, to an world-wide apocalypse of sorts.

The above picture is both a simile for Byron’s depiction of a chaotic self as well as prediction if mankind does not escape this human condition and its inherent egotistical soul. With the industrial revolution rapidly gaining speed, people suffering long labor days, and people fixed on themselves without seeing nature, the stars, and the sun, an apocalypse, or never-ceasing war and suffering is bound to continue as the stable condition of mankind. With this awareness, The Romantic poets set out to explore their self, yes mainly to relieve themselves of their own suffering but also as poets, set before their readers the path to human salvation. These poets convincingly wrote that a dependence on nature rather than materialistic need would be a defining factor in improving well-being

Shelley is a prime example of a Romantic poet who avidly searched for methods to drastically ameliorate the self. Marisa in her blog posts discusses the ease at which the sensitive plant is pre-disposed to loneliness especially with a world void of the metaphysical ideals, which coincides with the beginnings of Shelley’s search. Shelley himself originally “could not endure the horror the evil that comes to the self in solitude”(Wroe) but as this source,http://www.erudit.org/revue/ravon/2008/v/n51/019259ar.html, indicates, Shelley manifested an ability, using his own internal powers, to alleviate the “bad” self, or the part of self convinced bodily pleasure and material wealth is real, true, and more satisfying than the metaphysical ideals. Shelley, like other Romantic poets (particularly Wordsworth and Coleridge) saw the need to first relinquish the bad in the self in order to make consistent room for improved well-being. The quick satisfaction of the material world was viewed as a spoiler for the greatly beauty of self, which is described in The Sensitive Plant:

…in this life

Of error, ignorance and strife,

Where nothing is, but all things seem,

And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed, and yet

Pleasant if one considers it,

To own that death itself must be,

Like all the rest, a mockery…

For love, and beauty, and delight,

There is no death nor change; their might

Exceeds our organs, which endure

No light, being themselves obscure.

122-5, 134-7

Byron agreeing, Shelley believed that its mens’ own wills that keep them within misery; the inability to relinquish selfish thoughts but accessing the truth and virtue beneath the materialistic desire, one can experience moral excellence and true satisfaction in this lifetime. So Shelley like many of the Romantic poets grew to be tinkerers of the self, fighting off the evil need for material worth in exchange for the sentiments of beauty, delight, and serenity; the joyful soul. As this exploration of soul was taking place among the Romantic Poets, many, particularly Shelly, Wordsworth, Coleridge, found nature to be a key ingredient or helper to achieve a higher delighted intelligence. They found that natural scenery had a direct and immediate impact on the soul of man and that a real connection existed between nature and the self.

More than any other environment, the Romantic poets clearly experienced a wealth of joy when encompassed in natural scenery. The first benefit of nature the poets realized was experiencing a satisfying affective pleasure. The Romantics believed plants garnered “ a force working like sentiency” (Maniquis, Pg 154), which all vegetative life had and could then relay this feeling into an onlooker. For Wordsworth, studying one small the flower, the Celandine, or “prophet of delight” (Celandine) injected him with a sheer joy curtailing any previous ills of self. Luke wrote a blog post on Charlotte Smith’s Beachy Head thatadequately describes how being engulfed in landscape gave Smith a subjective experience of the Sublime.

Looking at the picture above, it is clear how such a vast scenery can have one stop short in awe and sublimity. “As sublimity does not reside in anything of nature, but only in our mind” (Sublime), nature has an obvious effect on the self indicating an interconnectedness exists between self and nature. Smith definitely gets filled with the sublime feeling, where “Ah! hills so early loved! in fancy still/ I breathe your pure keen air; and still behold/ Those widely spreading views, mocking alike/ The poet and the painter’s utmost Art” (Beachy Head, Lines 368-371). To the Romantic Poets, nature was not only interconnected with man’s mind because of an infused atmosphere but was also a cause for celebration for nature itself was more beautiful and powerful than the greatest manifestations of man like a well composed poem or a remarkable painting.

As understood from class discussion, Smith was usually a depressed character but the power of Beachy Head’s lovely and expansive scene as well as natural purity (purity of air, color, space) had an immediate healing effect on Smith’s soul. Also, in Charlotte Smith’s Sonnet VIII To Spring, she clearly describes nature’s ability to “soother awhile the tortured’s bosoms pain.” (Sonnet VIII To Spring, Line 9) Through Romantic poetry, especially the poem’s our class read this semester, nature’s impact on one’s emotions is clearly evident by poetic illustration. Nature was viewed, by The Romantics, has having a perfect purity and cleanliness for its “sounds of harmony, thy balmy air.” Its as if the physical senses of the poets, upon coming to natural landscape, were utterly shocked out of their depressed selves into a radiant affective pleasure; nature is the shaker of the self.

Reading Coleridge issued our class a different perspective on how nature beneficial characteristics. Through silence and solitude, natural landscape took Coleridge’s mind to an entirely new and tranquil dimension. Mentioned in my blog post about Frost at Midnight, nature to Coleridge is like a God, a universal language that “ doth teach himself in all, and all things in himself” (Frost At Midnight, Lines 61-62). Through nature, Coleridge is able to slip into a peaceful dream state enchanted by its silence murmurings. Using http://blogs.dickinson.edu/romnat/2011/06/07/samuel-taylor-coleridge/, it’s apparent that Coleridge truly saw a connection between the human mind and the natural world with nature as “a force that can connect the apparently disparate aspects of reality into a unity perceived by the creative intellect” (http://blogs.dickinson.edu/romnat/2011/06/07/samuel-taylor-coleridge/) Bringing Coleridge to “abstruser musings” (Frost at Midnight), the tranquil constant silence vibrant in natural scenery is such a prime environment for contemplation and the self is brought to a higher level of awareness through this connection.

Victor’s blog post “Nature as the Great Teacher” also indicates Wordsworth spoke about nature’s ability to heighten man’s knowledge, where one impulse from “a vernal wood/may teach you more of a man/.../than all the sages can”. In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth reports on nature’s ability to enchant man’s mind allowing him to “passing even into my purer mind of tranquil restoration” (Tintern Abbey, Lines 30-31). For Romantic poets, nature was not a passive entity but active when coming into contact with an individual. Wordsworth also mentions natures ability to pleasure albeit “ mid the din of towns and cities, in times of weariness, (with) sensations sweet” (Tintern Abbey, Lines 26-28). Again and again, the Romantic Poets demonstrated nature as an active alleviator of stress and expressed the far-reaching relationship between wilderness landscape and man’s well-being.

The only environment some of the Romantic Poets, particularly Wordsworth and Coleridge, deemed counter productive and unhealthy to one’s spiritual growth and well-being was cities and city-life. Coleridge “saw naught but the sky and stars,” (Frost at Midnight, Line 53) whilst residing in an urban area and avidly desired his son to be raised in nature because of the nature’s intrinsic benefits. Like Coleridge, Wordsworth too recommends his readers to inhabit the countryside. “Poor Outcast! return--to recieve thee once more the house of thy father” (Poor Susan) yells the narrator to an urbanite named Susan showing Wordsworth passion for having people relocate to a rural setting. Warren’s blog post Poor Susan demonstrates that for Wordsworth, nature is the world of God and only by dwelling in this “heaven”, can one experience “the house of thy father” (Poor Susan) and therefore, reap the benefits for the self. Now while the Romantic poets highly praised natural landscape because it serves as medicine for the soul and condemned the smoke-filled business of city-life, they also describe an exception to this rule, which is harboring nature’s given affective pleasures through memory.

When James recited I wandered Lonely as a Cloud, he pointed out that Wordsworth was not actually in the daffodil field when ”his heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils” (I wandered Lonely as a Cloud, Lines 23-24) but really just on his couch in London. This then lead to a class discussion about how a distinct memory of nature might be as powerful a feeling experience as a direct encounter with landscape. This seems to be true as Wordsworth also remembers Tintern Abbey “mid the din of towns and cities” (Tintern Abbey, Lines 26-27) and perceives “sensations sweet” (Tintern Abbey, Line 28). The mental replication of natural landscape has an equal positive effect on the self as does actually being physically present in nature giving the reader insight into how to actively draw up higher states of well-being, by remember natural scenery and its inherent delight. Coleridge too reconstructs nature’s tranquility when “all at rest, have left me to that solitude, which suits abstruser musings” (Frost at Midnight, Lines 4-6). Coleridge is reaches the higher levels of mind just be recreating nature’s silent tranquility. This gives the reader a greater understanding of the self; nature imprints affective pleasure on the emotional memory that can then be willingly drawn up by contemplation or recreation of setting.

Traversing the natural world meant being free from the stresses of society and in doing so, giving the self liberty in thought and action: http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/ecology/mckusick/mckusick_intro.html. This is one discovery we find in the poetry of many of the Romantic poets read in class this semester as well as the existence of a distinct relationship between the environment one finds themselves in and well-being, particularly the beneficial correspondence between self and natural landscape.

Bibliography:

Longinus, Burke, and Kant. "Philosophical Ideas of the Sublime (brief Summary of Longinus, Burke, and Kant)." Web. 13 Dec. 2011.

Maniquis, Robert M. "The Puzzling Mimosa: Sensitivity and Plant Symbols in Romanticism." Studies In Romanticism VIII (1969): 129-55. Print.

McKusick, James. "Romanticism and Ecology, Romantic Circles Praxis Series, Romantic Circles." Romantic Circles Praxis Series, Romantic Circles. Home - Romantic Circles. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. <http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/ecology/mckusick/mckusick_intro.html>.

"Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Romantic Natural History." Dickinson Blogs. 2004. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. <http://blogs.dickinson.edu/romnat/2011/06/07/samuel-taylor-coleridge/>.

Wordsworth, William, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dahlia Porter, and Michael Gamer. Lyrical Ballads: 1798 and 1800. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2008. Print.

Wroe, Ann. "Good Self, Bad Self: The Struggle in Shelley." Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Http://www.erudit.org/revue/ravon/2008/v/n51/019259ar.html. 2008. Web. 11 Dec. 2011.