Destruction

Much of our class discussion this semester was centered on our various attempts to answer the question of man’s relation to nature through the lens of the romantic poets. I think that we can all agree that, as far as the poets we studied this semester are concerned, man is linked to the natural systems of the world, and that one way that we can see that link more clearly is through the use of poetic language. At times, we have even suggested that the poet sees the world differently, and it is his altered perception of the world which allows him to present the link of man and nature through poetry. For my own part, I do recall that one day in class I remembered former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins saying something to the effect of “The job of the poet comes with many responsibilities—looking at water, for instance, and knowing the names of birds.” While this is certainly true in examples such as John Clare’s series of poems about birds, the poet also has a much more important job to consider when considering man and the natural world. Rather than simply preserving nature through aurally pleasing language or clever rhymes, the poet must also point out man’s connectedness with nature as a system. When man and nature are considered to be part of the same system of natural forces, man’s destruction of nature can lead to negative impacts on his own safety and wellbeing. Whether focusing on society as a whole or on individuals, the poets we studied this semester work at great lengths to show that man’s destruction of nature can easily lead to man’s destruction of man.
In order to gain a better grasp of destructive forces concerning man and nature, let us first look upon two poems which exemplify man’s destruction of nature, Robert Burns’ “To a Mountain Daisy” and Percy Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant.” Then, we shall look upon poems where man’s destruction of nature leads to great backlash for those who impact nature. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Lord Byron’s “Darkness” demonstrate that destruction of nature certainly comes at a price.
Robert Burns’ “To a Mountain Daisy” clearly shows man’s destructive power over nature. From the very outset of the poem, Burns indicates that the flower in question has “met me [the speaker] in an evil hour; / For I maun crush amang the stoure / Thy slender stem” (lines 2-4). For Burns, the speaker is the aggressor against nature. He acts carelessly, and does not consider the implications of his actions until the speaker acknowledges that he cannot undo what his actions have wrought. “To spare thee now is past my pow’r” (line 5) the speaker says. He then proceeds to compare the flower’s fate with humans, even paralleling the “humble” (line 14) flower with the “artless maid” (31) and the “simple bard” (37). Burns is very clear that he intends the reader to see the parallel between the fragility of the daisy’s life and the reader’s own life when he says “That fate is thine—no distant date” (line 50). Man and nature are therefore implicated in the same ecological system. When Felstiner considers man’s impact on nature, he asks the questions “Are we a part or apart [from nature]? ...Should water and wildland be managed for or protected from people?”(Felstiner 5). I think that Victoria brought up a good point when she considered whether “To a Mountain Daisy” saw man as being part of what we define as “nature.” She writes, “…the definition of nature as what man has not touched holds—because man only has the potential to destroy nature, rather than construct or add to it” (Victoria, 8-31-11). Victoria’s statement sheds light on another factor of the natural world—if left alone, nature keeps going without man’s interaction. Nature is not to be constricted or injured as we see in “To a Mountain Daisy.”
On a similar vein as this conclusion about Burns’ “To a Mountain Daisy,” one can also find a message concerning man’s constriction of nature in Percy Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant.” In “The Sensitive Plant” one finds a garden full of beautiful plants and flowers. The Garden is tended to by a gardener which the speaker describes as “An Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace” (line 116). The plants love the gardener, and the garden prospers as a result of her care. However, Shelley’s critique of the construction of the garden comes at the end of the poem’s second part, when the gardener suddenly dies, leaving the garden without a caretaker. The gardener’s absence is almost immediately felt by the garden, which is quickly overtaken by weeds. By allowing the garden to deteriorate, Shelley is pointing to the fact that the act of gardening is also the production of a constructed version of nature. When the gardener performs such actions as supporting the plants with “rods and osier-bands” (line 152) and carries the biting insects far away from the garden, she is inhibiting and attempting to control natural processes. When the gardener is no longer there to keep up the garden she has constructed, it goes to ruin. However, this ruin, which the narrator makes seem very unnatural, is in reality a return to natural states of being. Weeds, thistles, fungi, and undergrowth are all part of the natural world. A garden does not allow one to fully observe or engage nature as it was meant to be. For Shelley, then, controlling nature in the form of a garden is not the right way to construct the meaning of nature. The false sense of security which the constructed garden produces is in fact what must be avoided; that, to Shelley, is the real destruction of nature.
In the conclusion of the poem, the sensitive plant (a mimosa) is left alone in the garden without any of the other plants which it knew from the old form of the garden. This brings up the question, as Robert Maniquis points out, “whether all that has happened was merely appearance” (Maniquis 145). Indeed, all that happened in the poem was centered on appearance. The gardener brings about a world that is fabricated and based on ideals of beauty. Despite the fact that Shelley suggests that the events of the poem did not actually happen, Shelly does intend for the reader to remove himself from the abstracted, constructed world view which he has created and become more in touch with his senses— those things which might be able to tell him more about the real world of nature.
Now, let us take a moment to consider a poem which depicts real consequences for a man who takes part in the destruction of nature—Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” we find an old ship’s captain who feels the need to tell the story of his travels. In Coleridge’s narrative, one finds a direct attack upon nature in the form of the mariner’s attack upon the albatross (see illustration below). When the mariner shoots the albatross with his crossbow, the mariner must then face the consequences of his actions.


After the albatross’ death, the ship is blown into uncharted waters where the crew has no access to fresh water, and eventually the mariner’s entire crew dies. However, before the crew is lost in a literal wager with death, the crew members force the mariner to wear the albatross around his neck as a sign of his burden and the consequences of his actions. As can be seen in the illustration, the consequence of the mariner’s action is to then carry the one he has wronged.

The illustration shows the solitude of the mariner after the crew has all passed away, and the continued (very large) burden that he bears. For Coleridge’s critique of man’s interactions with nature, this symbol is crucial. The albatross, one whom the sailors had previously addressed as though “it were a Christian Soul” (line 63), takes the place of the cross hanging around the mariner’s neck. Nature, says Coleridge, is a divine entity. Those who destroy nature must suffer the appropriate consequence.
It is of note that, when looking upon the different versions of the poem’s “argument,” the wording changes. In the 1798 version of Lyrical Ballads, the original version of the poem’s argument (seen here on page 3 of that edition) simply refers to “the strange things that befell” the mariner. In the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads (here on page 153), however, the argument changes. In that later version of the book, the argument addresses “how the Ancient Mariner cruelly, and in contempt of the laws of hospitality, killed a Sea-bird.” By making this change in the poem’s argument, Coleridge makes the message of his poem much more explicit. No longer are the events simply “strange.” They are the consequence of his irreverent actions towards nature.
Finally, Lord Byron’s “Darkness” provides perhaps the most explicit statement about man’s impact on nature of these four poems. Interestingly enough, the events which take place in “Darkness” have their root in actual events. According to The Daily Render, they are based on the eruption of Mount Tambora in the summer of 1816. The event was so massive that it actually changed weather patterns across the globe. In Britain, 1816 was therefore known as “the year without a summer.” Byron’s poem begins with a similar massive ecological catastrophe—a massive volcanic eruption causes a cloud which blocks out the sun. Out of a desire to make contact with other humans, men decide that burning torches and eventually setting whole forests ablaze is the best way to see each other. Eventually, their partial destruction of the world and nature becomes total destruction (see illustration here). The speaker indicates that “no Love was left; / All earth was but one thought—and that was death” (line 42). All humanity dies at its own hand, as the continued destruction of nature only adds to the sun-blocking cloud and prevents plants from growing. All men die of starvation in a world which was designed to provide them with sustenance. Interestingly, the tides, winds, and moon all die also as a result of nature’s destruction. In “Darkness,” Byron is therefore trying to promote a mutually-reliant view of nature. Man relies upon nature to survive, and nature also relies upon man to have purpose. Unlike the previous poems, “Darkness” shows a situation where man’s destructive power over nature directly leads to the destruction of all mankind.
The sections from Bill McKibben’s books which we read as well as the talk which he gave earlier this semester speak to a similar destruction of mankind as a result of the destruction of nature. According to McKibben’s article in The Washington Post, the “race against warming” is one which we have waited twenty years too many to begin. Climate change, it seems, will be an albatross which we all must carry for quite some time. For right now, the albatross takes the form of polar bears which have been displaced due to melting ice caps. For all four of the poets whom I have discussed in this essay, the destruction of nature is a grave offense, one which might even be punishable by death. Hopefully we will not face the same fate as humanity in Byron’s “Darkness,” but I think that we all could use to adopt a greater sense of connection with nature, as in Burns’ “To a Mountain Daisy.” We need to recognize the fact that our fate too is death, and that our connectedness with nature is unavoidable.

Citations:
Felstiner, John. Can Poetry Save the Earth? New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
Maniquis, Robert. "The Puzzling Mimosa: Sensitivity and Plant Symbols in Romanticism." Studies in Romanticism. 8.3 (1969): 129-55. Print.