University Of Education,

Bank Road Campus, LahoreAssignment of:

“Romantic & Modern Poetry’’

Topic:

“Healing Power Of Nature

In William Wordsworth poetry’’

Submitted to:

“Miss Rabia’’Submitted by:

“M.A English B.Ed” Section:

“C”

“ Group -1”Group Members:

Talia Farooq => 157

Sahrish Mehmood => 121

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Tayyaba Tajamul => 159

Uzma Yaqoob => 164

Sadia Liaqat => 119

Saima Aslam => 124

Main Points:

Introduction

Stages of Literary Vision of Nature Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

Definition of Healing Power

Healing Power of Nature

Healing vision of nature

Conclusion

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Reference

Introduction:

“William Wordsworth” (1770-1850) was an

early leader of romanticism (a literary movement that celebrated nature and concentrated on human emotions) in English poetry and ranks as one of the greatest lyric poets in the history of English literature. William Wordsworth, is known as Prophet of Nature

Thomas De Quincy, declares that

“Wordsworth had his passion for nature fixed in his blood. It was a necessity of his being, like that of a mulberry leaf to the silk-worm, and through his commerce with nature did he live and breathe”

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In his poetry, he deals with household truth. He sees nothing lofter than human hopes, nothing deeper than the human heart.

Stages of Literary Vision of Nature of WordsWorth:

Stage.1: In 1st stage, Wordsworth looks upon nature as a source of pleasure like skating, riding, fishing and walking.Wordsworth’s first love of Nature is a healthy boy’s delight in outdoor life.

Stage.2: In 2nd stage, he develops a passion for sensuous beauty of nature. As he grows up, his ‘coarser pleasures’ (“Tintern Abbey”: line 73) lose their charm for him, and nature is loved with an unreflecting passion altogether untouched by intellectual interests or associations.

Stage.3: In 3rd stage refers to human heartedness. This stage is followed by final stage of the spiritual interpretation on Nature. “At this stage, the foundation of Wordsworth’s entire existence was his mode of seeing God in nature and nature in God.”

Definition of Healing Power:

As healing means “to make something healthy”, “to give life to something”. In context of poet, as he feels discontented in the captivity of City life (London). He is not happy but after escaping, he enjoys the pleasure of nature.

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Healing Power of Nature:

It is not a form of medicine but a state of mind. This is a state where creativity and free expression of emotions dominate.

The current term for nature’s healing power is “Ecotherapy”, restoring the natural balance between inner and outer man through physical connections with nature.

Wordsworth describes nature as the spiritual healer who sent him “Authentic findings of invisible things of ebb and flow, and ever during power and central peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation”. Nature sooths him, gives comfort, satisfies him. At that time he has “Healing Power” in himself that due to nature, he feels like “breathe again”. Nature gives him life.

Healing vision of nature:

Wordsworth’s healing vision of nature is more than poetic metaphor. Wordsworth’s world of metaphor is Gothic, unruly, expansive, accommodating, aspiring and retreating, gargoyles about its portals and devils in sacred places.

The poet feels himself fit into the midst of the interplaying forces of nature.

“The soft breeze can come to none more grateful than to me”

(“The prelude”; line 5)

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In the city life he feels himself like “a discontented sojourner” but after escaping he feels himself satisfied in the company of Nature.

As he says in The Prelude,

“Long months of ease and undisturbed delight” (line-26)

In “to the Dazzy” he speaks of the ‘chearful flower’ as ‘alert and gay’.

In “The Prelude” he speaks his deep experiences about nature. He is inspired by the nature. Nature as the great healer of broken spirit. He considered it as “renovated spirit”. Nature alone heals him of his "vacant" and "pensive" mood and gives him the gift of creative power. Due to his creativity, his mind is full of “unmanageable thoughts”, when he describes

“Trances of thought and mountings of the mind, Come fast upon me”

(“The Prelude”; line 19-20)

For Wordsworth, nature is a healer and he ascribes healing properties to Nature in “Tintern Abbey”. This is a fairly obvious conclusion drawn from his reference to "tranquil restoration"(31) that his memory of the Wye offered him “in lonely rooms, and mid the din/Of towns and cities"(26-27)

The inspiration of Wordsworth’s poetry has its vitalizing source in the power

With which he realized a peculiar experience….the core of the sense to his mind….

He believes that the external spirit pervades all objects of nature. He expresses the impacts of nature on the health and well-being of the human’s everyday life.

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In healing process, nature may foster joy, psychological and mental relief; love and teaching that cannot be obtained mystic forces of pervading nature. It is Cathartic Power. He says that there is “Perfect stillness” in nature and he moves with “brisk and eager steps” after its consoling effect.

He says that

“There is blessing in this gentle breeze”

It is this power which has broken “long-continued frost” from him. It is “correspondent breeze” for him.

When the inner life of nature is explored as Wordsworth conceives it, it is found that Nature gives relief and communicative joy. There is a complete communication between nature and individual.

Conclusion:

Wordsworth’s unique virtue as a poet comes from his preoccupation with the indestructible in nature and in human mind. Wordsworth uses the word ‘nature’ as signifying the normal course of things, to which it is wise for man to submit as a matter of hygiene. Nature is then taken as a norm of conduct for man. Science impartially notes that nature is full of pleasure and pain. The poet finds in nature various healing means and expresses it in such a way that the reader should grasp its importance. Through Wordsworth’s poetry, we know how nature appears as a mental, intellectual, sentimental, didactic, and moral relief for man. In any attempt to understand what nature means to Wordsworth,

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due weight should be given to the healing power of the impersonal over a sick mind.

Reference:

Google SearchMsn SearchYahoo SearchNew Kitab Mehal publisher “the Prelude”