The poem Tintern Abbey ranks among the finest and the most characteristic of Wordsworth’s works. It sums up Wordsworth’s development and furnishes a sure criterion to evaluate his life and poetry. Moreover, it marks the birth of a new age in the history of English poetry. It is usual for Wordsworth to compose lyrics by recalling a scene observed weeks, months, or even years earlier. In the poem Tintern Abbey he describes a second visit to the Wye valley after an interval of five years. This provides the occasion for his statement that during all these years he has been bearing in mind the sights and sounds there as a balm to his troubled soul amid the fret and fever of life. In seeking to explain how this can be, he gives us an autobiography in a nutshell, outlining the three successive phases of his love of nature.
Wordsworth recalls how five years
earlier he had made his previous visit to the beauty-spot round Tintern Abbey. Now he sees again the familiar and lovely
spot recognizing the pleasing murmurs of the mountain streams, the Wye flowing
down the mountain side.
The poet sees the landscape
rendered solemn and impressive by the steep sides of lofty hills in one of the
most unfrequented and wild spot in Wales.
A holy inexplicable calm pervades the scene which seems to ascend to the
heavens themselves. From where he stands
in the shade of a sycamore tree, he gets a general view of distant cottages,
each standing in its own small plot of ground hidden amidst the green foliage
of trees, bushes and creepers trailing to the very doors of the houses. Wisps of smoke arise from the chimneys of the
cottages, but as the latter are hidden behind a curtain of leaves and branches,
the on-looker gets the impression of nomads or stray gypsies living in the open
and cooking their food. The poet even
wonders if there could be some hermit’s cave nearby from which the lonely
ascetic is preparing his simple food. Thus
amidst the profusion of nature, unbroken solitude and absence of human beings,
the poet derives an almost religious and inspiring tranquility.
Recognizing
the familiar features of the landscape seen earlier, the poet feels a sense of
joy, of release in the presence of congenial natural sights and sounds. He thinks of the uneasiness and confusions
generated by the cities. During the last
five years, memories of the abbey and the river have frequented him at times of
distress and gloom, and miraculously cheered up his drooping spirits. As often as his emotions were pained or his
spirits dejected, he had only to recall the lovely scenes of the country round
Tintern Abbey to feel refreshed and to be revived. These contacts with Nature delighted his mind
and strengthened his character. From this
the poet inferred that there must be some vital and secret connection between
the spirit of nature and the cultivation of human feelings in the right
direction.
Over and above the chastening and
strengthening of his moral and emotional aspects, the poet derived from the
nature the power of looking into the mystery of life and finding the principle
of unity and harmony underlying all creation.
By practicing a kind of yoga he attuned his mind and spirit to the
mysterious working of a supreme presence all around him, he got rid of the
frustrations and failures of life step by step, forgot the weight of the mortal
body and became exalted in spirit and sensation until he saw nothing but a
beneficent force brooding over all the universe of which he himself was a
part. Thus he came to unravel the
mystery or riddle of existence itself. It
was indeed the triumph of spirit over flesh. Thanks to this realization which enabled him
to escape from the fever and fret of life, from the restrictions and
artificialities of conventional society, into deep communication with the
spirit of Nature herself as he felt it when he was in Tintern Abbey.
There are three stages in the
evolution of his attitude to Nature. The
first stage is called the infant stage. In
this period he looked upon nature much as the rose looks upon its new-begun
course of life. This stage is of mere
sensation, of the gratification of instincts and feelings without any attempt
to analyze or sort them out.
The second stage is that of
adolescence. Love is the most turbulent and ecstatic manifestation of
youth. The poet’s attitude towards
nature becomes that of a lover’s attitude to his mistress. Just as in the presence of his beloved, or
even at the mere thought of her, the lover’s entire body, feelings and mind
become roused as with extreme rapture, so did the poet feel in the presence of “the
sounding cataract”. This is only
symbolical, for the “sounding cataract” is but one manifestation of
nature.
The final and third phase of Wordsworth’s
attitude happened when both the unreasoned and unanalyzed attitudes give place
to the philosophic interpretation of the influence and essential attributes of
Nature. Wordsworth was able to find in
the all pervading spirit of nature a full recognition of the sadness or pathos
of human life with its countless trials and tribulations; this sadness was necessary
for a proper integration of the higher faculties and active expression of a
sublime and supreme spirit in nature.
This spirit was to be recognized in his own heart as well as in remote
planets and worlds other than ours. To this all-pervading power of Nature
Wordsworth owes the stimulation of his creative faculties as well as his power
of enjoying the beauties of the manifested world. He believes that all his good qualities are
the results of his adoration of Nature.
Ultimately the poet connects his
sister with this spiritual development. The
human element of the poem is strengthened by these references to his sister. He sees in her what he was a few years
ago. He wishes that she may continue to
be so for few more years and then follow
his path of evolution.
