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Romanticism was an extensive artistic and intellectual movement, described by Isaiah Berlin as âthe greatest single shift in the consciousness of the West that has occurredâ[1]. Originating in late eighteenth-century Europe, it challenged the Age of Enlightenmentâs scientific and rational, objective ideas, and instead promoted the power of individual imagination and subjective experience. Nature was a predominant Romantic theme in the light of the Industrial Revolution, which not only posed a threat to its preservation, but also prompted a rise in local countryside tourism to escape the expanding urban areas. Poets sought to demonstrate this through, as Carl Thompson observes, their âappreciation of landscape, and especially of wild or what was often termed âromanticâ sceneryâ[2] in their work. Moreover, natural forces and iconic landmarks were also associated with the âsublimeâ, an aesthetic theory defined by Edmund Burke as âwhatever is in any sort terrible [...] is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feelingâ[3]: fear and awe, which inspire imagination to the greatest degree. Besides this organic sense of nature, Marcel Isnard argues that ânature also means the principle or power that animates or even creates the objects of natureâ[4], alluding to the idea of pantheism where God or a divine creative force is inherent within nature, or even the creative power of man himself. I will analyse how Percy Shelleyâs âOde to the West Windâ (1820) and William Wordsworthâs âTintern Abbeyâ[5] (1798) thus explore nature to express their admiration and desire to be at one with its power, as well as to address the social and cultural impacts of manâs creative progress.
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In âOde to the West Windâ, Shelley depicts how the wind drives seasonal change, with the persona addressing it as âthou breath of Autumnâs beingâ[6] who blows the dead leaves from the trees âlike ghostsâ (3). This dark imagery of Autumn bringing death by Winter, is then contrasted with âThine azure sisterâ (9), Spring, who revives the fallen seeds, bringing new life. Moreover, the poemâs form â which combines a reworking of the Italian terza rima using four tercets and a Shakespearean sonnet couplet, following the rhyming scheme of aba bcb cdc ded ee â presents an interwoven, cyclical pattern, where the ending of one rhyme brings the next, reflecting on the theme, as Michael OâNeill observes, of ârebirth and regenerationâ[7]. However, as Ferber notes, âThough the annual cycle from autumn to autumn via the renewal of spring consoles us for our losses [...] nature also destroys life on longer and larger scalesâ[8], and so the focus in the next stanzas is shifted to the temperamental weather and sea. Shelleyâs forceful imagery in describing how âBlack rain and fire and hail will burstâ (28) during a storm, evokes a threatening image of chaos or the end of the world; whilst âthe Atlanticâs level powers / Cleave themselves into chasmsâ (37-38), forming waves powerful enough to submerge âpalaces and towersâ (33). These imaginative metaphors epitomise Burkeâs theory of the sublime, as these destructive natural forces incite terror and awe.
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Wordsworth presents a more passive portrayal of nature in âTintern Abbeyâ, where the persona returns to the country after five years and feels a sense of nostalgia as he beholds âThese waters, rolling from their mountain-springsâ (3)[9]. The flowing imagery demonstrates how they provide a âtranquil restorationâ (30) from âthe din / Of towns and citiesâ (25-26), making the universal experience of visiting the countryside subjective, as it corresponds to the personaâs individual thoughts. Additionally, the poetâs use of blank verse enables him to express this without the rigid poetic structure favoured by neo-classical poets; a freedom that he also wishes to impart upon his readers, inviting them, as Andrew Bennett notes, âto identify with [...] this experience [...] and these thoughtsâ[10], promoting individualism. Nicola Trott observes that âWordsworthâs tourism enacts the principles of return and renewal which are embedded at the heart of his imaginative self-conception and developmentâ[11], for he owes to nature âthe power / Of harmonyâ (47-48); a new perception that enables the persona to detect:
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