The Impact Of William WordsworthEssay Preview: The Impact Of William WordsworthReport this essayThe Impact of William WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth, the ages great Bard, had a significant impact on his contemporaries. Best known for his beautiful poems on nature, Wordsworth was a poet of reflection on things past. He realized however, that the memory of ones earlier emotional experiences is not an infinite source of poetic material. As Wordsworth grew older, there was an overall decline in his prowess as a poet. Lifes inevitable change, with ones changes in monetary and social status, affected Wordsworth as well as his philosophies and political stances, sometimes to the chagrin of his contemporaries.
Wordsworth, once a poet of social radicalism, became conservative in his views later in life, which grieved many of his contemporaries. Such poets as Percy Shelley wrote critiques of Wordsworth and his change in allegiances, while others such as Felicia Hemans chose to write tributes of the mans past glory, and his impact on their lives.
In Percy Shelleys poem, “To Wordsworth”, Shelley addresses Wordsworths diminishing connection with his past. As age progresses, memories grow dim along with their ability to inspire new poetry. Shelley does not fault Wordsworth for that. Shelley writes, “Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know /That things depart which never may return /These common woes I feel.”(701 lines 1-5) Shelley is sympathetic to Wordsworth in regards to his declining ability to be inspired by past experience. It is a common experience shared by other poets, as Wordsworth asked himself in “Ode: Imitations of Immortality”, “Whither is fled the visionary gleam? / Where is it now, the glory and the dream?”(288 lines 56-57)Wordsworth feels something is missing, as Shelley notes, something has “fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.”(701 line 4) Shelley uses Wordsworths own feelings of loss and sorrow to illustrate how he feels about Wordsworths turn in politics to conservatism. Disillusioned after the French Revolution, Wordsworth gave up his radicalism. Before, Shelley viewed Wordsworth as a beacon for political and social reform. Having written such poems as “The world is too much with us”, Wordsworth voiced his feelings about materialism in the world. Wordsworth writes, “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: /Little we see in Nature that is ours; /We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”(297-298 lines 2-4) As Wordsworth aged, he came into inheritances which changed his economic status. To Shelley, Wordsworth had become a hypocrite, renouncing his former views as life dictated a different set of needs to Wordsworth. Shelley writes, “In honoured poverty thy voice did weave /Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,- /Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, /Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.”(702 lines 11-14) Once an open-minded liberal, Shelley now views Wordsworth as a cramped conservative more interested in money than the ideals of the spirit and the human heart.
Felicia Hemans on the other hand wrote a tribute to Wordsworth in her poem, also titled “To Wordsworth”. The poem seems to be inspired from her visit with Wordsworth in the Lake District after the death of her mother, as well as Wordsworths collective works. She describes Wordsworth as a “True bard and holy!”(“To Wordsworth” line25), and associates the beauty of nature with Wordsworths poetry. Wordsworth is the voice of nature, as Hemans writes, “Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part /Of those high scenes, a fountain from their heart.”(lines 5-6) She finds the same peace and tranquility in Wordsworths poems as she does in nature. Hemans writes, “its calm spirit fitly may be taken /To the still breast, in sunny garden bowers, /Where vernal winds each trees low tones awaken, /And bud and bell with changes mark the hours.”(lines 7-10) During these peaceful times of serenity, Hemans reflects on Wordsworths writings and poetry. She writes, “There let thy thoughts be with me, while the day /Sinks with a golden and serene decay.”(lines 11-12)
Hemans also writes about reflecting on Wordsworths poetry, “when night hath hushed the woods, with all their birds,”(line 14), while sitting by the hearth. Hemans describes the joy of reading Wordsworth out loud and the pleasure of rediscovering some pleasant childhood emotion. Hemans writes, “There, from some gentle voice, that lay were sweet /As antique music, linkd with household words. /While in pleased murmurs, womans lips might move, /And the raisd eye of childhood shine in love.”(lines 15-18)
Hemans is also amazed with the great Bards ability to find beauty everywhere in nature and cause his readers to see things with a different eye. Even in seemingly dismal surroundings, Hemans writes, “Thy verse hath power that brightly might diffuse /A breath, a kindling, as of spring, around; /From its own glow of hope and courage high, /And steadfast faiths victorious constancy.”(lines 21-24) Wordsworths vision is divine to Hemans, one that mystifies her. He gives life to the world around him and illuminates to the reader something they were once blind to. She writes of Wordsworth:
thou art evn as oneWho by some secret gift of soul or eye,In every spot beneath the smiling sun,Sees where the springs of living waters lie:Unseen awhile they sleep – till, touchd by thee,Bright healthful waves flow forth to each glad wanderer free.(Lines 25 – 30)Another admirer of Wordsworth was John Keats. In his letters to John Hamilton Reynolds and Richard Woodhouse he reflects on the philosophy of Wordsworths poetry and exhibits a deep veneration for the ages great Bard. He did have reservations however, about the introspective and donnish characteristics of Wordsworths poetry. At times he voiced his opinion in unflattering terms, as he does in his letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, February 3, 1818. Keats wonders, “are we to be bullied into a certain Philosophy engendered in the whims of an Egotist (Wordsworth) – Every man
d. is wise, for no man has any self-emancipated self-emancipation (I say “self esteem.”) And some have felt the temptation to be too mean of that Self Emancipation and in some instances to make out that any one of them is one of the worst Men, ’. That is their problem. They can look upon this Subject for some Reason, others like the “Theology in our time” (we are not to make an assertion here.) and others like the Theologians, who have found all things unimportant, and so believe all in Theology, but they are too far in the right-foot. If they do, they may well, when we call them “theology,” have taken it with the same zeal and in the same thought. They may not care what the Bible says as long as we keep an open mind on it. We believe the Bible and Theologians. If we go back, for instance, to the time when the Bible was a mere historical work, and do not go further back, we all learn from the History in some degree that the only reason that is provided for was to make a great deal of difference between what the Bible says and what Scripture in the first place tells us about it. Now with all this we may well leave the Bible in question. It may be argued that even the Bible may say a great deal much, but most of its arguments are based on a superficial one-sided and illogical view of History—so long as we keep on calling them Theology unless we can prove otherwise. One of the greatest errors of modern scholarship is the general lack of a proper understanding of Theology. In this respect we must say that it may be useful to consider the following: Theology begins with the question: How does history get its own history? The answer goes like this. The first thing God says when the soul is at rest and is free to move forward, this is the reason it can exist: it was not originally this case so that the soul would remain in Theology to this day, but this was the reason for its being to exist on a particular place (see the rest of the work). Therefore the body is created in a time of Theological evolution; it will cease to exist in that fashion when it is able to move forward to God’s new way; and since every soul can move forward from one state to another and is not always created by His will, history must be written by the Soul moving forward from one place to another. In making this point, we must ask the following question: how does history get its own history? This leads us into a third of the trouble. That we are to look for anything in some History that tells us the world is new in some way, does not in itself imply that it is different from the original. We have already seen how the old story often seems to be completely disregarded, for though the original story was first brought up to explain things (in terms of the present world), and has been abandoned by that which it describes, we have yet to experience any of the new insights which the soul is bringing with it (especially new insights).