The Romantic Imagination, Wordsworth, and "Tintern Abbey"
Michelle Smith
October 15, 2001
Historical Context
The Enlightenment, an intellectual movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, immediately preceded the time in which the Romantics were writing. In Britain, the work of Locke and Newton, who were proponents of empiricism and mechanism respectively, were central to Enlightenment philosophy.
Locke was the founder of empiricism, the belief that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience; Newton ushered in a mechanistic worldview when he formulated a mathematical description of the laws of mechanics and gravitation, which he applied to planetary and lunar motion.
In The Mirror and the Lamp M.H. Abrams notes that there was a "culmination of a tendency of the new philosophy in England, empirical in pretension and practical in orientation, to derogate poetry in comparison with science" (300).
Abrams also notes that "in his Thoughts Concerning Education, Locke (echoing the opinion of the Elizabethan Puritans that poets are wantons, as well as useless) does not disguise his contempt for the unprofitableness of a poetic career, either to the poet himself or (by implication) to others" (300).
Similarly, when Newton was asked for his judgement of poetry, he replied "I'll tell you that of Barrow:--he said, that poetry was a kind of ingenious nonsense" (Abrams 300).
Faced with this kind of attitude, poets such as Keats felt that "the matter of fact or science [was] not only the opposite, but [also] the enemy, of poetry in a war in which the victory, or even the survival, of poetry was far from certain" (303).
It is in this intellectual environment that the Romantic poets were formulating theories of the imagination, to varying degrees, as a response to or reaction against mechanistic, empirical ways of thinking. Shelley's "A Defence of Poetry" comes to mind. The title itself, "A Defence" indicates the tensions surrounding the relative values of poetry and the imagination versus science and reason. In the essay itself, he argues that imagination is more important than reason because the imagination lends itself to empathy, creative vision, and the power to create a harmonious society.
A General Overview of the Romantic Imagination
C.M. Bowra points out that the Romantic poets diverged significantly from earlier eighteenth-century writers such as Pope, Johnson, and Dryden who thought that "the poet is more an interpreter than a creator, [and should be] more concerned with showing the attractions of what we already know than with expeditions into the unfamiliar and unseen" (1).
In another vein, the Romantic concept of the imagination ran counter to the Lockean view that "in perception, the mind is wholly passive, a mere recorder of impressions from without" (Bowra 2). Generally speaking, the Romantics viewed the imagination as an active and creative power, a power that could interact with the natural environment rather than simply react to it. These interactions were central to the inspiration that the poets needed in order to write. In writing, the poets would often move into the realm of the unfamiliar and unseen, which in turn yielded the kind of intuitive insights into humanity and the universe that eighteenth century empirical thought lacked.
Wordsworth's Preface to his 1815 collection Poems articulates the
imaginative processes underlying the creation of poetry. As Forest Pyle explains,
"the imagination is described as the "operations of the mind upon [external]
objects." The imagination holds [an] alchemic power [. . . ] to "melt down
the fragments it [perceives in] the outside world and to recast them into
something "newly created" (Pyle 67). As is evident in "Tintern Abbey," the
alchemy of the mind extends beyond the transformation of worldly perceptions
into new poetic forms; the consciousness of poet and reader may also be transformed
"with an eye made quiet by the power / Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,"
(48-49) that Wordsworth both experiences and evokes in his poetic composition.
Four themes relating to our conception of the Romantic imagination are embodied in "Tintern Abbey;" these themes include the centrality of subjectivity in imaginative processes, the sense of participating in the divine through creativity, the search for meaning in life through exploring the mystery of our being, and nature as the primary source of inspiration. If "Tintern Abbey" seems to fit easily into these cornerstones of the Romantic imagination, it is largely because the way in which we have come to articulate the Romantic imagination are derived from influential poems like "Tintern Abbey."
The Centrality of Subjectivity to Imaginative Processes
Perhaps the irony of trying to provide a brief, general summary of the imagination is best caught by a quotation of William Blake's, in which he says "To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit. General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots Possess" (Bowra 11).
Of this passage, Bowra explains that Blake "knew that nothing had full significance . . . unless it appeared in a particular form. And with this the Romantics in general agreed. Their art aimed at presenting, as forcibly as possible, the moments of [individual] vision which give to even the vastest issues the coherence and simplicity of a single event" (11)
We can see this idea at work in "Tintern Abbey." As Wordsworth describes
his own very individual experiences of the Wye Valley, he simultaneously presents
us with a concept of
"A motion and a spirit that impels / All thinking things, all objects of all
thought, / And rolls through all things" (101-103). It is an instance in which
a unique, particular experience extends itself to encompass profound vision
or concept.
At the same time, while the poem's focus is Wordsworth's articulation of
his personal history and the alteration in his emotional states over time,
he advances universal ideals, such as the suggestion that
"Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her" (123-4).
Participation in the Divine
Blake identified the imagination as "nothing less than God as He operates in the human soul. It follows that any act of creation performed by the imagination is divine and that in the imagination man's spiritual nature is finally and fully realized" (Bowra 4).
As a result of his articulation if his sensations and feelings, both past and present, regarding the Wye Valley, Wordsworth expresses his sense of:
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A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thought, sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man" (95-100) |
This "sense sublime," that Wordsworth finds in his poetic expression of experience is foundational to our understanding of the Romantic the imagination. Wordsworth's imagination connects him to a power that is beyond human comprehension, yet moves through all creation; by extension, Wordsworth's power to create is seen as divine in origin and purpose.
This passage is an example of Wordsworth's "creative imagination, which carried him beyond the bounds of space and time into some vast order of things, where . . . in almost losing his individuality, he saw an impassioned vision of the power which sustains the universe and gives meaning to life" (Bowra 102).
Mystery and Meaning
If meaning is discovered in "Tintern Abbey," it is only because
"that blessed mood / In which the burden of the mystery, / In which all this
unintelligible world / Is lightened" is enabled by the power of the imagination.
Charles Sherry notes that Wordsworth achieves an "exalted mood [in which]
the mind passes inward, beyond the oppressive framework of the natural mind
toward a realization of the power of soul abiding beneath it and sustaining
it. Left to stand alone, without any connection with the imagination, the
natural mind would become like a theatre where puppets act out a semblance
of life which is no more than a living death" (77).
Sherry's suggestion of a mental living death is precisely what the Romantic
poets feared in mechanistic thinking, which tended to deny the power of human
emotion and imagination in favor of describing, quantifying, and ultimately
controlling natural forces. This approach necessarily denied the essentially
mysterious nature of human existence and thereby lessened our comprehension
of the world. In "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth's eye and ear half-create at
the same time that they perceive the Wye Valley; it is this interaction between
the environment and the imaginative ability to create that makes it possible
for Wordsworth to experience
"that serene and blessed mood" (42) in which he can
"see into the life of things" (50).
Nature
Nature was central to the inspiration of the Romantic poets. Wordsworth, of course, spends a good deal of "Tintern Abbey" both describing his environment and contemplating his relationship to nature.
On one level, the poet articulates the positive influence that nature has
had on his state of mind and being. His memory of the Wye Valley has brought
him peace in dismal times. He anticipates that his recollections of nature
in the future will bring him joy as well. In addition to this,
"nature and the language of the sense" (109) for Wordsworth constitute
"the anchor of [his] purest thoughts, the nurse / The guide, the guardian
of [his] heart, and soul of all [his] moral being" (110-112). According to
Bowra, as nature "lifted him out of himself, he sought for a higher state
in which [nature's] soul and the soul of man should be united in a single
harmony. Sometimes he felt that this happened and that through vision he attained
an understanding of the oneness of things" (20).
In a different vein, Wordsworth also considers the ways in which his response
to nature has changed over time. In youth, his movement through the natural
world
"had no need of a remoter charm / By thought supplied, or any interest / Unborrowed
from the eye (82-84). With age, he has grown more contemplative, which contributes
to the insights that result from his creativity. Reciprocally, as Charles
Sherry points out, "in nature Wordsworth finds reflected the image of his
creative mind . . ." (Sherry 95).
Time, Landscape, and Nation in Tintern Abbey
Arguably, the poem "Tintern Abbey" was influenced by the events of the French Revolution, and by extension, the rise of the nation-state. In comparing the Wordsworthian imagining of space and place in the poem to the discussion of Benedict Anderson's theory of nation as an imagined community, I thought it might be possible to arrive at some interesting ideas surrounding the elements of landscape and time in the poem.
At the opening of his book Imagined Communities, Anderson argues:
the century of the Enlightenment, of rationalist secularism, brought with it its own modern darkness. With the ebbing of religious belief, the suffering which belief in part composed did not disappear. Disintegration of paradise: nothing makes fatality more arbitrary. Absurdity of salvation: nothing makes another style of continuity more necessary. What then was required was a secular transformation of fatality into continuity, contingency into meaning. As we shall see, few things are better suited to this end than an idea of nation (11).
He goes on to say that "it would be short-sighted, however, to think of the imagined communities of nations as simply growing out of and replacing religious communities and dynastic realms. Beneath the decline of sacred communities, languages and lineages, a fundamental change was taking place in modes of apprehending the world, which, more than anything else, made it possible to 'think' the nation" (22).
Anderson cites "what [Walter] Benjamin calls Messianic time, a simultaneity of past and future in an instantaneous present . . . an idea of homogeneous, empty time" (24) in which the nation is constructed as having an eternal existence as one impetus for the new way of "thinking" the nation.
"Tintern Abbey" presents us with an example of the simultaneity of past and future in an instantaneous present at work. At the beginning of the poem, Wordsworth emphatically stresses the five years that have passed since his initial journey to the Wye Valley. He draws his prior experience into the present moment, making the memory integral to his current experience. In relation to Anderson's arguments, it is significant that Wordsworth converts his immediate perceptions into an imagining of how he will remember this present moment in the future because this process sets up a sense of continuity; Wordsworth's need for a simultaneity of past/present/future within the context of a specific location in England can be seen as an example of the need for continuity that Anderson describes.
The conjunction of these points in time would not really tie into a concept of the nation (especially since Wordsworth presents what is essentially a spiritual sense of continuity in his poem), except for the way in which he configures the landscape. As the poet reflects on the ways in which he has changed over time, the landscape that Wordsworth describes takes on an immutable quality. The permanence of space and place are necessary concepts in nation-building, which attempts to portray the nation as a long-established entity with a defined geographic identity. Part of this identity is based on a sense of shared history; with its hedgerows and the alluded-to abbey, the poem carries fragments of English history within it, thereby constructing an idea of the nation through the portrayal of the land.
That said, one must admit that the suggestion that Wordsworth had a national project in mind when he wrote "Tintern Abbey" is fairly far-fetched. It is an interesting coincidence, however, that the Lyrical Ballads, of which "Tintern Abbey" is a part, were written during a decade of turmoil and nationalist propaganda in France that undoubtedly had an impact on Wordsworth. The Preface to Lyrical Ballads, in which Wordsworth explains his purpose in writing the collection, implies that a sense of nationhood was on his mind:
It has therefore appeared to me that to endeavor to produce and enlarge the capacity [for imaginative sympathy] is one of the best services in which (at any period) a writer can be engaged -- but this service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind and, unfitting it for voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers (I had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton) are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse. (Wordsworth 359).
Given this statement, it is possible to see the Lyrical Ballads as a desire to contribute to a sense of national identity through a combination of continuing a literary tradition that is different (and better than) "stupid German tragedies" as well as through suggesting that "the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities," were shared, common experiences that bound people together as English subjects.
Bibliography
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1953.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1991.
Bowra, C. M. The Romantic Imagination. London: Oxford UP, 1949.
Pyle, Forest. The Ideology of the Imagination. Standford: Standford UP, 1995.
Sherry, Charles. Wordsworth's Poetry of the Imagination. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980.
Wordsworth, William. "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads." Romanticism: An Anthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 357-366.
Wordsworth, William. "Tintern Abbey." Romanticism: An Anthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 265-269.