Nature and Meditation in Romantic Poetry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Nature and Meditation in quixotic poetry - Essay ExampleThus poetry is the vehicle for the spiritual elevation of hu piece of musickind.In the Western world, the romantic Poets express their spiritual feelings through descriptions of nature .Although deep religious, they see God through nature , remote their predecessors for whom religion was a stern affair. English Romanticism ,in particular, presented a break with the tradition by its identity and encouragement of the imagination .The Romantic poets experienced the most sublime through nature.Romanticism emerged in the recent eighteenth century as an inevitable reaction against the empirical thinking and stern reasoning that was in vogue earlier. Philosophers like Rousseau(1712-1778)urged that only in nature that mankind could find freedom of spirit. The American change and the French Revolution acted as catalysts for the Romantic Movement .William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and John Keats(1795-1821)were two of the greatest Engl ish Romantic poets who found inspiration in nature . In their poetry they use descriptions of nature to raise the mastermind to mystic heights.William Wordsworth, one of the foremost Romantic poets, brings out the feeling of passionate meditation in his noted poem, Tintern Abbey. The poem conveys a feeling of deep silence and meditation attained through connecting with nature.That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion and connectThe landscape with the static of the sky. (6,7,8) (Wordsworth 1798)According to Geoffrey Hartman, for Wordsworth nature is not something to be worshipped and consumed, but always a guide, leading beyond itself.(Hartman,290)We see this even when he is at his most exuberant, describing daffodils in I wandered lonely as a cloudI wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high oer vales and hills,When alone at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodilsBeside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and bound in the breeze. (1-6)(W ordsworth 1803)The poets heart sings at the eternal spectacle of nature Lonely as a cloud suggests the retirement needed for meditation, while,in contrast, crowd, a host expresses the feeling of multitudes. .He experiences a feeling akin to meditation which recurs whenever he is in a pensive mood , when the multitude of daffodils flash upon the inward eye with the ensuing Bliss of purdah.Tintern Abbey is the outstanding work of Wordsworth published in 1798,and it shows how he developed a vivid and personal antenna which connects meditation to sensation in a unique way. In this poem, the brilliant lyric is transcendental the constitution is exalted by the underlying love for his sister. The emotions compliment the visual scene, the memories enrich the moral ideas. Here he feels the presence which encourages him to meditate on the oneness of each things in nature. He rhapsodizes, And I have mat up A presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts a sense sublimeOf so mething 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 manA motion and a spirit that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thought,And rolls through all things.