How William Wordsworth Expresses His Love for Women in His Poetry

Over the course of history, Romanticism has been known to associate nature with being feminine or a woman. There are many qualities that can be associated with females or women in general. Through the usage of descriptive language, William Wordsworth, is able to express his cavernous love and appreciation for women. Soft, beauteous, boyish, tranquil, and dear are all adjectives used to describe his love for, and experience with nature. He does an exquisite job depicting exactly what nature means to him, as a man.

In Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth asserts “Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power / To chasten and subdue — And I have felt / A presence that disturbs me with the joy / Of elevated thoughts; ” (Wordsworth 92-95). Wordsworth feels a strong sense of something pulling him back, not in a rough or harsh way, but more in a joyous reflective way. Observing and interacting with nature allows him to feel the joy of what it is like to reflect on all of the things he loves about nature and what it meant to him in the past without denial. Wordsworth also has a way of excluding the feninine perspective of nature by not mentioning or including his dear sister and friend Dorothy until the end of the poem. This creates a question for the readers: Is wordsworth showing appreciation to women through his love for nature or is he excluding them and focusing on his own male perspective on nature? William Wordsworth strategically uses descriptive language to feminize nature. Wordsworth feminizes nature with the use of descriptive language, excluding the feminine presence from the poem, therefore prominently speaking from a male perspective.

According to Barry, the term feminine is used to refer to “a set of culturally defined characteristics”. With that being said, the poet shares the struggles he faced when coming to the realization of his true love for nature. “Wherever nature led: more like a man / Flying from something that he dreads, than one / Who sought the thing he loved” (Wordsworth 70-72). Wordsworth has yet to grasp the true essence of the beauty of nature at first. He compares it to a man who is avoiding something he feels apprehensive about. However, it’s with time that Wordsworth finds himself actually appreciating and seizing the beauty of nature. “For nature then, To me was all in all.—I cannot paint/ What then I was” (Wordsworth 72, 75-76). At this stage, Wordsworth realizes the full essence of nature and how it is everything for him. He is consciously aware of the importance of nature to him personally alongside its role. He refers to “her ” as his all in all; nature was ‘it’ for him, he loved it without limitations. He then reaches the point where he acknowledges his lack of certainty with who he was before, for he realizes that he is talking about how nature made him feel in the past. He seems to fear alienation from who he was and as a result, from nature. He associates his struggles with his identity, to the fear of separation from nature and his past self. Wordsworth explains, “The sounding cataract / Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, / The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, / Their colours and their forms, were then to me / An appetite; a feeling and a love” (Wordsworth 76-80). When he realizes his true love and appreciation for nature he explains how the waterfalls were always roaming his mind, as a passion. Wordsworth comes to the conclusion that his fondness for nature is a feeling he craves to have. It is a feeling that Wordsworth wants to hold onto, like a woman he loves.

In the period of Romanticism, nature was used to symbolize the woman. The female is the physical depiction of nature. Another main character in the poem is said to be wordsworth’s sister/ close friend Dorothy. She is not present throughout the poem but is recognized towards the end. In the poem, he offers a prayer to nature that he might continue to do so for a little while, knowing, as he says, that “Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her,” but leads insteads “from joy to joy.” Nature’s dominance over people that seeks her out is such that it results in what can be considered immunity to “evil tongues,” “rash judgments,” and “the sneers of selfish men,” instilling instead a “cheerful faith” that the world is full of blessings. Furthermore, the poet encourages the moon to shine upon his sister, and the wind to blow against her, and he says to her that in later years, when she is sad or fearful, the memory of this experience will help to heal her. And if he himself is dead, she can remember the love with which he worshipped nature. In that case, too, she will remember what the woods meant to the speaker, the way in which, after so many years of absence, they became more dear to him. Women are known by society, during this time period, to not have much purpose outside of the household. Here we see the writer sharing his gratitude for the role that his sister played in his life, but way later in his life.

The writer strategically uses format and this story to emphasize one major takeaway. We see is that regardless of what realizations the writer may have came to, women play a role that still doesn’t match up to that of the man. Similar to how men view themselves compared to women. We see that it isn’t until towards the end of the poem that he clearly addresses a woman. Regardless of the relationship to him, whether that be a spouse or a relative, the idea that a man is able to figure things out on his own and that women are lesser than is prevalent. Wordsworth shows that it does not matter who was there with him at the abbey, but what matters is that he was able to come to divulgences about his own life (past and future) on his own as a man.

For a majority of the poem, there is no mention of Dorothy’s individual experience. Wordsworth strategically organized his poem this way. The exclusion of the woman’s perspective, even though it was the woman who encouraged his epiphany, speaks to the concept of toxic masculinity. The possibility of what Dorothy’s own narration could’ve addressed is compelling. Maybe during this time at Tintern Abbey, Dorothy also underwent her own ethereal realization. Or is it too far off to think that maybe Wordsworth was simply being the typical vexing brother, while Dorothy was forced to take on the task of dealing with him? From a readers’ perspective, these are questions that we may never get answers to. This is a result of too much of an imbalance in gender roles and the focus on one man’s perspective.