The Connection of William Wordsworth's Poetry with The Natural World

Poets can write about various subject matters and for this Romantic Period author, nature references seemed to spill onto every page. William Wordsworth was a poet during the pre-Victorian era and created a multitude of works in his prime. Wordsworth’s poems almost always reflect or have a connection with the natural world and are composed of simple language. These guidelines reveal his overall poetic theme of escaping the fast pace of industrialization through the appreciation of nature; this is a respect every social class can connect with, especially the common man.

One example of Wordsworth’s writing is a poem titled: “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour.” This work narrates a nostalgia that the author feels when he was there last, as he remembers the scenery and how his experiences can never be looked at through the same lense. His numerous nature references are threaded throughout the poem. For example, his phrases like “These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs”, “these steep and lofty cliffs”, and “the mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood” all give healthy description of different aspects of nature. Other descriptions like “the light of setting suns,” “round ocean,” and “blue sky” are easily rendered visions that anyone could interpret. Not only is nature as a subject common for Wordsworth, but also is the simplistic language. Wordsworth often left out lofty and flowery language so that everyone could read and understand his work.

Another example of Wordsworth’s poetry would be “Lines Written in Early Spring'. This piece of writing compares to the previous, where both are surrounded by nature references. For instance, the phrases “While in a grove I state reclined”, and “The periwinkle trailed it wreaths” both observe the plants that grow from the earth. Wordsworth also writes, “The birds around me hopped and played,” which displays another source of nature: animals. Along with nature, Wordsworth again uses simple language throughout his poem to ensure that every social class, especially the lower and middle, could read them.

William Wordsworth is not only able to connect with readers through nature, but to any reader of any social class and education. One reason that Wordsworth chose this topic as a source of writing is the encroachment of industrialization among nature, and lamenting the future loss of the countryside. His poems connect to the feeling of being surrounded by nature in case of possibly losing the quaint and quiet places of the world. It is possible he could have written from the perspective of not only losing natural environments as a part of industrialization, but also humanity, where the fast pace of the time was also creating a machine driven society that lacked creativity.