Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ is a personal, autobiographical poem.
Contemplating the landscape of the Wye, Wordsworth compares his more sensual perceptions
when he was younger with his more thoughtful perceptions as an older man.
The poem helps us get an analysis of the three different stages in the gradual
development of the poet’s altitude to Nature (a) The period of the blood- the
animal pleasures of his boyhood (b) The period of the senses— the enjoyment and
apprehension of the sensuous of the sensuous beauty of Nature in his youth and
(c) the period of the imagination and the soul- his capacity to look on Nature
with a philosophical eye in his maturity.
The first stage in
the development of Wordsworth’s attitude to-Nature was marked by a simple
delight, in freedom and the open air, at the first stage, Wordsworth found
pleasure in roaming about in the midst of Nature. Like a deer, he leaped about
over the mountains, by the side of the deep rivers, and along the lonely
streams. He wandered about wherever Nature led him. He felt more like one who
flees from something that he dreads than like one who seeks the thing he loves.
His wanderings in the midst of Nature are described by him as “glad animal
movements1’ and the pleasure he enjoyed in the midst of Nature is called a
coarse pleasure.
At the second stage, Wordsworth’s love for Nature was purely physical.
Nature now appealed chiefly to his senses. He felt pleasure in seeing the
colours of Nature in smelling the fragrance of Nature, in touching the objects
of Nature and in hearing the sweet sounds of Nature. The colours and shapes of
mountains and wood to him were an appetite. The noisy waterfall haunted him
like a passion. Thus he loved Nature with an unreflecting, or thoughtless
passion. He experienced aching joys and dizzy raptures in his contact with
Nature.’ It was the external, outward sensuous beauty of Nature that delighted
and gladdened him.
