Harmony in Nature and Humanity
Abstract: Wordsworth, British Poet, is good at describing natural beauty and simply pastoral life in the countryside. His description represents the harmony and beauty in humanity and nature. He is well-known for his writing on Romanticism.
Generally speaking, compared with other literary genres, poetry has such unique styles as imagination, rhythm and language. Especially, its fantastic imagination, without which poetry may have no soul; its rhythm, which presents readers a kind of enjoyment; its language, which usually brings us more interest than its meaning does. The function of poetry lies in “its power to give an unexpected splendor to familiar and commonplace things, to incidents and situations from common life just as a prism can give a ray of commonplace sunlight that manifold miracle of color”.(Liu Bingshan, P253)
In order to appreciate the inner and outer glamour of poetry, let’s take William Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper as an example. William Wordsworth is one of “Lake Poets” in the 18th century and the representative poet of the early romanticism. His poetry is distinguished by the simplicity and purity of his language. In the preface of his Lyrical Ballads, which breaks with the conventional and poetical tradition of the 18th century, and the
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beginning of the Romantic revival in England, he elaborates his views on Romantic poetry, and gives the reasons why he writes poems. As for the poetic language, he bases his own poetical principle on the premise that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”. (Liu Bingshan, P255)
Wordsworth himself has a strong passion for nature, and his theory and practice in poetical creation start from dissatisfaction with the social reality under capitalism, and hint at the thought of “back to nature”. The Solitary Reaper represents his Romantic theory and principles of writing both in form and content. Here is the poem: The Solitary Reaper
Behold her,single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here,or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; 0 listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing witl1 the sound . No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands
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