"The Image of Man and Nature"

The Romantic Age has generally been seen as a reaction against a too narrow account of human experience in terms of reason alone, brought on by the scientific methods and ideals of the Age of Reason. This worldview tended to emphasize the mechanical, orderly, structure of the universe, among other things, and ignore feelings or thoughts that weren’t considered rational . Romantics such as Wordsworth sought to appropriate human nature with what they believed to be something greater than what science alone could tell us: namely, our passions and feelings regarding the natural world. But Wordsworth doesn’t dismiss rationality, structure or even methodology altogether for the sake of “the spontaneous overflow of power feelings” (LABL 435). He uses the language of science, to a certain degree, to describe his conviction and principal object for composing the poems collected in Lyrical Ballads. In the “Preface,” he states the poems were published “as an experiment” in “metrical arrangement” to rationally impart pleasure to his readers (LABL 433). As I read these words, my mind paused on the words “experiment,” “metrical,” and “rationally.” Science conducts experiments about the natural, material world. But the “Poet thinks and feels in the spirit of the passions of men,” and only a poet can undertake such an experiment (LABL 442).

The word “metrical,” besides implying poetic meter, also relates to quantities of measurement, thus recalling the language of science. In terms of the latter, I don’t know if Wordsworth would agree that our feelings and passions could be measured, but that they do need to be contained or controlled seems to be implied. The natural world is overwhelming for us, and since the Poet “considers man and nature as essentially adapted to each other,” there are feelings and passions which create a sense of excitement ineffable for most people (LABL 442). Because “the end of poetry is to produce excitement in co-existence with an over-balance of pleasure,” Wordsworth has to use poetic meter as a sort of restraint for our emotions (LABL 443). In this way, the person lost in excitement, has a sense of self-awareness and control, and thus doesn’t remain oblivious to the demands of reason and accountability.

Wordsworth is equally aware of his own feelings, recollected in long hours of tranquility and meditation. That he be accused of following spontaneity of feelings alone, or even impulses and instincts, as the word suggests, is an unfair critique. There is good poetry as well as bad poetry, and the former can be identified by having a value approach. Good poetry, according to Wordsworth, is produced by “a man, who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply” (LABL 435). Several times does Wordsworth invoke the word “habit” to suggest a long, contemplated approach to thinking deeply about the human passions, which he believes can be traced back to “the primary laws of our nature” (LABL 434).

Our nature can best be understood by through the conditions of the humble and rustic life because that is where our passions “are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature” (LABL 434). And only the poet can describe these associations we feel to the natural world, because the poet studies “general nature,” as this knowledge is “one that cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and unalienable inheritance [a Burkean echo?]” (LABL 441). It is no wonder, then, why Wordsworth calls poetry “the image of man and nature” (LABL 440). As science gives us insight to the physical world, poetry reveals the emotional, passionate side of human nature, and, in turn, the beauty of the natural world. It even, as Wordsworth says, carries “sensation into the midst of the objects of the Science itself” (LABL 441). Poetry is the best tool for capturing the side of our nature which science would otherwise eclipse with its cold hard facts.

As I finished reading Wordsworth’s “Preface,” I was left with the intention of exploring, or better understanding, what in my mind seemed to be a bit confusing. As the title of this blog recalls, Wordsworth personifies poetry as the image of man. He says of the poems that he resorts to abstract personification of ideas when they “are occasionally prompted by passion” (LABL 436-437). I wonder if there is anything more to say about this other than Wordsworth felt prompted by his passions to include such an abstraction in his “Preface.” What I am more interested in, however, is sorting out his notion that a Poet writes as a duty, a “necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human Being” and “the Poet, although he describes and imitates passions, his situation is altogether slavish and mechanical, compared with the freedom and power of real and substantial action and suffering” (LABL 440). Then Wordsworth says, “So that it will be the wish of the Poet to bring his feelings near to those of the persons whose feelings he describes to give pleasure” (LABL 439). At one point it seems the Poet is obligated, and at another point the Poet seems to have a choice. I didn’t know what to make of that.