Tintern Abbey – William Wordsworth

     Tintern Abbey – William Wordsworth

The poem "Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey" is generally known as Tintern Abbey written in 1798 by William Wordsworth, the father of Romanticism. It was published in 1798 in Lyrical Ballads and was considered to be one of Wordsworth's masterpieces. Tintern Abbey is one of the triumphs of Wordsworth's genius. The poem is having 160 lines, which is divided into five sections. It is a complex poem, addressing memory, mortality, faith in nature, and familial love. It may he called a condensed spiritual autobiography of the poet. It deals with the subjective experiences of the poet, and traces the growth of his mind through different periods of his life. Nature and its influence on the poet in various stage forms the main theme of the poem. The poem deals with the influence of Nature on the boy, the growing youth, and the man. The poet has expressed his tender feeling towards nature.

Wordsworth visited Tintern Abbey at the age of twenty-three, in August, 1793. In 1798 he returned to the same place with his beloved sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, on July 13, 1798. The place impressed him most when he had first visited. He has again come to the same place where there are lofty cliffs, the plots of cottage ground, orchards groves and copses. He is glad to see again hedgerows, sportive wood, pastoral farms and green doors. This lonely place, the banks of the river and rolling waters from the mountain springs present a beautiful panoramic light. The solitary place reminds the poet of vagrant dwellers and hermits’ cave. Wordsworth emphasizes the act of returning by making extensive use of repetition: "Five years have passed; five summers, with the length / Of five long winters! and again I hear / These waters..."

Wordsworth recalls how he has lived in a city, after visiting the Wye River. He believes that his spirit was sustained by his memories of these beauteous forms when he faces difficulty in the city. The feelings attached to remembered scenes of nature became sources of imaginative power when detached from actual observation of those scenes.

Wordsworth, then, diverts his attention to the immediate scene before him again, and he compares his present feelings with those that he had when first visiting this spot. At that time, he was young and thoughtless, unaware of his differences from other animal life. Now, he feels more burdened by the responsibilities of being human, of having a heart that sympathizes with the sufferings of other human beings. The feelings of youth have been revived by this revisit, and those feelings have energized his moral imagination to universal proportions.

Suddenly, Wordsworth changes the course of the poem and addresses his sister. She seems to be standing beside him, observing this same scene with him. This visit, however, is her first, and he imagines the future. He feels that these beauteous forms will help her n overcoming her future worries and tensions. He utters a prayer that nature will supply his sister with the same restorative power of feeling in the future. In this way, each will be a “worshipper of Nature.”

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