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  • Essay / Romantic Poetry and Transcendentalism

    Allegorical literature is used by many great philosophers to explain the fundamental principles of their philosophies. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato used the famous allegory of caves to explain how the human mind interprets the ideal material world. The teachings of Jesus Christ in the Bible are metaphorical representations of God's will. Likewise, philosophical representations are found in romantic poetry. In “Tintern Abbey,” William Wordsworth depicts his relationship with nature as rather transcendentalist, while Percy Bysshe Shelley’s view of reality in “Mont Blanc” is existential. Both poets show these philosophical preferences by creating images of nature and describing their reactions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay After creating an image of Tintern Abbey in the reader's mind, Wordsworth describes how the landscape evokes sublime feelings of oneness with nature. He first describes how the emotions he experiences at the abbey make him feel enlightened, as if he has entered a state of meditation: "this blessed mood, / Where the burden of mystery, / Where the heavy and the weary weight / Of all this unintelligible world / Is lightened” (38-42). Through his description of “this unintelligible world” (41), Wordsworth implies that in Tintern he understands a divine truth that is generally latent in reality. He then goes on to state that when we recognize this aspect of nature, “we fall asleep / In the body and become a living soul” (46-7). Wordsworth explains that during his sublime, meditative connection with nature, he becomes one with it; a part of the “soul” that exists in all things. It is through this connection between the soul and the external world, understood through the divine qualities of man and nature, that Wordsworth delivers his philosophical theme. The theme of nature's universal presence is revisited later in the poem when Wordsworth writes: "While with an eye soothed by the power / Of harmony and the deep power of joy, / We see the lives of things” (48-50). ). By investing nature with an aspect of liveliness, he connects nature to the life of men. The philosophy that there is a fundamental connection between self and the world, expressed by Wordsworth in “Tintern Abbey,” parallels the later teachings of transcendentalist philosophers. In fact, popular American transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson traveled to Europe to meet his heroes, Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth, who undoubtedly reinforced his beliefs. In his book “American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition,” Russell Goodman observes that: “Emerson is a direct link between American philosophy and European Romanticism. [...] In Emerson's writings, the ideas and projects of the European Romantics - "the sensitive intellect", the "marriage of self and world", the human mind as a shaper of experience. .. and the naturalization and humanization of the divine - developed in a philosophically distinctive way on American soil (34-5). The theme created by the images of Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" indeed coincides with Goodman's assertions. Wordsworth's observation of "the unintelligible world" (41) resembles Emerson's "sensible intellect"; and Wordsworth's sense of the “living soul” (47) corresponds to Emerson's “marriage of self and world.” Belief in the divinity of nature and man is also found in the poetry of Wordsworth and in transcendentalist philosophy. Wordsworth claims that through his emotions – when he is.