Analysis of the Structure of Wordsworths Poem Tintern Abbey Free Essay Example, 1250 words

Once this essential connection between man and nature is established, Wordsworth moves on to acknowledge that it is not a state that can be maintained indefinitely, but rather something that one takes with them into the world to remember against times of tribulation. Man can be a creature of the calm, but he does not dwell therein unchanging repose as the objects of nature do (16). This is not only the effect of the city but also the effect of time, which forces men to change while allowing nature to remain relatively untouched. Grob points again to Wordsworth s blending of the manmade and the natural illustrated in the first stanza as proof that the two can still be intrinsically linked despite the flux of one and the stability of the other. Man can know no such perfect stability as the objects of nature display; but because the objects of his past experience of nature are always at least potentially available through memory, he can acquire a general disposition to calm and ha rmony that for the time-bound individual constitutes a life lived in accordance with the ways of nature (17). This connection with nature leads to the development of nature-based dispositions of pleasure, virtue, and knowledge which is illustrated through the presentation of Wordsworth s biography within the poem. The next step in the poem s logical sequence, therefore, is to determine how these qualities were developed by the formative agency of nature as it works in and through time. It is to this end that Wordsworth in the fourth stanza presents an account of his own development as a descriptive summary of the essential pattern of individual growth (19). The final phase of the poem, Grob argues, is that in which Wordsworth attempts to prove not only that this was the proper course of development for him, but that it can be repeated by and is the proper course for others as well. Grob sees, in Wordsworth s biographical section of the poem, the proofs Wordsworth is offering that his theory of development is the proper one. We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis of the Structure of Wordsworths Poem Tintern Abbey or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now