《英语本科毕业论文-威廉姆华兹华斯对自然的理解》.docVIP

12 - Introduction William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was one of the pioneers in the romanticist movement. As a great poet of nature, he wrote many famous poems to express his love for nature, one of which is “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. Wordsworth is the representative of the romantic writers who reflected the thinking of classes ruined by the bourgeoisie, and by way of protest against capitalist development turned to the feudal past, i.e., the “merry old England”, as their ideal, or, “frightened by the coming of industrialism and the nightmare towns of industry, they were turning to nature for protection.” These writers, who have been called passive or escapist romanticists, endeavored to reconcile man with his life by embellishing that life, or to distract him from the things around him by means of a barren introspection into his inner world, into thoughts of life’s insoluble problems, such as love, death and other imponderables. So it is not surprising that nature, often personified, plays an important role in Wordsworth’s works. In the narrative poem, the poet successfully compared his loneliness with the happy and vital daffodils. The daffodils, the symbol of the nature, bring great joy and relief to the speaker. The passions of man and the beauties of nature appealed strongly to the imagination of the romantic writers, and all became the fountain-heads of the poet’s inspiration, as the poet knew well that only with inspiration could he speak out his true feeling, which was the loudest call of the romantic movement. So Wordsworth’s conception of nature is that nature has a lot to do with man, it can not only refresh one’s soul and fill one with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort one’s heart when in solitude. Although Wordworth put more attention to the individual than the neo-classicist writers of the 18th century, his intimacy with nature revealed his passive attitude toward life. Nature is his relief, his harbor