‘Tintern Abbey’ as a Record of Wordsworth's Spiritual Growth through

Discernible Stages of Development

Sibaprasad Dutta

The poem, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey , popularly
called Tintern Abbey, is the testament of Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature, his
attitude to Man, his moral vision and his philosophy of life. This poem, written
on 13th July, 1798 and published in the same year in the volume, Lyrical Ballads,
came to the poet spontaneously and he wrote down as he had composed it in his
mind. “I began it,” the poet says, “ upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye
and concluded it just as I was leaving Bristol in the evening after a ramble of four
or five days with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, not any part of it written
down till I reached Bristol.” Tintern Abbey, a monastery, now in ruins, stands
some ten miles above the place where the river Wye meets the Severn. The poet
visited the place first in 1793 and revisited it in 1798. The poem was composed
immediately after his second visit to the place.

Basically, the poem’s importance lies as a record of the several stages of the
development of the poet’s attitude towards Nature. Wordsworth loved nature
not for its external beauty manifest in the hills, the rivers, the meadows and the
woods, but as the visible embodiment of the sublime glory. This attitude
Wordsworth could not develop at the boyhood or even in his youth. This mood
came to him when he was a mature man. While the annals of the development of
this attitude to Nature are given elaborately in The Prelude, which the poet calls
‘the Poem of my own Life’, it is also revealed in a condensed form in Tintern
Abbey.

In the first stage, when the poet enjoyed the elementary pleasure of living in
contact with nature, the poet was in his boyhood or in his adolescence. At that
time, he derived from Nature ‘coarser pleasures’ through glad animal
movements. When the poet first came among the hills, like a roe he bounded
over the mountains, by the sides of the deep rivers and the lonely streams,
wherever Nature led. At that time he behaved more like a man ‘flying from
something that he dreads than one / Who sought the thing he loved.’ This is
quite possible as while the beautiful objects of nature fascinated the poet, the
deep caverns, the chasms and sky-high cliffs could produce a feeling of awe in
the poet, a boy. The poet confirms that at that time, to him ‘nature was all in all.’
The poet’s pleasure was so high that he declares his inability to paint what then
he was. The sounding cataract haunted him like a passion; the tall rock, the
mountain, the deep and gloomy wood, their colours and their forms, were then
to him an appetite. At that stage, he had ‘a feeling
and a love, that had no remoter charm than what thought supplied nor any
interest that the mortal eyes could not gather for him. In other words, the poet at
that stage enjoyed the sensuous pleasures in contact with nature, and did not
have a reflective mind, fully ripened.

In the second stage, the poet no longer finds the aching joys supplied by coarser
pleasures and the dizzy raptures:
That time is past,
And all its aching joys and dizzy raptures.

The poet, however, does not ‘mourn’ the loss, because against the loss, he had
‘abundant recompense’ in the shape of other gifts that followed. Now the poet
looks on Nature not with the eyes of a thoughtless youth, but takes shelter in
her being depressed by the ‘still, sad music of humanity’ that goes on
perennially afflicting the human soul. The poet now becomes a universal man
sharing the Weltschmerz ( word sorrow).With a mind made sober by the
experience of life, he now becomes reflective and hears from nature the
‘harmonious and cathartical music’ welling up from the heart of the universe.
This music is not harsh or grating though powerful enough to chasten and
subdue a mind that runs wildly enjoying the sensuous pleasures afforded by
nature. The music is not joyous as the mortal men are innately sorrowful, and
practically ineffaceable (indelible, ineradicable, ineffaceable) sorrow lies deep-
rooted in their hearts. Happiness, as Thomas Hardy says, is an occasional
episode in the general drama of pain. To Wordsworth, nature is, therefore, not a
distinct and separate entity having no connection with man who suffers from
countless afflictions, but the poet discovers Nature responding to the sadness of
Man and empathises with him.

The chastened and subdued poet, resultantly indrawn, slowly passes into
mystical realisation as he feels a presence that ‘disturbs’ him with elevated
thoughts and a sublime sense of something far more deeply interfused. The
dwelling of this ‘something’ is the light of the setting suns, / And the round
ocean and the living air, /And the blue sky and in the mind of man.’ It is ‘a
motion and a spirit, that impels/ All thinking things, all objects of all thought, /
And rolls through all things.” This pantheistic experience that speaks of God
being immanent in and transcendent from this universe constitutes
Wordsworth’s mystical philosophy. Moreover, as the poet heard Nature echoing
the still, sad music of humanity, he felt the cosmic, hence natural, spirit present
in the mind of man as well.

The poet announces that he is, at this mature stage of his life, still a lover of the
meadows and the woods and mountains and all that is green on earth, the sights
and sounds of this mighty world, which require the aid of imagination for a full
appreciation. And finally, he acclaims Nature as the anchor of his purest
thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of his heart, and soul of all his moral
being. Thus to Wordsworth, Nature not only offers sensuous pleasures, the
rocking delights, but enables him in his mature years to discover not only a bond
between Nature and Man but a bond that ties up the whole creation. This is the
third stage of the development of the poet’s attitude towards Nature.

In the final stage, the poet acknowledges the influence of Nature shaping his
moral vision. He owes to nature feelings of unremembered pleasure that have no
slight or trivial influence on the best portion of a good man’s life and that inspire
one to do ‘little, nameless, unremembered acts of sympathy and of love.’ The
poet owes to nature another gift, of aspect more sublime:

… that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened.

Wordsworth explains the character of this blessed mood too:

…..that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on, –
Until the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Is almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul.

This state of trance is a mystic experience, and is called in Indian philosophy

Samadhi. Sri Ramakrishna went into that state off and on, and Professor Hastie
advised Swami Vivekananda, then Narendrath, a student of Scottish Church
College, to visit Dakshineshwar, meet Sri Ramakrishna and see for himself what
that state means. This mystical experience endowed the poet with an eye made
quiet by ‘the power of harmony and the deep power of joy’ that helps a man ‘see
into the life of things.’ This is the highest stage of the gradual development of
Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature, the stage when a man discovers unity in
diversity, the oneness of the whole estate of creation. This experience is spoken
of in Bhagavad-Gita:

Sarvabhutastham atmanam sarvabhutani ca atmani;

Ikshate yogayuktatma sarvatra samadarshanah. VI.29

The Yogi whose mind is in the Self thus absorbed,

Discovers unity among diverse things everywhere;
He feels the presence of everything in himself,
As much as his own self in every object and sphere. VI.29
It sounds quite appropriate when the poet calls himself a lover of nature – the
meadows and the woods, and the mountains; and all that he sees on this green
earth; of all the mighty world of eye and ear. The poet loves nature as much for
what he sees and hears with his mortal eyes as for what his imagination
supplements. So he proclaims that nature is the anchor of hi purest thoughts, the
nurse, the guide, the guardian of his heart, and soul of all his moral being.

The poet is not only a lover of nature for what nature has gifted him with,
shaping his mind gradually into that of a mystic who enjoys trance and who
discovers the presence of a spirit in all things including the mind of man. The
poet finally proclaims that he is a worshipper of nature who came to visit the
place unwearied in that service of worshipping with warmer love. This
expression, the poet thinks that he came to visit the place with warmer love to
worship nature would be inadequate; it would be better to say that he came on
his mission with a far deeper zeal of holier love.

It would not be out of place to say a few words about Wordsworth’s attitude to
nature vis-à-vis Thomas Hardy’s. To Hardy, nature is a malevolent force, the
symbol of the gods that like wanton boys kill men for their sport. To
Wordsworth, it is a benevolent entity that soothes the care-stricken man, gives
him peace, offers him solace, raises the level of his mind and ultimately fills his
mind and heart with divine bliss.

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