{"id":99,"date":"2023-02-06T21:27:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T21:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/?p=99"},"modified":"2023-02-06T21:27:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T21:27:27","slug":"collective-soul-nature-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/2023\/02\/06\/collective-soul-nature-humans\/","title":{"rendered":"The Collective Soul of Nature and Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his poem \u201cLines Written in Early Spring,\u201d Wordsworth presents a highly Romantic notion: that humanity has an almost familial duty to Nature, who created a relationship between nature (small ‘N’) and humanity, her \u2018children.\u2019 The poem consists of six stanzas with four quatrains each that have an abab<\/em> rhyme scheme, which helps Wordsworth create a very predictable, natural, and elegant flow to the poem. The second stanza particularly stands out to me: \u201cTo her fair works did Nature link \/ The human soul that through me ran, \/ And much it grieved my heart to think \/ What man has made of man\u201d (Lines 5-8).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here and throughout the poem Nature is personified and capitalized, referred to as a \u201cher\u201d who has had a physical impact on the world. I believe that by using this pronoun, Wordsworth draws a connection in the mind of the reader to Mother Nature, specifically the nurturing and creating aspect of that figure. He describes her \u201cworks,\u201d that is the physical nature around Wordsworth, as linked to the \u201chuman soul.\u201d Additionally, by using the first person perspective throughout the poem, Wordsworth implies that this connection to the soul that \u201cthrough me ran\u201d actually runs through each reader, who puts themself in the narrator\u2019s shoes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Notes section in the back of the Penguin Classics edition, it mentions that \u201cWordsworth at this period thinks of the human souls as part of a Platonist World Soul\u201d (page 883). Essentially, this boils down to the claim that there is a natural connection between all living things, similar to how the soul is connected to the human body. To Wordsworth, the \u201chuman soul\u201d is linked to the soul of Nature\u2019s \u201cfair works.\u201d I interpret this bond between Nature, humanity, and nature as a sort of familial relationship, with all being connected and meant to support the other. (Mother) Nature linked the human soul and nature, and therefore both have an obligation to respect one another as equals. Obviously, things within nature (ex: plants, animals, etc) do not share the same body as humans, but it has been a common belief throughout history that the soul and body are separate, and I think Wordsworth is playing into the notion that this communal soul transcends the physical barriers between the two.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Wordsworth has noticed that much of humanity does not respect this relationship between it and nature. While \u201cwhat man has made of man,\u201d which is repeated twice in the poem, could be interpreted as the cruel actions humans enact on other humans, I also think it can be interpreted as \u201cwhat man has made of <\/span>nature<\/i><\/strong>\u201d since they are metaphorically equals, at least in this interpretation of the poem. Wordsworth grieves this betrayal on the behalf of humanity, because many people are ignoring their responsibility to protect, enjoy, and love the works of Nature, to which we are intrinsically linked. Many may object to the notion that nature and humans are equal in all ways, but this idea just proves Wordsworth\u2019s deep love for the natural world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his poem \u201cLines Written in Early Spring,\u201d Wordsworth presents a highly Romantic notion: that humanity has an almost familial duty to Nature, who created a relationship between nature (small ‘N’) and humanity, her \u2018children.\u2019 The poem consists of six stanzas with four quatrains each that have an abab rhyme scheme, which helps Wordsworth create … Continue reading The Collective Soul of Nature and Humanity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4989,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}