The lunatic, the
lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hells can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
See Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to
heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. (V.i.7-17) [1]
It is strange why the
first thing that springs up from some dark forgotten
recess of the mind on reading William Wordsworth's (1770-1850)
'Lucy' poems is this observation made by Theseus in his
palace in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer-Night's
Dream. These lines were written in 1595 or 1596,
almost two centuries before the 'Lucy' lyrics composed in
or after the winter of 1798-99, or even Wordsworth's
Preface to the second (1800) edition of Lyrical
Ballads. Yet, it is not difficult to see why
Wordsworth rued:
The invaluable
works of our elder writers, I had almost said the
works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into
neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German
Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant
stories in verse.- [...] this degrading thirst after
outrageous stimulation, [2]
The two writers,
separated by a couple of hundred years, are on a similar,
even if not identical, track.
The comparison occurred unbidden when I read 'Strange
Fits of Passion Have I Known'. As a "fond and
wayward thought" that his beloved may be dead enters
the mind of a lover, he works himself up into a frenzy.
The poem is born from the shift from an ordinary ride to
her cottage into an extraordinary fit of passion that
only another lover can sympathize with, in the same tempo
as the "quickening pace" of the horse. The
origin of the poem is reflective of Wordsworth's own
ideas on the composition of poetry outlined in his 1800
Preface to Lyrical Ballads:
poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes
its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity:
the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of
reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and
an emotion, kindred to that which was before the
subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and
does itself actually exist in the mind. [3]
Wordsworth's poetry
contained elements of Shakespeare's lunatic, lover and
poet, even as Wordsworth the poet arrived at the thought
that he outlined in his Preface. All five of his 'Lucy'
poems - 'Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known', 'She
Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways', 'I Travelled Among
Unknown Men', 'Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower'
and 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal' - confirm his poetic
perspectives. And nothing is more obvious than Wordsworth's
reliance on feeling and emotion both as inspiration and
subject of poetry. 'Passion" may have been un-decorous
in society then but a poet's fundamental character lay in
his ability
of conjuring up in
himself passions, which are indeed far from being the
same as those produced by real events, yet (especially
in those parts of the general sympathy which are
pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the
passions produced by real events, [4]
Not that the emotion
was mawkish. The love for Lucy is intimate and intense.
In revealing it, the poet is baring his soul. Lucy is
"The joy of (his) desire;" She is "cherished",
present everywhere. He seems to see her, feel her at
every point in place and time. The sentiment is all-consuming.
So much so, that even his love for his country can be
traced to his devotion to her. True, nationalism was a
part of the Romantic character; but Wordsworth's was
blatantly driven by his all-pervasive passion for Lucy.
This blatancy is underscored by the blunt admission in 'I
Travelled Among Unknown Men' on the heels of waxing
eloquent about ardor for country, that the determination
not to "quit thy shore" is because it is "an
English fire" beside which Lucy "turned her
wheel" and
Thy mornings
showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.
Grief at her loss, of
which the cold fear "If Lucy should be dead!"
in 'Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known' seemed a
premonition, is equally impassioned. Sorrow is stark,
sharp and poignant - drenching everything in it. Mourning
transforms the "happy dell" of 'Three Years She
Grew in Sun and Shower' into a barren heath. The lament
in 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways' reverberates:
But she is in her
grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!
The realization and
confession come suddenly after description of other
matters, and the seeming control is deceptive. The
reflection in 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal'
No motion has she
now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
is less matter-of-fact
than it appears. The sadness is deep and stays long after
the poem has finished. The finality, in 'Three Years She
Grew in Sun and Shower', of
And never more
will be.
is - well - final.
After all this, it becomes a little nerve-wracking that 'Lucy'
cannot be neatly labelled. Who was 'Lucy'? A beloved
mistress? A well-loved child? A friend? Or a figment of
the imagination? Some feel the "poems represent an
attempt to give literary expression and distance to
Wordsworth's feeling of affection for his sister" [5],
Dorothy? The 'Lucy' of these poems is no celebrity. As
the poet concedes in 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways',
she was quiet, unobtrusive, living "unknown",
A Maid whom there
were none to praise
And very few to love:
However, Lucy's allure
lies in her being the embodiment of Wordsworth's
preferred character: solitary, simple, innocent. For
William Wordsworth believed that for poetry to continue
to please mankind permanently, it had to do with "essential
passions" and these were to be found in "humble
and rustic life" where
they can attain
their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a
plainer and more emphatic language; because in that
condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in
a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may
be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly
communicated; [6]
Lucy is also proof of
the transforming power of imagination, voiced through
Theseus by Shakespeare as well, that Wordsworth was
convinced about. This is the power that exalts Lucy into
a luminary. In her Wordsworth puts into practice his own
advice: "to throw [...] a certain colouring of
imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented
to the mind in an unusual aspect;" [7] Lucy is
simple but not crude. She is superlative. In 'Three Years
She Grew in Sun and Shower', Nature says
A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
In 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways' she is
delicate-
A violet by a mossy stone
She is matchless in
her exquisiteness -
-- Fair as a star,
when only one
Is shining in the sky.
And in 'A Slumber Did
My Spirit Seal' she is almost ethereal -
She seemed a thing
that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
Another facet of
Wordsworth the poet emerges in these 'Lucy' lyrics: that
of a lover and bard of nature. If "humble and rustic
life" allowed the play of elemental emotions, it is
also a state in which "passions of men are
incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of
nature." [8] Inevitably, for a man close to nature
who spent hours amidst scenic landscapes, frequently
alone, the eye and ear of a lover of nature for detail is
evident. Lucy belongs to a world abounding in references
to manifestations of nature: Lucy's "cot" under
"the sinking moon", the bowers as places of
play, the "wayward" rivulet and its murmurings,
the "floating clouds" and the turbulent "motions
of the Storm". The images of Lucy as a half-hidden
shy "violet by a mossy stone", as "Fresh
as a rose in June", "sportive as the fawn /
That wild with glee across the lawn" are crystal-clear,
precise.
Over and above such charming and vivid descriptions, what
really stands out is a prevailing 'force' in Nature. In 'Three
Years She Grew in Sun and Shower', it is portrayed as an
"overseeing power" that will nurture and
educate Lucy. In her will be inculcated grace, dignity,
stateliness, peace and beauty; not overtly but by a
process of absorbing "By silent sympathy" these
values from "mute insensate things". Lucy, as
child and student of Nature, will gain qualities lost in
the corruption of urban life. Yet there will be a balance
between spontaneous, free play of individuality and
control, restraint. Nature intends to be "Both law
and impulse" unto Lucy. There is spirituality, a
supernatural aspect that is only hinted at. It is more a
fusing together of spirits, that eventually becomes
literal with Lucy's death when she becomes one with
Nature wholly - in mind and body - fulfilling in all ways
Nature's wish
This Child I to
myself will take,
as Lucy becomes in 'A
Slumber Did My Spirit Seal'
Rolled round in
earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
For all Nature's
beauty and beneficence, there is an underlying threat, a
note of impending doom. In 'Strange Fits of Passion Have
I Known' the "evening moon" seems to reflect
the lover's foreboding. The ride to Lucy's cottage is
accompanied more by a sense of anxiety than excited
expectancy at meeting a beloved. There is a sense of
tragedy throughout that one cannot shake off as one reads
the poems. It casts its shadow on happier allusions to
Nature and the super-naturalness and sublimity of Nature
becomes a double-edged sword with its life-sustaining
lighter side and a darker side of death. Invariably, the
sense of the latter is strongest in moments more removed
from the conscious state - in sleep or in dreams. The
presentiment of death as a "fond" thought comes
to the lover in an eerie moment of near insanity, and the
fact that Lucy has "no motion ... no force"
hits home while his spirits are 'sealed' by "slumber".
Having raised the subject and treatment of it to such an
esoteric plane, Wordsworth nevertheless opts for a style
and diction closer to the common understanding:
a selection of
language really used by men [...] because such men
hourly communicate with the best objects from which
the best part of language is originally derived; and
because, [...], being less under the influence of
social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions
in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly,
such a language, arising out of repeated experience
and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far
more philosophical language, [...] [9]
There may be the heavy,
dark side, yet there is euphony. It has to do with the
stress and rhyme (abab) patterns as well as with the
choice of language. The language and versification today,
read in the wake of twentieth and twenty first century
poetic practice may still seem archaic or conventional;
but in view of the writing contemporaneous to it the
content and its expression are smooth, facilitated by an
overall result that is easy, pleasing, truly lyrical.
Wordsworth made a concerted effort to avoid figures of
speech such as personifications merely to elevate his
style, wishing to "keep the Reader in the company of
flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall
interest him" [10]. The predominant figure of speech
remains the simile and all comparisons are to various
elements of Nature.
Undoubtedly, the effect is not accidental. There is a
deliberate craft at play. This is especially true if one
reads 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways' and 'I
Travelled Among Unknown Men' side by side. The former was
composed in late 1798 and the latter in April 1801. They
are obviously meant to complement each other, and not
only in terms of meter and rhyme scheme. Both speak of a
love, one more subdued for a simple maid and the other
glorying in a magnificent land. Both end with the mention
of a physical loss and only then does one realize the
actual (or relative?) depth of both. The
complementarities underscore the ties between Man and
Nature, and between feeling and its expression - proving
the poet's perspective on the role, concerns and skills
of poetry.
In an April 1799 letter, Coleridge wrote of 'A Slumber
Did My Spirit Seal', "Some months ago Wordsworth
transmitted to me a most sublime Epitaph ... whether it
had any reality, I cannot say. - Most probably, in some
gloomier moment he had fancied the moment in which his
Sister might die." [11] That just about sums up
everything about 'Lucy' in what some consider the pick -
and the most cryptic - of the 'Lucy' lyrics: the mystery
of 'Lucy', the shadow of death and the sublimity of
William Wordsworth's verse.
References
1 Shakespeare, William. "A Midsummer-Night's Dream". Shakespeare The Complete Works. Vol. 1. London:
Heron Books - J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 439
2 Wordsworth, William. "Preface to Lyrical Ballads
1800". Famous Prefaces. The Harvard Classics.
1909-14. 14 Dec. 2004.
< http://www.bartleby.com/39/36.html#txt1 >.
3 Ibid
4 Ibid
5 Lancashire, Ian (Gen. Ed.). Department of English,
University of Toronto. Representative Poetry Online.
Version 3.0 1912-2002. 14 Dec. 2004. < http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2365.html >
6 Wordsworth, William. "Preface to Lyrical Ballads
1800". Famous Prefaces. The Harvard Classics.
1909-14. 14 Dec. 2004.
< http://www.bartleby.com/39/36.html#txt1 >.
7 Ibid
8 Ibid
9 Ibid
10 Ibid
11 Lancashire, Ian (Gen. Ed.). Department of English,
University of Toronto. Representative Poetry Online. Version 3.0 1912-2002. 14 Dec. 2004. < http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2369.html >
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Version 3.0 1912-2002. 14 Dec. 2004. < http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/index.cfm >.
Shakespeare, William. "A Midsummer-Night's Dream". Shakespeare The Complete Works. Vol. 1. London:
Heron Books - J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 439.
Wordsworth, William. "Preface to Lyrical Ballads
1800". Famous Prefaces. The Harvard Classics.
1909-14. 14 Dec. 2004.
< http://www.bartleby.com/39/36.html#txt1 >.
---. 'Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known'. 14 Dec. 2004.
< http://eserver.org/poetry/wordsworth-strange_fits_of.html >.
---. 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways'. everypoet.com
Archive of Classic Poems. 2004. 14 Dec. 2004.
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---. 'I Travelled Among Unknown Men'. everypoet.com
Archive of Classic Poems. 2004. 14 Dec. 2004.
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---. 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal.' everypoet.com
Archive of Classic Poems. 2004. 14 Dec.
2004. < http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/William_Wordsworth/william_wordsworth_150.htm >.
---. 'Three Years She Grew'. Representative Poetry
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© Trivikrama Kumari Jamwal, January
2005
Ph.D. Scholar, Centre for New Literatures, University of
Jammu.
M.A. English, University of Jammu.
B.A. English / Economics, Bombay University.
P.G.Diploma Business Management, University of Jammu.
P.G.Diploma Social Communications Media, Maharashtra
Board of Technical Education.
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