The Romantic movement of poets and artists in the nineteenth century marked a shift from the earlier thinking of the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers saw nature as a representation of scientific principals, or an orderly representation of the universe. By contrast, Romantic artists viewed nature as the representation of God in the natural universe, the source of both inspiration and ecstasy and the most sublime state of man. The Romantic views on nature can be best demonstrated in the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley, and from an artistic viewpoint in the paintings of Constable and Turner.
Wordsworth was an English poet who wrote mainly lyric poetry, which focuses on human emotion. Wordsworth described his work as, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” from “emotion collected in tranquility” (Fiero, p. 673). One of his best-known works is Lines Composed Few Miles Above Tinturn Abbey, a lyric poem in which Wordsworth celebrates the restorative, inspirational and divine qualities of nature. The poem describes a visit to a medieval abbey, which is in ruins and overrun by nature.
In lines 89-97 Wordsworth writes, “To look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing of ten times the still sad music of humanity, not harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chasten and subdue. And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime, of something far more deeply infused (Fiero, p. 675). In this excerpt, there are several demonstrations of nature as divine inspiration. With the line, “I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts,” I believed Wordsworth to be saying just as the element of divine is present in nature, it can also be found in the nature of man. He expounds upon this as he writes of a “sense sublime, of something far more deeply infused.” Wordsworth is extolling the benefits of communing with nature, that through nature, essentially men can find God.
In lines 109-111 Wordsworth refers to nature as, “The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul, and all of my moral being” (Fiero, p. 675). These lines truly relay the importance that Wordsworth places on the relationship between man and nature, as he refers to the essence of nature as “the anchor of his purest thoughts,” and “the guardian of his heart and soul.” At the core of this poem is a celebration and tribute to nature, not only for its divine qualities, but also as an inspiration for Wordsworth’s poetry.
Percy Shelley was a bastion of the Romantic poetry movement, and he demonstrates his feelings for nature as divine and a source of sublime inspiration in his work, Ode to the West Wind. In the first stanza of this poem Shelley writes, “O wild west wind, thou breath of Autumns being, The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, each like a corpse within its grave until thin azure sister of the spring shall blow, her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air with living hues and odors plain and hill.” This is powerful imagery, as I found Shelley to be comparing human creativity, or perhaps the human soul, to seeds, lying cold and low, like a corpse in the grave. The inspirational qualities of nature take these dormant seeds, and blow them over the dreaming earth, transforming them into living hues and odors.
This line of thought is continued in the fifth stanza. In lines 57-65 Shelley implores nature to “Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth, ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth the trumpet of a prophecy!” (Fiero, p. 675). Again, the imagery evoked by Shelley’s verse is a powerful and emphatic tribute to nature as divine inspiration to human creativity. I found the image of Shelley’s words scattered like “Ashes from a hearth over mankind” to be especially effective. The connection between nature and the divine is further reinforced with the lines, “Be through my lips to unawakened earth the trumpet of a prophecy!” Through this image, of Shelley’s work as a prophecy from the divine, he is making a clear statement about the inspirational qualities of nature.
The final line of the poem reads, “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?” (Fiero, p.676). I found this line to be an optimistic comparison of nature’s cycles to the transforming power of poetry. Just as winter cycles into spring, Shelley is saying the world will be transformed by poetry, which he has made clear throughout this poem, draws its most powerful inspiration from nature. This message also relays Shelley’s feelings on the importance and significance of human creativity, specifically poetry. This is very much consistent with Shelley’s opinions on the power of poetry, in a previous work he referred to poets as, “the unacknowledged legislators of the world” (Fiero, p. 675).
While the message of these two poets is clearly similar, their style of writing is vastly different. Wordsworth is more of a contemplative poet, reflecting upon the restorative power of nature. Shelley and his bold, even brash verse and stunning visual imagery, creates a powerful tribute to the mystical and divine influence that nature has on human creativity.
From an artistic perspective, the naturalist movement of the Romantic Era is well represented by the work of Joseph Mallard Turner. In the Interior of Tinturn Abbey, Turner depicts a gothic monastery, in the process of being overrun by foliage. The combination of the grandeur of the monastery, albeit in a state of ruin, with plant life growing in the midst of it, shows a strong connection between nature and man’s tribute to the divine. I believe Turner is also showing the restorative powers of nature, for while the monastery is in ruins, it is transformed into a thing of beauty by the foliage growing through it. Perhaps Turner is even making the statement that the influence of nature has made the monastery, in its state of ruin, even greater than it was when it was in peak condition.
The ideals of the Romantic Movement are also expressed in the paintings of John Constable. Constable captured the beauty of nature in its most common and humble states. He created highly detailed and very realistic landscapes, which exalt the beauty of nature in everyday settings, and can be well demonstrated in his work, Wivenhoe Park, Essex.
This painting depicts the grounds of an estate house on a bucolic summer day. I was struck by the scope of this landscape, as Constable covers a wide territory in great detail. From the cattle grazing, and the ducks on the lake, which are in the foreground of the painting, to the finely detailed clouds, forests, and rolling hills which make up the background. Constable is able to take common scenes from nature and reveal their beauty from a perspective that makes the viewer see it anew. Constable did not choose to use nature at its extremes for his subjects, but he does succeed in creating a revelation for the viewer, by capturing the hidden, or perhaps unnoticed beauty of everyday nature.
The Romantic period and the artists who comprised it moved away from the orderly thinking of the Enlightenment. Their use of nature as a subject, and divine inspiration marked not only a new style of art and poetry, but a new way of thinking, as well. As demonstrated in the poetry and Shelley and Wordsworth, and the paintings of Constable and Turner, these artists created works of such quality that they are still being studied, discussed, and appreciated today.
SOURCES
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition, Vol II: The Early Modern World to the Present. New York. McGraw Hill, Inc. 2006.
