Ecocritical Reading Of William Wordsworth's Lucy Poems

An Ecocritical Reading of William Wordsworth’s “Lucy Poems” As a representative poet of the early romanticism, William Wordsworth greatly admired Nature. His “Lucy Poems” are a series of five poems and include “Strange fits of passion have I know”, “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”. In these poems, Lucy is the central figure and she is like a female embodiment of Nature in fantasies of natural environment by Wordsworth. In the following the essay will explore the “oppression of women and the domination of nature” in the poem (Glotfelty xxiv).“Lucy Poems”presents the relationship between Nature and human being which lie behind the

From men’s perspective, Lucy represents a pure, virginal, and chaste maiden. She is like a land in its natural state. When Lucy was three years old, the narrator wants to occupy her, “a Lady of my own” (Wordsworth line62). Actually, Lucy is the “Lady” of Nature, she shares the honor of nature, that “the floating clouds” (line75) give her their state; “the willow bend” (line 76) to her, “The stars of midnight” are “dear to her” (line 81). As a part of Nature, Lucy represents the best thing in this world and she does not belong to anyone (Ross 400). She should in the realm of Nature be like “sportive as the fawn” (line 69) and springs “across the lawn or up the mountain” (line 70), and she has the characters of “the breathing balm” (line 71), and “the silence and the calm / Of mute insensate things” (line 73). In ecofeminist view, Lucy was under the bless of Nature as the Lady of Nature. Later, the narrator wants to substitute Nature and calls her, “my Lucy” (Ross 402). The voiceless Lucy’s position in the narration of man is just an accessory and depend on male. At the same time, Wordsworth seems to create a relationship that Nature relies on human and a part of

Lucy is just an epitome of female feature to reflect such an injustice environment. Women do not have a right to express their thoughts. Women are some accessories for men. Their lives or deaths are treated as pointless thing by male. From ecofeminist’s point, the content of these poems is full of strong senses of anthropocentrism and androcentrism. All in all, this is perceptible in the words of Geoffrey H. Hartman who claims that “Wordsworth’s poetry looks back in order to look forward the better”(29). Through reading these poems, readers understand women’s troubles about the oppression and domination of men in the natural environment, and know that females still have a long way to go to resist