The Relation Between Nature And Poetry By William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth himself gave an immortal definition of poetry: “The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility” (Preface to the lyrical ballad,Wordsworth ,1800)
Coleridge praising Wordsworth’s poetry stated: ‘It is the union of deep feeling with profound thought, the fine balance of truth of observation, with the imaginative faculty in modifying the objects observed; above all the original gift of spreading the tone, the atmosphere, and with it the depth and height of the ideal world around forms, incidents and situations, of which for the common view, customs had bedimmed all the luster, had dried up the sparkle and the dew drops’ (Bowra,1980: Pg 7)12.
William J Long (2004) says, romantic poets were intimate with nature and fused to ensure the blooming of romantic effect in their poetry by visualizing the essence of nature. For the poets of nature, it was both real and visionary. Long (2004), Further evidence of the intimate relation between nature and poetry in Wordsworth’s work is apparent from his works. All Romantic literature is subjective in nature. It is an expression of inner urges of the soul of the artist (Gillingham, 2002).
Poets often derived inspiration from nature in expressing human feelings and emotions of joy and happiness. They at times sought a divine presence in nature through transcendentalism. Wordsworth’s pantheism is a good example of this tendency (Long 2004). According to Wordsworth,