William Wordsworth - Life (1770-1850) - The importance of the senses

Man and the natural world

Wordsworth is interested in the relationship between man and the natural world, the contact between man and nature seen not as an objective and precise observation of natural phenomena but as emotions and sensations which arise from this contact. In fact he thinks that man and nature are inseparable: man exists not outside the natural world but as an active participant in it. Nature comforts man in sorrow, it's a source of pleasure and joy, it teaches men to love, it's the spirit of the universe.

The importance of the senses

Nature means also the world of sense perceptions. Wordsworth, for example, speaks about the sensibility of the eyes and the ear through which he could  perceive both the beauty of nature and the sounds of the winds or the water or the silence. Wordsworth, together with Coleridge, went to Germany where he began working at "the prelude". It is a long autobiographical poem in 14 books, almost a kind of diary in verse which was published only after his death. In this poem he spoke so much about himself, his own mind, his childhood, his school days, his years in Cambridge, his first impressions of London, his visits to France and the Alps and so on. This poem is one of the major romantic achievement in the field of narrative poetry. This poem shows his idea about childhood and memory; he regarded childhood as the most important stage in man's life: "the child is father to the man", he wrote in his poem. What the child sees is more imaginative and more vivid than what the adult sees; the child's experiences, placed in the memory, provide food for the future years of thought. Memory, therefore, is a major force in the process of growth of the poet's mind. Wordsworth also wrote a number of odes, sonnets and lyrics which are collected in "poems in two volumes" in which we can find his poetic mission. He says: "every great poet is a teacher". In fact the poet has a great sensibility and ability to penetrate to the heart of things, thanks to the power of imagination, so that he becomes a teacher and a prophet who shows men how to understand their feelings. The poet's task is to communicate his knowledge and to draw attention to the ordinary things of life, to the humble people, where the poet can find the deepest emotions and truths. Also in his style he almost always used sonnets, odes, ballads and lyrics with short lines and simple rhymes. He was a great philosophical poet, a moralist and a teacher. The last years of his life were marked by the growing conservatism of his political views. He continued to write poems until his death, in 1850, at the age of eighty.

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Daffodils

Vagavo solitario come una nuvola

Che fluttua in alto sopra valli e colline,

Quando tutto ad un tratto vidi una folla,

Una moltitudine di giunchiglie dorate:

Accanto al lago, sotto gli alberi,

Ondeggianti e danzanti nella brezza.

Continue come le stelle che splendono

E scintillano sulla via lattea,

si estendono senza fine

Lungo il margine della baia:

ne vidi cento ad un'occhiata,

che scuotevano le loro teste in un'allegra danza.

Le onde accanto a loro danzavano, ma loro

Superavano le onde spumeggianti con gioia;

Un poeta non puņ mai essere lieto,

In una specie di gioconda compagnia;

Guardavo -e fissavo- ma una piccola riflessione

Quali ricchezze mi ha portato questa vista.

Spesso, quando giaccio sul mio divano

In un ozioso e pensoso stato d'animo,

Essi appaiono a quegli occhi interiori

Che č la beatitudine della solitudine;

E poi il mio cuore si riempie di piacere,

E danza con le giunchiglie.