Abstract

Natural poetry has a long history in British literature. One of the excellent representatives of romantic poetry, Wordsworth is the pioneer and the founder of British romanticism literature in 19th century. As a leading figure of the English Romantic Movement in poetry, Wordsworth deeply studies the nature of things and is labeled as a “worshipper of nature”. To him, nature means more than rivers, trees, rocks, mountains, lakes and so on. Nature has a moral value and has its philosophical significance. This thesis starts from the reasons that Wordsworth chooses “back to nature”, including economic, political and cultural background at that time, and his growth experiment. Next, the passage analyses the three main elements in Wordsworth’s poetry: God, child and woman. In his opinion, everything in this world has divinity; child is the preposition between man and nature; woman is a good company in his writing life. At the last, the thesis analyses the writing features of Wordsworth. He always started from common things, using concise and plain and natural language, and choosing the ordinary people and things as his creative source. In his works, there is some relation between all things in the universe, complementing each other.

Key Words: Wordsworth; View of nature; Children; Female; God

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction-5

2 Three Main Reasons for Wordsworth Inclination to Divine Nature-7

2.1 Social and Political Reasons-7

2.1.1 The Influence of French Revolution-7

2.1.2 The Influence of Industrial Revolution-8

2.2 Cultural Background Reasons-8

2.2.1 The Nature View in Bible-8

2.2.2 John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Influence-9

2.3 Personal Reasons-9

2.3.1 Religious Tendency to Pantheism-9

2.3.2 Unhappy Childhood Experience-10

3 Three Main Elements of His Poetry Embodying Wordsworth’s View of Nature-10

3.1 God and Nature-10

3.1.1Harmony between God and Nature-11

3.1.2 Inter-relatedness and Interactivity between All Beings-12

3.2 Children and Nature-13

3.2.1 Children-the Preposition between Man and Nature-13

3.2.2 Children’s Influence on Wordsworth’s Writing-15

3.3 Woman and Nature-15

3.3.1 The Role of Woman in Wordsworth’s Life-16

3.3.2 Woman’s Influence on Wordsworth’s Writing-17

4 The Features of Wordsworth’s writing-18

4.1 The Main Subject-Nature and Ordinary People-19

4.2 Plain Language-20

5 Conclusion-21

Bibliography-23