| Coleridge, a famous Romantic poet and contemporary of Wordsworth,summarized the features of Wordsworth’s poetry into the following excellencies in hisBiographia Literaria:First, a austere purity of language both grammatically and logically;in short a perfect appropriateness of the words to the meaning.…Second, a correspondent weight and sanity of the Thoughts andsentiments…from the poet’s own meditative observation.… Third,the sinewy strength and originality of single lines and paragraphs.…Fourth, the perfect truth of nature in his images and descriptionsas taken immediately from nature, and proving a long and genialintimacy with the very spirit which gives the physiognomic expressionto all the works of nature…. Fifth, a meditative pathos, a union of deepand subtle thought with sensibility; a sympathy with man as man;the sympathy indeed of a contemplator…from whose view no differenceof rank conceals the sameness of the nature…. Last, the giftof IMAGINATION in the highest and strictest sense of the word.(Coleridge’s Biographa Literaria. XXII. P144-151).Later on, the analysis and comments on Wordsworth were mostly illustrated from theabove aspects.“He is a great poet of this age”,“he is an egotist poet”,“he is aphilosopher”,“he is a romantic poet”,“he is a lake poet” and so on. John Stuart Mill,Wordsworth’s contemporary writer, praises the unity of emotion and thought inWordsworth’s poetry. The Victorian readers regard him as a “poet to nature’. A.C.Breadley appreciates his visionary power, regarding his mysticism is moonshine.Herbert Read appeals to his biographical account to understand the thought of hispoems, insisting “feeling comes in aid of feeling”(Herbert Read,1930:145). A. N.Whitehead admits he is a poet writing a poem, finding a critique of the scientism ofmodernity, and expressing an awareness of the fundamental unity of mind and nature.Empson studies the ambiguity of word “sense” from the view of New Criticism,emphasizing Wordsworth’s stylistic exploration. Empson’s way is described as aresistance to theory. Jonathan Bate starts the ecological reading of Wordsworth, claiming that nature rather than economic history is the fundamental condition ofWordsworth’s existence. Karl Kroeber argues that his “poetry reveals and explores theconnections between the ideal processes of consciousness and the material reality ofthe biological ecosystem in which the poet lives, thinks, and writes”(Tim Milnes,2009:149). Wordsworth study in China does not follow the heel of western studies,but more from our situation in China, fusing his system and the oneness of Chinesephilosophy together. Most focus on his poetics, his views to nature and also theaesthetic reading of his poetic words.In recent10years, the view of nature and ecology expressed in Wordsworth’spoetry has been noticed. Modernist poet T.S.Eliot thinks that “poetry is neitheremotion, nor recollection, nor, without distortion of meaning, tranquility. It is aconcentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very greatnumber of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to beexperiences at all…. Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape fromemotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.”(T.S.Eliot,1953:29-30) Modernist views to poetry are opposite to Romantic views, suchas “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected intranquility”(Wordsworth&Coleridge,1991:246). But since the1960s, thecontradiction between Romanticism and Modernism or postmodernism has beendying. And critics intend to interpret Wordsworth’s poetic theory in the mode ofmodern or postmodern poetics. Thus, the study of Wordsworth in the eye ofmodernism and post-modernism came into being.Reading Wordsworth in the view of ecological postmodernism is the main aim ofthis dissertation, in which neither the views of early ecology are the point, nor to findfrom the poetic lines the “golden key” to save the twisted world in the ecologicalcrisis is the purpose, but to spread a new, holistic, flexible, healthy, productive,relational world view which leads to harmony between man and nature is the endwhich can improve the regional development of economy, which can protecttraditional and national culture and also can contain multi-cultures and which canfunction the society healthily. People with this new worldview will have a betterunderstanding and countermeasures to the serious modernist crisis. The philosophical meditation and theory of this dissertation comes from Charlene Spretnak (1946---), afamous American post-modernist thinker, an eco-feminist theorist, and a significantrepresentative of ecological postmodernism.In the end of1990s, Charlene Spretnak, in her book The Resurgence of the Real,connected some concepts of postmodernism, such as decentralization, pluralism,universal connection, with the awareness of ecological crisis, and put forward hertheory of ecological postmodernism. Her view of the denial of modernism (modernistworldview) is incompatible with the stands of postmodernism of deconstruction. Shetries to find a new way to surpass modernism, which can thoroughly change thethinking mode of modern people. As for the modern concept of the oppositerelationship between man and nature, she tries to find a new path to understand natureand the relation between nature and man, emphasizing the inner connection betweenman and nature.Charlene Spretnak lays a criticism on the11kinds of modernism, regarding thatthese points typically reflect the thinking mode of binary opposition. With thedevelopment of this kind of worldview, modern people more and more realize thatthey live in an unreal world and far away from nature. She advocates a thoroughnon-dualism in holism. To her, the basic requirement of non-dualism must includesuch a fact that man and other entities are self-controlled entities. They exist in acertain relation of mutual dependence with others. Spretnak imbues this thought intoher three pillory concepts: the knowing body, the creative cosmos and the complexsense of place.On “knowing body”, sometimes also called “bodymind”, she considers thatmodernity mechanically understands life, regarding body as a separated part frommind and but a set of simple machine. In effect, life is a moving system in whichvarious kinds of factors unite together. Life is more sensitive to its inner and outersurroundings and delicate changing of power, and self-understands, chooses andstructures all information. Every bodymind is unique and unpredictable, coherent andadjusting with its surroundings. On “the creative cosmos”, she thinks, in the frame ofmechanism, cosmos is regarded as soundlessness, in which various kinds of thingsmove based on its original regular mechanical rules. However, she thinks the present nature (from streams in a certain ecological system to the self-constructural power ofthe whole galaxy) is considered as a spreading creative activity, a moving community.The non-dualism holds that the cosmos has its own inner unity which is full of novelty,unexpected and out of human control. On “the complex sense of place”, she focuseson the relations between man and environment, thinking that the place which peoplelive in will affect them deeply. Life in city which is a cement stone forest is not a reallife. Place, as a relative ecology and background of social culture, functions lifegradually. Yet, modern people, divorced from the places they are familiar with andwhich once nourish their minds, staying in the cement-forest cities, live an unreal life.In a word, BODYMIND means the united body and mind. NATURE refers to neitherthe scientific theoretical system nor cultural fears but our physical environment whichclosely connects with our bodyminds. And PLACE indicates the familiar living areas,a field for community and individual to unfold.Wordsworth who lived in the19thcentury did not clearly relate his ecologicalpostmodernist views as Spretnak did who lives in the20thcentury. But the highlycompatible awareness and thoughts with those of Spretnak are revealed every wherein Wordsworth’s poetry and poetic creativities. His criticism of the industrialcivilization, his anxieties about the application and the development of science andtechnology, his worries about the alienation of human nature and the divergence ofnature and man, and his doubts about the western worldview frame of dualismoriginated from Greek civilization all fully illustrate his advanced predictability in therelationships of man vs. nature and man vs. ecology, and his uniqueness differentfrom his contemporaries. In a certain sense, Wordsworth triggers the concept ofecological postmodernist awareness.The first chapter of this thesis is entitled “Self Anxiety in the Industrial Age:Readdressing the Divergence of Body and Soul”. It mainly discusses the self salvationin the industrial age. Wordsworth disliked science and technology, thinking thathuman nature was twisted and alienated by the modern industrial civilization and lostits purity and truth. Therefore, seeking back the Spiritual Self was more important foreach individual. It is further pointed out that Wordsworth, in his poetry, revealed thatthe Foundation of human consciousness lies in the truth and joy/happiness. How to find the truth and happiness and achieve the ideal state of the union of body and soulis laid out. Wordsworth, in his poetry, illustrated the way which is Solitude. In theindustrial age, people put their eyes on the profits. Their hearts were never in serenity.On the contrary, they eagerly sought for fame and position, losing the true nature oflife. If people wanted to regain the ecological benevolence and flexibility,Wordsworth thought, they must put their heart in serenity, relax their tightness andpressure, and be in meditative solitude. Only in this way can the industrial people findpeace and achieve the union of body and soul, elevating themselves to the highestharmonious happy state.The second chapter is entitled “Renovation of the Belief of Modern People:Readdressing the Mechanical Mode”. It criticizes modern human belief andmechanical thinking mode, and analyses Wordsworth’s view of life and death. In whatform human beings exist in the universe is put forward. What are the relationsbetween human beings and the things out of human beings? What is the position ofhuman beings in the community of the bigger universe? How do human beings treatother things? All these questions are discussed based on Wordsworth’s poetry.Wordsworth intended to re-establish the human belief of the industrial age, and hebelieved in the inner-integrity and creativeness of nature. Human beings are butcommon members among all. They must lower down their proud heads and treat allthings equally.The third chapter is entitled “Seeking Childhood of Human Nature: Readdressingthe Modern Ideology”. It explores that Wordsworth wrote the poetry about thechildhood. From the images of child up to the childhood of human beings,Wordsworth began to reflect the essence of his era. In the childhood of the humanbeings, man and his surrounding environments were in harmoniously happy state, butnow in the modern society, human being’s behavior and thought have been turnedmuch far away from the truth. Wordsworth, in his poetry, tried his best to illustratethat how the modern ideology instigated people forward, and that people should jumpout of the frame of binary subject and object, tolerating all kinds of cultures andconventions, returning to the real human childhood by way of happiness, returningback to the place which fosters human being up, and being far away from the unfamiliar cities. In the natural environment in which human beings grow up, theoriginal basis of human ideology can be found. Be it to prove where the root of Self is,the true root of human being can be sought back.The fourth chapter of this thesis is entitled “Gaia still Living: ReaddressingOne-Dimensional Causality”. It emphasizes the relationship among the things in theuniversal system expressed in Wordsworth’s poetry. Everything is connected witheverything else. The existence and development of one entity adapts and influencesanother entity’s existence and development. His poetry is full of prophetic thoughtswhich reveal the self-adjustment of the earth. In the web, grass, flowers, trees, stonesand so on all function, winkling specks of living light. The values and thinking systemrevealed in his poetry unconsciously correspond to the concept of thoughts ofecological postmodernism: a new, plural, constructive, and flexible view of the world.The reading of Wordsworth’s poetry based on the ecological postmodernism isdifferent from the positive acknowledgement made in the past in the field ofecological thought, in which Wordsworth is often regarded as a “nature poet” whoobserved nature quietly and eulogized it. Ecological criticism talks about how hecooperated with nature. In fact, it is still from the angle of anthropocentrism, becausehe was found how to get solace and environmental improvement from nature. Thus,human being’s interests are still top concern of all things. Reading from the angle ofecological postmodernism focuses on his philosophical root of pantheism and thepsychology beneath his containment of multi-cultures. His whole poetry, in effect,embodies the relationship between body (bodymind), nature and place (theenvironment of existence and development of every entity). He included all thingsinto the big system of cosmos, connecting the fate of human being with the fates ofgrass, flowers, trees and stones. In the19thcentury, he, in advance, sang a prelude ofecological postmodernism. |
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