In Search Of A "Poetical Dwelling"

Regarded as "a poet of nature", William Wordsworth (1770-1850) , for nearly two hundreds of years, has ranked among the greatest romantic poets in the history of English literature. In his beautiful lyric poems, Wordsworth depicts beautiful landscape paintings so as to sing the praises of nature and express his aspiration of leading a peaceful and harmonious life. His advocacy of loving nature as well as his condemning on human's ravaging of environment added new meaning and substance to the romantic natural philosophy.The theory of ecocriticism, newly emerged in the early 1990s, provides a different angle to interpret Wordsworth's nature poems. Trying to revaluate literature on the principle of holism and mutual dependence as illuminated in the science of ecology, it aims to promote a harmonious co-existence of man and nature. Aldo Leopold's "land ethics" and Arne Naess' Deep Ecology help establish a metaphisical keynote for the theories and practices of eco-criticism. Read against such background, this thesis, firmly grounded on a close reading of Wordsworth's short lyrics as well as his masterpiece The Prelude, tries to integrate Wordsworth's explorations for the close man-nature kinship underlying his poetry into a system. Wordsworth's nature poetry unfolds itself as environmentally conscious texts and has profound ecological implications which manifest to a great extent his ecological vision of man, his life, and his interaction with nature.Wordsworth's pursuit for "poetical dwelling" represents his search of the ideal way of man's co-existence with nature, which, as is revealed in the topic of the thesis, is approached from three aspects. First, the thesis provides a discussion of Wordsworth's justification and reconstruction of a holistic vision of nature to reveal its intrinsic values to man both mentally and materially, against his contemporary prevalent mechanistic view of nature. His aim is to generate a growing awareness of humankind's correct realization of the natural world which is the primary premise of "poetical dwelling". The thesis then explores Wordsworth's advocacy of man's returning to nature, pursuing the fusion of human and natural world both physically and spiritually. To him, nature possesses a power of spiritual refreshment and nourishing, which could cure man's mental wounds by the industrial civilization and help people rediscover the source of fundamental pleasure. The thesis finally analyzes Wordsworth's calling for man's respect and ethical responsibility to all the beings on earth, emphasizing that man should live in a pastoral and materially frugal life. For Wordsworth, only to foster a correct view of nature through realizing nature's intrinsic values, and to live close to nature with rich spiritual belief, having a deep respect for and responsibility to physical environment, could our Earth be a better ecological Home for man to dwell "poetically".In probing and imparting the eco-wisdom of searching man's "poetical dwelling", Wordsworth has brilliantly fulfilled his role of a proto-ecological practitioner. To him, we shall dedicate our high and hearty tribute.