The Comparative Analysis Of William Wordsworth And Tao Yuanming’s Views Of Nature

Wordsworth is the representative poet of British romanticism poet in thebeginning of19thcentury, while Tao Yuanming represents the highest accomplishmentof Chinese ancient pastoral poetry. The two poets’ writing theme is nature. Theyeulogize the nature passionately and achieve inspiration and truth from the nature.Their artistic accomplishment produced great influence on the domestic and worldliterature. They present many similarities whether from the perspective of theirexperience or their works. But due to different countries, different times and differentculture, their poetry’s creation thought and style also presents many differences.This thesis is aimed to discuss their works’ similarities and differences from TaoYuanming’s and Wordsworth’s representative works Back to Country Life and LinesWritten A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, and further compare and appreciate theirworks, dig deeply from their works and behind their works so as to discuss thepractical significance of their works.This thesis is composed of three components: introduction, the main body andconclusion. The main content is as follows:The first part is the introduction. This part is the brief introduction to TaoYuanming and Wordsworth and brief summary of their living background andcreation thought, as well as humanistic feelings and philosophical mood that hidebehind their poetry. This part also introduces similarities and differences between TaoYuanming and Wordsworth’s works and the practical significance from theperspective of literature, environment and philosophy.The second part is the main body, which is composed of four chapters.The first chapter briefly introduces Wordsworth’s and Tao Yuanming’s views ofnature.The second chapter is discussing the similarities of Tao Yuanming’s andWordsworth’s representative works Back to Country Life and Tintern Abbey,discussing the two poets’ creation similarities, analyzing the reason why they eulogizethe nature. The reasons are similar living environment and similar character, similarhistorical background and similar language style. This part introduces the Chinese andwestern’s rough view to nature and the development bud of Chinese natural poetry and the developing process of western natural poetry.In the second chapter, there are three points which are the three similarities ofWordsworth and Tao Yuanming’s works. The first similarity is that their motif isnature. Through the analysis of the scenes in Back to Country Life and the objects inTintern Abbey, this part points out and concludes the similarities in their creationcontent in detail. They all regard natural scenes as describing objectives and thusdeeply express their ardent love for the nature. The second similarity is their commoncreation background. This common point represented in their works has close relationwith their living environment and experience. Both of them had close relation with thenature in their childhood. Their creation has inseparable relation with their experiencein the childhood. The other is similar creation background. Both of them were introubled times with chaotic politics and society when significant political eventhappened and it is natural that both of them had the thought of returning back tonature. The third point is that their works present common philosophical thought.From the respective of life philosophy, they all advocate that man and nature getalong with each other harmoniously and oppose to the opinion that human and natureare contradictory. They all show the respect for nature to different degrees and turn tonature after suffering from the reality and thus achieve comfort.The third chapter mainly introduces the differences presented in their poems soas to analyze the differences of their creation thought. This chapter is composed ofthree parts. The first part analyzes the difference in their philosophical thought fromthree aspects. The first is the influence caused by Chinese and western views of nature;the second is the influence of current historical background and the writers’ thoughts,one is in agricultural time and the other is in industrial revolution’s time; the third isthe influence of different experiences: Tao Yuanming lives in Wei-Jin Dynasty thatappreciated Zhuangzi’s thoughts, and Wordsworth is influenced by patriarchal system,traditional secret primitive culture and ancient Greek culture. Wordsworth thinks thatnature carries with divinity that cannot be overcome by human’s power. The secondpart emphasizes on the difference in language style. Tao Yuanming’s poetic languageis implicit and refined, while Wordsworth’s direct and deep. Both of them made boldinnovation to the literary language style. The third part is the difference in writing techniques. Tao Yuanming focuses on practicality, while Wordsworth focuses onromance.The fourth chapter is the practical significance of this thesis and divided into twoparts: significance to literature and significance to the society. Their works has greatsignificance to comparative studies and also the relationship between man and nature.The eulogizing to nature directly influence man’s feeling for nature. Both poetsadvocate the harmonious relationship between man and nature.The last part is conclusion. In world literary history, two unique poets appearedin the west and in the east. One is Chinese traditional pastoral poet Tao Yuanming andthe other is lake poet Wordsworth. They present obvious similarities and differencesin their works; this has close relation to their era and culture. The practicalsignificance lies not only in literature and art, but also in man’s survival and spirituallevels.