What’s Wordsworth’s Healing Power?
What’s Wordsworth’s Healing Power? Time may restore us in his course Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force; But where will Europe’s latter hour Again find Wordsworth’s healing power? -Matthew Arnold, “Memorial Verses” (1852) The most popular feature of the poetry of Wordsworth (1770-1850) , the greatest of the Romantic poets revealing ‘the union of deep feeling with profound thought’ ( Coleridge), is its healing power. In his “Tintern Abbey”, the poet’s meditation starts about beautiful landscape near Tintern abbey where he returns after five years: Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. Wordsworth makes it evident in this poem that the objects of nature fill us with pure joy. We can get peace of mind, “that serene and blessed mood” only in the world of nature. In his epic The Prelude, his spiritual autobiography, th...