Confounding compounds in Keats and Wordsworth

Transcendentalist and Romantic poetry is full of vivid imagery and language that evoke a variety of emotions. The subject of nature lends itself to the kind of poetry written by Transcendentalist and Romantic poets, for nature contains a vast array of sights, from the calm to the sublime. (Compound sentence connected by for.) John Keats and William Wordsworth both use personification to express their views that nature is a nurturer. Additionally, they both use language that stresses the fertility of nature, its beauty, its emotional effect on human beings, and its interconnectedness with humans. To Romantics and Transcendentalists, nature was bursting with bounty, both for the soul and the body.

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For Romantic and Transcendentalist writers, nature’s nourishment does not only come from food that is ingested; simply being in nature can become nourishment for the soul. (Compound sentence connected with semi-colon). For example: “But oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din/Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,/In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,” (25-27). Sweet, a term used for food, is used in this sense as a way to express nourishment of the mind. For the sweet sensations Wordsworth writes about are not food, but thoughts that make living away from nature easier to manage. (Sentence that begins with FANBOYS). Later in the poem, Wordsworth expands on the idea of nature’s ability to soothe the soul. “To them I may have owed another gift,/Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood/In which the burthen of the mystery,/In which the heavy and the weary weight/Of all this unintelligible world,/Is lightened:” (36-41).

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Keats’s “To Autumn” less overtly focuses the restorative qualities of nature; however, every word is carefully chosen to give the reader a sense of solace and tranquility. (Compound sentence connected with semi-colon.) When the harvester is mentioned, it is in calm instances, such as “Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,/Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;/Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,” (14-16). Readers of the poem are calmed with images of soft and comforting images, enough so that the only human being mentioned has fallen asleep.

  As is clear in the above passages, Wordsworth and Keats do not see nature as exclusively in terms of wilderness. Nature is often touched by the hands of man, which is where much of its nourishment is sown. Both Keats and Wordsworth make note early on of scenes of nature that cannot exist without people having changed it. Wordsworth writes, “Once again I see/These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines/Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,/green to the very door;” (14-17). While Wordsworth notes that the hedgerows have run wild, they were originally planted there by people. Still, though, he is describing a scene of nature, focusing on how it contrasts with life in the city, which drains the soul. Keats also ruminates on nature that has been changed by man while continuing the theme of the bounty of nature.