Wordsworth is a Romantic writer who uses nature as a way to describe his subject or his narrator. Wordsworth is a Romantic Poet who often uses nature as a way to describe the subjects or the narrator of his poems.
Wordsworth makes many references to and descriptions of the natural world in his first seven stanzas. The narrator was traveling along a grassy plain. It had been stormy the night before, but “the sky rejoices at the dawn’s arrival” (line 9). Wordsworth demonstrates the importance of nature in the poem by personifying the sky. The narrator starts to reveal that he’s always seen himself as a “child on Earth” (line 33) but is now concerned about the future. The narrator’s words in lines 36-37 are “My entire life, I have lived with pleasant thought,/As life was a summer feeling.” He is implying that he has not been responsible for himself or neglected certain obligations.
The narrator then meets the “oldest man…that has ever worn gray hair” (line 56). The narrator describes the man in great detail before talking to him, often comparing the man with different aspects of nature. The narrator compares an old man stirring mud on a pond’s shore with a sea creature that would never be there. The narrator then describes the old man in lines 78 – 79 as being “[m]otionless” like a “cloud”,/that does not hear loud winds calling.
The narrator asks the man about his occupation as soon as he begins talking with him. The narrator is soon impressed by the way the old gentleman speaks. While he admires the man’s way of speaking, he forgets what he actually says. Wordsworth used another nature simile to describe how the narrator lost focus on what the man was saying. The narrator describes the man’s voice as a “stream” in line 107. This vivid simile makes the reader imagine the faint, barely audible babble of distant streams. Wordsworth’s love of nature may be the reason he can relate anything to nature.
The strange man, who is eloquent in his description of his work, then tells the narrator what he does. He travels for long distances to collect leeches. Wordsworth’s narrator is inspired by the physical exertion required to collect leeches in ponds. It may seem odd that an elderly man would be still doing such physical work. The old man’s job is an inspiration to the narrator. If he can see the man standing, speaking with eloquence and still being employed, he has hope for himself and his mind.
Regardless of whether the man is there to convey Wordsworth’s message, his work requires that he be outside and in nature constantly. It doesn’t matter what the man did, as long as it served Wordsworth literary purposes. But that he worked for a leech gathering company further proves Wordsworth’s affinity with nature. Wordsworth is a Romantic poet who has a tendency to include natural elements in his work.
Wordsworth is not the focus of his “Resolution and Independence”, but instead he talks about a poet’s life and struggles. Wordsworth’s Romantic poetry allows him to use his relationship with nature as a way to describe characters, settings, themes, and more. Wordsworth’s Romanticism and strong connection to nature are evident throughout his poem, even though he isn’t explicitly describing and writing about his environment.