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Role Of Nature In Tintern Abbey

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In “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth meditatively analyzes nature’s roles. The roles that nature takes provide a positive influence, by provoking sensations, feelings, and thoughts; as well as parallels how he matures. Although much has changed in Tintern Abbey since Wordsworth’s first visit, his recollections of it have remained untouched and are the basis of his theory of the importance of the relationship between nature and humanity. Sensation is nature’s course of delivering joy to a child; this leads to feelings and, finally, as an individual reaches adulthood, to “elevated thoughts”. Nature has the shaping force that allows for a maturation of a child’s mind into that of an adult. He guides himself through this existential journey during the recollection of his walking tour of Tintern Abbey and through the writing of this piece. The poem begins during his return to the secluded terrain after not having visited for five years. In his youth, Wordsworth appreciated nature in the most innocent and tactile of ways, and although, it was a purely physical experience it, nonetheless, provided him with joy. Once his “coarser pleasures” faded, what remained was somewhat of a hunger for just that— joy. In Wordsworth’s words it was, “an appetite”. What he describes here is his transition from his youth to adulthood, this itself is a stage and a dreadful one at that, the in between the physical joy nature provides to the youth and the deeper more spiritual connections that is to come

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