Man’s relationship with Nature in Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode, Michael, and Tintern Abbey.

According to Wordsworth man is a part of nature, not something out of it, or far from it. That is why he is found here thinking of nature not only as a painter, but as a philosopher too. He thinks that the beauteous and the rough form of nature shape human character. People may describe Wordsworth as a “nature poet”, but he is more concerned with the interaction between people and Nature, and particularly between himself and Nature. These thoughts are most obvious in “Tintern Abbey”, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”, and in “Michael”. Nature, of course, may dominate, but the “still sad music of humanity” is never ignored.

‘Tintern Abbey’ sums up, in a nutshell, the essentials of Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature. Away from the landscape he now rejoins, had not forgotten it, but indeed had owed to memories of it ‘sensations sweet’, felt in hours of urban weariness, and therapeutic of the lonely ills he has experienced. The recollection of natural scenes had a power to console the depressed mind and heal worried humanity and made him tranquil. As well, the recollection of the landscaped caused the poet to perform “Little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love” and “Heavy and weary weight of all this unintelligible world” to be lightened. Though he has lost the aching joy that’s Nature’s direct gift, still loves Nature as he can apprehended it by eye and ear. Even the initiative is mutual; neither Nature nor poet gives in hope of recompense, but out of this mutual generosity an identity is established one giver’s love and the other’s beauty. Here is the bond between man and Nature.

Only Nature has the privilege of leading us from joy to joy; we have to brood upon past joys and have faith that she will not abandon ‘the heart that loved her’. In “Tintern Abbey” we see Wordsworth himself use the image he saw in nature to comfort him in his life, and then pass this image on to his sister and called himself as a worshipper. So the relation is worshipped and the worshipper, comfort and comforter between man and Nature.

Wordsworth shows the growth of man in relation to nature. The child living in the lap of Nature, according to him grow in moral stature, which he says in ‘Michael’, a story of a shepherd, Michael, lived in the lap of Nature, was a strong and hard working shepherd, lived with his wife and son Luke. For a financial obligation he had to send Luke the city, London. But Luke lost his innocence and become corrupted as he is cut off from the objects of Nature like fields, mountains, and streams, he fails a prey ‘to evil courses, and ‘began to slacken in his duty’, forget their parental affection. But when he directly connected with Nature, he was responsible, helped in his father’s work she taught him to respect and care for others. Here humanity’s innate empathy and nobility of spirit becomes corrupted by artificial social conventions as well as by the squalor of city life. Nature plays a role of a molder of human character.

Overall, Wordsworth presents Nature as the kindest nurse who nourishes his primal thought of humanity; the guardian who protect and shape his moral character and the proper guide who guides him as a friend to understand that—from the highest mountain to the simplest flower—elicit noble, elevated thoughts and passionate emotions in the people who observe these manifestations. Wordsworth repeatedly emphasizes the importance of nature to an individual’s intellectual development.

Another bond between Nature and man is spiritual which heal and evoke ‘lofty thoughts, rash judgments’. Wordsworth refers to a “blessed mood” twice, this affection gently led him to understand the harmony of Nature and he could ‘see life into things’, emphasizing his spiritual relationship with nature. In his scheme of thought the human world is connected with the divine world by the way of the world of Nature.

These thoughts are also present in “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” here the speaker finds a celestial glory in Nature. As children age, they lose this connection but gain an ability to feel emotions, which colours the mature mind and makes the relationship between them more significant. In this poem we read of the “soothing thoughts that spring out of human suffering. Indeed, it is suffering that leads to the philosophic mind which finds meaning even in the “meanest flower that blows”.the speaker also imagine nature as the source of the inspiring material that nourishes the active, creative mind.

Wordsworth’s writing has always been connecting our lives with the nature. If he will not analyze Nature, still less will he care to analyze man. In his poem the primal qualities of humanity where man and Nature touch and blend. Thus we can say that the freedom of mountain mist and wind has an inseparable bond with man.