A Comparison Of William Blake And William Wordsworth And David Hume

Superior Essays
Up until William Blake, William Wordsworth, and David Hume put pen to paper the most revolutionary lines of thought regarding science and philosophy came from Isaac Newton and John Locke and involved humans being passive receivers in a world of set laws ruling passive atoms. Blake and Wordsworth both agree with David Hume that John Locke’s view of the world is too logical and Newtonian. Blake and Wordsworth can agree that the world is not made up of dead, passive Newtonian atoms, but is instead full of vibrant energies. However that is where their similarities end as they both see these vibrant energies as coming from different places and as shaping humans differently. Blake’s idea is that the world comes alive as the mind encounters it and …show more content…
Blake sees God within each human mind and believes in the idea that we bring our internal energy into the world and nature instead of the other way around. On Plate #11 of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake writes, “The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adoring them with the properties of the woods, rivers, mountains, lakes..” The ancient humans brought life to the world, or “animated” it with the creative spirit held within their minds. In his analysis of Blake’s work, William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems, Hazard Adams describes this idea as, “The outer world is the activity of the mind projected in …show more content…
Wordsworth’s childhood in the Lake District was shaped by parental forces in nature, the female, “gentle visitations”, and the male, “severer interventions” that he writes guided him through “spots in time” of his childhood into adulthood. These “spots in time” are moments for Wordsworth’s life that have stuck with him and although he knows not why, have influenced him and act as poetic inspiration. One such spot that exemplifies this notion of rearing by nature’s energies is when Wordsworth stole a boat as a youth, “.. I dipped my oars into the silent lake, and as I rose upon the stroke my boat went heaving through the water like a swan - When from behind that rocky steep, till then the bound of the horizon, a huge cliff, as if with voluntary power instinct, upreared is heard… with measured motion like a living thing strode after me. With trembling hands I turned, and through the silent water stole my way back to the cavern of the willow-tree.” This, “spot in time” exemplifies the, “severer interventions” nature gave to him to teach him important lessons, such as to not steal. Unlike Blake who sees humans or ancient poets as animating the world around them, Wordsworth views the world as already animated such as the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    When it comes to the correlation between the beauty of nature and the consciousness of man, John Muir states, “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” It’s interesting to notice that a simple walk can encourage a man to be inspired by the beauty that nature offers. From seeing nature through the point of an essay and seeing nature through the point of a poem, John Muir, and William Wordsworth created two different pieces that express their connection between man and nature. With the use of tone, imagery and diction, John Muir's essay, Calypso Borealis and William Wordsworth's poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, were both able to express the authors' relationships with nature.…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” These words of William Shakespeare perfectly describe the profound impact that nature can have on not just the individual, but the world. John Muir’s essay “Calypso Borealis” and William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” are two brilliant works of literature that are written very differently, but even with their differences, there is a single similarity between the two that connects them together - nature. The authors succeeded in conveying powerful emotion through the written word, and the reader can relate to and visualize the scenes because of this emotion and the two author’s unique approaches to expressing their relationships with nature. William Wordsworth expressed his relationship…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Wordsworth, the author of “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, is a romantic poet. His view of nature came from a place of spirituality and connection with nature. Wordsworth put lots of emphasis on feelings and emotion. For example, he says when he is “In vacant or in pensive mood,” he thinks of nature and the flowers he saw, “And then my heart with pleasure…

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wordsworth urged man to look into nature and find the answers to one’s life through experiences and connections with the world around them. In a sense, it could be God who created the beauty of nature that people were told to follow, but there was no direct religious tie to Wordsworth’s romanticism. While Romanticism includes nature and art, it follows reasoning through science, and not through the creations of a…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Wordsworth’s poems “The Ruined Cottage” and “The Thorn” share similar narrative designs that manage to bring comfort and peace to the reader. Both Armytage and the speaker in “The Thorn” tell the story of unfortunate events surrounding a female who has been left by their male partner. Through the use of nature and sympathy, Wordsworth provides the reader with lessons in dealing with grief and remembering the truth. Wordsworth’s poem, “The Ruined Cottage”, tells the sad story of Margaret’s life.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This is a time in history when many English thinkers and writers wished for change. One in particular was William Blake. Blake wrote a poem called…

    • 1487 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Blake's Poem

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Structurally, Blake composes the poem as a dramatic monologue utilizing an ABAB rhyme scheme and simple vocabulary. Much of the work uses an anapestic poetic meter, which is often characterized with childish cadence of literature. The composition therefore resembles perhaps a children’s hymn -- establishing the innocence of the boy which narrates it. Ergo, the very nature of youthful innocence is tied inextricably to the overall tone of the poem. Blake not only addresses the reader, but additionally establishes the entire tragic past of our protagonist within just the first two lines.…

    • 875 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    William Blake was a 19th century writer and artist who is regarded as a seminal figure of the Romantic Age. His writing have influenced countless writers and artists through the ages, and has been deemed both a major port and an original thinker. Born in 1757 in London, England, William Blake began writing at an early age and claimed to have had his first vision, of a tree full of angels, at age 10. He studied engraving and grew to love gothic art, which he incorporated into his own unique works. A misunderstood poet, artist and visionary throughout much of his life, Blake found admirers late in life and has been vastly influential since his death in 1827.…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the bustle of England's industrial revolution, many writers sought comfort in the soft caresses of the natural world. In the majority of his works, William Wordsworth presents a similar theme, returning to dwell on the lowest, ordinary things and basking in the restorative abilities of nature. Longing for the day when England would return to its rural roots, his poetry creates an idol of nature and its power. However, in this world, there exists great certainty in the uncertain nature of powerful forces.…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The church was an institution that set many strict standards on society. In Blake’s poem, “The Garden of Love”, we see the church as the sublime figure that enforces religious and social morals on the people. It is evident that Blake is writing from personal experience. He says that he went into the garden and there stood a chapel.…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wordsworth’s poems are classified as a Petrarchan sonnet with a repetitive rhyme scheme, A-B-B-A, A-B-B-A, C-D-C-D-C-D, portray the poem as having a smoother sound. However, in Wordsworth’s sonnet, there is a noticeable shift in the ninth line. The speaker starts to express his wish to be “A pagan suckled in a creed out worn”. This shift in tone may catch the readers eye as an emphasis to his illuminant desire, by making a subtle change, the speaker goes from describing a serious subject, to becoming serious himself. Those among the crowd who pay no attention to life itself, get brought back into the world by the ninth line.…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout his life he was heavily influenced by his surroundings, and this is evident through the themes of nature and it’s awe “quote”. William Wordsworth believed that nature acted as a teacher, guiding humanity. In this…

    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    When examined together, these poems illustrate diverse reflections of the religious ideas of human origins and how they transform through the progression of life. Consequently, analyzing these poems together, they illustrate how human beliefs develop continually, never to reach absolute awareness due to constant questioning of the unknown. Thus, they represent the duality of human belief concerning ideas on existence at the beginning and the end of a life span. Simultaneously, these poems ask unanswerable questions which torment the human soul. In the “The Lamb”, Blake illustrates the human ability to ask the questions that defines humanity; however, in “The Tyger” identifies that the essence of humanity may never be answered.…

    • 1110 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    They both agree that nature has been polluted and disfigured due to man and the advancements in technology. But the main difference between them is their belief in a higher power. Romantics such as Wordsworth. believed that man and nature can be harmonic since it can connect us spiritually, and since he's a romantic, he worships nature as if it is God. For example, in Tintern Abbey he describes nature as "the anchor of my purest thoughts,the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul of my moral being,” (Wordsworth 110-112). But, in Hopkins case, nature can lead us to connect with God because of his omnipotence and beautiful design of…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Nature’s Morality Embedded In Romanticism Since the beginning of creation man has always strived to learn more about himself and the world around him. One of the most prominent ways that man can connect with their inner self and find peace with the world around them, is to write and read different types of poetry. Starting from the streets of Athens with the philosophical and artistic minds of the Greeks, poetry quickly moved East, hastily engulfing the entire globe because of it’s ability to answer questions and power to put into words what the average man cannot explain.…

    • 1838 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays