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My Memories are Beautiful but Absurd
Originally written for HL2004 Sensibility and Romanticism (2017)
During the Romantic period, memory is a crucial means to access the scenes and images of past experiences for poetic inspiration. Done in retrospect, these scenes are recollected in quiet, contemplative tranquillity. Yet the poetry of this period tell a completely different story. For Romantic poets, a mere recollection of the scenes that once delighted them is not sufficient. A further step must be taken in translating these memories into verse: They must be tempered by the creative energies of the poets’ imaginations, informed by the synergy of their thoughts and emotions. And what we see produced are exaggerated, distorted versions of the poets’ memories, with especial attention placed on themselves, their thoughts, and their feelings. And this is only exacerbated by the Romantic privileging of self-expression and individual emotions. In turn, this “[results] in an attitude that is too sentimental, too self-absorbed and even narcissistic”. (Mark Coeckelbergh 214) Essentially, Romantic society grants poets the license to be absurdly self-indulgent, privileging their thoughts and feelings above all else. And William Wordsworth is definitely no exception to this problem of Romanticism, as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (Cloud) and “Resolution and Independence” (Resolution) reveal exquisite exhibits that are, though undeniably beautiful, ridiculously distorted reproductions of memories.
To Wordsworth’s credit, he does attempt to establish the parameters of a poetic vision aiming to steer clear of the self-indulgence of his fellow Romantic contemporaries. This surfaces in his “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” (Preface). He very correctly identifies a major problem with Romantic works: Poets tended towards a style marked by “gaudiness and inane phraseology”. (Preface 24) This is the opulent, bombastic language generally adopted in Romantic works, largely inaccessible due to its difficulty that only an educated, social elite can decipher. Although Wordsworth does indeed adopt a much simpler language that is palatable to a wider audience, the fundamental problem of self-absorption is still prominent in his poetry, as the Preface ironically reveals.
Specifically, Wordsworth not just seeks to “relate or describe [incidents and situations from common life] in a selection of language really used by men”, but also to “throw over [his memories of the incidents and situations from common life] a certain colouring of imagination”. (Preface 24) We can read “colouring” by its original intention: For Wordsworth to exercise his imagination in reproducing his memories of reality. Yet simultaneously, the word carries insipid connotations of distortion and misrepresentation. While Wordsworth does adopt the “language really used by men”, he still indulges his personal thoughts and feelings, funnelling these through his memories and warping them into caricatures of what they once were. This directly contradicts Wordsworth’s vision of representing these memories “truly though not ostentatiously”. (Preface 24) Though he sanguinely calls for a true-to-life representation of reality, in the same vein, he persists on privileging his subjective thoughts and emotions in “colouring” these scenes with his imagination. It is this persistence that betrays a self-indulgence that renders Wordsworth’s poetry ridiculous, as his excessive focus on himself contradicts his aim to reproduce reality truthfully.
To begin with, I will address Wordsworth’s usage of personifications, a technique that sees him tending towards excessively indulging in his personal thoughts and feelings in his poetic craft to the point of absurdity. Despite all that Wordsworth enforces in his preface, to him, “the unique particularity of the poet and the poet’s experience was the principle of absolute universal authority and the agency by which the poetry attained the infinite totality it strove to evoke.” (Gerald N. Izenberg 140) In short, Wordsworth holds the paradoxical belief that although the poet’s experiences, funnelled through his memories and feelings, are unique, they nevertheless stand as testament to the world. Yet no one individual can lay claim to being the pinnacle of universal human experience. Despite this, Wordsworth translates this belief into his poetry, the privileging of his personal feelings and imagination surfacing through his usage of the personification technique.
Let us begin by examining Cloud. On approaching it, our attention is immediately drawn towards the way a field of daffodils inhabiting his memories are described, as “a crowd, / A host” (Cloud 3). Already this description is hyperbolic on two counts. First, diction meant to be reserved for humans is used to express the sheer number of the daffodils. In effect, the daffodils are personified, elevated from static plants to a state of human sentience. And this hyperbolic personification of the daffodils is amplified by the asyndeton of connectors. This dramatises the image of the daffodil field, deliberately creating a build-up in which the flowers are transformed from the chaotic disarray of a “crowd” to the nobility of a “host”. In effect, the daffodils are not just humanised, but assume a regal status in the poet’s eyes. And this ridiculous portrayal of the daffodils is furthered as they are ascribed the human actions of “fluttering” and “dancing” to represent their movement in the breeze. These words connote both joy and gracefulness, and are clearly used to illustrate the daffodils’ happiness and the nobility of their appearance. While this may be a projection of the poet’s immeasurable joy in contemplating the daffodil field of his memories, this projection is ultimately a ridiculous one, as it is impossible for flowers to experience emotions or even resemble humans in either shape or form.
The same contradictory personification of Nature’s inhabitants is replicated in Resolution. Like the daffodil field in Cloud, Wordsworth’s reproduction of a moor embedded in his memories bears distinct signs of him indulging in his personal feelings and thoughts. As before, we see him personifying Nature’s inhabitants, with a selection of birds immediately given this treatment: “Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; / The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters”. (Resolution 40) What immediately stands out is the capitalisation of the first letter of each bird’s name, resembling the way human names are represented. Additionally, the sounds produced by the Stock-dove are described as a “voice”. Like “crowd” and “host” in Cloud, this is a word that is meant to be reserved for humans, denoting speech composed of words that can only be articulated by humans. In effect, like the daffodils in Cloud, the birds are here anthropomorphised. Further compounding the explicitness of the birds’ personification is their presentation, where they appear to be consciously having a conversation with one another. The Stock-dove begins by engaging his “sweet voice”, and this is followed up by the Jay explicitly “mak[ing] answer” and the Magpie “chatter[ing]” in response. The word “makes” suggests at a logical deliberation, in turn rendering the Jay’s “answer” to the Stock-dove one that is derived from a calculated pondering over the contents of the Stock-dove’s voice. And although the Magpie is not portrayed as directly answering the Stock-dove, the fact that its chatters immediately follow the Jay’s answer binds the two together. In effect, the two birds are depicted consciously responding to the Stock-dove like they are having a conversation. And as before in Cloud, while this personification of the birds can be seen as an extension of the poet’s joyous response to their songs, it is again an absurd one, as birds are not actually able to hold a conversation with one another like humans can.
And so when we consider both Cloud and Resolution from what has thus far been examined, the following becomes immediately clear: Wordsworth’s decrying of the “personifications of abstract ideas” (Preface 26) is problematic. While Wordsworth does not actually personify “abstract ideas” in Cloud and Resolution, he has still contradicted himself in personifying the daffodils and moor birds in these poems such that they become abstract. To this end, both inhabitants of nature lose their connection to reality, tempered by the individualistic fancies of the poet in accordance to how he chooses to represent his recollection of them. This renders the personification of the daffodils and the moor birds as indicative of the self-absorption of the poet seeking to hone his poetic craft to the point of absurdity.
The absurd self-indulgence of Wordsworth in his memories does not end with his personifications of nature. It also surfaces prominently through his tendency to delve into his introspective reflections. Although these reflections are in themselves exquisite in informing his memories, their beauty is lost as they come at the expense of his audience. And this is yet another significant problem faced by the period of Romanticism: Poets tended to be too self-absorbed, and “[did] not seem to leave much room or role for an audience or readership”. (Judith Norman and Alistair Welchman 62) Wordsworth is guilty of doing this, as Cloud and Resolution reveals through the tempering of his memories with self-indulgent reflections that pay no heed to his audience to the point of ridiculousness.
In Cloud, the poet explicitly directs attention to himself, as he “gazed—and gazed—but little thought / What wealth the show to [him] had brought:”. (Cloud 3) What immediately stands out are the dashes. These indicate pauses in which the poet is struck dumb as he lapses into a state of self-reflexivity. Here, his focus is not so much the daffodil field as it is his poetic craft; specifically, how to translate the field into poetry through his imaginative and emotional interventions. And he makes this explicit in indicating that he “little thought / What wealth” the daffodil field provides. The enjambment present in these two segments firmly melds them together, such that the splendorous wealth of the daffodil field is firmly linked to the reductive attention brought on by “little thought”. This is in itself ridiculous, as the poet contradicts his claim that he “could not but be gay, / In such a jocund company [of the daffodils]”. (Cloud 3) Here, although the words “gay” and “jocund” are used to refer to different subjects –the poet and the daffodils respectively–, they are presented in an effect-and-cause fashion. The presence of the comma that momentarily halts the first line explicitly showcases this, where the stress placed on the delightful, jocund daffodils highlights their importance in effecting gaiety in the poet. Yet although he is “gaz[ing]” at the daffodils, they are not his primary focus. Instead, the focus of the poet is centred on his poetic craft. This is presented through a transition from the externality of the daffodil field to the interiority of his home, “when on [his] couch [he] lie / In vacant or pensive mood”. (Cloud 3) On hindsight, he appears to invite the audience into an exploration of his poetic process by bringing them into the intimate setting of his home, constructed by a couch that metonymically represents the home through the snug comfort that it embodies. Yet this invitation is immediately contradicted by the poet’s incessant focus on himself, first evidenced by the prevalence of the personal pronouns “my” and “I”. The poet further exacerbates his lack of attention to his audience as he plunges straight into considering his very personal, very isolated “pensive mood”. This phrase neatly combines both his thoughts and his feelings, “pensive” pointing towards his meditative thoughts and “mood” indicating his emotions. While the poet himself is intimately familiar with how integral this “pensive mood” is in contributing to his poetic craft, the audience is not. Yet this is left unaddressed, indicating a lack of attention paid to the audience in the poetic process.
The same loss of attention of the poet’s subject and, by extension, his audience, as he privileges his introspective thoughts and feelings is similarly made explicit in Resolution. This is especially palpable when he pays no attention to the leech-gatherer’s speech, the latter’s “voice to [him becoming] like a stream / Scarce heard”. […] (Resolution 43) As with the daffodil field in Cloud, we see clear evidence of the poet losing focus over his subject. This surfaces through the poet using the simile of a “stream” to describe the leech-gatherer’s voice, the flow of which is represented through the enjambment that causes “stream” to leak into “Scarce”. Though the water imagery here is, like the exquisite expressions surfacing in Cloud, beautiful, it cannot disguise the poet’s rudeness in paying no attention to the contents of the leech-gatherer’s words. And the reason for this inattention is soon made clear, as the poet contemplatively remarks that the leech-gatherer is “like a man from some far region sent, / To give [him] human strength”. (Resolution 43) Again, just like how the poet diverts his attention away from the daffodil field to himself in Cloud, we see the poet transferring attention from the leech-gatherer to himself in Resolution. Yet herein lies a core difference: While the daffodil field gives way to the poet’s focus on his poetic craft, focus is still placed on the leech-gatherer, where he is made to serve as the vantage point from which the poet steps away from reality into introspection. To this end, the leech-gatherer is stripped of his individuality, forced by the self-absorbed poet into acting as a guide to imbue “human strength” into him. This is reinforced by the presence of a comma to end the first quoted line, inducing the next line to begin on an elevated note. This in turn stresses on the poet’s belief that the leech-gatherer existed in that specific moment in his life to serve as a source of “human strength” especially for him. This renders the poet’s self-absorption especially palpable; he not just ignores the leech-gatherer, but goes on to blatantly use the man for his pompous ends, transforming him into a spiritual guide specially deployed to serve him in his time of need. And the extent of the poet’s self-absorption is further worsened as his external audience, the readers, are also implicated. Although they are not directly ignored and used like the leech-gatherer is, the stark absence of any references made towards them indicates a blatant disregard for their existence. In turn, the self-absorption of the poet transforms into egocentrism, solely privileging his personal feelings and thoughts over all else.
In examining Cloud and Resolution, it is evident that Wordsworth’s self-indulgence leads him to ignore both his immediate subjects–the daffodil field and the leech-gatherer respectively– and his readers in favour of his introspections. This is in itself absurd, as the importance of the reader in creating poetry cannot be ignored. In reading the works of the poet, the reader enters an intimate relationship with him/her, in which meaning is jointly created and understood by both parties. And when the poet chooses to ignore the reader, this relationship falls through, rendering the resultant poems indulgent, bewildering sketches that only the poet can fully understand and appreciate.
This essay has thus far examined how Wordsworth’s memories, encapsulated within his poems Cloud and Resolution, prove to be absurd despite their simple, yet beautiful constructions. Centrally, the essence of absurdity surfaces through Wordsworth’s self-indulgence in his personal thoughts and feelings, reconstructing his memories through ridiculous personifications and a wilful ignorance of his audience. In spite of this essay’s critique of Wordsworth, I recognise Wordsworth’s worth as an astute wordsmith, where his masterful grasp of language intricately weaves the nuances –self-absorbed they may be– of his poetry.
Works Cited
Coeckelbergh, Mark. “Criticisms of Romanticism and of the End-of-the-Machine Vision.” New Romantic Cyborgs: Romanticism, Information Technology, and the End of the Machine, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England, 2017, pp. 211–252. JSTOR.
Izenberg, Gerald N. “WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.” Impossible Individuality: Romanticism, Revolution, and the Origins of Modern Selfhood, 1787-1802, Princeton University Press, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, 1992, pp. 139–239. JSTOR.
Norman, Judith, and Alistair Welchman. “The Question of Romanticism.” The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, edited by Alison Stone, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2011, pp. 47–68. JSTOR.
Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. Sensibility and Romanticism Course Reader, edited by Dr. Katherine Wakely-Mulroney. HSS print shop, 2017, 3.
Wordsworth, William. “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads”. Sensibility and Romanticism Course Reader, edited by Dr. Katherine Wakely-Mulroney. HSS print shop, 2017, 23-36.
Wordsworth, William. “Resolution and Independence”. Sensibility and Romanticism Course Reader, edited by Dr. Katherine Wakely-Mulroney. HSS print shop, 2017, 40-43.
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