Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)

A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.3.Issue 4.2015 (Oct-Dec)

http://www.rjelal.com

RESEARCH ARTICLE

A MONARCH OF MYSTICISM: RE-READING WORDSWORTH

DIPANJOY MUKHERJEE
Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Vidyasagar University
Paschim Medinipur

ABSTRACT
Mysticism is a consciousness of the transcendental Reality which is infinite and
eternal and which permeates, pervades and gives meaning to the finite creation.
Mysticism may also be defined as the enlightened effort of the mind to transcend
the barriers of the sensory world and yield itself to the ultimate Reality. Plato had
suggested, in Book VI of the Republic, that the Form of the Good was supreme in the
world of the Forms. Plotinus' philosophy may be seen as a set of variations on this
Platonic theme. He refers to the Supreme Form more frequently as The One than as
The Good, and emphasizes its aspects of Unity, Intelligence, and Soul or Life. This
DIPANJOY MUKHERJEE transcendent vision of the Supreme Form is of abiding importance in a mystic’s life.
Caroline Spurgeon has pointed out in Mysticism in English Literature , the true
mystic knows that there is unity in diversity at the centre of all existence ; mysticism
, therefore, is the ardent adventure of the soul , ‘the flight of the Alone to the
Alone’(Plotinus). William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is a renowned mystic poet of the
Romantic Revival. If William Blake is the prince of mysticism, William Wordsworth is
undoubtedly the monarch of the kingdom of mysticism. William Wordsworth has
not only possessed the lofty imaginative grandeur of a great romantic poet but he is
also endowed with the illumined spiritual vision of a mystic. This paper intends to
highlight that mysticism is the apotheosis of Wordsworth’s poetry.
Keywords: Mysticism, Romanticism, Imagination, Spiritual vision, Nature,
Wordsworth

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DISCUSSION dint of which he can perceive the abiding unity of all

An all comprehensive definition of things and realize the co-immanence of the eternal
mysticism is too difficult to provide. Each mystic and the temporal. Mysticism may also be defined as
perceives and projects his accumulated experience the enlightened effort of the mind to transcend the
in harmony with his own religious background. barriers of the sensory world and surrender itself to
Mysticism denotes the achieved experience of a the ultimate Reality. To give a rare insight into the
mystic’s communication with a benign Being who is nature of mysticism, Aurobindo writes:
conceived as the supreme and ultimate reality. The “A light not born of sun or moon or fire,
mystic in all cultures recognizes a truth beyond the A light that dwelt within and saw within
grasp of the rational intellect; his consciousness is Shedding an intimate visibility,
elevated to the state of inexplicable sublimity by

134 DIPANJOY MUKHERJEE

Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.3.Issue 4.2015 (Oct-Dec)
http://www.rjelal.com

Made secrecy more revealing than the possessed the heightened imaginative vigour of a
word: great romantic poet but he is also endowed with the
Our sight and sense are a fallible gaze and illumined spiritual vision of a mystic. He is
touch And only the spirit’s vision is wholly undoubtedly a Nature Mystic. A large bulk of his
true". (Savitri) verse is meditative in mood and in a number of his
This transcendent vision not only predominates but poems, especially Tintern Abbey, Ode on
also is of paramount importance in a mystic’s life. Intimations, The Prelude etc. the contemplative and
Mysticism denotes a splendid state of sublime, mystical element is dominant. The whole canon of
solemn and spiritual vision in which one has an Wordsworth’s nature mysticism is attuned to the
intuitive perception of an infinite and eternal reality trinity: God, Nature and Man. Mysticism is the
which pervades and permeates the universe. quintessence of Wordsworth’s poetry.
Caroline Spurgeon has pointed out in Mysticism in ‘God is passion’- these three simple words
English Literature , the true mystic knows that there summarize mysticism perfectly. The deepest
is unity in diversity at the heart of all existence; aspirations of romanticism are essentially spiritual
mysticism , therefore, is the ardent adventure of the and in their finest form they take on the colours of
soul , ‘ the flight of the Alone to the Alone’(Plotinus). mysticism. In the romantic point of view it is
th
In England it was during the 14 century heightened imagination which leads a poet to the
that mystical literature flourished the most. The mystic perception of the constant behind the flux,
writings of mystics like Walter Hilton, Richard Rolle the infinite behind the finite, the eternal behind the
and Lady Julian of Norwich came to be widely read. ephemeral and the transcendental behind the
th
The 17 century witnessed the blooming of the sensory. Romanticism fosters the view that there
mystical verse. Many poets belonging to the school are baffling phenomena in this ‘unintelligible world’;
of Metaphysical Poetry wrote poems that disclose a it is only imagination which can offer fleeting flashes
sensibility akin to the mystical. Henry Vaughan was of the profound and penetrating insight into the
the true forerunner of Aurobindo in their intense heart of the reality. Emphasizing the prolific power
longing for ‘light’ which is symbolical of divine of imagination, Wordsworth says:
energy and spiritual lustre. Vaughan’s most “…. Imagination, which, in truth,
celebrated poem, The World records some Is but another name for absolute power
incomparable mystical lines: And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
“I saw Eternity the other night And Reason in her most exalted mood”
Like a great ring of pure and endless light, (Prelude, Book IV)
All calm, as it was bright, The four lines are immensely significant in clarifying
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, a romantic’s concept of imagination; it is “Reason in
years Driv’n by the spheres her most exalted mood.” It is evident that
Like a vast shadow mov’d, in which the Wordsworth wants to show the difference between
world And all her train were hurl’d…” a romantic and a neo-classical writer’s attitude to
Romantic age saw the soaring of two eminent mystic ‘Reason’. The Neo-Classical Age emphasized the
poets, William Blake and William Wordsworth. principle of Mimesis as well as the Horatian
Gifted with sacramental vision, Blake could perceive: recommendation and direction of artistic purpose
“The world in a grain of sand, that unquestionably and unalterably aims at
And a heaven in a wild flower, catering delight and instruction to readers. Towards
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, the end of the eighteenth century, an alignment of
And eternity in an hour”. (Auguries of attitude and values is noticed that questions the
Innocence) foundation of the imitative-rationalist aesthetic to
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is the most establish an individual-empiricist aesthetic that
outstanding visionary, a monarch of the empire of embraces the subjective dimension of human
mysticism. William Wordsworth has not only experience. The antithetical thought that had

135 DIPANJOY MUKHERJEE

Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.3.Issue 4.2015 (Oct-Dec)
http://www.rjelal.com

originated with the Precursors of the Romantic greater poets than Wordsworth, but none more
Revival e.g. Thomas Gray, William Cowper, Robert original. He saw new things, or he saw things in a
Burns, William Blake etc. culminated in the magical new way....The spirit of his poetry was also that of
and magnetic output of William Wordsworth who his life - a life full of strong but peaceful affections;
inaugurated the potential Romantic Movement and of a communion with nature in keen but calm and
advocated the necessity of imagination and emotion meditative joy; of perfect devotion to the mission
in poetic works. In his Essay Supplementary to the with which he held himself charged; and of a natural
Preface (1815), Wordsworth writes, “In the higher piety gradually assuming a more distinctively
2
poetry, an enlightened Critic chiefly looks for a religious tone.” Wordsworth’s chief originality is, of
reflection of the wisdom of the heart and the course to be sought in his poetry of Nature which
grandeur of the imagination.” In a letter to Benjamin teaches us that between man and Nature there is
Bailey (November 22nd, 1817), Keats has asserted mutual consciousness and mystic intercourse and
his view in the same vein, “I am certain of nothing which is expressive of the formative, restorative,
but the holiness of Heart’s affections and the truth moral and spiritual influence of Nature on the
of Imagination. What the imagination seizes as mind and personality of man. While speaking of
Beauty must be truth… O for a life of Sensation Wordsworth’s fidelity to nature and his unaffected,
rather than of Thoughts!” Maurice Bowra refers to inartificial style W.J. Dawson says, “One effect of this
imagination as the fundamental prerequisite for the ardent love of Nature in Wordsworth is that he
romantics as they consider poetry as meaningless excels all other poets in the fidelity of his
and insignificant without it. He says, “This belief in descriptions, the minute accuracy of his observation
the imagination was part of the contemporary belief of natural beauty. His eye for nature is always fresh
in the individual self. The poets were conscious of a and true, and what he sees he describes with an
wonderful capacity to create imaginary worlds, and admirable realism. His sense of form and colour is
they could not believe that this was idle or false. On also perfect, and nothing is he so great an artist as in
the contrary, they thought that to curb it was to his power of conveying in a phrase the exact truth of
3
deny something vitally necessary to their whole the things he sees.” The other Romantic poets have
being. They thought that it was just this which made also written poems which are thoroughly
them poets and that in their exercise of it they could impregnated with the love of nature. To Byron,
do far better than other poets who sacrificed it to nature appears as a healing, consolatory,
caution and common sense. They saw that the strengthening and exhilarating power during the
power of poetry is strongest when the creative moment of his revolt against the folly of man. To
impulse works untrammeled, and they knew that in Shelley, the ethereal and mesmerizing presence of
their own case this happened when they shaped nature, her disguised brilliance cast an intoxicating
fleeting visions into concrete forms and pursued and magnetic spell on the mind. But Wordsworth
wild thoughts until they captured and mastered conceives nature as a living personality, as a vast
1
them” embodied Thought, as a Presence, as “the Mighty
Wordsworth in Preface to the Lyrical Being” who not only ennobles and elevates man but
Ballads (1798) defines poetry as “the spontaneous also endows him with noble discipline, lofty feeling
overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from and fervent enthusiasm. He speaks of “the Mighty
emotion recollected in tranquility”. The definition Being” in his Sonnet Evening on Calais Beach,
highlights two things – spontaneity and powerful written in August 1802:
feelings; the one ensures effortless experience and “It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
the other an energy which conveys feeling The holy time is quiet as a nun
spontaneously. It suggests that poetry is not Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
insensate artistry rather it originates from and is Is sinking down in its tranquility;
sustained by an original and sincere subjective The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea:
sensation. A. C. Bradley remarks “There have been Listen! the Mighty Being is awake,

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Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.3.Issue 4.2015 (Oct-Dec)
http://www.rjelal.com

And doth with His eternal motion make William J. Long says, “…there is hardly a sight or a
A sound like thunder- everlastingly….” sound, from a violet to a mountain, and from a bird
The 5th line in the sonnet, "The gentleness of note to the thunder of the cataract, that is not
heaven broods o'er the Sea", references reflected in some beautiful way in Wordsworth’s
the creation myth of Genesis 1:2 and a similar use of poetry….No other poet ever found such abundant
"broods" is found in the Intimations in stanza VIII: beauty in the common world. He had not only sight,
“Thou, over whom thy Immortality but insight, that is, he not only sees clearly and
Broods like the Day, a master o’er a slave describes accurately, but penetrates to the heart of
A Presence which is not to be put by…” things and always finds some exquisite meaning that
The following lines from A Poet’s Epitaph and The is not written on the surface….there is hardly one
Tables Turned throw light on Wordsworth’s natural phenomenon which he has not glorified by
conception of and attitude to Nature; the Mighty pointing out some beauty that was hidden from our
4
Presence or a benevolent Spirit in nature teaches eyes.” All objects high or low, significant or trivial,
man the secret truths and moral disciplines of life: sentient or insentient are, to Wordsworth, irradiated
“The outward shows of sky and earth, with the sublime splendour of the Divine. It is on
Of hill and valley he has viewed; account of his perception of ‘ One Interior life’ in all,
And impulses of deeper birth that even an ordinary object of nature could kindle
Have come to him in solitude. his vision, replete his mind with lofty and sublime
In common things that round us lie thoughts and lead him to the profoundly mystic
Some random truths he can impart,- contemplation of the Divine immanent in all
The harvest of a quiet eye creation:
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.” “To every natural form, rock, fruits, or
(A Poet’s Epitaph) flower,
“One impulse of a vernal wood Even the loose stones that cover the
May teach you more of man, highway,
Of moral evil and of good, I gave a moral life: I saw them feel,
Than all the sages can.” (The Tables Turned) Or linked them to some feeling: the great
Wordsworth not only loves nature but glorifies, mass Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and
deifies, divinizes and spiritualises her. Wordsworth’s all That I beheld respired with inward
worship and adoration of nature is never inspired by meaning.” (Prelude Book III)
passion for the aesthetic beauty or visible “The most memorable passages”, says Graham
splendour. All forms and objects, aspects and Hough, “in the early books of The Prelude are not
appearances of nature whether beautiful, graceful, analytical: they are incomparable descriptions of
majestic or sombre, awe-inspiring-alike stir and incidents in his childhood where it seemed that he
stimulate his visionary imagination for they are to actually felt in Nature a moral and spiritual presence
him incarnations of divinity. Like all true mystics , moulding and working on his mind as a human
Wordsworth believes in the spiritual source and teacher might have done , though more
divine destiny of human life. As he has said: mysteriously and profoundly……The occasion itself is
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: trivial: yet what is being described is evidently close
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, to mystical experience: and it is such experience that
5
Hath had elsewhere its setting, is at the source of Wordsworth’s most living work” .
And cometh from afar: In the bird-snaring episode the poet has vividly
Not in entire forgetfulness, captured his first experience of pure fear and has
And not in utter nakedness, sincerely acknowledged the moral influence of
But trailing clouds of glory do we come nature. During their night wanderings sometimes a
From God, who is our home:” (Ode on strong desire overpowered his conscience:
Intimations) “…………………………and the bird

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Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL)
A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.3.Issue 4.2015 (Oct-Dec)
http://www.rjelal.com

Which was the captive of another’s toils be supplemented by the delight of spiritual
Became my prey;” (Prelude Book I) contemplation. To him it is a rare sublime
But the excitement soon yielded to the awe- experience to sense in nature the ‘presence’ of the
inspiring feeling of the invisible presence of an Universal Spirit:
unseen force: “ ………………………. And I have felt
“………………when the deed was done A presence that disturbs me with the joy
I heard among the solitary hills Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Low breathings coming after me, and Of something far more deeply interfused,
sounds Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
Of undistinguishable motion, steps And the round ocean and the living air,
Almost as silent as the turf they trod” And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
(Prelude Book I) A motion and a spirit, that impels
The incident of rowing on the lake one night and the All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
uncanny and mysterious experience he gained then And rolls through all things.” (Tintern
had an indelible impression on his immature mind. Abbey)
As his boat went heaving through the silent water of The perception of this ‘presence’ has its culmination
the lake he observed before him a huge peak which when nature bestows on the poet her greatest gift.
suddenly appeared to him as a mighty presence “As This she does by leading him to a state of feeling in
if with voluntary power instinct” and strode after which there is almost a complete suspension of
him “With measur’d motion, like a living thing”: physical consciousness which induces in him a sense
“……………………….and after I had seen of inner illumination and he can have an intuitive
That spectacle, for many days, my brain awareness of the ultimate import of existence. This
Work’d with a dim and undetermin’d sense is the climax of Wordsworth’s mystic experience of
Of unknown modes of being; in my nature:
thoughts “………… -- that serene and blessed mood,
There was darkness, call it solitude, In which the affections gently lead us on –
Or blank desertion, no familiar shapes Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
Of hourly objects, images of trees, And even the motion of our human blood
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
But huge and mighty Forms that do not live In body, and become a living soul;
Like living men mov’d slowly through the While with an eye made quiet by the power
mind Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
By day and were the trouble of my dreams” We see into the life of things.” (Tintern
(Prelude Book I) Abbey)
It is unmistakable and undeniable that Wordsworth Conclusion
regards the natural form as embodiment of the Mysticism according to Evelyn Underhill, “is
spiritual force in nature. While referring to not an opinion: it is not a philosophy. It has nothing
Wordsworth’s mysticism Visvanath Chatterjee in common with the pursuit of occult knowledge. On
illustrates, “Wordsworth’s mystical experience can the one hand it is not merely the power of
best be appreciated if it is seen as the culmination of contemplating Eternity: on the other, it is not to be
his changing attitude to Nature. In his mature years, identified with any kind of religious queerness. It is
Wordsworth lost the spirit and buoyancy, verve and the name of that organic process which involves the
6
vigour, of his early youth.” But the loss was well perfect consummation of the love of God: the
compensated for; in his meditative temperament he achievement here and now of the immortal heritage
could listen to “The still, sad music of humanity” of man…it is the art of establishing his conscious
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(Tintern Abbey) in nature. Nature humanizes his relation with the Absolute.” While speaking of
soul and the sensuous pleasures of youth come to Wordsworth’s distinctive dealing with mysticism,

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Charles H. Herford comments, “Wordsworth is [9]. Davies, Hugh S. Wordsworth and the Worth of
regarded as the poet of a peculiar mystic idealism, Words. New York: Cambridge University Press,
who disclosed, in the rapt communion with nature, 1986, Print.
8
an undreamed of access to the life of things”.
However, Wordsworth’s attitude to Nature un-
derwent a progressive evolution- from ‘the coarser
pleasures’ of the boyish days through a
predominating passion of youth untouched by
intellectual interests to the significant stage of
spiritual and mystical interpretation of Nature. His
poetry is not simply an artistic encapsulation of
lovely, tranquil or awe-inspiring aspects of nature
but also a comprehensive account of his mystical
and spiritual experiences. Poetry becomes with
Wordsworth the record of moments of ‘ennobling
interchange of action from within and from without’
(The Prelude). Wordsworth wrote to Lady
Beaumont, “There is scarcely one of my poems
which does not aim to direct the attention to some
moral sentiment or to some general principle, or law
9
of thought, or of our intellectual constitution”. If
Blake could see the world in the grain of sand,
Wordsworth can find sermons in an ordinary flower:
“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
(Ode on Intimations)
References:
[1]. Bowra, Maurice. The Romantic Imagination.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1950, Print.
[2]. Bradley, A.C. Oxford Lectures on Poetry.
Calcutta: Radha Publishing House, 1992, Print.
[3]. Dawson, W.J. The Makers of English Poetry.
Kolkata: Books Way, 2009, Print.
[4]. Long, William J. English Literature: Its History &
Its Significance. Calcutta: Radha Publishing
House, Print.
[5]. Hough, Graham. The Romantic Poets. London:
Hutchinson & Co, 1976, Print.
[6]. Chatterjee, Visvanath. Four Romantic Poets.
Kolkata: Presto Publishers, 2005, Print.
[7]. Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism: A Study in the
Nature and Development of Spiritual
Consciousness. New York: Dover Publications,
2002, Print.
[8]. Herford, Charles H. The Age of Wordsworth.
Kolkata: Books Way, 2008, Print.

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