International Journal of Education, Modern Management, Applied Science & Social Science (IJEMMASSS) 8

ISSN : 2581-9925, Impact Factor: 6.340, Volume 03, No. 04(I), October - December, 2021, pp.08-11

ROLE OF NATURE IN ENGLISH POETRY

Akash Sharma
**
Ms. Vandana Chundawat

ABSTRACT

Nature has always taken an excellent part in people’s lives, and therefore the universe, as a
whole, was seen as a wonderfully ordered system of concentric circles where the planet, and nature
itself, was at its center. Each of the circles corresponded to the orbit of known planets, with the celebs at
the outer level. Nature, as an idea, was seen as a deep state of harmony between itself and its
inhabitants. In nature, time has had little or no effect on everything that it contains, and also the relativity
of time was proven by Einstein, everything grows and dies simply because it's to come back back to life
again. Nature is best described by the Heraclits’ philosophy panta rei, meaning that everything flows, or
everything is consistently changing, from the tiniest grain of sand to the celebrities within the sky. Also,
nature is ideal, and its perfection is given by the link of all its elements. Nature is additionally Heaven’s
reflection on Earth and anyone trying to disturb the natural order is taken into account evil. Man’s
attempts to rule this world because it was his, have caused disturbances during this natural environment
and this harmony has began to fail. Generally there have been two conflicting ways of watching nature.
On one hand, the view inherited from the center Ages was that, since Adam and Eve’s ejection from
Paradise, nature had become degraded and degrading. In the opposite hand, the Greek and Roman
literature that inspired Renaissance writers often depicted pastoral life as more virtuous than city life. &or
instance, Shakespeare’s writing is rich in natural imagery. The age of Enlightenment saw an explosion on
interest in nature as an object of scientific study. Various philosophers, who has undertaken their entire
work on nature, has shown a systematic angle of nature. The ordered perfection of the nature, he
argued, presupposed the existence of God. For romantic poets like poet, nation countryside was a
relentless source of poetic inspiration. At a time when industrialisation was starting to make its mark on
the landscape within the style of growing cities and smoking factory chimneys, Britain’s few areas of
wilderness took on an almost religious significance. &or most modernist writers, it had been the town that
captured the imagination, for it had been here that the trendy world experienced most intensely. The
modernist poet now not sought the solitude of the hills for his inspiration, preferring the bustle and
see of the road, the cafe and therefore the metro. Anyway, the First World War had demonstrated how
pastoral idyll may be transformed within the matter of hours into a landscape of complete destruction.

Keywords: Concentric Circles, Greek and Roman Literature, Industrialization.

________________
Introduction
The nature has always been a very important subject for poets and prose writers. Rather,
nature all told of the poems and essays is truthfully a living character through which human identity is
built either through the characters’ alignment with the nature or their struggle against it. In the art work
whether it is poetry, Nature plays a vital role but in background of it. For example as place or time or
sometimes as theme. But as what has been mentioned earlier that poem as an artifact of culture product
of society is additionally influenced by its scheme. People of British in 18th century, as an example,
thanks literature for giving contribution in developing financial system of the country through works that
almost all of them are achievement oriented. Obviously, literature has considered as important things in
this environment. However, it's different from Indonesia that has long-dark history in its development.
Mystical, paradox, traditionalism shackle, and other characteristic have yet made literature as important a
part of people product. In other words, literature isn't popular among the citizens. Surely, the system of
education contributes to the current condition.


Scholar M.A English Literature, Mewar University Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, India.
**
Supervisor, Head & Assistant Professor, Department of English.
Akash Sharma & Ms. Vandana Chundawat: Role of Nature in English Poetry 9
Treatment of Nature in Poetry
Unchecked growth of materialism, lust for power and money make the modern man suffer from
the pangs of life. Man is running after shadowy things ignoring the claims of what's really significant and
substantial to life. Money hunting and materialistic psychology of the modern man has disassociated him
from the very roots of life. He doesn't hang to Nature. After diagnosing the disease, he prescribes
remedy-return to soil. If the person wants to induce his peace and satisfaction back, he will embrace
the lifetime of virtue, simplicity and innocence offered by benevolent Nature. As Lord Krishna asked
‘Arjuna’ to forsake all other faiths and to place complete trust in Him alone, so Wordsworth invites his
readers to place an end to any or all their futile activity and passively receive the eternal knowledge of
ultimate truths of life from mother Nature. Association of Nature with poetry is permanent. She has been
a universal presence in the poetry of all times and every one ages. Poetry is originated from religion.
In earlier period it absolutely was the language of the scriptures. The hymns of the holy literatures were
composed in poetry. This poetry of sacred literature in times was employed for religion because Nature
was the abode of gods in those ages of primitive, prehistoric phase of human civilization. The primitive
man checked out Nature with wonder and curiosity. There was no science to unveil the secrets of
Nature. Nature was charming and tempting and at the same time formidable and destructive. So, the
assorted objects of Nature were personified as gods and goddesses. Hymns were composed for his or
her worship and admiration. This tendency is common to any or all the traditional literatures of the
world like Greek, Indian, Persian and Egyptian etc.
Nature remained a dominant presence even thereafter when the secular literature
had get vogue. English poetry dawns with Chaucer. Chaucer is the father of English poetry. A
significant reader of Chaucer cannot deny his love of Nature. One of the best poem “Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales’ starts with indefinite details and description of the spring and makes a feel of nature
freshness. Read the below line:
When that Aprille with his showers soote
The draught of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every vein in swich licour
Of which virtue engendered is the flour;
When Zephyrus eek with his sweet breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heath
The tendre croppes, and the younger sonne
Hath in Ram his half ecourse y-ronne
And smale fowles maken melody.
That slapen all the night with open ye-
So prinketh him nature in his courages -
Thane longen folk to goan on pilgrimage”.
Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, Leibnitz, Newton, Kepler and other noted scientists and
philosophers broke faraway from the medieval concept of the universe. They found regularity and
symmetry in the system of nature. The concept that there's a system of nature which is regular and
orderly and may be explained systematically which events of nature may well be predicted with accuracy
led the creative writers think about nature as regular and systematic and not wayward as people
thought in the past. The word ‘nature is employed in two senses. The primary meaning is that nature is
all the animals, nature, recks etc. In the world and every one features, forces and processes that happen
or exist independently of individuals, like the weather, the sea, mountain, reproduction and growth”! , The
second meaning is that it's a “power that regulates the world”.
The eighteenth century poets fused both the meanings to their interpretation ‘of nature. The shift
from the external aspects of nature to the totality is the contribution of the eighteenth century poets to
English nature pouty. The poets till the seventeenth century described the objects of nature like flowers,
rivers, Valleys, hills, landscapes, the cycle of the day and tke cycle of the seasons. As they were at one
with nature, their ae pocas abounded in natural imagery. But within the eighteens century the external
aspect was less cared for and what the poets strove for was the expression of the halaace, orderliness
and harmony of nature in poetry. The external” aspect of nature is disorderly, haphazard and irregular
but the system is ideal and thus the eighteenth century poets followed nature in poetry but wanted their
poetry to be “nature methodized’’.
10 International Journal of Education, Modern Management, Applied Science & Social Science (IJEMMASSS) - October - December, 2021

The eighteenth century poets failed to disown nature what they did, was to follow the system of
nature in poetry So Jas to create human Society a wonderfully balanced harmonious unit. Pope within
the Same poery advised that first follow nature, and your judgment France, By ner just standard,
which remains the sane, Unerring nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchanged and universal light,
Life, force, and beauty, must to any or all impart, directly the source and end, and test of art Whimsatt
and Brooks have explained Pope’s concept of nature:
The nature which is one of the main object of the poetry for some of the authors generally
carries three features. The first one is nature have a Platonic and Stoic universal order and superior
reality. Secondly, nature, the universal order, assimilates is readily with man’s effort to enforce or
increase that order in his own affairs that's together with his civilization and everyone its parts, its cities,
institutions, business and recreations. Thirdly, Pope’s idea of nature has the distinction of residing during
a state of great harmony with the thought of the classical models. No other writer, poets or theorist has
the) reconciliation of those threateningly twin standards, the rivals modern reason and classical
authorities with such persuasive aplomb. The writer, artist and designers followed the system of nature
seriously. They treats as “Nature but actually it is methods of nature in which it flows, that in the way it is
like harmonious and system oriented and also balanced. Dr. Johnson, through ‘Inlac, in Rasselas
advised the poet to search out nature in universals: “The business of the poet is to look at, not the
individual] but the Species, to remark general properties of enormous appearances; he doesn't number
the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. he's the exhibit in his
portraits of nature much prominent and striking features on recall the first to each mind and must neglect
the minuter discrimination, which one may have marked and other have neglected too, for those features
which are quite obvious to be ignored for vigilance and carelessness. The primary important aspect
of the connection between nature and art was harmony. The poets of the amount preserved the
renaissance doctrine of world harmony and to some extent perfected it.? The concept of world harmony
is best expressed in Pope’s ‘Windsor Forest’.
As first a various unformed hint we find,
Rise in some god-like poet’s fertile mind,
Till all the parts and words their places take,
And with just marches verse and music make.
Poetry, they felt was to be musical and hence harmonious. Naturally the simplest in poetry was
regular and if there was any deviation that was to interrupt monotony. Symmetry was the second aspect
of the connection between poetry and nature. In Augustan England as in the Renaissance Italy the
thought of harmony was closely associated with symmetry and proportion in visual arts. The eighteenth
century versification followed symmetry combined with harmony. The foremost commonly practised
metre was iambic metre “and the well-liked stanza form was the couplet. But it's also that poets wrote in
trochaic, anapaest and Dactyllic metre with equal ease and dextertty.
The eighteenth century poetry due to its Symetry and harmony is most appealing to English
ears. And Pope due to his mastery in versification continues to be the foremost quoted poet. The third
aspect was variety. It’s going to seem that the eighteenth century poets simplified the complexity of
nature by ignoring the individual and laying stress on the species. In truth, it had been not so, The
Augustan rule of regularity and symmetry was enriched by Alexander’s Pope’s nection of “Natural”
landscape “garden”. Sir William Temple wrote:
“Among us the sweetness of building and planting is placed chiefly in some certain proportions,
symmetries or uniformities; our walks and our trees ranged so, on answer each other and at exact
distances.” This idea of nature garden is incorporated in Pope’s concept of poetry.
“To rules of poetry no more confined.
I learn to smooth and harmonies my mind,
Teach every thought within its bound to roll,
And keep the equal measure of the soul,”?
Pope, the best poet of the century, believed and practised regularity, uniformity and symmetry in
art but also laid emphasis on variety and variety.
Nature has always played a vital role in literature, especially in poetry. Writers and poets have often
used nature to explain their emotions and their thoughts about life, death, love and war. This can be how
numerous great poets controlled the phobia of the primary warfare, including writer, Wilfred Owen and
Siegfried Sassoon. In Owen’s poems “the sympathetic connection between man and Nature is broken by the
war, and therefore the nature is seen as complicit in the killing”. He mentions spring by the blooming of
primroses, which belongs to at least one of the primary flowers of spring. In the spring of 1915, British army
Akash Sharma & Ms. Vandana Chundawat: Role of Nature in English Poetry 11
began to occupation of the train station near La Bassée where the author of the poem fought too. In the poem,
the poppies, which usually bloom from May to August, indicate the summer. Poppies also represent the blood
of the wounded or dead soldiers during this poem. Autumn has always been taken in the brief of the colour
yellow, in the same way the nights of the winters are treated as deepest level in mud and snow which
represents the bluish colour. In this Graves has written about the beggary of the crowd who was fighting.
If discuss Wordsworth’s poetry, interacting with nature represents the forces of the nature. In all these 3
poem’s, resolution and freedom, Tintern Abbey, and Michael, nature has been taken as the prime factor and
individual figure, which provides his audience additionally as Wordsworth, himself, a way of console. All
told three poems, Wordsworth views nature and people at large as complementary elements of a sum of an
entire, recognizing that humans are a sum of nature. Therefore, gazing the nature as a soothing being of
which they're a component of, poet’s looks at nature and sees the benevolence of the divinity aspects behind
them. For nature writers, the nature itself, all told its glory, is an area of suffering, which surely occurs within the
world; poets are still comforted with the idea that each one things happen by the hands of the divinity and
therefore the just and divine order of nature, itself.
Conclusion
The analogy between the conditions of Individual psychology may be a romantic concept and
one perfectly in unison with the ideas of various poets such as emerson or words worth. For the various
poets like Wordworth and same of his type other nature writers, the analogy between mental state of
their mind or say a different position of their spirit and hence the universe of sympathy is quite normally
uplifting because it implied or rather presupposed, a vigorous positive alliance, a radical continuity,
through God between man and nature. Nature lives and spiritually supports us, although it's composed in
an exceedingly large measure of inanimate objects because we live and God has allowed us to
speculate it with our lives. The analogy between man and nature appears operative but the reciprocal
relation is negative instead of positive; pluralistic instead of monistic; fragmented in its stress on
aloneness instead of unified; deadly instead of life - supporting. Let’s say in other words that trust of poet
in the nature, his level of trust in his feeling, his hopes for the future, and his level of joy grows in and out
manner of temperament and from the circumstances which cut down the darker and grimmer elements in
life, the miseries that flesh and mind are heir to the high proportion of unhappiness in human existence.
In other words, the poet’s trust in nature, his trust in feeling, his hopefulness and joy grew out of a
temperament and out of circumstances which slighted the darker and grimmer elements in life, the
miseries that flesh and mind are heir to the high proportion of unhappiness in human existence.
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