Tuesday, 14th
August, 2012
On Anticipation
Work today has been busy.
Last winter I remember
talking to S. He had moved to Ireland
and his description of it was very appealing, it was like Croyde used o be some
20 years ago. That sounds bliss.
In his poems the English
Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) expressed much joy in the simple
experiences of nature such as the beauty of a sparrow’s nest or the sound of a
nightingale.
O Nightingale! Thou surely not art
A creature of a fiery heart –
Thou sing’st as if the god of wine
Had help’d thee to a Valentine
- William Wordsworth
Whilst this beauty can often
be felt today it is also marred by ones existence. Behind what seems like
Wordsworth’s haphazard articulation was as de Botton points out a
well-developed philosophy of nature. Evident in all Wordsworth’s work, this
philosophy was deemed original and extremely influential in terms of the
history of Western thought. Wordsworth’s philosophy related to mankinds need
for happiness and the origins of our happiness. For Wordsworth, nature which in
the 19th century meant life was an “indispensible corrective to the
psychological damage inflicted by life in the city”. (de Botton. 2003. P. 136)
It seems today that whilst
many urban dwellers seek nature for restoring harmony to the soul they seem
oblivious to the extent of rubbish that lines our coastline, countryside and
oceans. For me Wordsworth’s nature is tainted by what is essentially a
by-product of city life.
Wordsworth’s claims on behalf
of flowers and animals were often met with vicious resistance as Lord Byron
wrote in review of his Poems in Two
Volumes (1870). But what of their claims today, having to co-exist with plastic,
aluminium and other forms of debris?
To a Crab
Look, a crab shimmies from under a rock
Yet nibbling on a morsel it receives a
shock
For instead of tasting sea fares delight
It’s crunching on plastic with all its
might
- Mark King
Wordsworth’s poetry attracted
visitors to the places that had inspired it but today the tourists attracted to
the beauty of Devon and other places leave
drink cans, crisp packets and nappies in the sand dunes and on the beach. Did
the tourist of the 19th century leave such detritus? On top of
what’s left are the flotsam and jetsam that come and go with the ebb and flow
of the tide.
Historically the breaking
wave is followed by those who dream of riding them. Following in the wake of
surfers is often progress manifesting itself in the form of commercialisation
and industrialisation.
Bibliography
C Cotton, 2007 The Photograph As Contemporary Art Thames
& Hudson: London
I Berlin,
2000 The Roots of Romanticism Pimlico:
London
De Botton, 2003 The Art of Travel Penguin: London
E Newby, 1995 A Book of Travellers’ Tales Pan Books
Ltd: London
Tolstoy L, 1969 What Is
Art? And Essays on Art London: University Press Oxford
Copyright Mark King 2012
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