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Tintern Abbey: A Look into the Famous Poem

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Published: 26May2010
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"Tintern Abbey," a poem by William Wordsworth and a prim foundation in the collection of poetry Lyrical Ballads, is an extraordinary piece of literature that engages and bequeaths many different reactions from its readers. Not only does it have a heavy influence in nature as the article by Richard Gravil "'Tintern Abbey and the System of Nature" demonstrates, but it also processes many underlying themes and motifs that are, perhaps, a little bit harder to see and understand. Thus, articles written on them are incomprehensively diverse and interesting. So is the case with the journal articles, "The Politicized Landscape of 'Tintern Abbey'" by William Richey, and "The French Revolution and 'Tintern Abbey'" by David Bromwich. Although both of these journal articles are written on the subject of the political nature of Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," they appear to take very different approaches to understanding the subject.

In William Richey's "The Politicized Landscape of 'Tintern Abbey,'" Richey uses ideas from other authors including Jerome McGann and Denham to explain the overall use of the French Revolution as a theme in Wordsworth's famous poem "Tintern Abbey." In David Bromwich's article "The French Revolution and 'Tintern Abbey,'" an utterly different approached is used to demonstrate the foundation of the French Revolution in Wordsworth's poem. Instead of using other authors' Bromwich focuses on the original author himself, Wordsworth and how his life and his private writings show the use of the French Revolution and a political landscape in the poem "Tintern Abbey."

Both of these articles show how truly different the same overall nature of a poem can be derived and demonstrated. It is only through all three articles, however, that the most intelligent and well researched understanding of "Tintern Abbey" can be composed.

The easiest and most agreed upon understanding of "Tintern Abbey" is seen in Richard Gravil's article "'Tintern Abbey and the System of Nature." William Richey's article "The Politicized Landscape of 'Tintern Abbey'" begins with Richey referencing another writer one Jerome McGann who, according to Richey, wrote about "how major Romantic texts occlude and disguise their own involvement in a certain nexus of historical relations." Basically, this means that McGann was writing on how the Romantic writers tended to hide their politicized writing in that of non-political poetry. To Richey, this is a very distinct and predominant method for writers to make their points in the Romantic period without being jailed for undermining "strict government censorship" of the time. Richey goes on to say that McGann's main point can thus be applied to such Romantic writings as "Tintern Abbey" by Wordsworth. With this in mind, Richey composes his thesis that maintains Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" is a poem which focuses on the "private meditation" between Nature and Wordsworth but can also be interpreted as a poem with high and powerful "political implications." As the article progresses Richey begins his first argument in favor of demonstrating the political landscape that can be deducted from Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey." Richey maintains that the poem's genre is in fact a major key in recognizing the poem as a political piece. According to Richey, the poem is written in a form common to other political poems in disguise such as: "Cooper's Hill" by Denham, "Winsor Forest" by Pope, and "Lewesdon Hill" by William Crowe. He calls this type of poem a "loco-descriptive" or a poem that focuses on the use of an apolitical verse form, thus suggesting it to be political in nature. He goes on to suggest that the method in which Wordsworth wrote the title of this "loco-descriptive" poem also affected the manner in which it can be interpreted. That is to say, that the poem's full title, "Lines written above Tintern Abbey on the revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13th 1798" was chosen for a very specific reason. That reason, Richey says, is that the date is that of "the eve of Bastille Day" a very major day in the French Revolution.

In this way Richey draws his second argument affirming his belief that the poem "Tintern Abbey" is in fact a disguised political poem in regards to the French Revolution. As Richey goes into the rest of his argument, he once again uses a comparison with another writer in order to make his point. Richey uses the idea that "Tintern Abbey" was in fact modeled after another famous poem by Denham "Coopers Hill" in which the writer Denham uses the landscape around him to draw a strong political symbol. By taking this idea, Richey suggest that Wordsworth took Denham's original idea and placed it into the text of "Tintern Abbey." He says that the first stanza's use of opposites such as "Man and nature, cliff and sky, woods and fields" are actually a brilliant composition that models that of the lower class and the upper class.

As "Cooper Hill" used natures design to show the differences between classes, Richey is suggesting that Wordsworth used Denham's inventive poetic structure in order to show his reader how nature mirrors that of the political landscape of the time. The second paragraph accomplishes the same fete, according to Richey. Richey uses the second stanza to demonstrate that Wordsworth is disappointed in the new state of the world, as compared to its state the first time he was at the Abbey. By doing so, Richey suggest that Wordsworth's is trying to maintain his "unwillingness to let go of his hopes and disappointments from 1793". In other words, Wordsworth's feelings on the French Revolution as a whole are demonstrated as being a disappointment and something that Wordsworth is using the country side to forget. Upon leaving this theory behind Richey continues by addressing Wordsworth's use of the "revisit motif." "Tintern Abbey" as Wordsworth shows in the fourth stanza is a poem written upon the second visit to the location of the Abbey; Richey believes that this particular motif is a major area of "significance' in understanding the political landscape of "Tintern Abbey." To explain this Richey suggest that Wordsworth was using his revisiting of the area as a literal "re-volution - a return to a previous state of being, a Rousseauist stripping away of the artificial social and economic divisions that had obscured man's native dignity." In explanation, Wordsworth is visiting the Abbey again under the pretense that he originally visited it on a day associated with "the storming of the Bastille [and] the death of Marat." He hopes that by visiting the Abbey again he will be able to reach his "innocence of youth" again, even though he knows he cannot accomplish this. Richey thus suggest that the return or the revisiting is in fact Wordsworth attempting to dissociate himself from the politics that lay in the cities now after the Revolution. As Richey finishes his article he brings up one last point, that Wordsworth's last stanza reveals the final piece of evidence, Wordsworth is not alone. The presence of his sister, Dorothy, shows that he is trying to rescue himself from the idea that the revolution has changed his nature. Dorothy is a symbol, according to Richey, that suggest a sort of salvation from the mood the Revolution has put into Wordsworth. Where Wordsworth had felt "betrayed" by the prospect of "the French Revolution, his own repressive government, and the philosophical system he had embraced," his sister at the end of the poem shows that this revisit to the Abbey, the revisit of the revolution was not in vain. Instead the image of his sister shows that Wordsworth has in fact accomplished some sort of connection and revelation with peace as the final images of the poem suggest.

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