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A. COMPARATIVE STUDY or THE
NATURE-CONCEPTS m
WILUAM wonoswoaTH (1770-1850)
AND TAO YUAN-MING (365-427)

Thea; for The Degree of M. A.
MSCHIGAN STATE COLLEGE
Chin Ling Wang
1950

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This is to certify that the
thesis entitled
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE NATURE-CONCEPTS

IN WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770 - 1850)

.T,ct1.,, AND TAO YUAN-HING (365 - M27)
_ \1 presented bg

Chin Ling Hang

5"- " . has been accepted towards fulfillment

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MA degree in m—

 

 

 

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Date May 18, 1950

0-169

 

 

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE NATURE-CONCEPTS
IN WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770 - 1850)
AND EAO YUAN‘MIHG (365 - 427)

BY

Chin Ling wens -

A THESIS

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College at Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
far the degree 0!
MASTER OF ARTS
Department of English

1950

 

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The poet, to whose mighty heart

Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart,
Subdues that energy to scan

Not his own course, but that of man.
Though he move mountains, though his day
Be passed on the proud heights of sway,
Though he hath loosed thousand chains,
Though he hath borne immortal pains,
.Action and suffering though he know--

He hath not lived, if he lives so.

MATTHEW'ARNOLD

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACEeoee00000000000OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00.00000000000000001

PART I

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTIONOOOOOOOOOOO...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOI
Nature and the Poets.........................l

PART II

CHAPTER II. WORDSWORTHWS DOMINANT IDEAS 0F NATURE..........S
Sensuous Delight in Nature...................8
universal LOVOOOOOOOOO00.0.0000000000000000012
Quietude or naturOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00.0.0000016
Metaphysical Ideas of Nature................18
Nature as a Norm of Conduct.................21

CHAPTER III.BACKGROUND T0 WORDSWORTH'S IDEAS 0F NATURE....26
Secluded and Solitary Life..................26
Turning Points in His Mental Develcpment....28
Influence or RousseauOOOOOO’OOOOOOOO0.00....38
Influence of Goduin.........................43
Influence or caleridEOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.......0048
Influence of Hartley, Spinoza, and Kant.....55

PART III

CHAPTER IV. TAO YUAN-MING'S DOMINANT IDEAS OF NATURE......61
Simplicity and Beauty of Nature.............ol
Rural Color in Nature.......................64
Nature as a RetreatOOOOOOOOOOO000.00.000.00067
Nature as Destination of Human Life.........71
Immortality and Eternity of Nature..........74

CHAPTER V. BACKGROUND TO TAO YUANAMING'S IDEAS 0F NATURE.79
Inherited and Innate Qualities of His

PersonalityOOOOOOOOO0.00.0000000000000000079

Ru3t1° Life...00.000.000.00000.000.00.00000085

Influence of Confucianism...................89

Influence of Taoism.........................94

Influence or BuddhismOOOOOOOOOO0.00.00.00.0100

PART IV
CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSIONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOCIO0.00.00.00.00104
Similarities and Differences Between
Wordsworth and Tao YuanaMing.............lO4
BIBLIOGRAPHYOO.0.....OOOOO0.0.000...O...0.0.0.00000000000114

NOTES ON THE CHINESE TEXTS...............................119

 

—‘ - -. 'Vv'e"-

PREFACE

forwmany years I have desired to make a comparative
study of the nature-philosophies of Wordsworth and Tao Yuan-
Ming. But for one reason or another I have delayed. The
thesis which is required for the master's degree from Mich-
igan State College effectively provided the final motivation
to undertake this study.

In spite of my previous interest in this subject, I
spent several months of concentrated work on the material be-
fore I was able to arrive at any conclusion in regard to the
relationship of the two posts. I am not completely satisfied
with what I have done. There are no source references about
The TuanaM1ng. Later scholarly comments about his works are
not plentiful. Very little is available in this country.
Therefore, my personal interpretation of his ideas on the basis
of his poetry had to be presented unsupported by scholarly
opinion.

Since Wordsworth and Tao Yuan-Ming are the best-known
nature-poets in England and in China, a comparative study of
their ideas should be noteworthy. The procedure of this study
was to ascertain their principal ideas by a close examination
of their works, and then to consider the matrix of these ideas
in their lives and in their studies. This is merely a gen-
eral review; it is not exhaustive.

As a result of this study, I have realized that while

Wordsworth is in many ways unlike Tao Yuanéuing, yet in same

11

other ways they are alike. This correlation is analyzed in
detail in the conclusion.

I wish to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude
to Dr. Branford P. Miller, my major professor, tar his in-
valuable criticisms and encouragement; to Dr. Anders Orbeck,
my adviser, for his kind suggestions and help; to Dr. Claude
Newlin and Dr. Arnold Iilliams, for their unforgetable in-
structions; and to'Mrs. Elizabeth J. Calkins, without whose
assistance this essay would not have come into existence; and
to Prof. Shae Chang Lee,'without Whose Works of Tao Yuan-Ming
it would have been extremely difficult for me to find a relia-

ble Chinese text.

PART I
Cl iAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Nature and the Poets

Nature has been treated by numberless writers in almost
every country over the world. The uses and ambiguities of
the word are numerous. But so far as the relatkanship be-
tween nature and man is concerned, there are, in general,
two senses which must be clarified before we deal with the
concept of any particular poet. In one sense, nature has
been taken to mean the whole universe, including God, the
cosmos and its creatures, the mind of man, and all that is
or may be imagined. In this sense, every poet and thinker
is consciously or unconsciously an interpreter of nature,
and every being and thing is a symbol of it. The other
sense of the word denotes the power external to mankind
which is implied in the earth and sky, in the mountains and
sea, and whatever is in them except man.

Taking nature in the latter sense, if we read Words-
worth and Tao Yuan-Ming (whose original name was Tao Chien),
the two poets who have seen most deeply into nature, we can
find essential resemblances and differences between them,
notwithstanding the tremendous geographical and cultural
distance between England and China and in spite of the length
of time between Tao Yuaneling in the fifth century and Words-
worth in the nineteenth. Both poets have brought to their
study an interpretation of nature which has certain outstande

ing qualities. They have looked on nature with a closer ob-

servation and deeper understanding and sympathy, and with
‘more profound and luminous imagination than anybody else in
any other age.

It is very obvious that imaginative delight in nature
is not a new thing in the world history of poetry. It ap-
pears in forms of perfect beauty in the choruses of Soph-
ocles, in the Georgics of Virgil, and in the Sonnets of
Shakespeare. for sheer sensuous delight in natural beauty,
for the play of exquisite fancy upon flood and stream and
hill, Wordsworth as well as others rivalled certain of the
Elizabethans. Shakespeare and Spenser, for instance, ex-
pressed fully and clearly their ideas about nature as the
symbol and mirror of the changing moods of’man's thought and
feeling. .And about a century and half later, the immediate
forerunners of Wordsworth, like Chatterton, Burns, Blake,
Thomson and Cooper, all made their appearance remarkable with
their explicit interpretation of nature, no matter by whom
they were influenced in their ideas. However, Wordsworth is
acknowledged to have gone deeply into the heart of nature and
by intense consciousness of it to have produced some of the
greatest of modern poetry in the modern sorld.1

In the main currents of Chinese thought, as early as
c. 1112 3.0. there is a most influential collection of verse,
The Book of Poetgy. The poems in this book are the songs of

a A - _n _._

1 Shairp, Poetic Interpretation of Nature, Chapters X,
XI, III, XIII. '

a people genuinely in love with life in harmony with nature.
There is in them the fullness of simplicity enclosed within
the hallowed conception of the mysterious government of the
blue sky at noon. It is a world where everything is as it
is, not clouded over with a suffused reflected glare from
the earth but with the brightness of the sun at noonday.
This poetry of nature has exercised tremendous influence on
almost every one of the Chinese men of letters of any pe-

riod.8

Around 400 3.0. one of the greatest of each at Chinese
philosophers, Lao-Tzu, was a great expounder of the rela-
tionship between man and nature. His Taoism is an everlast—
ing philosophy about the quietness of nature, which is sup-
posed to be the root of all things, the place where all
things return. 'From this is derived the theme of Tao Yun-
Ming's prose fragment called "The Peach-Blossom Fountain."
Chuang-Tsu (3d9?-287? 3.0.),5 not long after LaooTzu, is the
only philosopher who glorified Taoism.with mysticism and
transcendentalism to a full development of the idea of one-
ness of the universe. This provides the source of the idea
of the return to nature. So far as Chinese poetry is con-

cerned, no other post either before or since Tao Yuanauing

3 Eu Tun-Y, New Sister of Chinese Literature, pp. 1-12.
5 Both the dates of Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu are uncertain.
Here Chuang-Tzu's date is figured out according to "The Index

of Chronological Events", Dictionary of Chinese ghreses, ed.
by Ian Tsing Sheng.

has ever been so explicit as he in the deepening of imag-
inative consciousness of embodying man with nature.4

Both Wordsworth and Tao YuanAMing sought to enjoy na-
ture's passing favors and to go deep into its soul. To
Wordsworth and Tao Yuannfling, Nature is the mystical Mother,
brooding on wondrous creations, whose face her children must
be ever watching with intense scrutiny. It is not enough to
take its manifestations at haphazard, and transmute them wan-
tonly into forms of one's own fancy; Man must interpret or
feel with his sensitivity rather than embroider, and this he
could only do through constant and loving vigil. Hence,
with Wordsworth, as well as with Tao Yuaneiing, thorough ob-
servation is a necessity. In both these posts, it ranges
from sheer sensuous delight in nature's beauty to a profound
mysticism.

There are two frequently recurring themes which seem
never absent from any philosophical nature-poetry." One is
the relation of nature to God, and the other the relation of
man's spirit to God and nature. The disposition to substi-
tute nature for God is usually the mark of naturalimm, and
is more or less present in the most characteristic nature-
poets. But it is actually the concept of God as the orig-
inal spiritual substance, purposive and benevolent, that
makes nature worthy of the enthusiasm of its devotees.

' Nature-poets love to think of man as the child of ne-

2 ‘ Hughes, Chinese Philosophy in Classical Times, pp. 144-
-ll.

ture, intimately communing with it, subject to its laws like

all other creatures, acting upon instincts by it implanted

in him, and drawing from it the very mind and spirit by which
he conducts his rational and moral life. Thus nature, inter-
preted by intuition, comes to be in a sense a rival to reason
or understanding as a means for apprehending spiritual truth.
And the “return to nature” at times implies the virtual aban-
donment of reason in favor of some higher or more mystical

faculty:

"To every form of being is assigned,"

Thus calmly spake the venerable Sage,

”An active Principle:--howe'er removed

From sense and observation, it subsists

In all things, in all natures; in the stars
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,

In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
The moving waters, and the invisible air.
Ihate'er exists hath properties that spread
Beyond itself communicating good,

A simple blessing, or with evil mixed;
Spirit that knows no insulated spot,

No Chasm, no solitude; from link to link
It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds.”5
Heaven and Earth endure eternally,
Mountains and streams will never change;
The plants know their natural course,

They wither and flourish in frost and dew.
nan should be above them in intelligence,
But he alone is unlike them:

A while ago he was living,

Now he is gone and will never return.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCO0....OOOCOOOOOOCC

Virtuous deeds bring happiness,

But how can we be certain of praise?»
Ponder how all this harms our life.

We should resign ourselves to fate

And drift on the waves of Great Nature,

 

5 The Excursion, Book II, 11. 1-15. 111 references are
to The PoeticEI’fiorEs of Iordsworth, edited by Thomas Hutch-
inson, revised by E. 3. SeIIncourt.

Neither Joyfully nor fearfully:

When the end comes, let it came,

And no more cares beset you.

In these passages, both Wordsworth and Tao Yuan-Ming
are endeavoring to express themselves in accurate philo-
sophical language. There is implied a notion of the fun-
damental character of the natural process which is more
than poetical. Nature is here regarded as the norm of con-
duct, the order of things, but more specifically as the an-
imating principle of all things in the universe. Such sen-
suous enjoyment of nature, quickened by imagination, must be
penetrated by the senses of the poet in order for him.to ap-
prehend the possible meanings of nature. So the poet is not
only keenly observing with his sharp eyes but also feeling
with his intense sensibility; In all survey of created
things, the upward look toward the uncreated, unexpressed
though it may be, is yet ever present. It cannot but affect
the poet's feeling about even the most common material things.
As he looks on the face of earth, sea, and sky, the thoughts
of whence some these things? whither go they? what is their
origin and their end? must habitually enter in and color
that which the eye beholds. It is the poet's inner thoughts
about these things that will find their way out and color the
observation of his eye. Therefore, Wordsworth, through his
perception of the connections among things, found a close
unity in all the parts of the universe. Tao Yuan4ling by his

4* A;

5 Tao Yuan-Ming, ”Substance, Shadow, and Spirit," tr.
Yang Yeh-tzu, in The White Pony, ed. Payne, pp. 156, 157.

insight into the unchangeable natural scenes, discovered the
existence of the eternity of nature. But they both have ap-
prehended the full compass of the manifold harmonies or all
that is under the sky. To ”return to nature“ is undoubtedly
the unique theme of both of them. Yet in the long run, there
are many differences in spite of the similarities, both in
their ideas of nature and in their attitudes towards nature.
To find out how close, in certain aspects, the two poets are
to each other as well as how far apart in some other aspects,

is the main purpose of this study.

PART II
CHAPTER II
WORDSWORTH'S DOMINANT IDEAS OF NATURE

Sensuous Delight in Nature

In the history of English poetry, Wordsworth reached
the cuhmination of naturalism. The teachings of nature
dominate his poetry. Prom the time of his childhood, the
'mountains, skies, waters, woods had stolen into his soul
through the gates of the senses. At last the particular
separate impressions of all those things were mingled into
one universal conception which was conceived as a kind of
living personality. To Wordsworth, nature is the life-
giving spirit which builds up the universe and gives to
each particular thing its distinct life, soul, and work.
Moreover, Wordsworth carries this thought of life, that the
great divisions of the natural world, the whole of the sky,
the sea, and the earth are each gifted with separate but
more complex being. He is keenly aware of the moving powers
of nature, the wind dancing over wood and hill, tossing the
trees and grass, and lifting the head of the flowers, the
river running around the stones, the clouds flying through
the sky, and the stars shining over the vault. He finds in
all these things a new life of Joy and Jollity, of solemnity
or peace. His mind plays with delight over every form of ne-
tural beauty, though it be hidden in the tiny shrine of the

daisy or the small celandine. Nature appeals to him so

strongly that it stirs in him the perception of beauty and
kindles his imagination into creation.

Thus Wordsworth sees Joy in nature, and it awakens Joy
in him. To him it is the Joy of God in His own creative
life. Therefore wherever Iordsworth goes, he goes through
a rejoicing world; and he marries to its joy the Joy of his
own heart. He receives delight and gives back delight.

It was an April morning: fresh and clear

The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,

Ran with a young man's speed; and yet the voice
Of waters which the winter had supplied

Was softened down into a vernal tone.

The spirit of enjoyment and desire,

And hopes and wishes, from all living things

Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.

The budding groves seamed eager to urge on

The steps of June; as if their various hues

Were only hindrances that stood between

Them and their object: but, meanwhile, prevailed
Such an entire contentment in the air

That every naked ash, and tardy tree

Tet leafless, showed as if the countenance

Iith which it looked on this delightful day

lere native to the summer.--Up the brook

I roamed in the confusion of my heart,

Alive to all things and forgetting all.

At length I to a sudden turning came

In this continuous glen, where down a rock

The Stream, so ardent in its course before,

Sent forth such sallies of glad sound, that all
lhich I till then had heard appeared the voice

Of common pleasure: beast and bird, the lamb,
The shepherd's dog, the linnet and the thrush,
Yied with this waterfall, and made a song

Which, while I listened, seemed like the wild growth
Or like some natural produce of the air,

That could not cease to be. Green leaves were here;
But 'twas the foliage of the rocks--the birch,
The yew, the holly, and the bright green thorn,
with hanging islands of resplendent furze:

And on a summit, distant a short space,

By any who should look beyond the dell

A single mountain-cottage might be seen.

I gazed and gazed, and to myself I said,

”Our thoughts at least are ours; and this wild nook,
Ifly EMMA, I will dedicate to thee.”

10

---Soon did the spot become my other home,
My dwelling, and my out-of-doors abode.
And of the Shepherds who have seen me there,
To whom I sometimes in our idle talk,
Have told this fancy, two or three, perhaps,
Years after we are gone and in our graves,
Ihen they have cause to speak of this wild place.1
Here is the Joy of all things in spring, and of the fullness
of accomplishment in summer. Here is also the delight of the
fruitage and harvest in autumn, and of the keentalearness of
winter's air and light, with the sleeping seeds dreaming of
the world to come. The fullness of delight to the poet's soul
fills the whole world of nature through the changing year, and
makes the heart of nature beat with Joy for-ever. Sorrow and
storm, earthquake and decay, if there are any, are nothing but
the ebbing of life and Joy to rise into floodtide of happiness
again. They are not death, but transference of life into new
forms.
This is shown in the cautious qualification with which
he refers to his practice of attributing the sentiment of be-
ing to every creature in the organic and inorganic worlds.
He believes that each thing has an innate sense of life and
feeling. Wordsworth does not try to determine whether he arb
rived at this concept as a result of the association of ideas
or by a direct revelation of things as they really are.
Nor should this, perchancc,
Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved
The exercise and produce of a toil,

Than analytic industry to me
More pleasing, and whose character I deem

1 ”Poems of The naming of Places," I, ll. 1-46.

11

Is more poetic as resembling more

Creative agency. The song would speak

or that interminable building reared

By observation of affinities

In objects where no brotherhood exists

To passive minds. My seventeenth year was come;
And, whether from this habit rooted now

So deeply in my mind, or from excess

In the great social principle of life

Coercing all things into sympathy,

To unorganie natures were transferred

my own enjoyments; or the power of truth
Coming in revelation, did converse .

Iith things that really are; I, at this time,
Saw blessings spread around me like a sea.

Thus while the days flew by, and years passed on,
Irom.Nature and her overflowing soul

I had received so much, that all my thoughts
lere steeped in feeling; I was only then
Contented, when with bliss ineffable

I felt the sentiments of Being spread

O'er all that moves and all that seameth still;
O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought
And human knowledge, to the human eye
Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;

O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,
Or beats the gladsome air; o'er all that glides
Beneath the waves, yea, in the wave itself,

And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not

If high the transport, great the Joy I felt
Oommuning in this sort through earth and heaven
lith every fona of creature, as it looked
Towards the Uncreated with a countenance

Of adoration, with an eye of love.

One song they sang, and it was audible,

Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear,
O'ercome by humblest prelude of that strain,
Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.‘

This refers to his poem, "Lines Written in Early Spring,"
with their earnest but qualified attribution of pleasure to
plant and animal beings:

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailes its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

 

2 The Prelude, Book II, 11. 577-418.

is

The birds around me happed and played.
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--

But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature's holy plan,

Have I not reason to lamegt
What man has made of man?

Wordsworth grants that he cannot measure the thoughts of
birds; but their least motion "seemed" a thrill of pleasure.
The motion of budding twigs has the same effect upon him.
The poet therefore raises the question as to whether this
interpretation of lower life is a revelation, a ”belief sent

from heaven," or whether it is "Nature's holy plan."
Universal Love

It is very evident in the manifold adaptations of the
external world to human needs that the universe as a whole
makes up one system, in which what may seem ill from a re-
stricted point of view is regarded to be good by reference
to the design and intention of the whole. Thus, every thing
in nature is harmonious with every thing else. Since the
perfection of nature involves the regular action of its uni-
versal laws, we cannot expect them to make exception in in-

dividual cases, and we must not consider it an evil that in

 

3 ”Lines Written in Early Spring,” ll. 9-25.

13

accordance with these laws, the same principle Justifies the
destructive action of earthquakes, stonms, and any other pro-
duction of monstrous forms. This idea has been best expounded

by’Shaftesbury:

Now, if the whole system of animals, together
with that of vegetables, and all other things in
this inferior world, be properly comprehended in one
system of a globe or earth: and if again this globe
or earth itself appears to have a real dependence on
something still beyond; as, for example, either on
its sun, the galaxy, or its fellow-planets; then it
is in reality a part only of some other system. And
if it be allowed, that there is in like manner a sys-
tem of all things, and a universal Nature; there can
be no particular being or system which is not either
good or ill in that general one of the universe: for
if it be insignificant and of no use, it is a fault
or imperfection, and consequently ill in the general
system.

Iordsworth, like some other posts and philosOphers, in
writing of nature expressed belief in the design, order, and
harmony everywhere in the universe, and ignores whatever
seams to contradict this providential interpretation. It is
a matter of course that he finds that nature is 'kind' and
'kindly,"5 that 11: is ”fostering Naturc,*5‘"holy Nature,”
that man can safely trust himself to its influences8 and that
it teaches a "lesson deep of love."9 This conviction of the

universal presence of love in nature recurs in Wordsworth

—.. AL; __ -4

‘ Shaftesbury, Characteristics, 1732 ed., pp. 19-80, as
quoted in Beach, The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth-Centur r1

En lish Poetr , p. I77.
5‘¥§f licursion, Book II, ll. 99,101.
TT'FB'SF‘VI

L II, 1. 809.
"3., Book VI, 1. 998.
55.,‘Book IV, 1. 1193
[in Book I, 11. 194-195.

 

0040

m
E

14

again and again. It is fully expressed in "Tintern Abbey,"
in The Excursion, and certainly in The Prelude. It is a re-
‘markable characteristic of most of his poetry. But his aim-
plest and most forthright treatment of this theme is in the
poem.'To My Sister." Wordsworth, in this poem, invites his
sister to put on her woodland dress and come out for a walk
on the first mild day of larch. They will enjoy the love of
nature and prepare for the year to come:

Love, now a universal birth,

Form heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:

--It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now many give us more

Then years of toiling reason:

Ouerinds shall drink at every pore

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,

'hich thy shall long obey:

Is for the year to some may take

Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls

About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of on souls:

They shall be tuned to love.1

For Wordsworth, nature is a loving power that exercises
fostering care for man. This power governs man's relation to
things, and the relations of man to man. It is the law of
love which is the heart of the world. So Wordsworth writes
in 'Tintern Abbey,"

Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead

10 'To My Sister,“ ll. 21-36.

15'

From joy to joy: for she can so infonn

The mind that is within us, so impress

lith quietness and beauty, and so feed

Iith lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.

Wordsworth finds that nature's love is diffused and im-
personal. By extending its love to man, nature arouses and
ennobles our emotions. So he regards nature as a chief means
of 'purifying...the elements of feeling and of thought.'12
[hen 'the passions that build up our human soul” are inter-
wined with "high objects" we come to recognize a 'grandeur in
the beatings of the heart.'13 Therefore, if we look at men
through natural objects which are great and fair, he appears

.mmeh elevated and exalted. When lordsworth came upon a shep-
herd who was glorified by the sunset, or silhouetted against
the distant sky, he said,

Thus was man

Bnnobled outwardly before my sight,

And thus my heart was early introduced

To an unconscious love and reverence

or human nature; hence the human form

To me became an index of delight,

Of grace and honour, power and worthiness.

Meanwhile this creature--spiritual almost

As those of books, but more exalted far.
or source, by 'man' lordsworth meant mankind in general, not

individuals. He declared this in the same poem:

11 "Tintern Abbey,’ 11. 122-134.

12 The Prelude, Book I, 11. 410-411.
13 1513., Book I, 11. 413-414.
14‘IEIE., Book VIII, 11. 275-283.

16

The human nature unto which I felt

That I belonged, and reverenced with love,

[as not a punctual presence, but 3 spirit

Diffused through time and space.1

It is obvious that through the qualities of nature Words-
worth gains a lofty conception of man. In other words, lords-

worth elevates human nature by his love for sublime scenery.16

Quietude of Nature

In addition to sensuous delight and universal love,
Wordsworth found also the element of peace or quictude in the
life of nature. In the supreme moments of existence, his vi-
sion about the peaceful nature dawns upon his soul. He is
conscious of a strong power lying in the vast silence of na-
tural objects as in ambush to capture his imagination. This
power is the great living whole which nature is. Deep calm,
he thinks, is at its heart. All natural objects exist under
one Divine order, witnessing to one Eternal Being. Through
his communing with nature Wordsworth feels his soul come into
contact with her quietude. Nature is not a dead machine but
something all-pervaded by life. She is a living unity always
awakening him with infinite quictude and tenderness. Hence
the calm of waters, the tranquillity of hills and fields, the
flowers at rest on windless days, and the stars motionless in
the sky, and even the soft murmur of the stream offer their

own deep quiet to restore our heart. And this calm and qui-

A

15 Ibid., Book VIII, 11. 608-611.
16 Havens, The Mind of a Post, p. 108.

 

 

17

etude of nature feeds our~mind with thoughts of majesty.

To breathe in solitude, above the host
Of every-humming insects... -

murmur of the leaves
enemy and idle, visits not his car:
This he is freed from, and from thousand notes
(Not less unceasing, not less vain than these,)
By which the finer passages of sense
Are occupied: and the Soul, that would incline
To listen, is prevented or deterred.17

Poems like this expressing the idea of divine quictude of
nature are numerous in Wordsworth's works.

Wordsworth knows very well of the storms, of the fury
of the sea and the flooded streams, and of other violent
forces that vex the great calm of nature. But he strongly
believes that beneath the outward rage of these elements,
there is a ruling order, that the quiet of wisdom fills the
‘movement of all'things.

Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour:
Not dull art Thou as undiscerning Night;

But studious only to remove from sight

Day's mutable distinctions.--Ancient Power!

Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower,
To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest

Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest

On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower
Looked are his eyes were closed. By him was seen
The self-same Vision which we now behold,

At thy meek bidding, shadowy Power: brought forth:
These mighty barriers, and the gulf between;

The flood, the stars,--a spectacle as old

As the beginning of the heavens and earth'.18

So, in the ultimate idea of the universe there is the qui-

etude of the unbroken law:

 

17 The Excursion, Book II, 11. 72-80.
18 HIschIaneous Sonnets, Part II, XIII.

18

Central peace subsisting at the heart
or endless agitation.19

Consequently, despite his recognition of the tempests of
nature, Wordsworth is able to maintain his concept of the
tranquil Being in the center of each object, organic or in-

organic.
Metaphysical Ideas of Natgre

It is very difficult to make a precise statement about
lordsworth's metaphysical concept of nature, because the main
direction of his views is uncertain. How far Wordsworth was
aware of the exact metaphysical implications of his concept
of nature, we cannot tell. But general ideas about nature can
be easily found in his works. First of all, from the opening
passage of the ninth book of The Excursion--

"To every form of being is assigned,"

Thus calmly spake the venerable Sage,

”An active Principle:--howe'er removed

from sense and observation, it subsists

In all things, in all natures; in the stars
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,

In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
The moving waters, and the invisible air.
Nhate'er exists hath properties that spread
Beyond itself communicating good,

A simple blessing, or with evil mixed;
Spirit that knows no insulated spot,

No chasm, no solitude; from link to link

It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds.'--

we get at least three outstanding notions of Wordsworth's

about nature. One is that nature is regarded as animating

 

19 Brooke, Naturalism in English Poetry, p. 147.

19

principle together with the world-soul. Another is that there
seems to be something eternal in the soul of the universe.
The third notion is that there is a scale or chain of beings
in the universe, and there is no break at all in this chain.
Wordsworth personifies nature and thus nature has a soul. In
the philosophicallanguage of the poet, there is implied an
idea that nature is conceived of not merely as the order of
things, the norm of conduct, the expression of universal love,
but more specifically as the activating agent of all things in
the universe, not only of living things, but of all phenomena.
So Wordsworth finds it necessary to use the words 3221 and
spirit. Nature, in his mind, is not a mere succession of me-
chanical impulses conveyed from one dead atom to another,
from one inert body to another. Every particle of nature,
even stones and water and air, has in itself a spring of ac-
tivity, of spontaneous movement. All natural beings partake
somehow of the essence of spirit, or at least of life. In
his mind, nature is a world with the God in it, a universe
impregnated with spirit. It is animated, having an active
being, and capable of propagating the impulses of the univer-
sal soul. Another passage which fully conveys this idea is
from a poem written in Germany in 1799, entitled "Influence
of Natural Objects in Calling Forth and Strengthening the
Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth." It reads as fol-
lows:

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe:

Thou Soul that art the lternity of thought!
That givest to forms and images a breath

20

And everlasting motion, not in vain

By day or star-light thus from my first dawn
0f childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul.20

It is obvious that in this passage and in many other passages

from 'Tintern Abbey,"81 from The Prelude,22 and from The Ex-

 

cursion,23'Nordsworth is trying to eXpress in philosophical
language the idea that there must be some fundamental character
in the natural process.

, Besides, in this passage, there is another strong sugges-
tion that the 'soul," that is "the eternity of thought,“ gives
“to forms and images a breath.“ In other words, all forms and
images have their reality from the eternal “thought" which in-
forms them. The basis for such a concept is probably a fusion
of the Biblical concept of eternal God and the platonic con-
cept of time and eternity. At any rate, it is without doubt
that Wordsworth has been deeply impressed with the need for an
appeal to eternity from the imperfections of time. This is
particularly evident in certain parts of The Prelude.

As far as the scale of beings is concerned, let us recall
for the present moment, the opening passage of the ninth book
of The Excursion I have quoted. The chain of being “from link
to link” is another prominent conception of Wordsworth about
nature. He finds that there is a connection between one thing

and another like a fast linked chain. Here man is reminded

 

so The Prelude, Book I, 11. 401-407.

21 :Inea B5111.

83 303k VII, 11. 766-771; BOOK XIV, 11. 63-135.
as Book Iv, 11. 957-994.

81

,-_._..

that he is but a single link in this nature's mighty chain. j

Ivan stars,‘clouds, stones, rocks and invisible air play ‘

their parts in "the Soul of all the worlds.‘ Thus the being

of the whole universe is one organic body made up of innu-

merable cells, of which none is insulated from the others.24
In short, to Wordsworth, nature appears as 'e formative

. influence which is superior to any other." It is 'the edu- -

cator" both ”of senses and of mind,“ ”the sower in our hearts

of the seeds of our feelings and beliefs.' It is 'a safe

guide to wisdom and goodness; it is instinct with the irra-

dieting presence of the divine.'35
Naturp as a Norm of conduct

is discussed in the preceding sections, Wordsworth feels
that nature exists in close relation to the human mind and
heart. It is inspiring and illuminating. It helps man et-/
tain moral resolution with a universal love.. It is regarded
as “the educator” and "safe guide' of our intellectual devel-
opment. Accordingly, the mind of man must be passive as well
as active. It must be kept open all the time in order to re-
ceive the subtle influence and nourishment of nature. In 232,
Excursion, Wordsworth eXpresses his whole-hearted devotion to
the teachings of nature. He retires to a life of solitude

and cuts himself off from humanity. He buries human sufferb

 

84 Beach, The Conce t of Nature in Nineteenth-Century

jEnglish Poetry,“Chapter .
e . pe 1560

28

ings and.virtues in oblivion and sinks deeper and deeper into
the profundity of his own mysterious thoughts.
Quit your couch--

Cleave not so fondly to your moody cell;

Nor let the hallowed powers, that shed from heaven

Stillness and rest, with disapproving eye

Look down upon your taper, through a watch

Of midnight hours, unseasonably twinkling

In this deep Hollow, like a sullen star

Dimly reflected in a lonely pool.

Take courage, and withdraw yourself from says

That run not parallel to nature's course.

Here Iordsworth is expressing his idea of nature as it may
be represented in a norm of conduct.

According to Wordsworth's views of nature,«everything
which happens in the universe either with human force or with-
out, has to happen in accordance with the order of nature.
Nature is a reminder to man of the fact that nothing can be
accomplished in either the outer or the inner world which
infringes upon the natural order of things. No real thing
or set can exist outside the order of nature. The object of
all science is merely to ascertain the order in which things
come about. The role of human wisdom is to choose means for
the accommodation of mankind to this order. is man is a
part of nature, he should not go counter to the natural
forces. Otherwise, he will be unable to attain his purpose.37

Iordsworth's yearning is to approach perfection by flow-
ing through the veins of nature. 'Ee subdues man to the

level of nature,“ says Peter, "and gives him thereby a car.

A

36 The Excursion, Book IV, ll. 481-490.

a? Beach, TEe Conce t of Nature in Nineteenth-Century
‘Bnglish Poetry, pp. [EV-E55.

25

tain breadth and coolness and solemnity...And, seeing man
thus as a part of nature, elevated and solemnized in propor-
tion as his daily life and occupations brought him into comp
panionship with permanent natural objects..."88 The .xpgn-
sive abandonment of oneself to impression from without is
more productive of beneficial effects than concentration and
‘meditation, because nature can teach more about humanity
than can all the wisdom of the past:

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark: how blithe the throstle singsl
He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Ouerinds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,
Then all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mic-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

Furthermore, for Wordsworth, nature is a moral teacher.

88 Quoted in Cerf, "Wordsworth's Gospel of Nature,“

mm, Vol. mvn, 1982, pp. 632-623.
29 "The Table Turned,” ll. 9-32.

24

Under its direction man can achieve perfection. It reaches
man through the effects it exercises on the natural objects,
on the mountains, the springs, the weather, and the flowers.

In the following passage we may see the positive influence of

a

nature on a girls

"She~shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn,
Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

I'The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mold the Maiden's form

By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her car

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.

”And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,‘

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I mature] will give

While she and I together géve

Here in this happy dell.”

On the other hand, nature may also operate in a negative
fashion to drive a man to think over his problem. An example
“may be found in "Peter Bell." The boy, Peter, stole a wood-
cock, and struggled with his conscience in the presence of
nature. Journeying over a lonely plain, he felt himself pur-
sued by a withered leaf and fell in sore moral distress:

30 "Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower," 11. 12-36.

25

When Peter spied the moving thing,
It only doubled his distress;
'lhere there is not a bush or tree,
The very leaves they follow me--

So huge hath been my wickednessl“31

To be brief, nature ministers to the mental and moral
needs of man. It reveals an insight into the life of things.
It is possessed of a spirit of Joy, love, and wisdom. It
performs ”a holy ministry in their relation to the spirit of
Man."53 It is regarded by lordsworth as the norm of thought
and action:

I had been taught to reverence a Power

That is the visible quality and shape

And image of right reason; that matures

Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth
To no impatient or fallacious hopes,

No heat of passion or excessive zeal,

No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns
Of self-applauding intellect; but trains

To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;
Holds up before the mind intoxicate

With present objects, and the busy dance

Of things that pass away, a temperate show
Of objects that endure; and by this course
Disposes her, when over-fondly set

On throwing off incumbrances, to seek

In man, and in the frame of social life
lhate'er there is desirable and good

Of kindred permanence.

A kL—

31 "Peter Bell," ll. 706-710.

33 Sheath, Wordsworth: goat of Nature and Poet ofilan,
p. 123s

33 The Prelude, Book XIII, 11. 80-37.

86

CHAPTER III
BACKGROUND TO WORDSWORTH'S IDEAS 0F NATIRE

Secluded and Solitary Life

To understand how Wordsworth has formed such strong
ideas about nature as related in the preceeding chapter, it
seems necessary to indicate what kind of life he led. His
natural gifts were influenced by the eXperiences he encoun-
tered and the mental discipline he achieved. He was brought
up in a family who had lived for generations in Yorkshire,
afterwards in Cumberland, in a social position intermediate
between the squires and the yeomen. Irom both his parents
he had received the inheritance of a moral nature that was
healthy, frugal, and robust. He lost his mother during his
eighth year, and his father at thirteen.p He was deprived of
his inheritance and endured a humiliating existence under
his stern and narrow-minded grandparents, and for years was
coldly treated by his relations on account of his indolence,
his obstinacy, and his refusal to embark upon any of the
safe careers suggested to him. At the age of eight he en-
tered with his brothers the grammar school at Hawkshead.

There he enjoyed ample leisure to wander late and early by
the lake-margins, through the copses, and on the mountain-
sides. ”It was then and there, beyond a doubt, that the
substantive Wordsworth was formed; it was then and there

that the tall rock and sounding cataract haunted him like a

27

passion, and that his genius and whole being united and iden-
tified itself with external nature.”1 In 1787, from this
primitive village school, he went to Cambridge, where he spent
three years, the least profitable years of his life. He got
‘more profit from a walking tour through.France, Switzerland,
and the Italian lakes. After graduating at Cambridge he
gladly left in 1790 to take part in the French Revolution.
Aided by high hopes of humanity and a beautiful dream
that a new era was about to dawn, he tried his best to ful-
fill his mission in the great event. However it was all in
vain. Towards the close of 1792 by some stern home measures
he was recalled from.1rance. Freedom, peace, and universal
brotherhood did not emerge from the struggle, and his high
hopes and big dream had to give way. Despairing of the des-
tiny of mankind, he wandered about the country aimless, de-
jected, almost in despondency. He had no profession, no sin
in life, and was almost destitute of funds. Fortunately, in
1795, the bequest of nine hundred pounds left to him by his
friend, Raisley Calvert, relieved him from extreme poverty.
,At this time his sister Dorothy, who had been separated from
him for many years, came to live with him and to minister to
his mental needs. It was she who turned him.away from pon-
dering over fruitless social and moral problems, and led him
to mingle with humble men. They lived first in Dorsetshire,
then in Sommersetshire, where Coleridge joined them. Con-

l Shairp, Poetic Interpretation of Nature, p. 241.

 

28

soled by the companionship of his sister and his post friend,
and inspired by the natural scenes, Wordsworth, after all,
found an outlet for his poetic genius which.was to serve him
for his whole life.

not long after this, in the last days of the eighteenth
century, they finally settled in the small cottage at the
Townhead of Grasmere, where the brother and_sister lived for
more than eight years. And there, in 1802, the home of
brother and sister was made happier by the addition of his
wife. It was during the years immediately proceeding this
settlement at Grasmcre and during the eight years at Grasmcre
that Wordsworth composed his famous The Prelude, an autobi-
ographic poem on the growth of his own mind, as well as nu-
merous other poems. After some other removals from Graemere,
first to Allan Bank, then to the Rectory, in 1813 he took
his final residence at Rydal‘Mount, where he lived until his
death in 1850.

This is only a framework of Wordsworth's biography. But
if we pay much attention to his personal inclination.and his
intellectual development, we will find that he led an unusu-
ally'independent life because of his stiff and moody disposi-

tion.
Turning Points in His Mental Develogment

In Wordsworth's mental history two periods are exceed-
ingly important. The first was his school life at Hawkshead,
by Esthwaite Lake, eight years in all. The secmd was the

29

mental crisis through which he passed after his return from
France till he settled with his sister in the south of Eng-
land, and ultimately at Grasmere. The first was the spring-
time of his soul, in which all the young impulses and intui-
tions were first awakened. The second was the trial time,
the crisis of his spirit, in which all his early impulses,
impressions, intuitions, were brought out into distinct con-
sciousness. They were questioned and tested byhreason. They
had been hitherto conceived in his will and mind before this
period, but now, they were gathered up, connected, condensed
and solidified into deliberate permanent principles.

During the period at Hawkshead, Wordsworth spent a
healthful, happy, blissful school time. Restrictions of
school rules were very few, discipline was light, school hours
were short. When school was over, the boys were free to roam
wherever they liked as well as to enjoy the usual sports and
games. Early morning, broad daylight, and evening shed around
them in turn their poetic charm. Sometimes they would climb a
hill to fly a kite; sometimes they would launch it from the
meadows below:

--Unfading.recollections! at this hour

The heart is almost mine with which I felt,

From some hill-top on sunny afternoons,

The paper kite high among fleecy clouds

Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser;

Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days,

Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly
Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm.3

2 The Prelude, Book I, 11. 491-498.

30

In autumn a troop of them would set out to gather the har-
vest of hedgerow and wood. In summer, with rod and line they
went out to seek the "rocks and pools shut out from every
star" or the bends of mountain-brooks:

I could record with no reluctant voice

The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers
lith milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line,
True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong
And unreproved enchantment led us on

By rocks and pools shut out from every star,

All the green summer, to forlorn cascades

Among the windings hid of mountain brooks.3

If it were spring time, they would scale the mountain prec-
ipices to rob the ravens' nests. Then Wordsworth would ex-
perience the keen delight of dangerous enterprise:

Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale,
Rovcd we as plunderers where the mother-bird

Had in high places built her lodge; though mean
Our object and inglorious, yet the end

Was not ignoblc. Oh: when I have hung

Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass

and half-inch fissures in the slippery rock

But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed)
Suspended by the blast that blew amain,
Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time
Ihile on the perilous ridge I hung alone,

With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind
Blow through my car: the sky seemed not a sky

or earth-- and with what motion moved the clouds!“

But it was in his solitary adventures most of all that Words-
worth felt himself influenced by obscure yet powerful agen-
cies. There were precious moments in which nature worked on
the mind by fear, astonishment, or the sense of beauty!

Through half the night
Scudding away from.snare to snare, I plied

 

3 bid., Book I, 11. 483-490.
4 1 ., Book 1, 11. 325-339.

31

That anxious visitation;--moon and stars
Were shining o'er my head. I was alone,
And seemed to be a trouble to the peace
That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befall
In these night wanderings, that a strong desire
O'crpowered my better reason, and the bird
Ihich was the captive of another's toil
Became my prey; and when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills

Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of undistiuguishable motion, steps

Almost as silent as the turf they trod.5

Thus the recollections of nature in its awful or gentle
aspects, its grand or tender moods, which occupy for the most
part, the first two books of The Prelude, became for him in-
separable from the joys which he had tested in its presence.
But while the vulgar pleasure faded quickly from his memory,
the scenes which were a witness of it remained imprinted in
their essential lineaments on his mind and were daily visible
before his eyes:

--And if the vulgar joy by its own weight

Wearied itself out of the memory,

The scenes which were a witness of that joy

Remained in their substantial lineaments

Dcpicted on the brain, and to the eye

Were visible, a daily sight.6

Towards the close of his life at Hawkshead, when he was
seventeen years old, he had cultivated a full pure love for
nature, a feeling thenceforth strong enough to dispense with
the support which had hitherto contributed to its maintenance
and growth. The attraction of sports and games was no longer

required in order to draw him towards nature. The pleasures

 

3 Ibid., Book I, 11. 312-325.
6 I513” Book I, 11. 597-602.

38

he had found in nature were not needed in order to arouse his
love:

These incidental charms which first attached

Hy heart to rural objects, day by day

Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell

How Nature, intervenient till this time

And secondary, now at length was sought

For her own sake.

Iordsworth, now, entered into direct communion with nature.
He dedicated to it the adoration of a fervent devoted heart.
Yet even before the object of his worship, he retained the
independence of his soul.

The second important period with regard to the develop-
ment of Wordsworth's concept of nature is the time between
his residence in France and his settlement at Grasmere, that
is from 1793 to 1800. The three years he had spent at Cam-
bridge, from 1787 until the end of 1790, had begun to draw
out his social feelings. Now, stricken with the social prob-
lems of the time, Wordsworth began to meditate on man, his
sufferings, his aspirations and destiny. He also pondered ,
deeply over the best forms of government, society, morality,/
and the possible perfection of man. His religion Of hu-
manity was not based on Christianity but on reason. To rea-
son was duc all that had been won, and by reason all that
remained to conquer must be overcome. Thus it seems that
Wordsworth had enjoyed the delightful illusion d? obeying

the strict rules of reason. In truth he had been merely

converting his desires into realities.

7 Ibid., Book II, ll. 198-203.

33

But he had found, now, the world was something different
from what he had imagined. The hours of fresh joyousness and
unshaken confidence, when hope ”laid her hand upon her ob-
ject,"8 quickly disappeared. The obstacles which lay here
and there on the path of reason could not escape from Words-
worth's notice. UncXpected troubles arose on every hand from
the corrupt heart of man and the unhealthy society. Yet his
strong will and firm belief did not fail to regard them
merely as passing clouds which the sun would shortly pene-
tratc.9

But unfortunately, the harmony which prevailed between
his revolutionary ideas and his natural feelings became sud-
denly converted into discord. It ceased to exist on the day
when "with open war Britain opposed the liberties of France."10
This attack not only caused him bitter grief, it upset the
equilibrium of his whole nature. For the first time he be-
came aware that the elements which he had thought it possible
to reconcile were radically opposed. Then came the disgust
'with his own country, disappointment and vexation with France.
The whole fabric of his hope and faith gave way; He fell into
distrust, not only of nations, but of himself. The faiths,
intuitions, aspirations which he had hitherto lived by, failed
‘himt He rc-cxamined all his former fundamental principles.

‘Hc found it impossible to affirm them by a formal logical den-

 

8 Ibid., BOOK XI, 11s 202-3030
9 me , BOOK XI ’ 11s 153-173e
0

1 IBEX, Book II, 11. 174-175.

34

onstration.11

Losing hold of conviction, weardsd.with endless perplex-
ities, he doubted all moral truth, and gave it up in despair.
Iith his hopes for man, and his faith in man's destiny, the
poetic vision of nature, which had hitherto been with him,
disappeared. He looked on the outer world no more in a free
imaginative way as of old, but compared scene with scene and
Judged and criticised'them by artificial rules. This was
abnegation of his higher self, really a moral death.18

After his return from France he was wandering about aim-
less and dejected, doubting his faith in man and his love of
nature. His master vision was temporarily obscured, his in-
ner faculties were asleep. The influence of the affection
and intelligent interest of his sister gradually aroused him.
She made a home for him and became his hourly companion. She
took him to lonely and beautiful places till nature again
found access to him. Thus began the healing process which in
time restored him to his true self.13

It was in two directions that Wordsworth’s restoration
showed itself as regards his feeling towards man and towards
nature. As his interests and sympathies had been stimulated
to excess by the political convulsions he had witnessed, now
he found healthier objects in the laboring poor people with

whom he conversed in the fields and in the wanderers he met

 

11 Ibide, BOOK XI, lle 293-3050
12 18111, Book x1, 11. 321-333.
131F131, Book II, 11. 333-348.

35

on lonely roads.14 .As a consequence, his experience and
reflection made him esteem simple and humble life more than
sophisticated. The homely ways of the village dames, hardy
dalesmen and shepherds with whom he had spent his boyhood,
concurred with his own native perception to make him love and
esteem what is permanent, now what is accidental in human
life, the inner, not the outer man of men, the essential soul.
This native perception had been deepened by all he had seen,
felt, and thought during the revolutionary ferment, and now
became a fixed inclination of his mind. It seemed to him that
in the humble men, the primary passions and elementary feel-
ings of human nature are much purer than in men of high posi-
tion and education, who, he thought, were often characterized
by artifice and conventionality. Formal social intercourse
has little to do with real feeling and Just sense, and asso-
ciation with the polite world does little to improvemen.15
Therefore he heard,

From mouths of men obscure and lowly, truths

Replete with honour, sounds in unison

Iith loftiest promises of good and fair.16
‘rhus Wordsworth recovered his sympathy with the humble poor,
the sympathy for man as he is. ‘

The other direction of his restoration was the full ma-
turation of his views about nature. It was only by means of
feeling that Wordsworth had perceived qualities about nature

4

Ibid., Book XIII, 11. 137-141.
.fi[., Book XIII, 11. 160-174.

14
15 IS‘
16 fig” Book x111, 11. 182-135.

 

36

during his boyhood. But now all those qualities were sanc-
tioned by his developed reason. The universe was now to him
not a mere reverberation of his own voice, nor only a reflec-
tion of hues east from his changeful moods, but an existence
independent of man and his moods. He saw it as stable, equa-
ble, serene. Man's wisdom is to receive her native impulses
without imposing his caprices on her. Hence, to man, nature
is a supporting, calming, cooling, and invigorating power.
18o, at this time, Wordsworth felt both emotion and calmness
in the energy of nature. Now he saw in nature a power which
is the shape and image of right reason. He saw his order or
the stability which is the calm obedience to eternal law.
ZFrom this calmness of nature and from her slow and steady
*working processes, he received an admonition to esteem and
reverence what is permanent in human affection, and in man's

moral being, and to build his hope on its gradual expansion

and purification:

I had been taught to reverence a power

That is the visible quality and shape

ind image of right reason; that matures

Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth
To no impatient or fallacious hopes,~

No heat of passion or excessive zeal,

No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns
0f self-applauding intellect; but trains

To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;
Holds up before the mind intoxicate

lith present objects, and the busy dance

0f things that pass away, a temperate show
Of objects that endure; and by this course
Disposes her, when over-roundly set

0n throwing off incumbrances, to seek

In men, and in the frame of social life,
Whate'er there is desirable and good

0f kindred permanence, unchanged in form

 

‘0

 

37

And function, or, through strict vicissitude
or life and death, revolving. 7 -

Furthermore, he discovered that in order to attain the J
highest and truest vision of nature, the soul of man must act‘
in unison with nature. Then, the soul of man must send from
itself an emanation, which, meeting with the natural objects,
produces something better than that produced either by the
soul itself or by nature itself:

‘ I seemed about this time to gain clear sight

Of a new world-~a world, too, that was fit

To be transmitted, and to other eyes

Hade visible; as ruled by those fixed laws

whence spiritual dignity originates,

Ihich do both give it being and maintain

A balance, an ennobling interchange

Of action from without and from within;

The excellence, pure function, and best power

'Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.18
.Lll these perceptions about nature which had been more or less
present to him since his boyhood, now emerged as settled con-
victions.

Thus far we have seen the two periods as the conspicuous
turning points in the development of Wordsworth‘s concept of
nature. From the eXperience of these two periods Wordsworth
found a general truth, namely, the three stages concerning
our relation towards nature in the growth of.our life. The
first stage,which corresponds towthe-years before his educa-
tion at Hawkshead, is that in early boyhood animal activity
and trivial pleasures occupy our attention, nature is a sec-

ondary interest. The next stage, which corresponds to the

 

17 Ibid., Book XIII, 11. 20-39.
is midi, Book XIII, 11. 369-378.

 

38

period of his school life at Hawkshead, is that in time of
youth and early manhood we become keenly aware of nature's
existence and develop fancies about it. The third stage,
which corresponds to the years of his education at Cambridge
and thereafter, is that when we reach maturity we begin really

to understand nature by exercising reason and imagination.
Ipfluence of Rousseau

Apart from the influence of the life he led, no less im-
portant are the philosophers from whom Wordsworth seems to
have derived his unsystematic thinking and belief. As this
discussion is confined to Wordsworth's concept of nature, I
wilflrgursuefifihe sources of Wordsworth's philosophy. It will
be sufficient, perhaps, to point out that he adopted certain
ideas from.some thinkers with whom he was familiar.

Wordsworth was probably exposed to the influence of
Rousseau before he left England for France. It is very likely
that he owes to Rousseau many ideas which can be found mark-
edly in glgipal Ballads. is the composition of Lyrical Bal-
lggg’was joint, whether Ooleridge or Wordsworth took the
initiative in the metrical and rhetorical reform is unknown.
Coleridge would see more quickly than Wordsworth the conse-
quences and implications of their literary theory. He might
be the first to suggest formulating a doctrine. But it is
also probable that Wordsworth initiated the theory with his
ideas derived from Rousseau. For Coleridge's original in-

clination was towards the uncommon, the abstruee, the mysti—

 

39

cal, the splendid, and the direction indicated by Lyrical
Ballads is familiar life and common speech.

low, let us examine the distinctive elements in Rous-
seau, which seem in close connection with lordsworth. first
of all, Housseau considers reverie as a mode of thought, an
inactive, unsystematic meditation without logical processesb
and perceived steps. These steps cannot be traced backward.
This reverie involves a more complete absorption of the
thinker. The thinker should use his sentiment to approach
spiritually the objects of sensation. Therefore he seems to
touch, taste, hear, and see, by a reflex disturbance of the
organs or physical reminiscence. Reverie is thus almost sen-
suous. It discloses to the mind what the mind has already
held. It arouses, arranges and unifies the elements of one's

soul. External events and objects are not essentials of this
This interpretation

It

state, but may induce or stimulate it.
Of reverie is actually his theory of the poetic process.
is.rmmarkably coincident with Wordsworth‘s remark that 'po-
'try is emotion recollected in tranquillity.'19

Secondly, we find in Rousseau the desire for simplicity
in everything. The mode of reverie is always a concentration,
rr°3 VEIrious saurces, of many conceptions in the dreamer's
“1°40 This concentration tends to simplify the intricacies
0’ the world. Religion can be simplified by clearing away
th° aVera-growth of errors; literature and art can be simpli-

\
19 Harper, William Wordsworth, Vol. I, pp. 129-130.

40

fied by constant return to nature; manners can be simplified
by industrious homeliness; and social relations can be sim-
plified by equality. Koreover, the idea of simplicity leads
to the idea of equality, for inequality is a sign and a cause
of unstable equilibrium. Where there is inequality there is
pressure to restore the balance. Those who desire that life
shall be simple, and that men shall attain a level of oppor-
‘tunity, love permanence and are true conservatives. The
'truly permanent, therefore, should hold out against all ar-
tifice.3° It seems quite likely that Iordsworth's attitude
toward 'hmmble and rustic life' is derived from Rousseau.
fHumble and rustic life" Wordsworth wrote in his famous 253:
£323 to the Lyical Ballads for the second edition, 'Ias
generally chosen because in that condition the essential pas-
sions of the heart find a better soil in which they can at-
tain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a
plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition
of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater
simplicity, and consequently may be more accurately contemp-
lated and more forcibly communicated; because the nnners of
rural life germinate from these elementary feelings, and from
the necessary character of rural occupations are more easily
comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in
that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the

‘beautiful and permanent forms of nature.'31

 

20 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 130.
21 Wordsworth, Poetical Works, p. 935.

41

The third quality of Rousseau consists in his habit of
reverie and his love of simplicity. During the reverie,
self is the active agent, yet is of little consequence. But
it is of great consequence if it is regarded as a receptive,
passive organ. It inwardly transforms and assimilates what
comes to it. By this association of self with the objects of
contemplation, the objects become infused with the life of
the dreamer. Then the dreamer and the objects are no dif-
ferent from each other. They all become humanized. Harmony
is thus brought about between the dreamer or poet and the
world within his consciousness. Therefore the poet is in
sympathy with the world.33 This process is discissed in the
second book of Emlyg which emphasizes the value for young
children of the knowledge obtained through their senses in
the course of mere animal play. In close connection with
reverie is the knowledge that comes through the intellect.
'There is much distinction between the sensitive reason and
the intellectual reason. The former is the foundation of
the latter. The sensitive reason is much more active in the
child and natural to him; and it is no good to force a too
early develOpment of the intellectual reason, which, if
forced, will only result in e specious and artificial wisdom.
It is on this account that Rousseau objects to the too early
inculcation of book learning.'33 Furthermore, Rousseau ex-

presses many times his dislike for books if they are regarded

 

28 Harper, lilliam Wordsworth, Vol. I, p. 131.
23 Beach, The Concept 5? NaEure in Nineteenth-Centugy

‘Egglish Poetry, p. 192.

42

as a first-hand knowledge, for real knowledge, he maintains,
should be attained through experience.

This idea is close to Wordsworth's "wise passiveness”
revealed in "The Tables Turned" as we have cited already,
where the need, at any period of life, for returning to the
testimony of the "sensitive reason” is urged in order to cor-
rect the often mistaken conclusions of the ”intellectual rea-
son." Thus he shows himself similar to Rousseau in rebellion
against the dry reason of the philosophers. This rebellion
is the distinctive and radical feature of the romantic move-
ment as a whole. Rousseau, in the fourth book cf :E_m;_i_l_._e_, pre-
sents a state of general doubt, and the impossibility of
reaching conclusions by purely logical means, similar to that
described by Wordsworth in The Prelude. Wordsworth realizes
that philosophers can only multiply his doubts. So he takes
his interior light for guide in order to believe anything,
for he recognizes the danger of trusting too much to his mere
intellectual reason. Thus he says in “To My Sister,“

One moment now may give us more
Then years of toiling reason.

finally, we find a fourth quality of Rousseau in his in-
tense individualism. ‘Mcn have to rely on their own resources
no matter in what close contact they are with the earth, with
animals, and with other men. A brooding, introspective per-
son is always liable to form a high estimate of his own con-
sequence. With this point in mind, Rousseau expounds his

political ideas in his famous §ocial Contract. They are based

43

on the assumption that society was originally anarchical, a
group of independent persons. Since the individual has not
been a co-ordinata part of a pre-existing harmony, he retains
the right of independence though he must live in combination
with other free beings. His surrender of some of his liberty
or personal freedom is probably only for a time or a certain
occasion. Then it is obvious that toleration under restraint
is an unnatural matter. It is against nature.

In Rousseau, there is no equilibrium.between reason and
instinct. At times, he gave himself up to reverie, he be-
came a sentimentalist. Wordsworth never went to the individ-
ualistic extreme in his love of liberty. He felt that social
relations should be as natural and permanent as tin external
world. He was trying to preserve historic continuity without
surrendering the right of personal judyent. His "reverie'
is reflection. It is more rational than Bousseau's reverie.
It is always in touch with things and events. Therefore,

lordsworth is less abstract than Rousseau.3‘
Influence of Godwin

Ihen Iordsworth was recalled from France at the end of
1798, he came fresh from.the Rousseauistic and revolutionary
teaching of General‘Michel Beaupuy, with whom he had formed
a close friendship and who had first awakened his slumbering
humanitarian sentiments. In deep resentment against-the at-

84 Harper, Elllimm lordsworth, Vol. I, p. 133.

44

tack of his own country on new republic of France, he was at
once plunged into the turmoil and contradiction of English
sentiment regarding the revolution. But his anger against
his own country was quickly changed into despair, for very
soon ”frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence for one of
conquest,"85 and directed the war against England and her al-
lies. Then Wordsworth laid his hope upon ”evidence safer, of
universal application," which he sought elsewhere than among
Iaen.‘6 Thus he turned to theories and books. It was at that
tune that he tried to find comfort in William.Godwin's Polit-
ical Justice. This book advocates the ascendancy of justice
and reason, and is animated by a glow of universal benefi-
cence. The outstanding feature of the book is its extreme
simplicity. All this complex world of thought is reduced to
a sole principle, namely reason. Wordsworth approved Locke's
rejection of innate principles, and adopted as his own the
attack on vested rights by Helvetius and d'Holbach. And he
frankly adopted ideas of Rousseau and Hartley with full ac-
knowledgement.27 ,But all the borrowings are subordinated to
the illustration of the leading ideas of Godwin‘s thesis,
that is, the prime importance of reason. Before this prin-
ciple any sort of traditional knowledge is insignificant.
Only truth is supreme, and such truth can be gained by 'the
reasoning faculty”:

85 The Prelude, Book XI, 11. 207-208.
26 Ibid., 5005 XI, ll. 203-205
27 Beatty, William Wordsworth: His Doctrine and Art n

Shgir Historical Relationg, pp. 22-53.

45

Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk

With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge

From indiscriminate laughter, nor sate down

In reeoncilement with an utter waste

Of intellect; such sloth I could not brook,

(Too well I loved, in that my spring of life,

Pains-taking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward)

But turned to abstract science, and there sought

Iork for the reasoning faculty cnthroned

Where the disturbances of space and time--

Whether in matter's various properties

Inherent, or from human will and power

Derived-~find no admission.38

Godwin is a 'leveler,' because the very heart of his
theory of humanitarianism is the principle that all men are
equal, and equality must be achieved for the benefit not
only of the Oppressed but of the oppressor. Thus he raised
a vision of an emancipated humanity which will allow the
natural goodness of man to bring natural justice to all peo-
ple. But now this natural goodness is delayed simply bc- ,,
cause of the perversity of institutions and customs that are
the result of prejudice and ignorance, not of reason. Godwin
presents fully this idea of emancipated humanity in his novel
Caleb Williams, where a philanthropic outlaw is represented
as being the leader of a band of brigands, a character pre-
dicting that justice shall be attained for all in the reign
of reason. Similarly, this same brigand reappears as the
Llarmaduke of Wordsworth’s ‘Borderers,’ a philosophic philan-
thropist, who leads the band of border outlaws and.who is

'betrayed by a‘mad, irrational world.89

 

as The Prelude, Book II, 11. 321-333.
29 Beatty, WIIIiam Wordsworth! Bis Doctrine and Art in

Their-Historical'RelatIons, pp. -

46

Iordsworth‘s belief in the "Utonia of democracy” as pre—
sented by Godwin is also based on the theory of original
goodness and the ultimate perfectibility of man. The immorb
tality of a perfect body can be attained only under the law
of perfect reason. Godwin shows that war is connected with .
autocracy. It arises from autocracy. Autocracy is a product
of unreason and imposture, for an offensive war is contrary
to the very nature of democracy. .And autocracy is also the
foster mother of Anarchy. So that if we destroy autocracy
we destroy both war and anarchy. Therefore despotism is the
enemy of social order, because it grinds down the helpless
Imsses on whom democracy depends. Similarly in Wordsworth's
poems like "An Evening Walk,‘ "Margaret,“ "Guilt and Sorrow,“
and RAnimal Tranquillity and Decay," we find the condemnation
of war, not on purely sentimental or humane grounds, but on
the reasoned basis of a revolutionary philosOphic doctrine.
But as war is also the only instrument against tyranny, both
Godwin and Wordsworth advocated wars of self-defence. In
Wordsworth‘s later years the pattern of a tyrant who waged
war against democracy and liberty was napoleon. Thus his
implacable hatred of Bonarparte and the noble patriotic son-
nets dedicated to national independence and liberty.30

In 1794 Wordsworth began his tragedy The Borderers which
was finished in the following year, and shows at once his ap-

plication of Godwinian principles to life and his recoil from

A

30 Ibide’ pp. 30-32.

47

the consequences involved in them, by his development of the
character of Oswald the philosophical murderer. Here he arb
rives at what he conceives to be the dangers of Godwinianism:

Because I feel
That you have shown, and by a signal instance,
How they who would be Just must seek the rule
By diving for it into their own bosoms,
To-day you have thrown off a tyranny
That lives but in the torpid acquiescence
0f our'emasculated souls, the tyranny
0f the world‘s masters, with the musty rules
By which they uphold their craft from age to age:
You have obeyed the only law that sense
Submits to recognise; the immediate law,
From the clear light of circumstances, flashed
Upon an independent intellect.31 .

Hr. Beatty says that The Borderers

is no mere record of Wordsworth‘s conquest of God-
winian pessimism. It is, essentially, the record
of a revelation that came to him when he tried to
escape the inevitable consequences of a profound
natural emotional experience through a philosophy
that denied the importance and validity of that
very experience. In the light of this illumination,
he denied the philosophy and affirmed the experi-
enee. In so doing, he was able to appraise anew
the values of life and to gain an original concep-
tion of the methods and aims of art...The interest
in the mysteries of human psychology, the strange
contradictions in human character, which bring
good from evil and evil from good, is seen in this
play as in the whole body of the poet's work. Be-
cause sometimes good and evil grow up together in
the field of the world ahmost inseparable, and
where even the wisest has not the certain wisdom
to make a clear distinction. This really arises
from a crisis and a moral perturbation which had
many roots.. In order to solve this moral pertur-
bation during his period of recovery, lordsworth
perceived in Hartley a deeper philosophy of life,
and he deserted the less profound philosopher for
more adequate mental needs. Yet he never aban-
doned the thought of Godwin at its best, that is

 

31 The ficrderers, Act III, 11. 14a4-14sc.

48

the more reasonable rather than extreme Godwin.32

After the restoration from his mental crisis, Wordsworth
found Godwin's ”supreme reason" and necessitarianism were
not satisfactory; he turned to some other philosophers. But
the fundamental spirit of Godwin's q'simplicity," ”humanity,"

and associationism remains forever with Wordsworth.
Influence of Goleridgg

In 1795, Iordsworth was Just emerging from a state of
extreme intellectual disorganization. His faith in Godwin-
ianism had crumbled and he had given up 'moral questions in
despair.” Wordsworth was anxious for enlightenment. Golc-
ridge's appearance in October of 1795 with a store of phil-
osophical knowledge provided a timely supply for Wordsworth's
mental demand. The two poets were in 'as close intimacy as
man could be with man” until 1797. During this period of
their staying together at.Llfoxden, they shared completely
their'ideas and each regarded the other as his companion for
guidance in composition.33 It was through their intimacy at
this period that Coleridge exercised certain influences on
lordsworth.

In the first place, the doctrine of necessity which
idenied free will to man had been adopted by both poets dur-
ing their devotion to lilliam.Godwin. But Coleridge had

 

cs Beatty, lilliam Wordsworth: His Doctrine and Art in

Their Relations, pp.
arper, William Wordsworth, Vol. I, pp. 533-334.

49

already renounced it by 1795. This repugnance is indicated
in his plan of a series of "Hymns" which he prepared during
the years between 1790-1791. He found that ”the Godwinian
System of Pride” made man "an outcast of blind nature ruled
by a fatal necessity.‘ Thus when Coleridge met with his twin
poet, he persuaded him into a reversal of opinion upon one of
the fundamental human problems. The idea of freedom became a
basic point in Wordsworthis later poetry.5‘ As a consequence,
he arrived at the conception that ”all natures' were regarded
to be ”free,“ "active," and alive because everything owes its
life to 'thc freedom of the universe."35 he have testimony
that Iordsworth abandoned necessitarianism as a result of
Coleridge's persuasion. This can be proved by Coleridge's
letter written to Poole, January 15, 1804:

I love and honour you, Poole, for many
things-"scarcely for anything more than either my
subtlety, or my eloquence, to proselytize you to
the pernicious doctrine of Necessity. All praise
to the Great Being who has graciously enabled me
to find my way out of that labyrinth-den of soph-
istry, and, I would fain believe, to bring with me
a better clue than has hitherto been known, to en-
able others to do the same I have convinced
Southey and Wordsworth, and l., as you gnaw was
even to extravagance, a Necessitarian.3

Here Coleridge, of course, might be overheatimating his in-
fluence. At any rate, it seems clear that Coleridge did have

something to do with the fact that Wordsworth abandoned ne-

 

34 Rader, PresidinggIdeas in wordsworth‘s Poetry,
PP. 128-123.

35-werdsworth, The Excursion, Book IX, 11. 1-86.
' 36 Letters of Coleridgg, ad. I. H. Coleridge, 1895,
voi. II, p. 151, as quoted’in Radar, Presiding Ideas in

Hardsworth's Poetgy, p. 125.

 

 

‘1

.-

 

l.‘

 

 

 

 

'50

cessitarianism.

Secondly, Wordsworth adopted Coleridge's belief that it
is impossible to comprehend the ultimate complex whole of a
dung or thought by tracing it back to its beginning in terms
of constituents. According to the associational psychology
of Godwin and Hartley, a thought or emotion is simply the
summation of very small units of ideas or sensations. But in
Coleridge's opinion there is something more, there is the
functioning of the active mind, a self-consciousness which
exists prior to sensation. Coleridge denounced the doctrine
of associationism. He did not entirely reject it but modi-
fied and subordinated it. Wordsworth also emphasized the
unity of consciousness. Thought has no beginning, because
it arises within the mind under stimulus. It is an instiga-
tor to itself. It is implicated in each mental process. To
find the beginning would be to find the origin of the mind
itself. lordsworth's point of view must have been eonfinmed
by Coleridge's or he was converted by him. for he says:

the knows the individual hour in which

His habits were first sown, even as a seed?

Who that shall point as with a wand and say

This portion of the river of my mind

Came deeply read in thy own thoughts; to thee

Science appears but what in truth she is,

Not as our glory and our absolute boast,

But as a succedaneum, and a prop

To our infirmity. No officious slave

,Art thou of that false secondary power

By which we multiply distinctions, then

Deem that our puny boundaries are things

That we perceive, and not that we have made.

To thee, unblindcd by these formal arts,

The unity of all hath been revealed,

,And thou wilt doubt, with me less aptly skilled
Than many are to range the faculties

51

In scale and order, class the cabinet

Of their sensations, and in voluble phrase
Run through the history and birth of each
is of a single independent thing.

Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind,
If each most obvious and particular thought,
Not in a mystical and idle sense, -

But in the words of Reason deeply weighed,
Hath no beginning.37

Thirdly, Iordsworth says in The Prelude that men have

One sense forwmorsl judgments, as one eye

For the sun's light. The soul when smitten thus

By a sublime idea, whencesoe'er

Youchsafed for union or communion, feeds

On the pure bliss, and takes her rest with God. 59
And he says again in the last lines of the same poem:

What we have loved

others will love, and we will teach them how;

Instruct them how the mind of man becomes

A thousand times more beautiful than the earth

On which he dwells, above this frame of things

(Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes

.Lnd fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)

In beauty exalted, as it is itself

or quality and fabric more divine.
It is obvious that there must be some internal supersensuous
factors in knowledge which would render us capable of pose
sessing the "one sense for moral judgments." And that sense
would make the mind a thousand times more beautiful than the
earth. Then the spiritual faculties are infinitely more di-
vine than the external world. Here, in other words, the out-
look expressed rests upon a transcendental foundation. Simp
ilarly, we find in Coleridge the transcendental philosOphy
forecast in his The Destinygof Nations, in his Religious Mus-

ingg and in his several other works. 'His basic notion was

 

37 The P elude, Book II, ll. 206-832.
38 ISIE., BooE VIII. 11. 671-675.

53

that man is equipped with a transcendental faculty of 'pure
Reason, which dictates unconditionally,‘ and which 'affirns
truths which no sense could perceive, nor experiment verify,
nor experience confirm."'39 Wordsworth definitely announced
that he was indebted to Coleridge for his conception of
“duty” and "a Reason which indeed is reason.”

With such a theme,
Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee
Shall I be silent? 0 most loving Souli
Placed on this earth to love and understand,
And from thy presence shed the light of love,
Shall I be mute ere thou be spoken of?
Thy gentle Spirit to my heart of hearts
Did also find its way; and thus the life
or all things and the mighty unity .
In all which we behold, and feel, and are,
Admitted more habitually a mild
Interposition, and closelier gathering thoughts
Of man and his concerns, such as become
A human Creature, be he who he may!
Poet, or destined for a humble name;
And so the deep enthusiastic joy,
The rapture of the Hallelujah sent
From.all that breathes and is, was chasten'd,

stemm'd ,

And balanced by a Reason which indeed
Is Reason; duty and pathetic truth;
And God and Man divided, as they ought,
Between them the great system of the world
where Man is sphered, and which God animate .40

Last of all, from the above cited passage, we may rec-
ognize very well that Wordsworth passed through.two stages,
pantheistic and theistic. He maintained very strongly the
existence of God and the 'mighty unity." This change of be-

lief is very similar to Coleridge's reversal. It is known

39 Rader, Presidin Ideas in Wordsworth's Poetr , p. 186.

40 The PrcIude, IESS-IBUE edItIon, EooE XIII, II. 346-
868, as quoted in“Rader, Presiding Ideas in Wordsworth's Poo
etry, p. 128.

 

53

that 1"when Coleridge finally abandoned his pantheistic faith,
herimmediately tried to convert Iordsworth, then a pantheist,
but at first with no great success. In course of time, how-
ever, he did bring about a change in conviction.“1

We have seen that Coleridge repudiated necessitarianism,
denounced associationism, adopted a transcendental interpre-
tation of knowledge, and altered from pantheism.to theism.
And Wordsworth attained, with the assistance of Coleridge the
same philosophy; Mr. Rader firmly believes that Wordsworth's
achievement of these develOpments was under the strong influ-
ence of Coleridge. 'M. Legouis also suggests that Wordsworth
was undoubtedly influenced by Coleridge's mysticism. However,
it is without doubt that Wordsworth received his deepest
I'scnse sublime of something far more deeply interfused“a
from the contemplation of external nature and from "nature

and the language of the sense."‘3
Influence of Hartley: Spinoza and Kant

now, let us trace one step further the source of Words-
worth's philosophical ideas concerning nature. First of all,
wchavc to examine his notion of ”imagination,‘ by which he
means the highest aesthetic function of the human mind. He
recognizes that imagination is a feature of consciousness which

derives at least partly from the activity of the sense organs.

 

41 Radar, Presiding Ideas in Wordsworth's Poetry, 9. 187.
42 "Tintern cy, . - .
43 Ibid., 1. 108.

54

and the content of imagination is in large measure ordered
according to the principle of the association of ideas, by
which items of consciousness tend to call one another before
attention. Wordsworth may have borrowed these principles

from an acquaintance, more or less intimate, with the writings
of David Hartley.

I)» Beatty points out that probably Coleridge was deeply
interested in Hartley at the period when he and iordsworth
were becoming good friends. “As Iordsworth had left no sub-
stantial record of his thoughts in the fertile years 1795 to
1797, we may turn to the more communicative brother poet, and
by reading his thoughts we may learn what Wordsworth himself
was absorbing and laying up for future use in poetry and
theory."‘

'Hartley’s main theory is that our simple ideas are comp
pound sensations, our complex ideas are our simple ideas
compounded. There are no innate ideas. But in the course
of our lives, through association of pleasure or pain with
certain experiences, we build up the higher sentiments. He
build them.up out of the simple elements offered by our sen-
sations and arrive at last at such complex ideal structures
as imagination, ambition, self-interest, sympathy with our
fellows, a feeling for God, and as culmination of all, the
umral sense. In Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" and The Prelude

there are many striking reminders of the conceptions and

d4 Beatty, lilliam Wordsworth, p. 100.

55

phraseology of Hartley. The general direction which Words-
worth follows is the same, from sensation to idea, and from
idea to sentiment. And Hartley even furnished the model for
Wordsworth's famous scheme of the three successive stages in
the develOpmcnt of the poet's feeling for nature.45

,According to Mr. Beach, what attracted Wordsworth to
‘Hartley'was the insistence on physical sensation as the start-
ing point of the process of intellectual and moral deve10p-
ment. Ibis appealed to Wordsworth's realism, his disposition
to refer'to the world of the senses as the standard of real-
ity, to work from the natural towards the spiritual.46

‘With regard to the relationship between Hartley and

Wordsworth, notwithstanding these evidences we have just stated,
refutations have arisen in recent years. H. F. Stallknecht,
for instance, holds that Hartley'and his school find the world
of eye and car to be the work of a productive intelligence.
Hartley accounts for our association of anything we behold
with the idea of God. Mr. Stallknecht says,

Por'Hartley, God is love itself which casts out

all fear and disappointment, for our mind being

at one with God, we find all things good, 1.e.,

in Hartley's hedonistic scheme, objects of pleas-

ure. Hare Hartley speaks of the love of God and

of our sense of God's presence in the world; but

this is later described as a result of a long

period of education, including emphasis upon mir-

acles as reported in scripture. This might per-

haps hardly have offered Wordsworth an explanation

of the eXperience described in the "Ode on the
Intimations of Immortality,‘ nor is it consistent

__¥

‘5 Beach, The Concc t of Nature in Nineteenth~6entur
English Poetry, pp. IEE-Ifl.

., p. 129.

56

with the insight described in "Tintarn Abbey."

Hartley, it is true, undertakes to show how the

psychology of association furthers the inculca-

tion of orthodox religion. But this religion is

not tag religion of 'Tintern Abbey" or The Pre-

lude. -

Mr. Stallknecht points out that uordsworth first attached
his mind to the objects of nature and gradually came to enjoy
them. Then he came to a more genuinely aesthetic enjoyment of
the scenes which association had made dear to him. In the
explanations of these later enjoyments, probably, Hartley and
Alison may have helped him, but it is hard to assert their
influence on wordsworth's pantheistic interpretations. Words-
worth's belief in the Chain of Being has no origin in Hartley
or his school.

‘Moreover, in Mr. Stallknecht's opinion, Hartley's theory
of imagination is not very similar to Wordsworth's either.

The notion of Eotian influence prompts Wordsworth

to the statement that imagination is an 'element

of Nature's inner self.’ This goes far beyond

‘Hartley...Hartley is even further from Wordsworth

when he denies that the pleasures of imagination

are of any great religious or even of audacmonis-

tic importance. In fact, Hartley insists that the

'pleasures of imagénation ought not to be made a

primary pursuit."

According to Mr. Stallknecht, Wordsworth's concept of
nature is derived from Spinoza's pantheism, his conception
of imagination owes much to Spinoza's 'intuition,' and his

moral ideas are kin to Spinoza's 'intelleetual love of God.e49

47 Stallknecht, Strange Seas of Thought, pp. 36-37.

48 Ibid., p. 37. _

49 StaIlknccht, “Wordsworth and Philosophy,“ PMLA.
V01. XLIV (1929), pp. 1127-28.

57

Spinoza regards God, Mind, and latter as three entities.
He combines them into a single living unit; God, Man and the
Icrld are one. His pantheistic idea is that the entire uni-
verse is but an attribute of God's divine nature.50 This in-
terpretation of nature in relation to man is close to Words-
worth's conception of "the Spirit” or tthe Soul of all the‘
worlds.” Possibly Spinoza's pantheism.is the source of Ierds-
worth's belief in the Chain of Being.

By l'intuition" Spinoza means the direct insight that all
things follow necessarily from the nature of God. It is the
faculty that enables us to see things and events not in view
of time order but in their eternal logical relation toward
God. This is what Spinoza calls "viewing the world under the
foam of eternity.“ The direct insight, according to Spinoza,
is the highest knowledge. This theory of Spinoza may account
for the origin of Wordsworth's insistence on the mighty mind
or "the higher powers” of imagination.51

”The highest knowledge” of Spinoza gives rise to the in-
tellectual love of God, which is the highest good or blessed-
ness for man. The intellectual love of God enables our mind
to renounce entirely all finite or personal desires. It is
infinite love. It is the basic morality that.leads us to at-.
tain true freedom from passion and fear.58 Wordsworth's

statement in lines 206-231, Book XIV, The Prelude, pointing

50 Thomas, The Divin World of Philosophy, pp. 38-39.
51 See The FreIude, II. 333555

62 Thomas, The IIving World of Philosophy, pp. 268-269..

 

58

out that the higher minds possess the glorious faculty and
are blessed with inner freedom; is, therefore, probably de-
rived from Spinoza.

Iordsworth is supposed to have got acquainted with
Spinosism.through Coleridge, because Coleridge discoursed to
him of Spinoza in 1797-8 when they roamed the Quantock Hills,
and a little later in Germany. But the passage from line
386 to line 418 in the second book of The Prelude declares
that "the sentiment of Being” and the self-conscious person-
ality of "every natural form" were strongly felt when 'my
seventeenth year was come." This passage leaves us in doubt
whether in as remote a village as Hawkshead a boy who de-
lighted in out-door life would know much of Spinozism, or
whether he knew Spinozism later by way of Coleridge.53

As Wordsworth grew older, Mr. Stallknecht maintains,
“the Spinozian morality ceased to give him.aatisfa0tion.‘ He
then turned to Kant, whose influence can be traced in the
'Ode to Duty" and The Excursion.5‘ Wordsworth's conception
is metaphysical. Kant considers imagination a mystery, and
even Hume recognizes that the imagination of the artist is
”inexplicable by the utmost efforts of human understanding.“
But we find nothing of this in Hartley.55

Kant made clear that Oin acquiring knowledge of the ex-

53 Havens, The Mind of a Poet, p. av.

54 Stallknecht, ”WordsworEE and Philosophy," fl,
Val. XLIv (1929), pp. 1127-28, 1134.

35 Stallknecht, Strange Seas of Thought, pp. 38-39.

59

ternal world the mind is not passive,” ”but active and crea-
tive and that the primary creative activity in perception be-
longs to imagination.'55 However, there is no evidence to
prove that Icrdsworth‘s ”imagination” was directly derived
from these ideas of Kant. ,According to Professor Havens, it
is highly probable that Coleridge found these ideas in TE:
Critigue of Pure Reason, and developed them, and passed them
to his friend, Wordsworth. Using these ideas as a basis
Wordsworth formed his concept of two kinds of imagination:

The primary, which enters into all perceptions and
unifies them, and the secondary, which dissolves
the work of the primary in order to re-create it--
that is, transforms the sense im ressions already
modified by the primary imaginat on. This trans-
formation or re-creation is achieved, according to
Wordsworth, through abstracting or eliminating some
sense impressions, through modifying others, and
through permeating the sense impressions derived
from any object with those from surrounding objects
and the impressions derived through one sense with
those obtained through another. How these various
methods are used may be seen in the 'vision" from
D‘nowdon (Prelude, XIV, 1-68), in the ”Address to
Iilchurn Caste,' in "The Solitary Reaper,” in FYew
Trees,” and in the account of the snowfall which
brought the poet consolation in Fleet Street.57

Probably we have gone far from the subject of this chap-
ter. Let us return to the background of Wordsworth's concept
of nature. During his school life at Hawkshead, Wordsworth,
as a boy, heartily enjoyed out-door games. In his early
youth he began to think over the significance of nature in

connection with man. He was eager for humanity, liberty, and

56 Havens, The Mind of a Poet, p. 205.
57 Ibid., pT'ESETESE.

60

truth. ,He went to France, fraternized with the supporters

of the French Revolution. .after coming back to England,
greatly disappointed by the political disturbance, he fell
into despondency. By the help of his sister he was brought
back to nature with fully mature realization and convictions
about the ideas of nature. Through books he got acquainted
with Rousseau's theory of reverie and individualism. He
adopted Godwin's necessitarianism and materialistic doctrines.
Under the influence of Coleridge he abandoned Godwinianism
and turned to the importance of the functioning of the active
mind and the unity of consciousness. He seems t) have got
some help for his intellectual develoyment from the associa-
tionist psychology ofTEartley. Probably he was influenced in
his conception of imagination by Spinoza and Kant. However,
he never made any explicit statement about the distinction
between God and nature. His theological beliefs seem.uneer-
tain. As for his concept of nature, we can be sure that he

was indebted directly to nature itself more than to anyone

else.

61

PART III
CHAPTER IV
TAO YUAN-MING'S DOMINANT IDEAS OF NATURE

Simplicity and Beauty of Nature

In the history of Chinese literature, no poet or any
other sort of writer ever dealt with nature so intimately
as Tao Yuan-Ming. He is the only one who deserves the title
"nature-poet.” It is due not to the quantity but to the
quality of his poetry that he has been regarded as the Words-
worth of china. Tao Yuan-Ming did not write so much as other
posts, but his concept of nature was the most profound. He
lived close to nature or, rather, he lived in nature. His
life as revealed in his poetry illustrates the combination
of his spirit with nature. His feeling and emotion were al-
ways coincident with the way of nature. He enjoyed nature
Just as it was all the time. Nothing on the earth is myste-
rious or supernatural for him. Everything that is natural is
nature itself. For him, the spirit of nature is simple but
sublime, it crept into his heart and occupied his mind. He
applies his ideals to the external world and adopts the
spirit of nature for his ideal. Nature to him is a force to
elevate man with its vastness and loftiness. It gladdens
man with its beauty and inspires man with its simplicity.

Tao Yuan-Ming is exceedingly sympathetic with nature, and

rue sympathy is so subtle that he can witness the intimacy be-

tween the movement of nature and the movement of man's heart.

68

It seems to him that there is a rapid interchange of feeling
between the world without and the world within. By means of
hue interchange he enters into the soul of nature.

Tao Yuan-Ming's art brings out the vivid image of nature
with truly simple expression. He describes not only the live-
liness of nature's beauty but also the significance in it.

His sensuous temperament translates the forms, colors, and
fragrance of the outward world sharply to our senses. Like
other great artists, Tao YuanéMing draws the entire picture
with few strokes, presents the whole by the part. He never
uses too many epithets for description, yet the natural scenes
in his poetry are no less vivid than the actuality. They dis-
play themselves before our eyes as if we saw them in his sit-
uation. Tho Yuaneuing conveys emotion to us bywneans of sug-
gestion and presents complexity through simplicity. He makes
us see things as he sees and feel things as he feels.

I pluck chrysanthemums under the east hedge.

Easily the south mountain comes in sight.

So wonderful is the mountain air at sunset,

And the birds flying in flocks homeward.

In all these things are secret truths:

Though I try to explain it, words are of no avail.1
These lines depict a complete picturesque landscape with the
poet himself mingled with the background. In this picture,
we see only three objects, the man, the mountain, and the birds.

There is nothing unusual in it. Its simplicity is extreme.
But we find an extraordinary magnitude revealed by this sin»

 

1 "Drinking Songs, I. Chrysanthemums,” tr. Yang Yeh-tzu,
in The White Pon J, ed. Payne, 11.5-10.

63

plicity. This magnitude is the atmosphere of perfect harmony
between man and natural objects. And this atmosphere is the
beauty that has fascinated our poet, Tao Yuan-Ming. He is
well aware that it seems to be an inexplicable force prevail-
ing at his heart. He realizes the charm of nature by his
sensitive reason. As does Rousseau in regard to his concep-
tion of reverie, he finds this phenomenon difficult to explain
with intellectual reason. An example indicating this feeling
may be found in "The Seasonal Change":

Over the mountain stream a mist hovers,

Spreading upwards almost to the sky.

A wind from the south

Perks up the corn sprouts in the fields.

So vast is the sheet of water,

Scouring and cleaning the earth.

Far and far extends the distant scene

That affords view and delight.

To speak the truth,

We are heartily gratified.2
Here we find a sense of the remarkable harmony of nature's
motion pervading the whole universe. Perceiving it men are
heartily gratified. Nature, therefore, seems to be an in-
visible energy whieh strengthens the vigor of life and awak-
ens an impulse of pleasure.

Tao Yuanéling's method of describing nature is by a few
light and clear touches, through which we can see the whole
of nature:

under the rising autumn moon I reached the boat-
mooring,

 

! ”The Seasonal Change,‘ 11. 5-12, tr. Wang chin-Ling.
All references to the original text are to Works of Tao Yuan-
Min , ed. by‘Hu Po-Ghi, with introduction by 0 ng a
nu, Chi-Ku-Keh edition, 1879.

64

By the riverside I took leave of my friends.

Cold winds arose in the declining twilight.

The nocturnal scene was permeated with vague

brightness.

The unbounded universe loomed out clear.

A sheet of crystal was the smooth water.

Tho Yuanéling lives iflclose accord with nature; his ref-
erences to himself show him closely knit to his natural envi-
ronment. He and nature are inseparable. His soul and ne-
ture's are one. Thus an infinite intimacy exists between them.
It is by virtue of this intimacy that Tao Yuan-Ming brings us
closer to nature, and we see nature more clearly. The clarity
of vision thus afforded enables us to become more aware of ne-

ture's essential eternal simplicity.
Rural Color of Nature

The most outstanding characteristic of Tao YuanAMing's
poetry, inevitably impressing any reader, is his treatment of
rural color. Tao Yuan-Ming himself was from an upper class
family. He had a good many opportunities to get a position
in the court. Yet by nature he was too idealistic and net-
uralistic to enter worldly society. His natural inclination
was to appreciate the virtue and compassion of the poor. He
thought that the unhonored, obscure and lowly people had the
really true and tender hearts, which would better serve the
springs of his poetic faculties. ‘Hc did not mind the plain-
ness and simplicity of the peasants. On the contrary, he

found enjoyment in the company of their untarnished souls:

_._._._'~
¥

3 Ibid., "Traveling,“ 11. 7-12, tr. Wang Chin-Ling.

65

There was a time when I wanted to live in a south
village,

But not because I was guided by the auguries.

I had heard that many simple men lived there--

Iith them I would be glad to spend my mornings and
evenings.

for many years this was my desire,

And now today I shall accomplish my task:

So wretched a cottage need not be spacious,

All I want is a bed and a mat.

After the neighbors will come to see me,

We shall argue vociferously about the ancient times,

Rare writings we shall enjoy reading together,

And we shall clear up all doubtful interpretations.4

Tao Yuanéling felt that the lowly people in the country
are remote from official circles. They don't need formalism,
they don't know trickery. They are innocent, they don't know
hypocrisy or corruption. They live by their true nature,
they are sincere and sympathetic. No social code binds them,
they are completely free. Being free they are close to na-
ture. Being close to nature they are happy. This is why Tao
Yuanéling wants to live with simple people:

’ In the quiet of the morning I heard a knock at my
door;
I threw on my clothes and opened it myself.
I asked who it was who had come so early to see
me:
He said he was a peasant, coming with good in-
tent.
He brought a present of wine and rice-soup,
Believing that I had fallen on evil days.
'Ybu live in rage under a thatched roof.
And seem to have no desire of a better lot
The rest of mankind have all the same ambitions.
You too must learn to wallow in their mire."
"Old man, I am impressed by what you say.
But my soul is not fashioned like other men's.
To drive in their rut I might perhaps learn:
To be untrue to myself could only lead to muddle.

4 Vfloving House," tr. Yang Yeh-tzu, in The White Pony,
.dO P‘yn., pa 159e

66

Let us drink and enjoy together the wine you have
brought,

For my course is set and cannot now be altered."5

The poem that shows the rural color of nature most abun-
dantly and strikingly is "Return to the Country," in which
everything in the country is natural, everything natural is
genuine, and everything genuine is beautiful:

Since my boyhood I have had no taste for worldly
affairs,

By nature I love hills and mountains.

By mistake I fell into the traps of the world;

,And there I wasted thirty years.

Imprisoned birds long for their old woods,

Fish in the tank think of their native pool.

I cultivate the land in the south fields.

To lead a rural life, I have returned to the
country.

lly ground covers only ten-odd acres,

IMy’thatched cottage had only a few rooms,

Elms and willows grew above the back caves of my
house,

Peach.and plum trees are in the courtyard.

Iar in the distance are the hamlets of men.

The smoke hangs softly above their roofs.

Dags bark in the deep lanes,

Cocks crow in the tops of the mulberry trees.

Inside the house, no disturbance of human noise.

In the loneliness of the room I enjoy my full
leisure.

tor a long time, I was imprisoned in a cage,

But now, I have again returned to my self.6

Tao Tunneling loved nature even when he was a boy. He
was a genuine nature-poet, so he considered political activ-
ity as a "trap." After returning to the country, he saw the
real color in nature. Regardless of hard labor, he culti-

vated the wild land; despite the primitive plainness, he lived

6 ”Drinking Songs: II. Contentment," tr. Wiley, in Select
Chinese Verses, ed. Lockhart, p. 77.
e urn to the Country I," tr. Wang Chin-Ling. One
chinese acre is about one-sixth of an English acre.

67

has thatched cottage. For this is the way leading him to

the enchanting palace where any object or sound is a sign of
the striking beauty of the rural loftiness. The every day
sights transmuted through the poetry of Tao Yuan4Ming appear
in a new light. Every thing is extremely attractive and fas—
cinating. Nothing is exotic, or bizarre. How commonplace

the peach and plum trees and the distant hamlets are: How
often we have seen the smoke coming up above those very roofs:
Neither dog nor cock is strange. These are the elements of
nature's art.

It is through the real situation that the poet presents
the rural color of nature, which grasps our feeling and creeps
into the innermost soul. The poet finds that in any form of
nature there is beauty that appeals to us. Because the fea-
tures of a scene, no matter how simple and commonplace, are
unconsciously tinged with our emotional associations. As
'scenery provided the_best of what the universe fundamentally
is...wild and semi-wild scenery became a body of symbols rep-

resenting the romantic ideal of nature.'7

Nature as a Retreat

All things have their own shelter,

But the lonely cloud has nothing to lean on:
Paintly it vanishes from the sky.

The rosy morning opens the night mist,
Innumerable birds flutter along.

7 rairchild, The Noble Save e, p. 376, as quoted in
Beach, 'The Concept of Nature In fiIneteenth-centurz English
Poetrz,.p. . _

68

One bird stirs slowly from the forest

And returns before the fall of evening.

To keep the measure and stay in old pathways

lould mean to suffer cold and hunger.

If no one knows my character,

Let it be--why should I grieve?8
"Lonely cloud” is a symbol of Tao Yuan—Ming's personality,
glorious and lofty. Like a separate cloud vanishing faintly
from the sky, he himself died away leaving his fame in ob-
scurity for several centuries. As late as the tenth century,
his poetic glory still remained unknown. Paul Valérey fig-
uratively says about Tao Yuan-Ming that his clothes were made
by an expensive tailor, but their value could not be per-
ceived at the first sight.9

Due to his eremitic nature, Tao Yuan;Ming was not interb
ested in fame. He had no vanity and ambition, I'no taste for
worldly affairs.” So he was unconcerned with urban life.
He wanted earnestly to live close to nature, to live as a
"bird stirs slowly from the forest and returns before the
fall of evening." So he retreated to the depth of nature's
bosom, where he found perfect tranquillity and peacefulness:

The autumn chrysanthemums have the loveliest

colors,
Flowers and leaves all moistened with the dew.

I drink this cup of all-forgetful wine,

And so drive all my earthly cares away.

Alone I lift the cup to my lips:

The wine is poured when the cup is empty.

And everything is silent at the setting of the sun;

 

8 "The Poor'Scholars," tr. Yang Yeh-tzu, in The White

Pony, ed. Payne, p. 164.
9 Valérey, Paul, "On Tho Yuan—Ming,* as quoted in Chi-

nese translation by Hsiac Wang-Ching, Criticism of Tao Yuan-
HIDE, p. 20

69

While the homing birds flock to the woods there is
ehirping. '

Under the east balcony I shout boisterously:

Satisfied now that my humble life can go on.10

‘Tao Yuan-Ming likes the colorful beauty of the chrysanthemum
because it is distinguished from other flowers by its partic-
ular seasonal prime. The chrysanthemum is commonly culti-
vated to bloom in late fall and early winter. It symbolizes
loftiness. He drinks wine in order to get rid of the earthly
cares. This is one of the ways that he retreated from this
world. He enjoys humble life because it affords him quiet
and freedom, which comprise the essential spirit of nature.

Tao Yuaneuing keeps in his mind an idealized panorama of
the primitive community of ancient times, where Utopian cirb
cumstances would exist, where people would have little inter»
relationship. There, men might live with perfect freedom as
does nature itself. That is the condition which claims his
highest admiration:

In early summer the woods and herbs are thriving,

Around my cottage thick sway the branches and
shades.

The numerous birds delight in their sanctuaries,

And I too love my cottage.

After I have plowed and sown,

Then I return to read my books.

The narrow lane which had no deep ruts

Has often turned back an old friend's coach.

Joyfully I pour my spring wine,

And pluck the lettuce growing in my garden.

A fine rain comes from the east

And a sweet wind follows it.°

Idly I read the legends of King Chou

And glance at the map of the strange places.

10 'Chrysanthemums,” tr. Yang Chi-Sing, in The Hhite
Pony, ed. Payne, p. 168.

70

In a moment I am flying through the un verse.
How could such a man ever be unhappy?)-

It is obvious enough that Tao Yuan-Ming wants to keep
himself away from.the artificial world. The only way to at-
tain this purpose is to retreat into nature. Following the
way of nature, he is elevated by nature's spirit. Ohiao
Ming Tai Tau says in the introduction to Works of Tao Yuan-
Hing,

Tao Yuan-fling is like a distinctively clear current

flowing in a muddy river. He is like a cloud soar-

ing high above other clouds. His poetry of life

is unusually lofty and that of philosophical ideas

is natural and sincere. He keeps his ideals with

a firm will. He does not think of rustic work to

be shameful and never complains of his poverty.

How could he behave like this if he were not a great

philosopher of strong will and high doctrine713

Tao YunnaMing is not pessimistic. He is rather optimis-
tic. ‘His vicw of life leads him to renounce all earthly de-
sires. His attitude is positive. He resigns himself to na-
ture, where man's existence is on the same level of importance
as that of any natural object. ‘Man does not interfere with
anything outside himself, and nothing interferes with him
either. He is relieved from distasteful human affairs. Thus
nature keeps him away from.the artificial world.

In short, Tao Yuan-Ming, as revealed in his poetry, is
uaidealistic person. Usually he sits on a rock with chrysan-

u

ll Ibid., "Reading The Book of Strapge Places and S as,"
Dolph. The Book of Strangg Places and Seas is a book o
1Oeends supposedly compiled by Prince HuaI flan Tzu.

13 Chiao Ming Tai Tau, 'Introduction," Works of Tao
Iflfltflggg, ed. Hu Po-Chi, Book I, p. 4, tr. Wang UEIn-Iing.

71

themum blossoms beside him. Sometimes he comes back on a
narrow dewy paddy walk under the moonlight with a hoe on his
shoulder. Sometimes he rests alone in front of the window
with a cup of wine in his hand, looking meditativcly at the
floating white clouds. He is popularly considered as "the
forerunner of hermitic poets,'13 simply because he takes na-

ture for a retreat and secludes himself in it.
Nature as Destination of Human Life

Thus nature, for Tao Yuan-Ming, is an unlimited and
ever-lasting beauty. In the presence of this beauty, he
finds a real delight running through his soul. Bringing
himself into harmony with nature he escapes any human suffer-
ing and enriches his spiritual life. This is the truth that
results in Tao Yuan-Ming's wisdom.

The common people confine their lives to a small and
ephemeral world. What occupies their minds and souls is no
more than their personal relations with others. They may
grow tired of the endless wear and tear of living with other
DcOple, but they can by no means get rid of them. Tao Yuan-
Ming, like other great paste, is of an entirely different
tclperament. Nothing seems to be able to change his ideal-
ised way of life. By an appropriate adjustment of his in-

ward and outward senses, he sees things that we cannot see.

¥

13 Chung Juang, Criticism of Chinese Poetr , as quoted
1'n‘Hfl'Yun-Y, New History of QEinesc CIterature, p. 82.

72

Beyond this human world he discovers a bigger world where man

is as without social restriction as the birds and fish are,

and where man behaves in a way common to all natural objects:
ly'heart remains with the house near the lakes and

hill'e
Looking at clouds I am ashamed by the high-flying

birds,

Seeing fish swimming I stand abashed near the water.

The perfect ideal is locked in my heart,

No outward appearances will ever defile it.

I shall follow the dispensation of nature

And at last return to a hermit's cottage.14

Tao Yuan-Ming breaks out of the small and material world
and enters another world where no spiritual distinction ex-
ists between man and natural things. There he finds an at-
mosphere extremely genial and free. There is no self, no self-
ishness nor dissatisfaction. There, people behave as freely
as the birds soaring high in the sky and the fish diving deep
in the water.

Tao Yuan-Ming is enlightened by nature. He blends his
temperament with nature's. Lonely clouds, solitary regions,
timely rain, windy scenes, new corn fields, autumn chrysan-
themums, mountains, and streams are all full of attraction
and fascination in his eyes. He absorbs nature's harmony and
illumination. It seems that he possesses in his character

the quality of being totally disengaged; he is able to re-

lease himself from worldly cares.15 So he says in the pre-

14 ”Retrospect," tr. Yang Yeh-tzu, in The White Pogy,
0d. Payne, 11. 13-19.
15 Chu Kwang-Tsien, On Poetry, pp. 224-225.

73

face of "Substance, Shadow, and Spirit,"

High and low, wise and simple, all are busily pre-
serving their moments of life. In this they err
greatly. So I shall expose the sufferings of Sub-
stance and Shadow, and speak of the preceiving
Spirit and Nature as offering a solution...16

Then, in this poem, Spirit expounds to Substance and Shadow:

The Great Potter is always righteous.

All creatures appear in fullness and clarity.
‘Man takes his place between Heaven and Earth--
Is it not on account of me?

Though I differ in nature from you both,
Ever since birth we have been together

With intimate sharing of good and ill.

The Three Emperors were great sages,

But where are they today?

P'eng Tsu enjoyed a grand old age:

If he had desired it, he could not stay.

Old and young meet the same death,

So do countless wiseacres and fools.17

So that the final solution of preserving our life is that 'we
should resign ourselves to fate and drift on the waves of 0
Great Nature.'13

.As the course of "Great Nature" is limitless, man should
forget the passage of time and the distinction between indi-
viduals. He should leap into the boundless and so dwell in
the boundless. Heaven and earth come into existence togetmr
with men and things. They make up one universal life. There-
fore, man should live identified with the integrity of this
universal life. This integrity of universal life is Tao‘Yuan-

king's conception of the oneness of nature. It is the total-

16 "Substance, Shadow, and Spirit," tr. Yang Yeh-tzu, in
Th0 White Pony, ed. Payne, p. 155.

I7 IEi ., "Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, Spirit Bx-
Paundl,”_n: 1-14e

18 Ibid., "Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, Spirit Ex-
Pounda," 11. 20-21.

 

74

ity of the being of the whole universe. As we are a part of
nature, our existence is naturally a part of its oneness. We
should not and cannot live a life independent of this oneness

or totality. Tao Yuan-Ming regards nature as the destination

of human life.
Immortality and Eternity of Nature

Nature not only includes elements and forces which stimp
ulate growth in natural objects and in man but it also pro-
vides the means of response to this aspiration. Plants in
darkness reach after the light. The roots of the trees seek
hidden springs of water. Every thing in nature seeks some
way to prolong its life. It is by instinct that we worry
about the transiency of our physical life and long for a life
that does not end after death.

The supreme desire of man is to attain an immortal life.
Yet no body knows how to fulfill this desire. Although we
cannot preserve our physical life we can attain a kind of
spiritual immortality. Tao Yuan-Ming takes the problem of
immortality into consideration in "Substance, Shadow, and
Spirit" in which Shadow says to Substance:

Immortality is beyond comprehension,

And it is hard to preserve life.

I would wander on the heights of the K'un-lung

Iountains,

But closed is the road to that place.

Since the day I met you we have shared

The same joys, the same sorrows.

In the shade we seem to part for a while,

But in the sun we are always together.

We cannot keep company forever:
Together we shall vanish in the darkness.

75

The name dies when the body comes to an and.

Such is the painful thought that consumes my heart:

Our descendants will love a virtuous man,

So why should you not exert yourself?

Though wine may melt our sorrows,

Nothing compares with deeds well done.19

Mankind in its great totality is like a huge wave moving
onward in the vast ocean of life. The wave in its progress
lifts new particles of water and leaves the old ones behind;
but the wave itself remains the same in its onward career.
The material particles of which humanity now consists are left
behind, they sink back into the ocean, yet humanity continues
to progress, it continues to live, and remains the same
through all the changes which the material parts of the liv-
ing substance have to undergo. Man feels himself a part of
a whole for which he may work and exert himself. And in so
far as he represents humanity, he breathes the atmosphere of
immortality.

iMan lives a double life, the external life of the phys-
ical body which the world sees, and the internal life of
ideals, hopes, fears, joys and griefs, which the world cannot
see. Hence man is dual in character, he has an animal life
and a spiritual life. One is temporary, the other eternal.
One transitory, the other infinite. They are bound together
in the same person.

Ian's life is transient, but his tioughts and ideas may
be immortal. His thoughts and ideas continue according to

___

19 Ibid., ”Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, Shadow Says to
substance.3

76

the law of causation, for every event which takes place con-
tunucs in its effects. Therefore, every thought or idea
lingers with us as a memory. This memory is the representa-
tion of our personality which under certain circumstances
may remain immortal with nature. I

_The immortality which engenders ever-lasting memory is
the valuable accomplishment of man during his life time.
This valuable accomplishment is unforgetable to his children,
to his friends, and to his countrymen or.even to the world.
Virtues leave seeds which will grow again. Therefore, in-
stead of living only for ourselves, we have to give ourselves
up in some fonn or other to the common interest of mankind.
Life is but the shadow of the body. In order to achieve im-
mortality the shadow pushes the body to exert itself because
“our descendants will love a virtuous man," and "nothing comp
pares with deeds well done." In regard to this conception,
Tao YuanAMing seems very close to Tennyson whose view of the
spiritual life of the individual after death is clearly in-
dicated as follows:

Nor blame I Death, because he bars

The use of virture out of earth:
I know transplanted human worth
Hill bloom to profit, otherwhere.‘0

Immortality is a quality of nature as well as of man.

Nature's existence implies the unchanging being of her in-

!O Tennyson, "In Memoriam," LXXXII, as quoted in Beach,
The Concept of Nature in Nineteenth-Century English Poetg,

377fiflfif

77

finite force which consists of the individual lives of all
the objects under the sky. As Emerson says, man is at lib-
erty to realize his oneness with the spirit that moves in
all things or rather, as it seems, to mingle his identity
with the divine whole. This divine whole is actually the
eternity of nature. Therefore, it is obvious that a man who
desires the eternity of an immortal life must follow the
eternal law of nature, which brings all phenomena into ex-
istence. Tao YuanéMing seems to expound this idea in 'The
Empty Boatz"

Softly and unhampered an empty boat glides on

To and fro along the stream of eternity.

Scarcely has the year begun

When we are halfway among the constellations.

Beyond the south window everything blossoms,

The north forests are well wooded and luxuriant.

Down to mysterious pools pours timely rain,

‘Winds from warmer climates ruffle the early dawn.

Whoever comes must go.

iMortal destiny commands that we shall leave.

Remain with your proper destiny to the end;

Leaning on elbows we shall not harm the inward
wholeness:

Whether the changing current is foul or fair,

The ups and downs can never touch our freedom.

To behave in this way shows a lofty spirit--

What need is there to climb high mountains?31

Like an empty boat floating on an eternal stream, the
external life of man compared with nature's infinity and
eternity is but a moment's existence. No matter what may
happen to him in the present life, at length there will be

an end to it. However, when we realize the inward wholeness,

21 "The Empty Boat," tr. Yang Ych-tzu, in The White Pon ,
ed. Payne, p. 158.

78

the universal freedom of nature, which is unchanging and
ever-lasting, we will not consider the transitory ups and
downs of our present life; we will turn our attention to the
inner light and lofty spirit which exist beyond our present
life. This seems to be the preliminary procedure of Tao

Than~Ming to approach the immortality and eternity of nature.

79

CHAPTER V
BACKGROUND TO TAO YUANeMING'S IDEAS OF NATURE

Inherited and Innate Qualities of His Personality

0n the basis of Tao Yuan-Ming's principal ideas about
nature as revealed in his poetry, it is possible to construct
a profile of his personality. Actually he was nothing but a
farmer working from morning till night. What distinguished
him from other farmers was his profound insight and unusual
intellectual faculty.

‘He was born in a traditionally intellectual family about
355,;,p,1 He has been conjectured to be the great grandson
of Tao Kan, a distinguished sdiolar and official, once the
Minister of War, who owed his unusual popularity to the story
that in order to keep himself from being idle, he moved one
hundred bricks from one place to another in the morning, and
moved them back in the afternoon. Tao Yuan-Ming's maternal
grandfather was appointed General of the Western Marches.

His paternal grandfather was a magistrate. His father died

when he was still young. He lost his wife and married again

1 The exact date of Tao Yuan-Ming's birth is uncertain
to all scholars of today. in Ju-Lun in his On Chinese Poetr
holds 376 L.D., which was the first year of the reign of Tai
Yuan. Liang Chi-Chiao in his Tao Yuan-Ming.maintains 372 A.D.,
the second year of the reign of‘fisien An. Professor Ohu
Kwang-Tsien in his On Poetry claims 575 A.D., the third and
last year of the reign o N ng Hang. Here 365 is the tradi-
tional record in Chinese history, e.g. Hu‘Yun—Y, New History
of Ghinese Literature, p. 80, and Latourette, The Chinegg;

Their History andflulture, Vol. I, p. 165.

 

80

at his thirtieth year. While he was only middle aged, sev-
eral members of his family died. An accidental fire left
him with an unforeseen and heavy financial burden. Tao Yuan-
ling was exceedingly poor during his whole life. From.his
youth he was plagued with 111 health. He died in 427.8

He lived in a village called Chaitsang of the district
of Hsunyang, Kiangsi Province. He inherited a very small
estate and had very little property. He took farming as a
profession. The soil of his land was poor, and famines were
frequent. He had a big fmnily to support and it was ex-
tremely'difficult for him to attain even the simple neces-
sities:

The weather is hot as burning

The fields teem with insects and locusts.

Frequently come the raids of storms and floods,

The crop is no more than enough for one person.
He was so needy that ”In winter I haven't even flax to wear,

and in summer I drink with a calabash and eat with a has-

ket."

for the sake of necessary sustenance, Tao Yuanéfling was
obliged to look for a post in the government. His first Job

was that of Military Adviser of the Capital Garrison at Chien-
yeh, in 399,5 Two years later he was dispatched to Kiang-

2 Chu Kwang-Tsien, 0n Poetry, pp. 214-215.

3 "Lament, Written o Pang hu-Pu and Tang Chi-Chung,"
11. 7-10, tr. Wang Chin-Ling.

4 Works, Book VIII, p. 8. 'Lament for Ching-Yuan, My

dead Cousin.“ .
5 The Capital of Tsin Dynasty was Uhienyeh, which is

now'Hanking.

 

81

ling.6 In winter of the same year he resigned on account of
the death of his mother. In 404, again he took a position

as Military.Adviser of Sovereign Force. In August of the next
year he was appointed the Magistrate of Pengtse,7 where he
stayed only eighty-three days. Because of his dislike for

the life of officialdom he quitted his post and went home to
Ghaitsang. This is told fully in the long preface to his fa-
mous poem "The Return:'

...But the world was busy with its affairs, and
princes and dukes vied with one another in employ-
ing men of ability, and so through the recommenda-
tion of my uncle I received an appointment as a
chief official in a small district. The country
remained in confusion, and upon my soul I was sick
of serving in a distant place. Pengtse is only
some thirty miles from my home,and in addition
there were the advantages of official fields, which
assisted my income: so I undertook these duties.
But after a few days I was overcome by a feeling of
homesickness. Why? To serve thare was against my
instinct, and could not be put right by affects-
tions. Hunger and cold can cause physical suffer-
ing, but to do things against my conscience still
tortures my spirit. There is a precious lesson
that I have derived from hard experience: one who
indulges himself in worldly affairs merely satisfies
his mouth and his stomach. But even then I con-
ceived the desire to wait for the next crap, and
then leave my office silently. A few days later
my sister died in Wuchang. I was eager to go to
her funeral, and so I resigned of my own accord.

I have been gn official for little more than
eighty days.

From 405 until his death he remained home as a farmer.

His physical life was full of hardship and bitterness though

¥

6 Kiangling is a district of Yuehyang in Hunan Province.

7 A district in Kiangsi Province.

8 "Preface to The Return," tr. Yen Whai-Sheu, in IE2
Efiite Pony, ed. Payne, pp. 151-152.

82

he enjoyed his chrysanthemums and lyre. Sometimes he was
starving and had to beg for food. At any rate, he determined
not to be an official again. He said, "I will not crook the
hinges of my back for five packs of rise a day." During his
late years, he was appointed Officer of Public Writings by
Emperor Liu Yu, but he did not accept this position.9 Actu-
ally, there were great opportunities to acquire wealth, but
he followed strictly his family tradition not to be corrupt.
In ”BiOgraphy of the Late General of the Western Marches,"
Tao'Yuan-Ming writes of his maternal grandfather:

...He behaved always correctly, and never boasted

of his deeds. You could hardly detect from his

expression whether he was angry or pleased. He

was fond of drinking, but only in moderation, and

when he indulged his fancy, he would look as

peaceful as though he were alone, even if he was

surrounded by many people.1

Tao Yuan-Ming had no desire for riches and fame. It
seems that he was completely contented with the natural world
as he saw it. The mountains and streams, valleys and plains
were all to him unchanging attractions with a deliberate sin,
plicity and an incurable nostalgia. He loved nature and wine,
children and chrysanthemums, he loved walking alone through
the countryside. He took delight in the seasons and comfort ‘

in birds. He sometimes worried about death, but since it is

inevitable for man, he was consoled.with the idea of the im-

—————v

O Chu Kwang-Tsien, On Poetr , p. 216.

10 "Biography of the fate General of the Western Marches,"
as quoted in English translation in The White Pony, ed.
Payne, p. 150.

83

mortality of virtuous deeds. He is the poet of quietness
and solitude. His brief autobiography shows explicitly all
these qualities of his personality: V

The Scholar of Five Willows is a native of I
know not what place; and no one knows his name or
surname. Because there were five willows beside
his house, he was known simply as the Scholar of
the Five Willows. He was quiet, even taciturn,
had no desire for riches or fame. He amused him-
self with books, but never to such an extent that
he would trouble himself with exact interpreta-
tions. When he found a passage that particularly
delighted him, he was so happy that he went with-
out food.

He had a passion for wine, but sometimes he
was so poor that he could obtain none. His
friends realized this, and they never forgot to
invite him over-for a drink. He always emptied
his cup, determined whatever else happened to get
drunk. After he was drunk he retired, and cared
nothing at all where he found himself. The four
walls of his house were bare and tattered, and
did not shelter him from wind or sun. Wearing a
short flax-cloth Jacket, all torn, and carrying
an empty rice bowl, he was perfectly content.

He amused himself by writing occasional poems,
wherein aspirations are revealed, having no in-
terest in worldly succefs or failure. And so his
life passed to its end. 1

Tao Yuan-Ming may appear to be a passive pessimist be-
cause of his retreat from the world. Actually, quite the
contrary, he was always positive and contented. He had a
finn will and strong desire for his ideal life. He deter-
mined to have nothing to do with politics. He wanted to be
a lonely scholar desperately anxious to do what was right.
He was intensely human. Of his personality, the greatest
poet of the Sung Dynasty, Su Tung-Po, wrote in the introduc-

4——

11 "The Biography of The Scholar of Five Willows," as
quoted in English translation in The White Pony, ed. Payne,
P. 153.

84

tion to an edition of Tao Yuan-Ming's poetical works:

Tao Yuan-Ming applied for the official post
without feeling hwmble at all when he was in need
of it. He gave it up without any self-conceit
when he disliked it. He would beg for food if he
had nothing to eat. He would treat his guests
with chicken and rice if he got them. He has been
highly esteemed up to Ehe present day mostly due
to his ingenuousness.1 ‘

Finally, I would like to quote Mr. Payne's beautiful

passage as a summation of Tao Yuan-Ming's charming person-

ality:

Partly‘it was heredity and the family trati-.
tion, partly his own innate contempt for the shows
and ceremonials of life. There is always robust
good sense in him, an underlying gravity of manner,
and a queer streak of humor. He praised all the
seasons, but seems to have preferred autumn, when
the chrysanthemums blossom. He painted in thin
light colors, and for this reason has been called
the poet of old people, but in fact he is the
poet's post, his verses possessing in the original
Chinese a classic perfection of idiom. He is the
nightingale rather than the skylark, and if he can
be compared with any Western posts at all, we must
go to the Vergil of the Ceorgics and the more
recent poems of Robert Frost. ‘He would deliber-
ately select the most colorless words, not because
he disliked color, but because he was intent on
describing things as they are without adventitious
aids, in the same way that Yeats, in revising his
poetry, would search for the starkest, not the
tnost evocative adjective. He was almost the first
Chinese post to describe nature intimately. He
‘was the herald of a more accurate dawn.

12 Su Tung-Po, "On the Poetry of Tao Yuan-Ming," as
Quoted in Hsiao Wang-Ching, Criticism of Tao Yuan-Ming,
P- 12, tr. Wang Chin-Ling.

13.1119 White PM, ed. Payne, pp. 150-151.

85

Rustic Life

Tao Yuan-Ming was a sensitive post. As he had found
the official society not to his taste, he determined to go
back to his fields and never come out again regardless of
his extreme poverty. He must have been too much disgusted
by the meaningless formality and corruption of the so-called
polite circles. So he craved eagerly to return to the coun-
try and live together with the simple farmers in order to
get really close to nature. In "The Return" he repeats his
resolution again and again:

I must return. My fields and.my orchards

Are invaded by weeds.

Why should I not return?

Since I have made my soul the slave of my body,

Why should I wait, moaning dreadfully?

No, I shall not waste my sighs on the past,

I shall lift my spirit toward the far future.

I have not wandered too far from the path.

Still I know

I am once more on the road to my home.14

Only in the country it is possible for a nature-loving
post to appreciate the fascinating natural scenes which ap-
peal to his peaceful mood and lofty mind. The country is
.the very place where he can enjoy his garden, fields, birds,
and clouds. Particularly is this the case with Tao Yuan-
Ming:

Sometimes I wander in my garden

Where there is a door that is rarely cpen.

I lean on my staff at my leisure
And sometimes lift my head and look around.

.14 Ibid., "The Return," 11. 1-10.

1 e .b lid

'4

Jami-lit? Hi!—-..H.. K, at .n M

86

Idly, the clouds climb the valleys:

The birds, weary of flying, seek for their nests.
Light thickens, but still I remain in the fields,
Caressing with my hands a solitary pine.15

Hence again he urges himself to leave the earthly place for
home, without care for the people whose ways are different
from his:
I must returni

I shall have no more friends to amuse me.

The world and I have broken apart.

What have I to do with men any longer?

I shall forget myself in the peace of my family,

And the hours will pass, and the music of my

lyre...

If he does not get into nature how can he find anything hid-
den in the depth of nature? If we do not look into the the-
saurus we cannot discover what treasure is in it. We may
learn very well about a place from the map, but unless we
travel in that place we never can get a real knowledge of it.
Probably, this is why Tao Yuan-Ming determines to leave the
city for the country.

After all, he finds things in the country are really
different from the city:

I shall row a small boat into the wilderness

Of leaves in search of a quiet grotto.

The trees, spendidly gleaming,

Climb higher with the coming of spring,

And the fountains and the springs

Steal from their caverns of rock.

Ah, happy is life in the spring,

But my life is slowly coming to an and.”7

How beautiful and lovely such a place described in these

15 Ibid., ”The Return,” 11. 27-34.
16 I811, "The Return,‘ 11. 55-40.
17 m., ”The Return,” 11. 45-52.

87

lines is: It is really no less than a fairy land. Nothing
is like this in the city. Where can we enjoy such a charm-
ing spot if we don't go to the country?

Moreover, in his poetry Tao Yuan-Ming pictures an ideal
soeiety which appealed strongly to the people of his time.
This society was an anarchical community in which all people
are perfectly free from the restriction of any social creed
or system. Nothing there is artificial. Everything is
happy and spontaneous. People only work at farming, by which
they live, and through which they are enabled to live closer
to nature. Tao Yuan-Ming wanted to realize this natural way
of life; he personally carried it into practice. Farming
was, thus, his choice of an occupation rather than govern-

mental service:

At the foot of the south mountain I grow beans:

Weeds are too many and the bean shoots very few.

In early morning I start working on the wilderness.

Under the moonlight I return home with hoe on
Shouldere '

The path is narrow and the grasses tall,

iMy clothes are moistened with evening dew.

my'clothes' being wet, I don't mind,

My only gesire is to be content with my way of
life.1

Living in the country, working his farm, Tao Yhan-Ming
was entirely satisfied. Sometimes men of letters and polit-
ical officers visited him to keep in contact with him, but
he was actually not interested in them.19 It was the peas-

ants with whom he associated most intimately. Sometimes

18 ”Living in the Country,HUll. 1-8, tr. Hang Chin—Ling.
19 Chu Kwang-Tsien, On Poetry, p. 216-217.

they brought him "a present of wine and rice-soup," sometimes
he 'entertained" them "with a chicken."20 When there were no
farming affairs in the country, he would meet with the peas-
ants to enjoy a cup of wine at leisure and exchange comments
about their hemp and mulberries:

Along the deserted paths,

Turning away the grass leaves, we walk here and

there.
Gathering together, nothing to say
‘ Except comment on the growth of hemp and mul-
berries.21
With farming work we are all busy.
At leisure we think of one another.
oThinking so much that we pit on clothes,

Talk, and langh without fatigue whatever.32

This was the way in which Tao Yuan-Ming lived in the
country from the time that he abandoned his public employment.
He stayed far away from the busy world but he never was
lonely, because he found enjoyment in the friendship and com-
panionship of his working fellows, who were genuine by na-
ture. As a rule, peasants live a plain life and treat one
another with sincerity, ingenuousness, and innocence. The
peasants have no need of affectation, deception, and hypoc-
risy. Therefore, their community is simple and natural. In
such a community we can find a genial atmosphere which seems
to be derived from the way of nature. This is the reason why

Tao Yuan-Ming lived contentedly with the peasants.

Furthermore, dealing with the plants in the fields, we

20 ”Living in the Country V," 11. 5-6.
21 "Living in the Country II," 11. 5-8, tr. Wang Chin-

Ling.
22 FMoving House I,” 11. 17-20, tr. Wang Chin-Ling.

89

are always in touch with nature. We are permeated with na-
tural air and inspired with natural scenes. Our senses are
nourished by nature's revelation and our feelings and emo-
tions purified by its effect. We are led to absorb nature's
simplicity and spontaneity and to follow the natural course
of life. Man and nature thus become one and inseparable in
spirit. This is probably the reason why Tao Yuan-Ming ap-

proached nature through rustic life.
Influence of Confucianism

From Tao Yuan-Ming's brief autobiography we have learned
that "he amused himself with books, but never to such an ex-
tent that he would trouble himself with exact interpretations.
Whan he found a passage that particularly delighted him, he
was so happy that he went without food." In his "Letter to
Tzu Yan' he wrote: ”In my young days I learned to play the
lyre and to read books. Sometimes I loved quietness. When
I found some book delightful, I would continue reading and
forget to eat,-23 In "The Return" he also mentioned that he
would pass the hours in playing the lyre and reading books.24
Likewise, in many other places he indicated his keen interest
in reading.

What kind of books did he read? Since no accurate rec-

ord concerning his life has been handed down, we have to go

25 Works, “Letter to Tzu Yen," Book VIII, p. 2, tr.

Wang Chin-fin .
24 ”The Return," in The White Pony, ed. Payne, 1. 40.

11.-tint”, In. Hulk 2H . .. mm ,

90

back to the clues found in his works. First of all, in one

of his "Drinking Songs" he said:

I had few affairs to deal with when I was young,
What I cared for was the Six Classics.35

Here the Six Classics traditionally stand for the six well-
known books: Book of Poetgy, Book of History, Book of Bites,
Book of Music, Book of Uhanges, and Springkand Autumn Annals.
These books are the principal writings of Confucianism.
Therefore, we are sure that he was familiar with the Confu-
cian doctrine. In ”Reply to Vice-General Pang,” again we
find:

Nothing is vulgar in our talk

All that we say is concerned with the Sage's
doctrine.

As a rule, nobody in China is properly called the Sage (Shing
Jen) except Confucius. It is highly probable that Tao Yuan-
Ming believed in Confucianism and was influenced by it in
his way of behaving. Professor Chu Kwang-Tsien pointed out
that his rebellion against worldly desires, his spirituality
without asceticism, his materialism without sensuality, and
his harmony with the life of the senses were, for the most
part, derived from Confucian doctrine.27

Then let us turn to Confucianism for’a moment. What

Confucius said in his Analects probably identifies Tao Yuan-

 

Ming's philosophy in this aspect:

With sincere faith one unites the love of

 

25 "Drinking Songs XVI," 11. 1-2, tr. Wang Chin-Ling.

26 Works, "Reply to Vice-General Pang,“ 11. 5-6, tr.
Wang Chin-ring.

27 Chu Kwang—Tsien, On Poetry, po. 218-220.

91

learning: holding firm to death, one is perfecting
the excellence of his course.

Such an one will not enter a tottering State,
nor dwell in a disorganized one. When right prin-
ciples of government prevail in the kingdom, he will
show himself; when they are prostrated, he will
keep concealed.

When a country is well-governed, poverty and
a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When
a country is ill-governed riches and honor are
things to be ashamed of.23
It is obvious that Tao Yuan-Ming, as we have seen in the

account of his personality, lived in accordance with Confu-
cius' principles. We know that during Tao Yuan-Ming's time,
society was entirely out of order. Great confusion was
everywhere. Peace had disappeared at the fall of Han Dynasty--
220 A.D. There were were between the people of Chine.and the
foreign tribes, between neighboring states, and between sov-
ereigns and masters. The whole period is marked by chaos.29
Therefore, Tao Yuan-Ming's retreat from such a tottering
state to his country seclusion, and his contentment with his
poverty and mean condition were possibly motivated by the
Confucian principles.

Besides, Tao Yuan-Ming repeatedly and with emphasis
wrote in many of his poems about the significance of doing
good: ”Nothing compares with deeds well done," and "Virtuous
deeds bring happiness.’ It is very probable that he believed
in the Confucian doctrine of true joy and long life. In the

Confucian Analects, we find

28 Confucius, Analects, p. 76.
29 En Yun-Y, New—History of Chinese Literature, p. 67.

92

With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink,
and my bended arm for a pillow;--I have still joy
in the midst of these things. Riches and honors
acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a float-
ing cloud. 0

According to Confucius, even in the meagerest of circumstances,
the man who lives rightly will be happy. Ill-gotten gains
will never bring happiness. Heaven grants happiness only to
the good. This idea is also expounded in the first two sec-
tions of the fifteenth chapter of book five, Book of Histogy,
that a reward will follow every good deed, and only in doing
good deeds can man know the true joy of living and have long
life.‘51

In conformity with Confucianism, the way to be one's true
self and to be a man of divine nature is by the constant prac-
tice of righteousness. Mencius, the greatest exponent of Con-
fucianism, fully construed this idea in the second chapter
of his Works:

He who is naturally true to himself is one

who, without effort, hits upon what is right, and

without thinking understands what he wants to

know, whose life is easily and naturally in her-

mony with the moral law. Such a one is what we

call a saint or a man of divine nature. He who

learns to be his true self is one who finds out

what is good and holds fast to it.33

Furthermore, in Tao Yuan-Ming's poetry describing the
beauty of nature, we find a marked parallelism between the

poet himself and the natural objects, and an exceedingly har-

_

50 Confucius, Analects, p. 64.
31 The Sacred Writing; of the World's GreatLBeligions,

ed. Frost, p. 57.
32 Confucius and Mencius, The Wisdom of Confucius, ed.

and tr. Lin Yutang, p. 122.

93

monious atmosphere of the universe. The poet is a part of
the harmonious universe as he plucks chrysanthemums under
the east hedge, while the birds in flock fly homeward. He
loves his cottage as the birds delight in their sanctuaries.
He finds that the south wind has the effect of parking up
the corn sprouts in the fields, that the singing birds cel-
ebrate the coming merry festival, and that the cold wind
brings us good luck.33 All these instances convey not only
an aesthetic viewpoint but also a philosophical notion, which
is coincident with the Confucian doctrine of the fulfilment
of one's nature. One of Confucius' well-known followers 11-
lustrated the meaning of this idea in the twenty-second chap-
ter of The Doctrine of the Steadfast Mean as follows:
Only those who are their absolute true selves-

in the world can fulfill their own nature; only

those who fulfil their own nature can fulfil the

nature of others: only those who fulfil the nature

of others can fulfil the nature of things; those

who fulfil the nature of things are worthy to help

Mother Nature in growing and sustaining life; and

those who are worthy to\help Mother Nature in

growing and sustaining life are the equals of

heaven and earth.34

On the whole, there seems to be a major theme which is
the key point of all Tao Yuan-Ming's ideas in his poetry.
This theme is the Confucian doctrine of truth. According
to mencius, truth should be the basic ground for the exist-
ence of man. Mencius said in his Works:

Truth means the fulfilment of our life; and

55 ”Reflections on ancient Regions 1," 11. 7-8.
34 Confucius and Mencius, The Wisdom of Confucius, ed.

and tr. Lin Yutang, p. 125.

94

moral law means following the law of our being.
Truth is the beginning and end (the substance) of
material existence. Without truth there is no
material existence... ,

Truth is not only the fulfilment of our own
being; it is that by which things outside of us
have an existence. The fulfilment of our being is
moral sense. The fulfilment of the nature of things
outside of us is intellect. These, moral sense and
intellect, are the powers of faculties of our
being. They combine the inner or subjective and
outer or objective use of the power of the mind.
Therefore, with Truth, everything done is right.

Thus absolute truth is indestructible. Beirg
indestructible, it is eternal. Being eternal, it
is self-existent...35

Tao Yuan-Ming seemed to have accepted this theory and applied
it to his life. By exercising the subjective facet of his
mind, he created his own solitude though living among the
habitations of men. He resigned himself to the way of nature
and made his soul at ease:

My physical self goes with the Spirit of nature.
My soul remains always at ease.36

By exercising the objective facet of his mind, he appreciated

natural beauty and harmonized himself with natural objects.
Influence of Taoism

The period between 220 A.D. and 581 is known in Chinese
history as the Six Dynasties. This period of many centuries
of chaos created a deep vein of pessimism and anarchism in
the intellectual life of the time. Confucianism had grown

formal and lifeless. Many scholars were not restrained by

 

55 Ibid., p. 124.
56 ”Fire Accident in the House,” 11. 15-16, tr. Wang
Chin-'Ling e

95

the Confucian ritual. They appeared as cynical free thinkers.
They condemned restraint, and extolled wine, nature, and po-
etry. The most famous group of poets and philosophers were
the Seven Scholars of the Bamboo Grove in the third century.
All these scholars were deeply colored with the nature mysti-
clan of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, and also markedly influenced
by the Buddhist Nihilism. They had contempt for the earthly
world. They tried to attain freedom from worldly cares and
desires through either the Taoist or the Buddhist belier.37

Tao Yuan-Ming was also living in this long chaotic pe-
riod. His time was not too much later than that of those
seven scholars. It is probable that he was much influenced
by the attitude of his predecessors or directly by the Taoist
scripture. Indeed, a strong Taoist tone may be found in many
of his works. In "The Return," the last passage, a descrip-
tion of the poet's own propensity, carries noticeable Taoist
ideas:

How long shall I stay in the world?

Why do they not leave my heart in peace?

Why do I torment myself so vainly?

Shall I stay, shall I go?

I have no love for honors,

I have no love for riches.

Paradise is beyond all my hopes.

And therefore in the clear daylight

I shall walk among my fields and among my flowers,
Singing a little and sighing,

And climbing the mountains of the east

To the accompaniment of a liquid stream,

Chanting a few songs,

Till the time comes when I shall be summoned away,

 

57 Tsui Chi, A Short Historyof Chinese Civilization,
pp. 105-114.

96

Having accomplished my destiny, with no cares in
the world. 8

Whether Tao Yuan-Ming really believed in Taoism or not we do
not know. At any rate, his temperament as described here is
almost a counterpart of that of a Taoist. Let us compare

this with the passage from the Tao Teh Ching, known as the

 

basic scripture of Taoism, written by Lao Tzu, the founder
of Taoism:

Tao is its [1.e., nature philosophy] funda-
'mental principle--the way, the cosmic force which
is the source of life, and in conformity with which
man should sepire to live. Life and death are
only phases in the great cosmic life-cycle; the
visible world and all it contains are but phantoms
that will pass: only Tao remains, eternal,
changelcss. The whole source of unhappiness,
then lies in man's effort to control his destiny,
thereby impeding the natural flow of spontaneous
events. Knowledge is useless, action superfluous,
desire harmful, wealth, rank, and the whole gamut
of sensory pleasures and pains are as empty as
dreams.59

Judging from the similarity of the attitudes toward life and
death between Tao Yuan-Ming and Lao Tzu, it leaves us prac-
tically no doubt that Tao Yuan-Ming followed Lao Tzu's doc-
trine.

With regard to Tao Yuan-Ming's idea of virtuous deeds
in relation to immortality, we also find the same conception
in the Tao Teh Ching:

In ruling men and in serving heaven, the sage uses

only‘moderation.
By moderation alone he is able to have conformed

 

58 "The Return," in The White Pon , ed. Payne, ll. 55-67.
59 Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Chin , as quo ed in Tsui Chi, A.
Short History of Chinese Civilization, p. 61.

97

early to Tao.

This early confonnity is called intensive accu-
mulation of virtue.

With this intensive accumulation of virtue, there
is nothing that he cannot overcome.

Because there is nothing that he cannot overcome,
no one will be able to know his supremacy.

Because no one knows his supremacy he can take
possession of a country.

Because what he does is identified with the Hother
in taking possession of a country, he can long
endure.

This means that he is deep rooted and firmly
based, and knows the way of longevity and im-
mortality.4O

Tao Yuan-Ming's idea of virtuous deeds as we have seen in the
last section of the third chapter of this discussion, is ap-
parently similar to this. He may well have derived his con-
eeption from Taoism.

Tao Yuan-Ming's idea of the ideal community remote from
the present world may also have a Taoist source. In the
ideal community, no wickedness and corruption exist. There
is very little human relationship. Iritings about such in.
aginary regions fully show the Utopian idealism of the time.
Tao Yuan-Ming's "The Peach-Blossom Fountain,’ a poetic essay,
is one of the best-known works in Chinese literature:

During the reign of T'ai Yuan of the Tsin dy-
nasty, a fisherman of Wu-ling was pushing his boat

up a stream, forgetting to notice how far he was

going. Suddenly he came upon a forest of peach

trees that lay for'several hundred paces along both

sides of the river. There were no other trees.

Beautiful were the fragrant herbs, and the petals

were continually dropping from the branches. Ion-

dering at the place he had come to, the fisherman
went on to see where the forest ended, and found

 

40 Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, in The Bible of the World,
0d. 3311011, pe 496e

98

that it ended at the source of the river, and there
he saw a mountain with a small cave with a crack of
light gleaming beyond.

Leaving his boat, the fisherman went through
the opening of the cave. At first it was so nar-
row that he found difficulty in passing through,
but after several tens of paces he suddenly came
into broad daylight; he saw the open plains, the
tidy farmsteads and rich fields with delightful
lakes, mulberries, bamboos, and suchlike things.
Paths threaded across the fields. He heard dogs
barking and cocks crowing, and saw men and women
walking about or working; and they wore clothes
exactly like those worn by people outside. The
old men had yellow hair and the young wore'their
hair in loops, and all seemed Joyous and contented.

But when they saw the fisherman, they were
alarmed and asked where he came from. he answered
all their questions; they invited him to their
homes, and brought wine and killed chickens for
supper. Soon other villagers heard of his arrival,
and came to inquire about him. 0f themselves they
said that in an ancient time their forefathers,
in order to avoid the disasters that fell on the
Ch'in dynasty, had fled with their wives and their
children and their neighbors into this secluded
country. They never came out and so they had been
separated from the other world. They asked who
was reigning: they had never heard of the Han dy-
nasty, and still less had they heard of Wei and
Tsin. The fisherman told them all he knew; they
sighed to hear it, deeply moved.

Each in turn invited the fisherman into his
house, spreading out food and wine. After stayb
ing several days, he bade them farewell. The peo-
ple of the place said to him: "It is not worth
while to speak of us to outsiders." When he came
out of the cave, he found his boat and returned
along the way he came, and all the while he at-
tempted to remember landmarks.

When he reached the city, he went to the
governor and related his discovery. The governor
sent some men to go with him. They looked for
the landmarks, lost their way, and never found
the road to the place.

Liu Tee-chi, a high-minded scholar of Nan-

'yang, heard of the story, and Joyfully made plans
to make the journey. But nothing came of it, and
soon afterward he died after an illness. Since
that time no one has sought to find the ford.41

 

41 "The Peach-Blossom Fountain," tr. Yang Yeh-tzu, in
The Whitc.Pony, pp. 154-156.

99

There is almost the same description of Lao Tzu's Utopia in
the Tao Teh Ching:

Let the country be a small one, and sparsely
populated. Let the people have tens of hundreds
of implements, but no need to use them. Make them
afraid of danger and refrain from traveling. Let
them have all kinds of armor and instruments of
war, but no chance to display them. Let them be
content merely to count numbers on knotted strings
as men did in the distant past. Let them have
sweet foods and fine clothing. Let them be com-
fortable in their houses and feel at ease in their
daily habits. Though neighboring States adjoin
one another so that the crowing of cocks and bark-
ing of dogs can be heard across the frontiers, the
people on either side of the boundary should never
meet each other as long as they live.43

Comparing Tao Yuan-Ming's "The Peach-Blossom Fountain" with
Leo Tau's UtOpia, we find their social ideas are so similar
that evidently the former may be considered as influenced by
the latter. Mr; Hsiao Wang-ching asserted that "The Peach-
Blossom Fountain" was undoubtedly derived from the writings
of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tau, because Tao Yuan4Ming during his
late years, was particularly interested in the legendary
personages and places of ancient peaceful times.43

In brief, it is unquestionable that Taoism had its in-
fluence on Tao YuansMing in many respects. Taoist naturalism,
as pointed out by Professor Chen Yin-Ghueh, had been the

belief of Tao Yuan~Ming's ancestry for severalg;enerations.44

 

42 Dec Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, as quoted in Tzui Chi, g
nese v ization, p. 68.

Short Histor of A
23 Hsiao Wangéuhing, Criticism of Tao‘Yuan-Migg, pp. 24-

85.
44 Chen Yin-Chueh, "Connections Between Tao Yuan-Ming's

iPhilosophy and the Mystic Discourse," as related in Chu
Kwang-Tsien, 0n Poetry, p. 219.

100

Nevertheless, Tao Yuan—Ming's naturalism is more or less dif-
derent from Taoism, for Tao Yuan-Ming does not care for
longevity of physical life which is anxiously looked for by
the Taoist. Tao Yuan-Ming craves eagerly for the life after
death. This is a belief of Confucianism.' Thus we can con-
clude that Tao Yuan-Ming is probably a follower of both

Confucianism and Taoism.

Influence of Buddhism

Besides Confucianism and Taoism, Buddhism is a possible
factor which exercised influence on Tao Yuan-Ming's thought.
During the Six Dynasties, Buddhism enjoyed widest propagation
throughout China. It helped as much as Taoism to develOp
new views of life and romantic conceptions. Both Buddhism
and Taoism exercised tremendous influence on the intellec-
tuals at the same time. In some ways we cannot distinguish
the influence of the one from that of the other, because
Taoism.and Buddhism are similar to each other in certain as-
;pects. For instance, the significance of these two lines of

the Taoist scriptures

All things in the universe come from existence,
And existence from non-existence.43

is similar to the Buddhist Nirvana:

It is only "Yuan" (Chance) that gives birth
to one thing or another, and while the mind rec-
ognizes the existence of phenomena, there is no

 

43 Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, in The Bible of the World,
ed. 361.1011, pe 48§e '

101

other relation between them. The mind is consist-
ent; the objects and affairs of the world have a
tempoiary existence and then pass into nothing-
11088.

Hsiao Wang-“hing strongly held that Tao Yuan-Ming's re-
treat was due to the influence of Buddhism because Tao Yuan-
Ming had the same inclination as did the Buddhist to stay
away from the world in order to get rid of his earthly desircsé5
Professor Chu Kwang-Tsien confirmed the fact that in Tao Yuan-
?Ming's poetry there are many expressions adopted from Bud- I
dhist scriptures. In the following lines,

Life is transient,
Its end is nothingness.46

not only does the idea closely correspond to the Nihilism of
the Buddhist faith, but also the eXpressions ”transient" and
"nothingness" are exactly the terms used by the Buddhist. -
IProfessor Chu again pointed out that in the last few lines of
"Substance, Shadow, and Spirit" are found the principal ideas
of Tao Yuan-Ming's philosophy of life. They may be ascribed
to the influence of the Taoist conception of non-existence or
nothingness. They also may be ascribed to the influence of
the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana or Nihilism. At any rate,
it seems possible that Tao Yuan-Ming consciously or uncon-

sciously accepted certain minor ideas of the Buddhist doc-

trine.47

v.4 _._
A;

44 Tsui cm, A Short HistorLof Chinese Civilizagtig,
p. 118.

  

45‘Hsiao Wang—Ching, Criticism of Tao Yuan-Min , p. 29.
46 "Living in the Coun ry , , . , r. ang
Chin-Lin '

47 ghu Kwang-Tsien, 0n Poetgy, p. 220.

102

There is a story of Tao Yuan-Ming's activity which might
give some clue to his relationship with Confucianism, Taoism,
and Buddhism:

There was then in the great Lushan Mountains,
at whose foot he [Tao Yuan-Ming] lived, a great
society of illustrious Zen Buddhists, and the
leader, a great scholarT-tried to get him to join
the Lotus Society. One day he was invited to come
to a party, and his condition was that he should
be allowed to drink. This breaking of the Bud-
dhist rule was granted him and he went. But when
it came to putting his name down as a member, he
”knitted his brows and stole away." This was a
society that so great a poet as Hsieh Lingyun had
been very anxious to join, but could not get in.
But still the abbot courted his friendship and one
day he invited him to drink, together with another
great Taoist friend. They were then a company of
three; the abbot, representing Buddhism, Tao Yuan-
Ming representing Confucianagm, and the other
friend representing Taoism.

From this story we can be sure that Tao Yuan-Ming believed
in Confucianism, and obviously he was familiar with both Tac-
imm and Buddhism. He might have accepted the doctrine of the
Taoist naturalism and some ideas of Buddhism. In a word, Tao
Yuan-king's philosophy as revealed in his poetry, seems to be
Confucianist with many remarkable qualities of Taoism and
’some slight features of Buddhism.

Tao Yuan-Ming's own strength of character was enhanced
by his family traditions of generations of adherence to honor
and rectitude. He was able to stick to his idealistic life
in spite of extreme poverty, He could get rid of the desire
for fame and honor. He stayed for a short period in offi-

cialdom, the meaningless formality and corrupt phenomena of

 

48 Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living, pp. 118-119.

103

which impelled him to live in the country and he never again
took a job in the government. Leading a rustic life and
farming, he appreciated the rural beauty of nature and enjoyed
the ingenuousness of the simple people. From the doctrine of
Confucianism, he learned to be true to himself, to emphasize
virtuous deeds in order to attain immortality and eternity.
Under the influence of Taoism, he lived_as close to nature as
possible. It is probable that Taoism caused him to conceive
of the Utopian ideas and made him take nature as a retreat
and as the destination of human life. He was familiar with
Buddhism. Consequently, a strong flavor of the Taoist Nihil-

ism blended with the notion of Nirvana prevails in his poetry.

104

PART IV
CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSION
Similarities and Differences Between
-__—E§rdsworth and TEE-Tuan-Higg

Thus far in the preceding chapters we have examined the
two poets' dominant ideas about nature and their backgrounds.
It is not difficult to mark their similarities and differences.
Both Wordsworth and Tao Yuan-Ming found the attraction of na-
ture chiefly from the fields, woods, waters, and mountains.
Obviously nature signifies the outdoor world, not the indoor
world, the country, not the town. They regarded the country
as unspoiled by the hands of men, and the town as defaced by
the works of men, corrupt and degraded.

Wordsworth and Tao Yuan-Ming meant by nature not only
the beauty of natural scenes in the country but also the pu-
.rified life. Wordsworth was not a hermit like Tao Yuan-Ming.
IHe was an affectionate man keenly interested in the affairs
of his country. Yet he found the springs of his life in
lonely places, in the calm and quictude of brooks, hills, and
stars. It was the flowers, birds, clouds, and sunshine that
called forth his imaginative power, for in the quictude of
nature he found "a music of finer tone, a harmony,”- and “a
grave and steady joy," which were "not of this noisy world,

tnxt silent and divine."3 For Tao Yuan-Ming, nothing seamed

 

1 The Excursion, Book II, 11. 703.724.
8 “Star-Gazers,' 11, 26-28.

105

divine. Loneliness and solitude appealed strongly to his
temperament. He eagerly longed for complete personal free-0

dom, non-interference, and laissez faire. It seemed to him

 

that all natural objects including men should follow their
natural courses. So he wanted to escape from this noisy
world and to seek for seclusion where he might be let alone
as a hermit, and to live a happy life like the birds unre-
strained in the sky.

The appreciation for simplicity is an idea found in both
Wordsworth and Tao Yuan-Ming. Wordsworth considered the pas-
sions of the man of rustic life as closely corresponding to
the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. He held “plain
living and high thinking" as a principle of life. He had
frequent communication with the common people. He chose in-
cidents and situations from their lives as the main subjects
of his poems and professed to have adopted the language of
common man as the most purified expressions for his poetry.3
Tao Yuan-Ming kept closer to the peasants than Wordsworth.

He actually lived a real farmer's life and frequently enjoyed
the friendship and the companionship of humble people. His

way of appreciating simple life was more positive than Words-
worth's. He never urged the idea of high thinking. He might
have tried to get rid of it, because he wanted to forget the

cares of the world by drinking.4 Neverthe less, he too wrote

 

5 "Preface to Lyrical Ballads," p. 955.
4 ”Drunk and Sober," tr. Yang Yen-tau, in The White Pony,
ed..Payne, pp. 162-165.

106

about the affairs of common people and adopted common speech
for his poetic language. He was a revolutionist in improving
poetic diction, though he did not leave us any statement of
literary theory.

With regard to universal harmony, both Wordsworth and
Tao Yuan-Ming found an unknown force pervading all the objects
under the sky. Wordsworth regarded this ministering spirit
as an animating principle, a chain of being, in which all ex-
estence is linked. Tao YUan-Ming did not use these terms to
interpret this conception, but the idea of the harmony in na-
ture can be found in most of his poetry. ‘The “waves of Great
Nature” in his "Substance, Shadow, and Spirit' seems to be
nothing else than Wordsworth's "spirit of nature.“ It is
quite possible that this is the way of nature, if Tao Yuan-'
Ming's concept of nature was really concerned with Taoism.
In the Tao Teh Chigg, it is said that Tao is the Mother of the
universe:

There is a thing inherent and natural,

Which existed before heaven and earth.

Motionless and fathomless,

It stands alone and never changes;

It pervades every-where and never becomes exhausted.

It may be regarded as the Mother of the Universe,

I do not know its name.

If I am forced to give it a name,

I call it Tao, and I name it as supreme.5

Here the notion of Tao, or way of nature, or, in Tao Yuan-

Ming's words, "the waves of Great Nature," is actually close

 

5 Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching, in The Bible of the World, ed.
Ballou, p. 481.

107

to Wordsworth's "chain of being.” It is this "chain of being"
or "waves of nature" that is the revelation of the harmony of
nature.

According to Wordsworth, there is a universal love and
a universal joy in the forms of nature. The love and joy in
nature extend themselves to human beings. Thus men become
more humane. In Tao Yuan-Ming, we find nothing like this.
It seems that neither love nor joy exists in nature. They are
merely the qualities of man. This conception is probably de-
rived from the doctrine of Confucianism, which ascribes joy
and love to the passions of man. Tao Yuan-Ming says that ”we
should resign ourselves to fate and drift on the waves of -
Great Nature, neither joyfully nor fearfully.‘ He accepts
nature's entire indifference in a perfectly peaceful manner.

. According to Tao Yuan-Ming, man can attain immortality
by doing virtuous deeds, because virtuous deeds are deeply
rooted in the memory of mankind. To do good is the way to be
true to one's self. To be true to one's self means to fulfil
one's self. It means to attain truth. Truth is as eternal
and self-existent as heaven and earth; it is ever-lasting as
is the way of nature. Man can achieve eternity by doing vir-
tuous deeds. To Wordsworth, the "life endless" is "the sus-
taining thought of human Being, Eternity, and God." This
faith in ”life endless" is drawn from the progress of imagina-

tion,5 because the

 

6 The Prelude, Book XIV, 11. 203-205.

108

mind [is] sustained

By recognitions of transcendent power,

In sense conducting to ideal form,

In soul of more than mortal privilege.7
Therefore, Wordsworth regards "life endless," "infinity,"
and God as inseparable; belief in one implies belief in the
other two. It is through imagination that one reaches toward
infinity. Immortality and eternity are closely associated
with imagination.3

Wordsworth took nature as the norm of conduct, by which
he meant chiefly that man has to follow the order of nature.
Nature is benevolent, it nourishes plants and animals. It
extends love to man and shows him the way to perfection. Tao
Yuan-Ming's conception of the unchangeableness of nature is,
however, very close to Wordsworth's idea of the order of na-
ture. Tao Yuan-Ming found that everything in the universe
follows an unchanging natural course. It is in the unchange-
able course of nature that the rain fosters the plants and
the wind gives cheer to the corn sprouts. There is here no
implication of love and a benevolent nature. Nature is indif-
ferent and impartial in Tao Yuan-Ming's eyes. Tao Yuan-Ming
worried about death but since he found all men are doomed to
be mortal, he had to follow this law of nature with a peace-
ful'mood.

As far as we have seen the individual backgrounds of the

two poets, they both loved nature from boyhood, entered the

 

7 Ibid., Book XIV, 11. 74-77.
8 Havens, The Mind of a Poet, pp. 259-245.

109

political circles for a short period in early manhood, and
finally returned to nature in the country. They went through
similar courses of life, though in his late years, Wordsworth
held a government post as a Stamp-Distributor, which was
merely a sinecurc. However, due to the extremely different
traditions of the two countries, the two posts were nourished
with dissimilar cultures. Wordsworth imbibed partly the
philosophies of Rousseau, Godwin, and probably of Hartley,
Spinoza, and Kant. Tao Yuan-Ming absorbed the essence of Con-
fucianism with the doctrine of Taoism and probably of Bud-
dhism. The basic distinction between the occidental and the
oriental philosophies about nature seems to be the strong
stoicism and withdrawal from the world of the oriental phi-
losophers who had great influence on Tao Yuan-Ming; this sto-
icism and withdrawal did not appear in the occidental phi-
losophers from whom were derived Wordsworth's ideas. This
distinction formed the fundamentally different attitudes of
the two poets towards nature.

Wordsworth seemed to have kept himself more or less a-
part from nature, but Tao Yuan-Ming united himself with na-
ture. The former was standing in a position to behold or ob-
serve the secrets or the mysteries of nature, but the latter
remained inside of it. One is like a spectator, the other an
actor. Consequently, Wordsworth is more objective than Tao
Yuan-Ming, and Tao Yuan-Ming is somewhat more subjective.
This may be deeply felt by reading Wordsworth's passage from

”Poems of The Naming of Places" quoted in the first section

110

of the second chapter and Tao Yuan-Ming's first poem of "Re-
turn to the Country" cited in the second section of the
fourth chapter.

Wordsworth craved worship, aspiration, uplift, and the
sense of permanence. But until he was thirty-five or forty,
there was nothing distinctively Christian about his thought.
He believed in the Bible, the church, the Christian conception
of God, and the personality of Jesus but without thinking
much about them.9 During his Hawkshead days, his religion
was animism, his faith was Spirits, Beings, or Presences that
inhabit certain places or objects. This belief gave him a
sense of being surrounded on all sides by Spirit, by the di-
vine. His animism developed a joyous consciousness of one
Spirit pervading all things.10 He mentioned the 'infinitude"
and "the invisible world,” of which the religious coloring
is close to the conception of God; but he did not suggest the
consciousness of a personal God. In his later years he was
inclined to believe theological doctrines but still he.wss at
one time or another rather dubious and uncertain.

Tao Yuan-Ming seemed to have believed in atheism. He
'never touched upon the conception of God. There is nothing
like Wordsworth's Spirits in Tao Yuan-Ming. Yet his positive
attitude of following the way of nature brought forth an un-

usually mystical flavor, and his descriptive method of pre-

 

9 Ibid., p. 180.
10 Ide” p. 182.

111

senting the universal harmony raised a strong feeling of loft-
iness. This mystical flavor and loftiness made his readers
associate him with theism. But actually Tao Yuan-Ming did not
believe in God at all.

In consequence of their dissimilar attitudes towards the
universe and beliefs, their ways of treating nature are, of '
course, different from each other. For Wordsworth, the ex-
ternal world with its various hues and forms implies an in- ;

finite inherent power which has a fostering care for human be-

 

ings. Wordsworth enters into the life and movements of na-

'Ft‘ h1_.n —._ an

ture by means of his imaginative sympathy. He brings nature
to us by his inspiration about the inner life of things, and
by his conviction that he has penetrated into their secrets.
Therefore, his poetry mediates between the soul of man and the
soul of nature.

For Tao Yuan-Ming, the rural color is the real color of
nature, and rustic life is the way to accord with the temper-
ament of nature, which should be peaceful, placid, and ex-
tremely liberal and unrestrained. Tao Yuan-Ming approaches
the life of nature by living in perfect harmony with natural
objects. He presents nature to us by his ideas of simplicity;
of inner peace, and of the way of life.

Wordsworth deepens his consciousness of nature's signif-
icance by close observation. He lights the gleams of the
splendor of nature by seeking its meaningful revelation. Na-
ture to him is the mystical Mother, brooding on wondrous mir-

acles. He attempts Tto find a rational justification for the

112

importance which his feelings and his experience told him that
nature held for man. Unconvincing as much of this justifica-
tion may be, it sprang from an effort to explain what was real
and deeply felt."11 So that his way of dealing with nature
is interpretative.
Tao Yuan-Ming displays the beauty and simplicity of nature
not only by his observation but also by his own eXperience
and behavior in close accord with nature. He shows us the
idealized world of nature by imaginary characters and regions.
He gives illustrations instead of explanations to indicate his
ideas. Therefore, his way of treating nature is illustrative.
Finally, I will quote two passages to sum up this study
of the two poets. Professor Sneath writes about Wordsworth:

Instead of a crass materialism, or a naive
realism, the poet [Wordsworth] gives us a spiritual
interpretation of all reality. Instead of a crude
Deism, with merely a transcendent God, he gives us
a world alive with the quickening power of an all-
pervading Spirit. Instead of an all-engulfing
Pantheism he teaches the transcendence of God,
while, at the same time, predicting his immanence--
preserving, however, the reality and individuality
of God, things, and finite spirits, affirming
their intimate relationship in spiritual kingdom,
and the gracious and beneficent ministry of the
Spirit in things to the Spirit of Han. His is the
theist faith in a spiritual universe, which our
post affirms with his whole mind and heart, and
with which his poetry of‘Nature throbs.12

On the culture of Tao Yuan-Ming, Mr. Lin Yutang writes:
Tao Yuan-Ming represents...a curious com-

bination (of devotion to the flesh and arrogance
of the spirit), of spirituality without ascet-

 

11 Ibid., p. 89.
12 Sheath, Wordsworth: Poet of Nature and Post of Man,

pp. 301-302.

113

icism and materialism without sensuality, in which
the senses and the spirit have come to liVe to-
gether in harmony. For the ideal philosopher is
one who loves life heartily but loves it without
restraint, and who sees the unreality of the suc-
cesses and failures of the active world, and stands
somewhat aloof and detached, without being hostile
to it. Because Tao [Yuan-Ming] reached that true
harmony of spiritual develOpment, we see a total
absence of inner conflict and his life was as na-
tural and effortless as his poetry.13

 

 

 

 

13 Lin Yutang, ghe Importance of Living, p. 116.

 

114

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Babbitt, Irving. ”The Primitivism a: Wordsworth," On Being
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Batho, Edith C. The Later Wordsworth. Cambridge: The
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Beach, Jaseph Warren. The Conce t of Nature in Nineteenth-
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Beach, Joseph Warren. ”Reason and Nature_in Wordsworth.”
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Beatty, Arthur. William wordsworth: His Doctrine and Art In
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Bernbaum, Ernest. Guide Through the Romantic.flovement. New
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Brooke, Stooford A. Naturalism in En lish Poetr . New Yerk:
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Burton, Mary E. The One Wordsworth. New Yerk: The van Rees
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IJeF‘E-Ill it), Null.» in Illvlil:
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Campbell, 0. J. and Mueschke, Paul. ”'Guilt and Sorrow,‘ A
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Griggs, E. L., ed. Wordsworth and Coleridge: Studies in
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Harper, G. M. William Wordsworth: His Life Works, and In-
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116 ‘ . %

Masson, Roasline. Wordsworth. London: T. C. and E. Jack,
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_ - I; I_r_ .L. i;‘_._».__.__#_ . A _ _

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117

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The White Pony, ed. by Robert Payne. New York: The John Day
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170 Chinese Poems, tr. by Arthur Waley, Chapter III. New
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Select Chinese Verse, ed. by Sir Thomas Lockhart. Shanghai:
The‘COmmerciaI’Press, 1935.
Biography, Criticism,_and Background
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‘Hughes. London: J. M.'Dent and Sons, 1937.

Chu Kwang Tsien (fixi'bi'ifiw ), On Poetry (fift/‘fih (in Chinese).
Shanghai: Chang Chung BoSE’Co.,‘1948.

Confucius and Mencius. The Four Books Ow:§ ), ed. by Ku Lu
($3319 1. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1932.

Confucius and Mencius. The Wisdom of Confucius, ed. and tr.
by Lin Yutang Mice??? ). New firk: The Modern Library,
1938.

Dictionary of Chinese Phrases (fi%i§~ ), (in Chinese), ed. by

Fan Tsing Sheng (:Eifi‘t‘), 913‘ 3}... Shanghai: C'hunghua Book
Co., 1937.

Fung Yu-Lan (éefijfi). The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy, tr.
by E. R. Hughes. Lon on: egan au , renc , ru ner &
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Hsiao Wang-”hing ($45.38;! ). Criticism of Tao Yuan-Min
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Hu .Yun-Y (9)3533, ). A New Histor of Chinese Literature (fifi‘ffl
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118

Lin Yutang. The Importance of Living. New York: Reynal a
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The Bible of the World, ed. by Robert O. Ballou and Friedrich
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p.
p.
p.
p.
p.
p.
p.
p.
p.

2.

62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
68.
69.

119

NOTES ON THE CHINESE TEXTS

Tao Yuan-Ming (P53 $5193 ) was the original name of Tao
Chien (Pflifi ). Upon the accession of Liu Yu of
Sung Dynasty (gin E'htéEpdiadfi'), A.D. 420, he changed
it to Tao Chien. He has been also known by the
name Mr. Tzing Tsieh (it—59%.); ).

Book of Poetry (Shih Ching): “fig;

Lao Tzu: at: a-

"Peach—Blossom Fountain": "fimfiiifliéb”

Chuang Tzu: 3.2-3—

Index of the Chronological World Events: \fbugxkykggfig

"Substance, Shadow, and Spirit": “w},3,j,;iqz"

”Drinking Songs": “,figgg"

"Seasonal Change": ‘efir‘gj’

"Traveling": “if $+n

"Moving House": “16:35- ”

"Living in the Country, I": "Eprijwlé 5;?”‘2‘3 ”

”The Poor Scholars": "iii-1:”

"Chrysanthemums” or "Drinking Songs, VII" (W2???)

”Reading The Book of Strange Places and Seas” : «5%,,
$5.3}: n

Huai Nan Tzu: disfi—

The first year of the reign of Tai Yuan:£t§%&fi§§ny
seems;

Liang Chi-Chiao, "Tao Yuan-Ming": mishap, wage; 8H”
Chiao Ming Tai Tzu: as 53%

Wu Ju-Lun, "On Chinese Poetry”: %&efi@~, mafia)»
The'second year of the reign of Hsien An: fiiéyfiii$~

tea-see

4».J7'ilv.| I

p.
p.
p.

p.
p.

71.
72.
7'7.

80.

81.

83.

84.

89.

120

The last year of the reign of Ning Kang: gag ,Afifji—fif
kill/Paws? if

Tao Kan: have

Chaitsang of the District of Hsunyang, Kiangsi
Province: 3.28%, @ iéfiég, :12. M

Chung Jung, Criticism of Chinese Poetry: §é&)%§é
”Retrospect," original title: ‘Qeitgpggggflwfin

”The Emity Boat" or "Writing on the First Morning of
May in Reply to Tai Chu-Pu" ("1.43 Eifififikifi ")

"Lament, Written to Pang Chu-Pu and Tang Chi-Chung":
“stamens—ease"

"Lament for Ching-Yuan, My Dead Cousin”: ‘f%fi;g(igi”

Military Adviser of the Capital Garrison at Chienyeh:

1% u 91. ’é 5}?
Tsin Dynasty: sis-pg
Kiangling is the area of Yuehyand of today:seg:gyg,\;gq.§firg-%
Military Adviser of Sovereign Force: aag;
The Magistrate of Pentse: ’5'} i? 4*
"The Return": “figg’gvag”
Officer of Public Writings: {$6413 3;,
Emperor Liu Yu: $135.57

"Biography of the Late General of the Western
Marches ": ‘Wasgfigggfimfi 1g ”

"The Biography of The Scholar of Five willows':"3h. 7“"7
ii 4; at” Y

Su Tung-Po, "0n the Poetry of Tao Yuan-Ming": fiflitfi)
were an an a} ”

”Letter to T20. Tan": W34fi% tifiU”

90. The Six Classics: e3: gag;

p.
p.

p.
p.
p.

91.

92.
93.

94.

95.
96.
99.

101.

105.

121

Book of Poetry, Book of History, Book of Rites, Book
offiMusic{‘Book of Changes, and §pripg_and Autumn

Wjfiia, gm, ma, games; was
"Reply to Vice-General Pang": “55533:?”
The Sage (Shing Jan): 3,43 k,

 

 

 

Confucius, Analects: Jug—’Jé%~%%

Han Dynasty: Liam ~5—

Mencius: k3»

"Reflections on Ancient Regions, I": “flag @Vggfiifi"
The Doctrine of the Steadfast Mean: 3

”Fire Accident in the House”: “1&JK.”

The Six Dynasties: v’w if}

The Seven Scholars of the Bamboo Grove: {fifl/k a;

Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching: %%,figgg§

Chen Yin-Chueh, "Connections between Tao Yuan-Ming's

Philoso h and the M stic Discourse”: r ”4%., .. .
semis-Wye m w y *5; “MBA

Life is transient, xii—.4124 12.742)
Its end is nothingness. wiggfifit.

”Drunék,)and Sober" or "Drinking Songs, XIII” (“ that”;
+ O

 

‘1'. v '
I.
'1

 

Jute-134963 E3 --

 

 

 

 

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