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UNIT 2 NATURE/LAIVDSCAPE

Structure
2.0 Aims and Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The aspiring Nature Poet
2.2.1 Love of nature
22.2 Active interest in nature
2.2.3 Emotional response to natural beauty
2.3 Why some poets choose nature as their theme
2.3.1 It stimulates sensory perceptions
2.3.2 It symbol~sespermanence and tranquillity
2.4 Characteristics of nature poetry
2.4.1 Description
2.4.2 motional response
2.4.3 Philosophical insights
2.5 Use of diction
2.6 Use of metaphor
2.6.1 Consistency
2.6.2 Authenticity
2.7 Summing up
2.8 Activities: aids to answers

In this second Unit of the Block, we will discuss nature as one of the chief themes of
poetry. Nature has always been close to the hearts of poets because:
it represents permanence and peace in a world of constant flux;
it sharpens their perceptions, opens their eyes to detail, and stimulates their sense
of mystery;
its beauty and variety stir their aesthetic sense.
When you have read this Unit, you will realize that if you wish to write nature
poetry:
you should first make sure that you respond to nature emotionally, that it
arouses your feelings and gives you a new insight into life;
I you should realize that nature is not merely an object but a being, both real and
symbolic;
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I you should not merely describe but humanize nature;


1 your experience of nature should be authentic and intense;
I your diction should be natural and should have metaphorical consistency.

2.1 INTRODUCTION
Not every poet can write a nature poem, since this kind of poetry requires a special
temperament.
Unless you are interested in the world of nature around you-its buna and flora, its
clouds, mountains and rivers-you should not try out this genre. It's better not to
venture out of the emotional and imaginative range of your own ifinate aptitudes. To
poets like Wordsworth and Robert Frost, nature is a sort of extension df their selves. 6
They seem to commune with clouds, birds or landscape on intimijre pewnal terms.
You may recatl the concluding lines of Wordsworth's ode on the 'Intimations of
Immortality':
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To me the h&st bower that blows can give


Thoughts that do oftcn lie to16 deep for t a m .
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So bcfore attempting to writp nature paetry, pu must find out whether you are
m,de forit or nbt. Nature is not m e w an interesting w, it is a bt$ng. It *id
arouse deep emotions in on life. The diction used
must be the one which~can the theme; it fiust seem
natural and inevitable Blso;
In short, a puccessful'~atu~ poem-
* must relate to human er64tions;
must be d t t e n in simple kguage;
mu~t have dmks add mebPhors taken from within the world of ;nature;and
express an intensely feit e ~ r i e n c k .

nature poem.

Assuming that JHH~have


may then remember that
bechuse writing a n a w
picturesque it may be. It
hope or despair,
; ~
DOCS natur& w e m hand flow-, the
vqetation, mn the birds, the bees and the butteroliea in
all thcir vary@ CQ-
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AEtlrtrSI1
Read the ~ c w i n v& b
g fro the poem'A Contemplation Upan Floulcrs' by Henry
2.2.2 Active interest in nature
If you maintain an active interest in natural phenomena and constantly keep in touch
with them, ydu will find yourself under theit ipfluence even when you are sitting in a
closed room. N a W will then return to you in the shape d images, coIours and
fragrances. After $ds rCvxperiencing of nature, you my find that, through your
poetry, you are able to create-scenes that have moved you. This is because nature
has now become an immediate personal presence for you.
Have you read Wordsworth's pdm an daffodils?He had been wandering 'lonely as
a cloud' when he saw 'aBo$t of golden daffodils', He says he did not, then, realise
'what wealth the show to me hd brought'. It u.9 only later, in his room, that these
flowers suddenly resurged in his mind's eye to glve him a fresh joy. He writes,
For oft, when on my.couchI lie
In vacant or in pensive n i d ,
They flash upon that inwatd eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And danceaswiththe deaodils.
2.2.3 E m o t b d response to natural beauty
P a h do not love nature passively. It evokes in them an emotional mpnue; it often
gives fhuna netiv Vieiofi of Ufe. It can sadden them, gladden-them or console them.
Pephaps you atso forget your wonies, even if for a moment you chance upanla
beautiful sunset or a &bow. Have you ever asked yourself-why are some
fascinated by nature? What special aesthetic or moral pleasure do they derive out of
this kind of poetfj?my do they.preferwriting a nature poem to a lm a satirical. a

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narrative or a rdlcctive poem?,There are many reasons for this.

*.rmW
A) List one reason each that makes a poet wrlte
a) satirical b) narrative and c) reflective poetry.
(20 words each).
B) Read the following poem by Jayanta Mahapatra,
'Evening Iambcape by the River':
{Thisis the kind of sadness which closes the eyes.
Here the memory for faces of the dead never appears.
Fishermen's broken shacks by the river
Let even starlight slip out
from their weak roofs.
A temple stands frait and still
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thedistance, as thou&lost in teverie.
a hut a eix-mbnth-oldchild awakes
crawls across a'dung-washed flw
not asking where he goes.
It is evening, there is light laughter,
and b e abundant darkness of water
6vtryhichan uncertain light of the moon
lies like a familiar but useless ornament.
a) Would you call this a satirical, a narrative 6r a reflective pam,
or ii it a natuie pan?(10 words)
b) w? (50 words)
(Check your answers with the hints given at the end of the Unit)
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2.3 WHY SOME POETS CHOOSE NATURE AS


THEIR THEME -
When a poet has seved options like writing satirical, narrative or reflective
poetry, why should he nature as his theme?

2.3.1 It stimulates sens,bry perceptions


If you have a painter's eye for visual detail, or a sculptor's perception of a rock's

sense of colour and


No wonder, most
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lines and contours, you will i evitably feel drawn towards nqture as the domain of
your verse-writing. Y d may hen see God's design on a tiger~muth's
'deep-damask'd wings (to qu te a phrase from Keat's 'Eve of st. Agnes'), his
a rosebud, or Blake's 'eternity in a grain of sand'.
give their .readers an impression of deep
lensitivity,of a matter with spirit, the earth with the slqr-as
in a rainbow.

2.3.2 permanence and trrmquiility


As we remarked earlierlin tk$Uait, nart pacr choose nature as their primary
for them psklrunence, poise and tranquillity in a
concern because it sym&!tOlise$

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world of ceaseless flux.Tern son makes his 'brook' say: 'For mnnmaycome and
men may gohut I go onl fore er'. This is because the community ofnature remains
eternal. Will the sun ever go never to fise again? W i the stars never return
any evening after sunset?
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Nature, Therefore, beckons to perceive it as s source of ekr@ spiritual comfort.

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We need its healing touch, e eshed as we are in our daily tensions, or what may be
termed the grey dailiness of o r lives. !$o anyone writing a poem on nature will find
himself uplifted, consoled an4 redeemed.
as only ephcmeml emotions amidst the eternal presences
He ail1 see his fnutrati~ns
of nature. We may here recall Byron's tribute to the mighty, W c i b l e oceans of the
world:
Roll on, thou deep and d&k blue Oeesa-roll;
Ten rliousand fleets,
Man harks the ear&

A shadow of man'

Or, take this stanza from ''Ode to a N i ~ ~ esvherc ' , he contrssta,the


anguish of the transient life with the eternal joyous tKistcnceo f a W s s o n g
Heie,- hear each-other groan;
Where p&y shakes a few: sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-&, and dies,
Where but to Ulink is to be full of SOITOW. ..
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,. ..
on the viewless wingsof Poesy. .

2.4 CHARACTERISTICS OF NATURE P O E W

As we mentioned above, a mere description of naturecannot make a sucassfd


poem. This is because a good nature poem is not merely a
reproduction of a natural object; it is, on the other hand, more like a pahter's
recreation,charged with iheartist's own personal fee-. It's an imaginative
blending of the eye and the heart. You should, therefore, let your emotions play
freely around your subject-a bird, flower, river or mountain-tilf it -erges as a
symbolic manifestation of your view of life, If you are cynic (like Byron], an idealist
(like Wordsworth),a mystic (IikeBlake), or a neutraI observer vie Robert Frost),
your poem will inevitably carry the imprint of your personality.
Nature poetry has, to begin with, three qualities or characteristicsyou need to be
conscious of: 1) description 2) emotional response and 3) philosophicalinsights.
We willanalyseRobert Frost's poem 'Desert Places' in these three dimensions.

If you are a h e r of nature, describing natural objects should be quite m y foryou.


I Take, for instame, the- 'Desert Places',by Robert Frost: i.

Snow falling and night falling fast,oh, fast


In a field I lopked into going past,
And the gnrund almost coverd smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last . ..

2.4.2 ~kotiondresponse
Robelt Frost then responds to the snow, the night and the lonelinesska very
emotional manner:
The loneliness includ.es me unawares.
' , And lonely as it is b t loneliness
Wdl be more lonely ere it will be less-
A blariker whiteness of benighted snow
With no.expmion, nothing to express.
2.4.3 Philosoghical bights
As it conhues to snow, the poem now moves to mother level. It now qqima
philcWphical dimension, inviting the reader to share a new hisight:
They cannot scarenie with their empty spaas
Between s h + m stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much namr home
To saue myself w&h my own desett places.
This is, therefore, an ideal specimenof a poem that opefates at two
levels+~ptivc: (&otative\ :md symbolic (connotative)-which zmqp
into the final stafi.m s u m a p w h i c a l m d g . This is the k W O f ~ p t h e g 1
that you should aim at if you are'interested in writing nature poetry.
As you wdl haye @ced the'pckm breaks into two main Sections. The &st part(first
three stanzas) is presented almost as.a pure descriptive sketch--of a nranat du&
croalSdtrg paJr,an + fiekl on which snow is falling ceaselessly.The pfounB b
e n t i r d y ' g u b ~ snow, except for a few weeds and stubb&.&l lie
tathdY~&wrappadklonelinesrq~khd~~b&id~~the~*&W
~~~~~~forward,the~rdpofthesewvge~in~wi;l)rtbQ~
ir
own sense of loneliness. it's o y in the last stanza that the man's realisation of his
own loneliness emerges as th predominant emotion behind.this snowy evening. If
the snow blankets everything n the ground, isolating one object from the other, and
if the stars are also sepatated rom each other by the empty spays in between, then
why should man alone tie sca ed of his loneliness? Isn't he a part of the natural
universe? In fact, unlikd d m s, he should be able t~ gather up enough inner
strength to master his own 'd sert places', instead of letting himself be frightened by
them.

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2.5 USE OF DICTION

'frighten' wouldn't ca

d d -oh, fast. ...

".
And h d y as it is th t loneliness
WiJlbrmme Mely e e it will be less-
So y o h a y notice that its ,pbndiction, depenrdmg upon
its mood and theme. A may use abstruse words or expressions to
example, the following lines from
Wordsworth's

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Not for these I
The song of thahks d praise;
But for those obstina e questionings
Of sense and oqtwar things,
FsVIngs from w, y ,shings
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in wor ds not realised.. .
0 q the other hand, a poem may u3e either simple or difficult wrds. Butit
is imperative that a discussed above) should use
simple and direct as you may know, goes to the extent of
restricting his langualge spoken by the 'rustic'
this may impose an
does carry some sound
specimen.,written in

We say the sea &q

Think of the storm


~ ('The Open Sea' by William M d t h )

Like a dog l o o m
Listen to it growling.
I ~ ('Little ~xerc&' by Elizabeth Bishop)

Re-read the two'extr three


similar ~ e s rcmerms r
to give human traits
\

(Check your answers with the hints given at the end of this Unit)

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Let's now see how the landscape by the river has become interfused with the poet's
own feeling of sadness, which is the predominant emotiod here. It's this awareness of
gloom.and despondency that controls the-entiresequence of imagery in this
poem-'faces of the d d , the 'fisherman's broken shacks' with 'their weak roofs',
and the temple,'frail and still' that seems to be 'lost in reverie'. . W s also a little
child crawling across 'a dung-washed floot',aimlessly. And, lastly, we visualise the
moonlight lying over the dark water,"like a familiar but useless ornament". Such is
the intimate bond between the landscape and the poet's own dark broodin&that the
reader cannot dissociate one from the other. In fact, one wonders if the poem is
about an evening landscape oi the poet's gnawing sense of life's utter futility. So we
return to our original roncept of a successful nature poem-hat, unkss it 8lso
communicatesa human feeling, it cannot move its readers.

2.6.1 Consistency

: Wwillkndatoncof~titytoyour~.Fc#
thesowodofathunde~throughthemctaphorofa
busy market-plaa, the a m p W mmay not only appw
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A) Sattical poetry is writtento expose vices or follies-whether of individuals,
@ups ot even qaniaions.
b) Narrative poetry is written to tell a story or describe wmethbg cmebas sctn
or heard.
c) Reflective p t r y is written on a subjcct that raquka intn#spcc&m, analysis
and 'thinldag.

Perhaps you will reedthe nature poems you have reaa,as well as aspects &Nature
lYlrrnttrCapc

thqt have moved and insjhd pu.


Here is an met (that I remoaaber though the name of the poem and poet are
forgotten) in which leaves am pemnified.
I hear leaves drinkingrain;
Ihearrichleavesont~
Giving to the poor btscath
DropBfterdmp....

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