Thursday, September 20, 2012
Wordsworth vs. Gilpin
I really liked Wordsworth's "Poems on the Naming of Places." I've often wondered how places were named and this poem gave me some interesting insight on how it might have been done back in the day. The thing that strikes me the most about these poems is how Wordsworth describes the scenery with such detail that would make Gilpin proud, but at the same time invokes emotion to go along with the beautiful scenery. Wordsworth tells us why he cares so much about theses picturesque scenes and therefore gives me a reason to care as well, which was something that I feel Gilpin lacked in his work.
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The thing I noticed as the largest difference between the two authors is how they view man-made influences on nature. While Gilpin sees it as a travesty (it seems) to have man stamp on nature interrupt the view; Wordsworth seems to appreciate how the man-made can add to the beauty of nature.
ReplyDeleteGood distinction! but only certain types of man-made things count as beautiful for Wordsworth. In his Guide to the Lakes (1835), he has this to say about buildings:
ReplyDelete"It is, I grant, easy to conceive, that an ancient castellated building, hanging over a precipice or raised upon an island, or the peninsula of a lake, like that of Kilchurn Castle, upon Loch Awe, may not want, whether deserted or inhabited, sufficient majesty to preside for a moment in the spectator's thoughts over the high mountains among which it is embosomed; but its titles are from antiquity...To such honours a modern edifice can lay no claim; and the puny efforts of elegance appear contemptible, when, in such situations, they are obtruded in rivalship with the sublimities of Nature" (p. 275).