TINTERN ABBEY: EXPRESSION OF WORDSWORTHIAN PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE THROUGH THE PRISM OF ROMANTIC HUMANISM.

Abstract

The paper discusses William Wordsworth, the poem Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey (1798) as a poetic expression of Romantic Humanism and Wordsworthian philosophy of life. The study takes the poem beyond the consideration of nature meditation and it is a deep moral and philosophical understanding of the ways of human development and memories and oneness in feeling and thought. The research is a qualitative study based on hermeneutic research design, wherein the author uses a verse-by-verse text analysis, looking at ways in which Wordsworth turns the subjective experience into the moral truths. The research is based on the Romantic Humanism, and it focuses on the depiction of nature in the poem as an ethical companion, the continuity of morality through the use of memory, and the moral understanding of the imaginations.

The results indicate that Tintern Abbey is a progressive vision of the morality development. The memory of the landscape of the Wye on the part of the poet turns into the process of self-reconciliation of the past passion and the mature reflection as the humanistic ideal of the self-education based on emotional and intellectual unification. Nature, according to Wordsworth, is not a sheet of water outside the person, but a reflection of his or her consciousness--the kind of water that fosters calm, empathy and ethical strength. This vision of ethic wholeness is expanded by the poem into an ethic of sympathy in which he is addressing his sister Dorothy with the idea that moral wholeness is attained through love and shared contemplation.

Placing Tintern Abbey into the context of Romantic Humanism, in general, the study confirms the persistent relevance of Wordsworth as a poet and a moral philosopher. The combination of emotion, imagination and reason that he made is a classic example of humanistic faith- that is still used in showing moral reflections and spiritual rejuvenation even today.