Nostalgia // Samantha Tedder

     Tintern Abbey is a beautiful blank verse poem written by William Wordsworth in 1798. Blank verse is a simple poetic form where each line simply must meet iambic pentameter. This form is close to the cadence at which most English speakers talk; generally, it is pleasing to hear read aloud because of its natural flow.

In this poem, Wordsworth recounts visiting the Tintern Abby for the first time in five years (Line 2). Throughout the poem, you can see his fondness for this place that time has not waned. He describes the view from under a dark sycamore with intense detail (Line 10). He continues to make small observations until he begins to detail the feelings being there again has given him.

He begins to detail how like most any man, he has had days where he can no longer see the beauty of nature because of the toils of life around him (Lines 23-29). He describes the best things in life to be moments of good deeds unseen and unrewarded, as they are for the love of good (Lines 34-36). "O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods. How often has my spirit turned to thee!" (Lines 58-59) I can relate to Wordsworth as he gets further into this poem as he longs to go back to a beautiful place when his soul is down. Nature is always as expected, growing, changing, unjudging, and beautiful. He notices the changes since the last visit while it still seems precisely the same (Lines 60-69). He even discusses in these lines how he has longed and hoped for the Abby to be the same as it was in his memories. Wordsworth describes the outdoors as his childhood love and how he is learning to hold onto that love in his adult life to not lose this innocent part of himself (Lines 75-95). He goes on to share how deeply nature holds him down in reality, "The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian, of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being." (Lines 111-113) 

Later on, he personifies two key elements he remembers of Tintern Abbey's surrounding wood. The River and Nature herself. He talks of the moments they've had and the different but unchanged state of all three of them. The river still singing the same song, but not the same river that knew him when he was young. Nature, still loyal in her comforts that he knows she will still be there for him in his sorrows to send misty-mountain wind his way and moonbeams to light his lone strolls (Lines 119-149). After all this time, nature is still beautiful, loyal, and grounding to him; he gives his closing remark, "More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!" (Line 162)

To wrap this up, we can see how Wordsworth pulls heavily on the childhood nostalgia of exploring nature, and how these sweet memories have helped sustain him as an adult. The five years since his last visit to the Abbey contained a significant amount of change in his life, and he held onto the hope that his dear nature would still be as comforting as he left it. He pulls on a common thing many people can share, nostalgic memory of the outdoors, but makes it intimate to him with his details and the specific location dear to him above all other woods. William Wordsworth clearly shows how deep and meaningful the beauty of Tintern Abbey has been to him in his life. 

P.S. I commented on Taylor Vice and Hailey Walsh's posts