William Wordsworth

hi there

I was just wondering if anyone can help me analyse this quote, im trying to figure out what Wordsworth means by this and his thoughts on truth, does he believe theirs such thing ??

"“nature is what is capable of seeing and through nature, he finds truth in a transcendent experience he cannot see", furthermore he says "truth transcends from the changing forms of nature and the external world doesn’t give us a true picture of reality"

I was just wondering what he means by this and again if he believes theirs such thing as truth

Thank you
Madison

(edited 3 months ago)

Reply 1

gjd800

Original post by Hogwarts14

The 'nature is what is capable of seeing and through nature, he finds truth in a transcendent experience he cannot see' looks like it is not a Wordsworth quote, but a quote about Wordsworth, taken from an undergraduate dissertation available online (or perhaps from elsewhere, but this is where I found it) - is this accurate? If so, be careful in attributing that bit to Wordsworth himself.

Re truth, I'd say that Wordsworth does appear to think that there is a big-T Truth, but the caveat is that it's not immediately accessible to us via the senses. The Prelude lends itself to a type of theistic monism, where Wordsworth might believe there is but one substance, from which all of the world emanates and which resides inside every being. This monad is God, and so God is the Truth.

He doesn't think what we see in front of us is the real nature of things - the real nature of things is transcendent, so we have to access it in a different way. Religious writers will usually insist on a form of mysticism in these circumstances, and indeed Wordsworth does talk of a natural impulse or intuition of reality, gleaned over time and through 'feeling' rather than observing.