Abstract
PROF. W. GARSTANG, whose address on “Words worth's Interpretation of Nature” is published as a Supplement to this week's issue of NATURE, is both a naturalist and a poet, and is therefore appropriately equipped as an exponent of one who made Nature and man his chief poetic theme. Wordsworth felt himself to be a great high priest of Nature, and his spiritual insight was deep and penetrating. In the application oof scientific truth to poetic purpose, he was as accurate and trustworthy as Tennyson, but not so rich or minute in his allusions to scientific knowledge. We do not for a moment suggest that the worth of poetry can be measured by the use made of such knowledge, but new natural phenomena and conceptions can extend the range of poetic thought and inspire that emotion which expresses itself in enduring verse. “Poetry,” said Wordsworth, “is emotion recollected in tranquility,” and it differs from science in being the expression of individual feeling as an end in itself and not as a means of securing general assent to particular conceptions or interpretations of the theme. There is plenty of imagination in science, but it is disciplined And unemotional, and is put to the test of observation with the view of arriving at natural truths, whereas in poetry its object is the communication of pleasure by beautiful phrase or creative fancy. In ornithology there is but one description of the skylark, but in poetry there are scores, and each has a note of its own. That is why we find such poets as Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth interpreting the aspects and operations of Nature in ways that are differently beautiful. Keats by sympathetic human imagery, Shelley by changefulness and its symbolism, and Wordsworth by richness of allusions to everyday aspects of natural objects and events. We are sure that Prof. Garstang's illustrations of Wordsworth's style and genius will be read with pleasure by lovers of literature as well as of science.
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[News and Views]. Nature 117, 95–98 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/117095a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/117095a0