Question

How does William experience being in nature both mentally and emotionally? For William, what is the function of sensory experience (esp. seeing, hearing and feeling but also implicitly smelling and tasting) in facilitating the interrelationship between the mind/body and nature? What does William mean in “Expostulation and Reply” in stanza 5 when he says:

            ‘The eye it cannot chuse but see;

            ‘We cannot bid the ear be still;

            ‘Our bodies feel, where’er they be,

            ‘Against or with our will

Answer 1

William Wordsworth’s poem ‘Expostulation and Reply’ exemplifies his firm belief in Romanticism where he draws a direct comparison between beauty and orderliness of nature and the higher and transcendental experiences of peace and emotional enrichment in the human society. For him, a close and holistic relationship with the natural world is an endless source of mental stimulation and emotional balance for him. In this, he positis the instrument of his own human body as an essential part of the experience of harmony in nature. According to him, it is not the will or self directed action which leads to his intellectual growth and productivity or creativity as a thinker or a writer. Rather, his senses namely, vision, audition, olfaction, taste as well as touch, they all subliminally respond to the musings of nature and provide an enriching and an endless reservoir of inspiration for his , he responds to his friend’s comment about his idleness as

“ the eye it cannot cause but see...

...against or with our will”.

The lines indicate his belief in the faculty of the sensual body to provide the link between his consciousness(the mind) and the object of his writing, that is nature. Thus, knowledge cannot merely reside in books but nature is constantly speaking to the mind through a stimulation of the senses. One doesn’t have to consciously make an attamept at a deeper level of contemplation.