Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Definition of Nature 2
3. Similarity between Wordsworth and Frost 3
3.1 On theme 3
3.2 On language 4
4. Difference between Wordsworth and Frost 6
4.1 On theme 6
4.2 On language 7
5. Reasons of the Similarity and Differences 12
6. Conclusion 15
Acknowledgements 17
References 18
1．Introduction
William Wordsworth is considered as one of the most influential poets in the British literary, and also regarded as a “worshiper of nature”. He has lived for a long time in the country of the lakeside, his poetry mainly writes the scenery of lakes and mountains and the country life.
For centuries, William Wordsworth has been a prominent and controversial figure in the literature circle. Having been celebrated and despised, canonized and questioned, he remains the most distinguished Romantic poet, and also one of the classic writers in the history of English literature. Robert Frost and Wordsworth are perhaps the greatest poets in the world. Frost became the first person that had received Pulitzer Prize four times after he was awarded it for A Witness Tree. Awarded so many honors in his life, Frost can be called a leading figure in American literature.
2. Definition of Nature
To compare the two great poets on nature, at first the paper will make clear the conception of the nature. What’s the conception of nature in Wordsworth’s eyes? Wordsworth’s conception of nature is that nature has a lot to do with man, it can not only refresh one’s soul and fill one with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort one’s heart when in solitude. In 1832 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), an American Unitarian minister, left the ministry for Europe to pursue a career in writing and public speaking. There he acquainted Wordsworth and got influenced by him. When he returned to New England, he accomplished his masterpiece Nature, in which he expresses his love for nature and explicates his philosophical ideas that earned him the reputation as Transcendentalism’s most seminal force. However, Emerson did not just imitate Wordsworth or any other European romanticist’s minds; rather, his conception of nature is a different and more complex one, which we can see from his poem Rhodora. Emerson holds that man and nature all come from the same power. So philosophically, this poem shows Emerson’s transcendentalism is a kind of idealist monism. And his NATURE not only includes the common nature, but also includes man’s body [1]56. So Emerson’s conception of nature has double meaning, one is philosophical, the other common. After further exploration, we can find that Wordsworth’s conception of nature originates from his passive attitude of life, while Emerson’s owes to German philosophy and his strong individualism.
The poem Rhodoraem bodies Emerson’s philosophical conception of NATURE: 1. NATURE includes both the common nature and man’s body; 2. NATURE is brought by the over-soul 68. Emerson used the metaphor of “seal” and “print” to illustrate the relation between nature and the individual, that nature is symbolic of man’s mind. Such a conception of nature is apparently different from the one of Wordsworth’s.
3. Similarity between Wordsworth and Frost
People always have the same feeling toward nature, which is simple and beautiful. So our poets express this kind feeling for us by words. What is the similarity of them? Is it just simple and beautiful?
3.1 On theme
Wordsworth spent almost his whole life living in nature, in the countryside and the lakeside. His poems mainly are about nature and country life. He can penetrate to the heart of things and give the reader very life of nature. Frost and Wordsworth have the same way of illustrating the theme of being alone. While each of the circumstances of these poems is quite different from one another, there is a certain sense of similarity within them all. We learn from the Frost poem that although he has someplace to go, stopping for
a moment to absorb the beauty of nature is important to him. For example, I wandered lonely as a cloud by Wordsworth, the poet compare himself as a cloud that floats on high sky. It seems so free but at the same time, it can not find someone else to accompany with. Finally, it is revolved with loneliness. As Frost himself said, a poem was fashioned of intuition and forms but intuition had to come first, and the form grew out of it. The deep consciousness of loneliness helps build up the “stopping by woods on snowy Evening”. Death is more beautiful than the nature. It is another world keeping from pain.
The concept of “nature” here refers to the objective existence which contrasts to the city civilization, and has philosophic meaning. But, in poet’s poetry, nature is not only an objective existence, also is an imagination existence. Nature, as a systematized concept, is refracting the signature of the current thoughts. Nature is the world which is opposite to the artificial, ugly and evil of the capitalist society and is the world for the poets to settle down and relief.
The previous chapter already has been narrated in detail, the poet Wordsworth had been born in the lakeside, was converted to nature. After disappointed about the capitalistic world, he lived in seclusion to his beloved Lake District, near Grasmere. That is similar to Chinese recluse Taoyuanming. They contented themselves to the scenery, and comforted their souls in the lakes and mountains which were abraded by the reality world. Nature was his roosted garden. In his masterpiece, Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth carefully observed the life of the Lake District and completely immersed himself into nature, breathed nature’s fresh air, sized up every bit of nature’s property by one kind of mysterious view. He was shaped by the sacred vision with rich poetic appeal of these all, from the sun, the star light, the moon, the sea, the forest to nature life into his poems. And, as the eighteenth century closed, and during but the first couple of decades of the next century, there arose an acuteness of apprehension or feeling as to the beauties of nature. Rousseau was the first to emphasize: the natural, the wild, the primitive, and the instinctive. Rousseau proposed his theory of “return nature” deeply influenced Wordsworth. Wordsworth generally stressed the essential goodness of human beings, celebrated nature rather than civilization, and value emotion and imagination over reason. In his eyes, nature can not only refresh him and fill him with happiness, but it can also be reduced into a beautiful memory which will comfort his heart. Nature and natural world are man’s “nature” home.
In Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, there are numbers of poems that ode to nature, Such as To Cuckoo, An Evening Walk, Composed upon Westminster Bridge .these poems are full of praising to nature. In his writing there are towering hills and wonderful waters, and quiet and beautiful country scenery. He used the simple, direct and clear words to describe numbers of beautiful natural scenery pictures, and formed the sharp contrast by this with the ugly reality capitalist society. This is not the same with Taoyuanming. Taoyuanming could not realize his aspiration, his talent was unrecognized, and he was not willing to collaborate or bow to the powerful official but initiatively and negatively hided far from the social world. Wordsworth’s understanding always has a mind of coming among the world. At the same time of heartily singed to nature to, the poet still could not whisk off the picture of the reality world in his heart. He always was unable to forget the capitalist society’s all sorts of injustices and people’s misery, which caused the poet to be unable to put behind reality as a truly recluse.
3.2 On language
In language and form, people recognized that is Wordsworth who had brought English poetry language and form into rapidly change. Shakespeare and Milton’s poetry has all used some traditional fixed forms; the 18th century neoclassical poets settled a new pattern to English poetry, which afterwards became the shackles of poetry. Wordsworth advocated writing the country people’s life, also in form correspondingly used vivid and unfettered form from many folks, popular ballads, people’s dialogues and so on[4]5.
Frost’s language is also vivid and simple, but at times bittersweet, sometimes ironic, or simply marveling at his surroundings. While memorializing the rural landscape, vernacular, culture and people of New England in his traditional verse style, his poems also transcend the boundaries of time and place with metaphysical significance and modern exploration of human nature in all her beauty and contradictions.
Wordsworth’s poem I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud (in 1804), expressed the meaning that nature could give man one kind of convert,
man could not leave nature, nature could give man of soul consoling, acted as dependence of a man in pain:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
(I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)
In this poet, Wordsworth compares himself as a lonely cloud. The lonely cloud on the one hand is lonely, needs to repose, simultaneously, also is free, not arrest:
That floats on high o’er vales and hills.
Suddenly he sees a big crowd of golden daffodils. In the next stanza, the poet describes the golden daffodils:
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
(I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)
Wordsworth is really delighted by the cloud in the sky. And he compares the cloud with himself, and wants to be a carefree people. The readers can easily understand the poet’feeling because there are all simple words and simple images.
Look at Frost’poem Desert Places:
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces,
Between stars-on stars where no human race is,
I have it in me so much nearer home,
To scare myself with my own desert places.
(Desert Places)
Frost’language is also simple and just state the common surrounding things. But that is the power of language; People are easy to be moved by natural and simple words.
4. Difference between Wordsworth and Frost
Wordsworth and Frost’s experiences decide the aspects of differences, and the differences make the charm of the poems.
4.1 On theme
Wordsworth located the source of poetry not in the outer world, but in the individual poet, and identified the essential material not men and their actions, but the fluid feelings of the poet himself. The description of nature and human objects was modified by the poet’s feelings. The poet was not writing others’ motions, but writing his own experiences. Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem reaches 8,500 lines. Besides The Prelude, many poems like Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey and so on are Wordsworth’s memory of his childhood and the growing of mind, expressing his experiences in nature and his understanding to life. Wordsworth regarded that the literature was a kind of impulse, considering less the outside factors of rule and forms and so on, and naturally revealed the poet’s feelings. Good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, then, the literature has obtained a function of divulges. Yet Wordsworth certainly did not think this kind of divulges is arbitrary, and not restrained, on the contrary, his manner was exceptionally serious. He thought a poet’s inherent responsibilities, not only was a poet, simultaneously also was a teacher of man. The goal of poetry first was to control man’s feelings, for people’s spiritual health and moral happiness. Wordsworth believed that a great poet must influence person’s personality, provided the new sentimental ingredient for the person, caused his sentiment to change perfectly, chaste and permanent. In brief, poetry was more conformed to person’s natural disposition, namely conformed to the permanent natural disposition, as well as the great driving force of every thing. Wordsworth’s soul was extremely sensitive, had the keen sensitiveness strength to nature, and from this Wordsworth could feel the close relation between the natural scenery and the activity of soul. Natural scenery was the stimulant of soul, also was the carrier of the poet’s subjective mood, therefore, Wordsworth wrote the natural scenery, its essence was writing the poet’s innermost feelings, divulging the poet’s subjective mood. By Wordsworth, nature had received the unprecedented esteem. The 18th century classical poets repelled nature outside the poetry domain. In the traditional ideas, nature also is lifeless, belongs to the objective existence and is contrast to the subjective. Wordsworth believed that nature was not lifeless; it could be interlinked with man’s soul. Wordsworth enabled nature became the object for poetry to recite and chant, breaking the boundary between man and nature. Nature wasn’t the object appearance that attached to the subject, another words, he was not only taking nature as the method of expressing his will through poetry and the tool of expressing feelings, but also let nature and man’s spirit achieve one kind of great fusion, and let nature become man’s spiritual home and soul shelter.
We learn from the Frost poem that although he has someplace to go, stopping for a moment to absorb the beauty of nature is important to him. In the William Wordsworth poem we are shown that in a time of loneliness,
reflecting back on a picturesque memory is what pulls him though the darkness.
4.2 On language
Wordsworth’language is bright and free. The readers like them because it can save their bad mood from his happy words.
For example, these sentences write that the daffodils are in large numbers, the daffodils are “golden”, and the daffodils are “dancing”. In the third stanza, the poet writes the daffodils to infect and to affect his mood in their happy dance:
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
(I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)
In the third stanza, the poet describes that the daffodil’s happy dance brings him to be excited and happy. The daffodils have someone kind of spiritual force, which can be interlinked with the poet’s soul. The fourth stanza is the key of the whole poem. It writes after many years, the picture of the daffodils always becomes the poet’s wealth, becomes the poet’s spiritual dependence like a piece of oasis in wilderness. This may be the reason why the poet deeply loves nature, respects nature:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude?
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
(I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)
Wordsworth’s spirit emptiness was transformed into a fullness of feelings while he “remembered” the daffodils. Wordsworth developed this simple event; he tried to explore the relationship between man and nature. Nature could refresh him and fill him with happiness, and it also could comfort his heart and be his spiritual home.
As for Frost, his language is bittersweet and hard to understand. Because behind the poem, there is more obscure meaning related with life and nature. This poem expresses the solitude of mankind and unfriendliness of the nature.
Let’s take Frost’s The Road Not Taken for example. Everyone is a traveller, choosing the roads to follow on the map of their continuous journey, life. There is never a straight path leaves one with but a sole direction in which to head. Regardless of the original message that Robert Frost had intended to convey, his poem, The Road Not Taken, has left its readers with many different interpretations. It is one’s past, present and the attitude with which he looks upon his future that determines the shade of the light that he will see the poem in. In any case however, this poem clearly demonstrates Frost’s belief that it is the road that one chooses that makes him the man who he is. “And sorry I could not travel both...” It is always difficult to make a decision because it is impossible not to wonder about the opportunity cost, what will be missed out on. There is a strong sense of regret before the choice is even made and it lies in the knowledge that in one lifetime. It is impossible to travel down every path. In an attempt to make a decision, the traveller “looks down one as far as I could”. The road that will be chosen leads to the unknown, as does any choice in life. As much he may strain his eyes to see as far the road stretches. Eventually it surpasses his vision and he can never see where it is going to lead. It is the way that he chooses here that sets him off on his journey and decides where he is going. “Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim.” what made it have the better claim is that “it was grassland wanted wear.” It was something that was obviously not for everyone because it seemed that the majority of people took the other path therefore he calls it “the road less travelled by”. The fact that the traveller took this path over the more popular, secure one indicates the type of personality he has, one that does not want to necessarily follow the crowd but do more of what has never been done, what is new and different. “And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.” The leaves had covered the ground and since the time they had fallen no one had yet to pass by on this road. Perhaps Frost does this because each time a person comes to the point where they have to make a choice, it is new to them, somewhere they have never been and they tend to feel as though no one else had ever been there either. “I kept the first for another day!” The desire to travel down both paths is expressed and is not unusual, but “knowing how way leads on to way”, the speaker of this poem realizes that the decision is not just a temporary one and he “doubted if should ever come back.” This is his common sense speaking and acknowledging that what he chooses now will affect every other choice he makes afterward. Once you have performed an act or spoken a word that crystallizes who
you are, there is no turning back and it cannot be undone. Once again at the end of the poem the regret hangs over the traveller like a heavy cloud about to burst. He realizes that at the end of his life, “somewhere ages and ages hence” 2. There is simply a narrator who makes a decision in his life that had changed the direction of his life from what it may have otherwise been. It allows all readers from all different experiences to relate to the poem.
Some of Wordsworth’s poems are poems that the poet took “himself” as the center to record his feelings of in a little while or experiences to nature. He was either moved by nature or recollected his own childhood. Some of his poems are about his shortly intense feelings from outside. The typical representative work such as I Wandered Lonely as A Cloud, this kind of poems often record the poet’s a piece of emotion, a fantasy, a kind of mood, an intense feeling, or the short storm of emotions and the tight of mood.
The excellent works about Frost writing a happy experience to nature are Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, Writes in Early Spring, and so on. These kind of poems pours out the poet’s emotions, and also has poured out poet’s ponder at the same time, thus they have a philosophical color. Poems about his childhood recollection, such as The Prelude, To A Butterfly and so on, have recorded the poet’s former days’ history, the subjective history, the soul’s history. This kind of poems are certainly not the objective description of the past life, but also weave the events from subjective angle and by psychological way, therefore, the emotions become one kind of organization method:
Oh! Pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey: ---with leaps and spring
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.
(To A Butterfly)
In this kind of poems, the poet writes his self-experience, his self-recollection, which has the intense sentimental factor, also has the poet’s dote philosophical pondered. This kind of pondered is not isolated and abstract, but let the poet carefully examine the past experiences with philosophical angle and carefully examine natural picture at his present. Thus the past events, nature and the poet’s thoughts are in perfect harmony, the “oneself” in his poems surpasses the individual scope and emotions also promotes to be a kind of universal emotions. While reading Wordsworth’s this kind of poetry, we do not only think that we merely read his history; when we have a good swim in the nature’s beautiful scene of his poems, we often can think of our own and have a deep sympathetic chord.
Wordsworth’s self-emotion overflowing poetry, seemed simple, plain, but actually is full of the abstruse truth, hiding behind the poet’s understandings to the entire nature and man’s life. The little poem My Heart Leaps up When I Behold is a typical example:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
(My Heart Leaps up When I Behold)
The poet wrote himself:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
Then the next three sentences are extremely plain, so plain that they are easily be considered lack of poetic sentiment:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
These arrangements appear mechanic and tasteless, extremely simple. To the next sentence, the poet makes an extension turn:
Or let me die!
This gives the reader an exclamation. In the foundations of first several plain sentences, the high peak pulls out, making the reader shock. At this moment, the poet has already caught the reader’s attention. Then the poet further expresses his philosophi
cal pondered:
The Child is father of the Man.
In this short poem, the poet expresses a famous thought, namely the child is the source of life, the adult is the result inform from the child. The child is the heyday of life. Adult is tired by the common customs, often changes to suavely and abandon the candid childhood life. In addition, while adult starting to pursue the common customs, the childhood’s keen sensitiveness to nature is also gradually vanishing, and the childhood’s magnificence to nature is difficulty searched in the adulthood. The majority people are all so, thus it may artificially be a rule. However, also some people are not like this, they can maintain the childhood’s candidness through their whole life, these people are the poets. Therefore, turning back, we thought a moment ago the extremely plain verse is not actually plain; it displays the meaning that the poet holds the object of continuing the child’s point of view, the childhood life through his whole life. The last two sentences are echoing with these sentences:
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
The poet proposes once more the excitement to the rainbow is the keen sensitiveness to nature, it can let people keep in close contact with nature, and the poet can derive the nutrition from it, then nature has become poet’s spiritual home. Therefore, the childhood’s keen sensitiveness to nature is extremely important, which can pass-through the poet’s life, then can benefit him for the lifelong, the spirit and the mind all have relief. If the poet is no longer excited when he sees the rainbow, that indicates the poet has lost this keen sensitiveness, then the poet has lost his spiritual home. Thus, the poet calls out in alarm:
Or let me die!
This short and forceful poem, expresses the poet’s understanding of life’s value and significance. The man should maintain the childhood’s candidness and interest for a life-long, and should maintain the childhood’s understandings of nature and communication with nature for a life-long.
5. Reasons of the Similarity and Differences
Wordsworth’s struggle of life may be said is the life of his establishing relationships with nature. Nature, was the fountain of his happiness and wisdom, which nourished his poetic appeal when he was very young, provided him the console when he suffered unfortunate things, guided him to seek himself back when he was dissatisfied with the common customs and the social reality, provided him his spiritual sustenance and soul home after his disillusion of his ideal of revolution. Nature had provided rich theme and inspiration fountain for Wordsworth’s poetry creation. It can be said that, it is nature that bring up Wordsworth this kind of great natural poet.
Wordsworth therefore became such a person to be converted to nature and a great natural poet. He was born in the beautiful and enchanting Lake District which may be said to be the first and the most important reason. William Wordsworth was born in April the 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, to John and Anne (Cookson) Wordsworth, the second of their five children. His father was law agent and rent collector for Lord Lonsdale, and the family was fairly well off. From 1779 until 1787 Wordsworth attended the Grammar School in Hawkshead. He was brought into the home of Anne Tyson, one of the dames at the school. Wordsworth spent nine years of joyful and carefree childhood at Hawkshead. His experiences there are the same with his friends: Coleridge and Lamb. They had attended a grammar school in London, known as Chris’s Hospital. The discipline at Chris’s Hospital, in those days, was ultra-Spartan, the mood monastic. All domestic ties were to be put aside. Hawkshead was different. It, unlike Chris’s Hospitals, provided no accommodations, so, those that travelled afar to attend, were, of necessity, put up by certain of the townspeople. Hawkshead is located in the Lake District’s northwest of the central region, where is precisely the most beautiful place. Where the mountain peak sternly gathers, the lake spreads all over, and the black ink-lake water polymerized is a body, peaceful and solemn. The buff color grass hill and the white flock of sheep look pale and far but rather peaceful. Nearly everyday The Lake District’s climate has the drizzle and the dimness, and has the calm after the storm and cloud dispersing. Sometimes the Lake District’s color is depth and sometimes is shallow, sometimes is bright and sometimes is dark. The magnificent landscape deeply affected Wordsworth’s imagination and gave him a love of nature, and his personality and poetry were deeply influenced by his love of nature. Litter Wordsworth had a vast blue sky here. He could wilfully loaf around the lakeside under the blue sky, suck in the flower and trees fragment, and enjoy the pleasur
e of the unrestrained country life. Wordsworth therefore obtained development of free disposition which extremely benefits him fantasized galloping of his creation life. Here, he was carefree. He dared all dangers and feared nothing. Once in dead and quiet night, he untied small boat which was tied on tree, and drove the boat alone to the heart of the lake.
Robert Lee Frost (named after Southern General Robert E. Lee) was born on 26 March 1874 in San Francisco, California to Isabelle Moodie (1844-1900) teacher, and William Prescott Frost Jr. (1850-1885), teacher, and journalist. San Francisco was a lively city full of citizens of Pioneering spirit, including Will who had ventured there from New Hampshire to seek his fortune as a journalist. He also started gambling and drinking, habits which left his family in dire financial straits when he died in 1885 after contracting tuberculosis. Honouring his last wishes to be buried in Lawrence, Massachusetts where he was born, Isabelle, Robert and his sister Jeanie Florence (1875-1929) made the long train journey across the country to the New England town. Isabelle took up teaching again to support her children.
With both parents as teachers, younger Robert was early on exposed to the world of books and reading, studying such works as those by William Shakespeare and poets Robert Burns and William Wordsworth. He also formed a life-long love of nature, the great outdoors and rural countryside. After enrolled in Lawrence High School he soon wrote his own poems including “La Noche Triste” (1890) which was published in the school’s paper. He excelled in many subjects including history, botany, Latin and Greek, and played football, graduating at the head of his class. In 1892 he entered Dartmouth, the Ivy League in Hanover, New Hampshire, but soon became disenchanted with the atmosphere of campus life. He then took on a series of jobs including teaching and working in a mill, all the while continuing to write poetry.
In 1990 they moved to a farm bought by his paternal grandfather in Derry, New Hampshire to try poultry farming. The same year his son Elliot died of cholera. Frost suffered greatly. In 1907 Elinor Bettina died just one day after birth. But the farm was a peaceful and secluded setting and Frost enjoyed farming, tending to his orchard trees, chickens and various other chores. This period inspired such poems as “The Mending Wall” (written in England 1913) and “Hyla Brook” (1906). The house built in the typical New England clapboard style is now a restored State Historical Landmark.
But it was soon for a change. In 1911 he sold the farm and the Frosts set sail for England. Elinor was enthusiastic about travelling. They moved into a cottage in Beaconsfield, just outside of London. Then finally it happened; after writing poetry and trying to get noticed by publishers for over twenty years, Frost’s first collection of poetry A Boy’s Will was published in England in 1913 by a small London printer, David Nutt. American publisher Henry Holt printed it in 1915. Frost’s work was well-received and fellow poets Edward Thomas and Ezra Pound became friends, supporters, and helped promote his work North of Boston (1914). When World War I started, Frosts were back to New Hampshire, settling at their newly bought farm in Franconia in 1915. A year later, Robert began teaching English at Amherst College. Mountain Interval was published in 1916 which contained many poems written at Franconia. He was also starting lecture tours for his ever-growing audience of avid readers.
In 1920 Frost bought “Stone House” (now a museum) in South Shaftsbury, Vermont. There he wrote many of the poems contained in his fourth collection of poetry New Hampshire (1923) which won him the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. It includes Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
The review of comparison research in China reveals that recently there has been a soaring interest in the study of the topic in the academic circle. The research covers a wide range of disciplines, such as: theme, image, cultural difference, language, form, and ways of expression. In spite of its popularity in China, its research is much imbalanced. After the literature review home and abroad, we know clearly where we start to make our research in full swing.
6．Conclusion
Wordsworth is the person who converted to the nature. He passed the carefree happy childhood in the beautiful natural scenery; during the period of studying in Cambridge he was not able to suit the filthy atmosphere there, then returned to nature to seek “himself”; after the disillusioned of revolutionary change society’s ideal, he ran away to seek the shelter from to nature; he lived in seclusion in nature to repose his spirit and to perch his soul; in nature’s simple and honorable. Sincere, and friendly life, created the immortal poetry. Nature is his
poetry subject, has provided the rich theme for his poetry creation, and has soaked the soul of simple and honorable, sincere, kind for his poetry creation [7]22. The fusion of his life and nature, the fusion of his spirits and thoughts with nature in the poetry, and fusion of nature and poetry in the poetry creation, have composed Wordsworth’s trinity poetry world. His natural poem has left behind eternal heaven of the true, the good and the beautiful for people, forever is attracting the common custom people.
On the basis of research work, this paper endeavors to find out the common points and different aspects towards the two poets. But behind the work, what causes the difference? Maybe we can infer it according to the background of their experience. Frost suffered devastating losses in his life including the untimely deaths of his sister, two of his children and his wife. He know the soul’s depths of psychic despair but was also capable of delighting in birth trees “loaded with ice a sunny winter morning’’ [8]10. He was a popular speaker and had a demanding schedule of which Elinor, acting as his secretary, organized for him, so he spent a fair bit of time traveling, though still maintaining an impressive output of poetry.
The two poets’experiences make the differences of them, but the common feeling towards the nature also indicates the common relationship with the nature. So the research on the nature poems really provides certain images to the readers who want to explore nature poems and know more about Wordsworth and Frost. There is no regret if this paper can achieve the goal of calling on more people to enjoy the two poets’nature poems.
Acknowledgements
My initial thanks go to my supervisor Guan Manning, who patiently supervised my dissertation and was at times very willing to offer me illuminating advice or suggestions. Without her help, I could not have finished this dissertation.
I am also indebted to other teachers and my classmates who have not only offered me their warm encouragements but also shared with me their ideas and books.
My greatest personal debt is to my grandparents and parents, who have cultivated a soul of sensitivity, hospitality, and honesty out of me, and offered a harbor of happiness and sweetness for me.
The remaining weakness and possible errors of the dissertation are entirely my own.
References
[1] JEAN GOULD, ROBERT FROST. The am was song, dodd, mead company. New York, 1964.
[2] REUBEN A. BROWER. The poetry of Robert Frost-constellations of intention. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.
[3] JEAN GOULD, ROBERT FROST-The Am Was Song, Dodd, Mead Company. New York, 1964.
[4] BALDICK CHRIS. Oxford concise dictionary of library terms[M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000:112.
[5] BALDICK CHRIS. Oxford concise dictionary of library terms[M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000:114.
[6] 张丽娇. 评佛罗斯特《修墙》. 北京：中国矿业大学，外语系, 1988.
[7] 西方现代派文学资料选辑[M]. 合肥：安徽大学出版社, 1973.
[8] 李达三，谈德义. 佛罗斯特的诗[M]. 香港：今日世界出版社, 1973.
