Summary and Critical Appreciation of “Tintern Abbey”
Maybe “Tintern Abbey”
is the most well-known poem by one of the most famous British Romantic poets. The poem has its
foundations in Wordsworth's own past. Wordsworth professed to have formed the
poem altogether in his mind, starting it after leaving Tintern and but rather
writing down a line until he arrived at Bristol, by which time it had recently
arrived at mental culmination. “This is the first Poem,” as Helen
Derbyshire says, “in which Wordsworth’s genius finds full expression: the blank
verse, low toned and familiar yet impassioned, moves with a sureness and
inevitable ease from phase to phase to this mood.” In fact this poem sums up
all the main articles of Wordsworth’s faith in Nature. To Wordsworth Nature is
never dead. He discovers a dominating spirit and the contemplation of it, a
holy communion with it is a source of joy, delight, consolation and thought.
His philosophical thought finds an expression through the grand style. It has
been enriched with autobiographical touch. It also exhibits the poet’s gradual
development of thought through different stages. His mystic view of nature has
been focused through these stages.
