Paper Summary:

By analyzing two poems by Wordsworth and Shelley this paper attempts to show how notions of religion were used to explicate the poet's function in Romantic poetry. The paper's thesis is that ultimately, although Romanticism accorded poetry the ability to provide a religious kind of access to philosophical truths, these two Romantic poets viewed the value of the process of poetry itself quite differently.

From the Paper:

"Wordsworth is happy his sister is able to appreciate nature in a pure fashion, but sees the benefits of moving beyond his own juvenile state. The poet can use the process of poetry to perceive nature not simply through animal, sensual (as in relating purely to the senses), emotions. Now, Wordsworth says, he can craft the revelations he feels into the subject of poetry. Poetry offers him a site where he can touch the memory of the excitement of his youth, yet transmit the excitement he felt into something higher. At the end of the poem he begs his sister to recall that he did not come wearied with the "service" of worshiping Nature, but "With warmer love, oh! With far deeper zeal/Of holier love" than he did before. Without the medium of art he would be unable to think the "elevated thoughts" he is attempting to transmit to the reader, nor would be able to contemplate the still, sad music of a larger humanity. William Wordsworth the poet perceives and accesses a more universal impulse now that nature is no longer the same to him as it was when he was a boy. Note the religious register of the language he uses."

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