WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.720 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Whether you're prepping 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:05.759 for a literature seminar, catching up on the 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:08.640 roots of romanticism, or you're just insanely 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:11.380 curious about the bizarre intersections of nature 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:14.460 and memory. And industrial history. Yes, exactly. 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:17.059 Industrial history. You are in the exact right 00:00:17.059 --> 00:00:19.780 place. Today, we're immersing ourselves in the 00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:22.280 world of English literature, looking at one of 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:24.559 the absolute heavyweights of poetry. William 00:00:24.559 --> 00:00:27.219 Wordsworth. That's the one. We are pulling all 00:00:27.219 --> 00:00:29.719 our insights today from a single, highly detailed 00:00:29.719 --> 00:00:32.820 source. It's a comprehensive Wikipedia article 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:37.399 dedicated to his famous 1798 poem, Lines Written 00:00:37.399 --> 00:00:40.810 a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey. It is a phenomenal 00:00:40.810 --> 00:00:43.049 piece of writing to explore, especially when 00:00:43.049 --> 00:00:45.350 you look beyond just the text on the page. Right. 00:00:45.570 --> 00:00:47.350 This is a poem that didn't just capture a single 00:00:47.350 --> 00:00:49.890 moment in time. It effectively helped launch 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:53.530 an entire literary movement. And yet, the story 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:55.549 behind its creation, and maybe more importantly, 00:00:55.729 --> 00:00:58.649 the gritty reality that Wordsworth intentionally 00:00:58.649 --> 00:01:01.670 left out of its verses. The stuff he hid. Exactly, 00:01:01.789 --> 00:01:03.670 the stuff he cropped out. It gives us a completely 00:01:03.670 --> 00:01:06.099 new lens through which to view it. So our mission 00:01:06.099 --> 00:01:08.900 for this deep dive is twofold. First, we want 00:01:08.900 --> 00:01:10.920 to explore the here mechanics of this masterpiece. 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:13.799 We're going to look at how a poem composed entirely 00:01:13.799 --> 00:01:16.379 in the head of a 20 -something poet became a 00:01:16.379 --> 00:01:18.579 cornerstone of the legendary lyrical ballads 00:01:18.579 --> 00:01:21.700 collection. And second, we're going to uncover 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:24.859 the hidden, smoke -choked industrial reality 00:01:24.859 --> 00:01:27.700 of the landscape that Wordsworth actively cropped 00:01:27.700 --> 00:01:30.280 out of his poetic frame. Okay, let's unpack this. 00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:32.879 To really understand what Wordsworth is doing 00:01:32.879 --> 00:01:36.040 here, we have to set the stage. The date is July 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:40.260 13th, 1798. Okay. William Wordsworth is on a 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:42.870 walking tour with his sister Dorothy. They are 00:01:42.870 --> 00:01:45.109 tracing the banks of the River Wye, which is 00:01:45.109 --> 00:01:47.810 this breathtakingly scenic, steep -sided valley 00:01:47.810 --> 00:01:50.549 situated in the Welsh borders. I've seen pictures. 00:01:50.650 --> 00:01:52.909 It's gorgeous. It really is. But reading through 00:01:52.909 --> 00:01:55.129 the historical context, this isn't just a random 00:01:55.129 --> 00:01:57.769 pleasant hike for Wordsworth. This is a profound, 00:01:57.950 --> 00:02:00.909 heavy return. He had visited this exact same 00:02:00.909 --> 00:02:04.689 spot five years earlier in August of 1793. And 00:02:04.689 --> 00:02:06.930 looking at his biography from that time, 1793 00:02:06.930 --> 00:02:09.550 Wordsworth was a very different guy. He was 23 00:02:09.550 --> 00:02:11.770 years old, fresh out of France during the reign 00:02:11.770 --> 00:02:14.280 of... terror. He was separated from his lover 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:17.939 and his child by war. And by all accounts, he 00:02:17.939 --> 00:02:20.599 was deeply, deeply troubled. Yeah, he was going 00:02:20.599 --> 00:02:23.340 through a lot. Fast forward five years to 1798 00:02:23.340 --> 00:02:26.300 and he has matured significantly. He's also in 00:02:26.300 --> 00:02:29.539 the early stages of his legendary creative partnership 00:02:29.539 --> 00:02:32.340 with fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Right. 00:02:32.419 --> 00:02:34.659 In fact, they're right in the middle of publishing 00:02:34.659 --> 00:02:37.060 a groundbreaking collection of poetry called 00:02:37.060 --> 00:02:40.539 Lyrical Ballads. Which brings us to the absolutely 00:02:40.539 --> 00:02:42.750 incredible incredible creative process behind 00:02:42.750 --> 00:02:46.610 this specific poem. The origin story is almost 00:02:46.610 --> 00:02:50.189 mythical, but Wordsworth himself insisted it 00:02:50.189 --> 00:02:52.729 was the absolute truth. I love this part. He 00:02:52.729 --> 00:02:54.629 claimed that he composed the entire poem in his 00:02:54.629 --> 00:02:57.409 head. The process started the moment he and Dorothy 00:02:57.409 --> 00:03:00.110 left Tintern and he didn't physically write down 00:03:00.110 --> 00:03:02.289 a single line until they finally reached Bristol. 00:03:02.509 --> 00:03:04.810 Days later. Days later. I was reading that in 00:03:04.810 --> 00:03:06.490 the source notes and it's just staggering when 00:03:06.490 --> 00:03:08.699 you think about it. Holding all of that intricate 00:03:08.699 --> 00:03:10.979 language, the specific rhythm, the emotional 00:03:10.979 --> 00:03:13.740 weight entirely in your mind while walking miles 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:16.319 across a rugged countryside. It's a massive cognitive 00:03:16.319 --> 00:03:18.659 feat. He doesn't touch a pen until the poem has 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:21.000 reached total mental completion. We are talking 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:24.780 about 159 lines of densely philosophical poetry. 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:29.020 And he was clearly thrilled with the result, 00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:31.020 even though the lyrical balance collection was 00:03:31.020 --> 00:03:32.599 already at the printer. It was basically done. 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:34.419 It was in the final stages of the publication 00:03:34.419 --> 00:03:36.919 process. But he essentially stopped the presses. 00:03:37.340 --> 00:03:40.020 He had this new poem inserted at the absolute 00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:43.300 11th hour, positioning it as the concluding poem 00:03:43.300 --> 00:03:45.900 of the entire book. Wow. And scholars generally 00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:48.659 agree that this placement was perfect. It represents 00:03:48.659 --> 00:03:51.800 the absolute climax of Wordsworth's first great 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:54.879 period of creative output. It sets the stage, 00:03:55.020 --> 00:03:58.460 prefiguring so much of the distinctively Wordsworthian 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:00.659 voice that would define the rest of his career. 00:04:00.860 --> 00:04:02.620 When we look at the structure of the poem itself, 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.800 the source notes that classifying it has historically 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:08.819 been a bit tricky. Yeah, it doesn't fit neatly 00:04:08.819 --> 00:04:11.680 into a box. Right. He leans into that classic 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:14.240 18th century locodescriptive style, the kind 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:16.939 of poetry dedicated to mapping out a specific 00:04:16.939 --> 00:04:19.819 physical place, but he elevates it. He abandons 00:04:19.819 --> 00:04:22.860 traditional rigid stanzas. Exactly. He uses these 00:04:22.860 --> 00:04:26.259 incredibly fluid rolling verse paragraphs written 00:04:26.259 --> 00:04:28.860 in tightly structured decasolabic blank verse. 00:04:29.139 --> 00:04:31.779 The consensus today seems to categorize it as 00:04:31.779 --> 00:04:34.769 a conversation poem. That's right. The conversation 00:04:34.769 --> 00:04:37.930 poem was an organic development of that older 00:04:37.930 --> 00:04:40.769 landscape poetry genre. It creates a sense of 00:04:40.769 --> 00:04:43.050 immediacy and intimacy. Like he's just talking 00:04:43.050 --> 00:04:46.319 to you. Exactly. Wordsworth himself noted in 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:48.560 the second edition of Lyrical Ballads that he 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:51.120 didn't venture to call it an ode, but he hoped 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:53.040 that the impassioned music of the versification 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:56.060 would give it that same kind of emotional weight 00:04:56.060 --> 00:04:58.800 and resonance. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:04:59.259 --> 00:05:02.100 With all this talk of loco -descriptive poetry 00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:05.319 and capturing a specific physical place, we have 00:05:05.319 --> 00:05:07.920 to talk about the title. The poem is universally 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:10.970 abbreviated as simply Tintern Abbey. But if you 00:05:10.970 --> 00:05:13.290 read the text closely, Tintern Abbey itself never 00:05:13.290 --> 00:05:14.889 actually appears in the poem. That's a brilliant 00:05:14.889 --> 00:05:17.170 irony, isn't it? The full title is lines written 00:05:17.170 --> 00:05:19.610 or sometimes composed a few miles above Tintern 00:05:19.610 --> 00:05:22.910 Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Y during 00:05:22.910 --> 00:05:26.449 a tour, July 13, 1798. That's a mouthful. It 00:05:26.449 --> 00:05:29.250 is. But the ruined abbey is essentially just 00:05:29.250 --> 00:05:32.110 a geographical marker for the title. It's a GPS 00:05:32.110 --> 00:05:35.379 coordinate for the reader. The poem itself isn't 00:05:35.379 --> 00:05:37.439 a tour guide's description of crumbling Gothic 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:40.379 architecture. No, not at all. It completely transcends 00:05:40.379 --> 00:05:43.600 the standard nature poetry of the era by employing 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:46.120 a much more internal intellectual engagement 00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:48.240 with the landscape. It's entirely about his own 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:51.319 mind. Looking at the source notes here, critics 00:05:51.319 --> 00:05:54.240 usually break his internal monologue down into 00:05:54.240 --> 00:05:57.139 three distinct phases or movements of memory. 00:05:57.420 --> 00:06:00.180 Let's break those down. Yeah. The first part 00:06:00.180 --> 00:06:03.579 covers lines 1 through 49. Wordsworth returns 00:06:03.579 --> 00:06:07.379 to the River Wye after five long years. He listens 00:06:07.379 --> 00:06:10.000 to the waters rolling from their mountain springs 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.019 with a soft... inland murmur. Beautiful imagery. 00:06:13.300 --> 00:06:15.620 It is. And he describes the feeling of this return 00:06:15.620 --> 00:06:18.819 as a sense of tranquil restoration. Tranquil 00:06:18.819 --> 00:06:21.899 restoration. It's such a beautifully evocative 00:06:21.899 --> 00:06:24.379 phrase. He's looking at this natural beauty, 00:06:24.540 --> 00:06:26.899 but he realizes it's not just a pretty view to 00:06:26.899 --> 00:06:29.259 him anymore. In those opening lines, he recognizes 00:06:29.259 --> 00:06:31.839 that over the past five years, living in lonely 00:06:31.839 --> 00:06:34.720 rooms and amid the din of towns and cities, he 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:37.459 had so deeply internalized this specific landscape 00:06:37.459 --> 00:06:40.420 that it sustained him while he was away. The 00:06:40.420 --> 00:06:43.459 Wikipedia article points out that this internalized 00:06:43.459 --> 00:06:45.980 landscape practically becomes the basis for an 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:49.040 out -of -body experience for him. Truly. He isn't 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:51.639 just looking at trees and water. He is accessing 00:06:51.639 --> 00:06:54.120 a reservoir of peace that he has carried inside 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:56.759 his own nervous system since his youth. It's 00:06:56.759 --> 00:06:59.240 almost a meditative state where the heavy burden 00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:01.379 of the world is lightened. And that naturally 00:07:01.379 --> 00:07:04.100 flows into the second movement of the poem, spanning 00:07:04.100 --> 00:07:07.920 lines 49 to 1 and 11. Here he draws a sharp... 00:07:08.120 --> 00:07:10.519 almost melancholy contrast between his youth 00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:13.160 and his current mature perspective. The five 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:15.319 -year difference. Exactly. He reflects on what 00:07:15.319 --> 00:07:17.439 he calls his thoughtless youth, a time when he 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:19.639 bounded over the mountains like a roe, driven 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:22.699 by a purely physical, almost reckless enthusiasm 00:07:22.699 --> 00:07:26.040 for the landscape. It's that sheer, untamed energy 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:28.180 of a 20 -something just absorbing the physical 00:07:28.180 --> 00:07:30.399 thrill of nature. The colors and forms were, 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.899 to him, an appetite, a feeling, and a love, with 00:07:33.899 --> 00:07:36.480 no need for deeper thought. But now as an older 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:40.180 man that dizzying, aching joy is gone. It's faded. 00:07:40.379 --> 00:07:42.579 But it's replaced by something far more profound. 00:07:43.139 --> 00:07:45.720 What's fascinating here is the sheer philosophical 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:49.079 shift Wordsworth is pulling off. He realizes 00:07:49.079 --> 00:07:51.699 that the power of this scenery hasn't just provided 00:07:51.699 --> 00:07:53.860 him with comforting memories. It has fundamentally 00:07:53.860 --> 00:07:56.339 altered his understanding of the universe. That's 00:07:56.339 --> 00:07:59.399 a huge leap. It is. His engagement with nature 00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:02.480 verges on pantheism, the belief that the divine 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:04.920 is present within the natural world itself. I 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:07.279 love those famous lines where he describes this 00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:09.959 shift. He says, he has felt a presence that disturbs 00:08:09.959 --> 00:08:12.540 me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense 00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:15.279 sublime of something far more deeply interfused, 00:08:15.319 --> 00:08:18.170 whose dwelling is the light of setting sun. He 00:08:18.170 --> 00:08:20.529 feels the imminence of what he calls emotion 00:08:20.529 --> 00:08:23.850 and a spirit that impels all thinking things, 00:08:24.050 --> 00:08:26.029 all objects of all thought, and rolls through 00:08:26.029 --> 00:08:29.209 all things. That is heavy. Very heavy. This is 00:08:29.209 --> 00:08:31.910 why this poem is an absolute cornerstone of romanticism. 00:08:31.990 --> 00:08:33.370 He isn't just saying, hey, look at this pretty 00:08:33.370 --> 00:08:36.210 river. He is asserting that through this profound, 00:08:36.450 --> 00:08:39.309 quiet connection with nature, he has found the 00:08:39.309 --> 00:08:42.610 anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the 00:08:42.610 --> 00:08:45.429 guide, the guardian of my heart and soul of all 00:08:45.429 --> 00:08:48.330 my moral being. The natural world has literally 00:08:48.330 --> 00:08:51.269 shaped his morality. Yes. It's an incredibly 00:08:51.269 --> 00:08:54.409 elevated way to view a walk in the woods. And 00:08:54.409 --> 00:08:57.210 then we arrive at the third and final movement 00:08:57.210 --> 00:09:01.789 of the poem from line 111 to 159. Earlier, we 00:09:01.789 --> 00:09:04.389 mentioned that this is a conversation poem. Up 00:09:04.389 --> 00:09:05.990 until this point, it really just feels like we 00:09:05.990 --> 00:09:08.190 are eavesdropping on his internal monologue. 00:09:08.330 --> 00:09:11.070 Just listening to him think. Exactly. But suddenly, 00:09:11.269 --> 00:09:13.769 out of nowhere, a silent listener is revealed. 00:09:14.049 --> 00:09:17.080 Yes. The focus pivots entirely outward. The silent 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:19.399 listener is his sister, Dorothy, who's apparently 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:21.679 been walking beside him this whole time. He addresses 00:09:21.679 --> 00:09:23.779 her directly as my dearest friend, my dear, dear 00:09:23.779 --> 00:09:27.220 friend. He shares this massive pantheistic vision 00:09:27.220 --> 00:09:29.940 with her, expressing the deep conviction that 00:09:29.940 --> 00:09:33.360 all which we behold is full of blessings. He 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:36.220 looks at her and sees his own past thoughtless 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:39.039 youth reflected in her wild eyes. That's a really 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:41.740 tender moment. It is. It's the shared vision, 00:09:41.860 --> 00:09:44.139 the shared experience of the landscape that he 00:09:44.139 --> 00:09:47.340 believes will continue to create a lasting, unbreakable 00:09:47.340 --> 00:09:50.899 bond between them even after he is gone. Which 00:09:50.899 --> 00:09:53.299 makes me want to pause and ask you, the listener. 00:09:53.950 --> 00:09:55.950 Have you ever returned to a childhood haunt, 00:09:55.970 --> 00:09:58.769 a park, a street, a specific house, and realized 00:09:58.769 --> 00:10:00.990 it means something entirely different to your 00:10:00.990 --> 00:10:03.190 adult self? That's a great question. That the 00:10:03.190 --> 00:10:05.970 physical place is exactly the same, but the lens 00:10:05.970 --> 00:10:08.090 you are viewing it through has completely changed. 00:10:08.330 --> 00:10:10.950 That relatable, deeply human shift in perspective 00:10:10.950 --> 00:10:13.370 is exactly the magic trick Wordsworth is pulling 00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:15.690 off here. He claimed that by internalizing the 00:10:15.690 --> 00:10:17.730 landscape in this way, he was now able to see 00:10:17.730 --> 00:10:20.669 into the life of things. And through that enabled, 00:10:20.789 --> 00:10:23.250 elevated vision, he claimed to hear oftentimes 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:26.340 the still sad music of humanity. He claimed that, 00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:29.360 sure. But reading through the critical reception 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:32.440 in the source, did he really? Because this brings 00:10:32.440 --> 00:10:34.860 us to what scholars call the erasure controversy. 00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:37.799 Yes. Wordsworth claims to hear the sad music 00:10:37.799 --> 00:10:40.320 of humanity. But modern critics point out that 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:41.940 he actually went out of his way to put on some 00:10:41.940 --> 00:10:44.460 serious noise canceling headphones when he wrote 00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:46.799 this. This is where the literary analysis of 00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:48.799 the late 20th century really cracked the poem 00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:52.019 wide open. We have to look at the actual historical 00:10:52.019 --> 00:10:54.980 and socioeconomic context of the late 18th century. 00:10:55.100 --> 00:10:58.019 Right. A prominent critic named Marjorie Levinson 00:10:58.019 --> 00:11:01.139 has forcefully argued. that Wordsworth managed 00:11:01.139 --> 00:11:04.019 to see into the life of things only by deliberately 00:11:04.019 --> 00:11:07.039 narrowing and skewing his field of vision. She 00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:10.440 contends that he actively, perhaps ruthlessly, 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:13.440 excludes certain sites and meanings that conflicted 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:16.039 with his theme of tranquil restoration. Because 00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:18.820 the Monmouthshire area around the River Wye wasn't 00:11:18.820 --> 00:11:21.379 just some untouched, pristine wilderness where 00:11:21.379 --> 00:11:24.100 a poet could wander lonely as a cloud. It was 00:11:24.100 --> 00:11:26.980 a bustling, polluted hub of industry. In the 00:11:26.980 --> 00:11:29.240 poem, Wordsworth looks up at the steep woods 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:31.659 and playfully assumes that the wreaths of smoke 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:34.139 rising from the trees in silence are evidence 00:11:34.139 --> 00:11:37.320 of some wandering vagrant, or perhaps a hermit's 00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:40.080 cave. In reality, that smoke was almost certainly 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:43.240 toxic. Yikes. It was coming from local ironworks, 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:46.200 from widespread charcoal burning, or from local 00:11:46.200 --> 00:11:48.740 paperworks. This wasn't a well -kept secret either. 00:11:49.080 --> 00:11:52.159 The industrial presence was undeniable and highly 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:54.419 visible. There's actual visual proof of this, 00:11:54.539 --> 00:11:56.940 right? Yes, there is a famous print by an artist 00:11:56.940 --> 00:12:00.080 named Thomas Hearn from 1795, just three years 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:03.360 before Wordsworth's walk, titled Iron Forge at 00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:06.860 Tintern. It depicts a massive, smoky, industrialized 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:09.039 operation right there in the valley. So he essentially 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:11.779 photoshopped the smog out of his poem. He absolutely 00:12:11.779 --> 00:12:14.179 did. But doing so completely changes the reality 00:12:14.179 --> 00:12:16.980 of the scene. He turned an industrial iron forge 00:12:16.980 --> 00:12:20.000 into a romantic... fire because a hermit fits 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.779 the vibe of tranquil restoration, while a sweaty, 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:25.399 soot -covered ironworker definitely does not. 00:12:25.539 --> 00:12:28.039 If we connect this to the bigger picture, we 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:30.700 can look at a fascinating study by Crystal Lake. 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:33.840 Lake decided to compare Wordsworth's masterpiece 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:37.240 to other poems written about Tintern Abbey right 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:40.059 around the same exact time. This part is so revealing. 00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:42.440 She noted that Wordsworth completely avoided 00:12:42.440 --> 00:12:44.720 direct engagement with the present industrial 00:12:44.720 --> 00:12:48.480 manifestation of humanity. He even ignored the 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:51.379 past evidence of humanity, the actual crumbling 00:12:51.379 --> 00:12:53.879 ruins of the Abbey itself. Right, the namesake 00:12:53.879 --> 00:12:55.980 of the poem. Lake concludes that this perfectly 00:12:55.980 --> 00:12:59.220 confirms Marjorie Levinson's argument. The local 00:12:59.220 --> 00:13:01.779 politics and the gritty, noisy reality of the 00:13:01.779 --> 00:13:04.320 Monmouthshire landscape required total erasure 00:13:04.320 --> 00:13:06.480 if Wordsworth was going to successfully advance 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:09.240 his aesthetic and philosophical agenda. When 00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:11.340 you look at what those other contemporary poets 00:13:11.340 --> 00:13:13.399 were writing, the contrast is mind -blowing. 00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:15.519 The source lists several of them, and they are 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:17.549 not holding back. No, they aren't. You have the 00:13:17.549 --> 00:13:20.269 Reverend Dr. Snead Davies writing an epistle 00:13:20.269 --> 00:13:23.389 in the 1790s. When Davies approached Tintern 00:13:23.389 --> 00:13:25.850 Abbey by boat, he didn't just write about tranquil 00:13:25.850 --> 00:13:29.029 greenery and rolling waters. He explicitly noted 00:13:29.029 --> 00:13:31.429 the presence of naked quarries tearing into the 00:13:31.429 --> 00:13:34.129 earth before describing the ruins bathed in evening 00:13:34.129 --> 00:13:36.529 light, which gave him a sense of pleasurable 00:13:36.529 --> 00:13:39.649 sadness. Davies really set the emotional tone 00:13:39.649 --> 00:13:42.210 for the poets that followed, establishing that 00:13:42.210 --> 00:13:45.289 blend of ruin and melancholy. But he bracketed 00:13:45.289 --> 00:13:48.450 the human traces both past and present far more 00:13:48.450 --> 00:13:50.769 directly than Wordsworth ever did. OK, so then 00:13:50.769 --> 00:13:52.649 you have another local clergyman, the Reverend 00:13:52.649 --> 00:13:55.330 Duncombe Davis, writing around 1790. Because 00:13:55.330 --> 00:13:58.250 he was actually from the area, he gets deep into 00:13:58.250 --> 00:14:00.649 the weeds of the local industry. He knew exactly 00:14:00.649 --> 00:14:03.210 what was going on. I have to say, reading Duncombe 00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:05.389 Davis's description in the source was amazing 00:14:05.389 --> 00:14:08.769 because it is so unapologetically gritty. He 00:14:08.769 --> 00:14:10.570 writes about how the monks are long gone and 00:14:10.570 --> 00:14:13.879 now black forges smoke and noisy hammers. beat 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:16.480 where sooty cyclops puffing drink and sweat. 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:19.259 Sooty cyclops. He literally compares the local 00:14:19.259 --> 00:14:23.019 iron workers to sweaty, sooty cyclops. He goes 00:14:23.019 --> 00:14:25.299 on to describe the smelting process in vivid 00:14:25.299 --> 00:14:28.059 detail, ultimately reflecting that his present 00:14:28.059 --> 00:14:31.019 industrious era of hard work is actually more 00:14:31.019 --> 00:14:33.919 virtuous than the lazy monastic past. It's a 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:37.220 striking contrast. And interestingly, Duncan 00:14:37.220 --> 00:14:39.820 Davis anticipates Wordsworth by drawing a moral 00:14:39.820 --> 00:14:42.340 lesson from the scenery. But his lesson uses 00:14:42.340 --> 00:14:45.899 the actual physical ruins of the abbey. He notes 00:14:45.899 --> 00:14:48.460 the ivy -swathed stones holding the crumbling 00:14:48.460 --> 00:14:51.000 walls together and tells the reader to cling, 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:54.059 like the ivy, round a falling friend. Which is 00:14:54.059 --> 00:14:56.159 a bit on the nose as far as metaphors go, but 00:14:56.159 --> 00:14:58.139 you can't deny he's actually using the landscape 00:14:58.139 --> 00:14:59.860 that's right in front of him. Very true. And 00:14:59.860 --> 00:15:01.840 there were others, right? Edmund Gardner wrote 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:04.320 a sonnet in the 1790s where he looks at the ruined 00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:07.259 abbey and concludes, Man's but a temple of a 00:15:07.259 --> 00:15:10.679 shorter date. And around 1800, the Reverend Luke 00:15:10.679 --> 00:15:12.519 Booker wrote a sonnet where he embarks on the 00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:15.320 river at sunset, hoping to sail peacefully to 00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:17.940 the eternal ocean at death. What all these contemporary 00:15:17.940 --> 00:15:20.600 examples show us is that the action of Wordsworth's 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:23.919 poem takes place in a moral and literary landscape 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:26.279 that was already well established by other writers. 00:15:26.539 --> 00:15:30.019 His highly retrospective mood draws heavily on 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:32.519 a specific 18th century emotional sensibility. 00:15:32.580 --> 00:15:35.720 It was part of a larger trend. Exactly. You can 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.080 find that same exact sensibility in Edward Jurningham's 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:41.779 poetry, which focuses entirely on the natural 00:15:41.779 --> 00:15:44.480 adornments of moss and flowers reclaiming the 00:15:44.480 --> 00:15:47.519 ruins. Or even in J .M .W. Turner's famous watercolor 00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:50.519 painting of the Abbey, which minimizes the modern 00:15:50.519 --> 00:15:53.399 world to highlight the romantic decay. That makes 00:15:53.399 --> 00:15:55.279 a lot of sense. The conclusion scholars draw 00:15:55.279 --> 00:15:57.600 here isn't necessarily that Wordsworth was being 00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:00.500 actively deceitful or malicious. Rather, he made 00:16:00.500 --> 00:16:03.320 a deliberate, highly calculated artistic choice. 00:16:03.789 --> 00:16:05.929 He preferred the broader, philosophical picture 00:16:05.929 --> 00:16:09.429 over specific, distracting human details. It 00:16:09.429 --> 00:16:11.289 fits seamlessly within the aesthetic context 00:16:11.289 --> 00:16:13.889 of his time, even if it requires a massive amount 00:16:13.889 --> 00:16:16.509 of selective blindness. It's the ultimate curation 00:16:16.509 --> 00:16:19.549 of memory. He needed the landscape to be pure 00:16:19.549 --> 00:16:22.679 so his internal philosophy could be pure. Which 00:16:22.679 --> 00:16:24.679 brings us perfectly to how this poem continues 00:16:24.679 --> 00:16:27.740 to resonate today. Even with its selective blindness, 00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:31.120 the core emotional truth of the poem, the desperate 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:34.480 desire to hold on to a memory, is so strong that 00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:36.899 modern writers are still responding to it centuries 00:16:36.899 --> 00:16:39.960 later. The Wikipedia article outlines two very 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:43.100 notable American responses in recent years. First, 00:16:43.179 --> 00:16:45.080 there is the former U .S. Poet Laureate Billy 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:48.080 Collins. In March of 1997, Collins published 00:16:48.080 --> 00:16:50.740 a poem in Poetry Magazine. He playfully engaged 00:16:50.740 --> 00:16:53.899 with Wordsworth's famously long title by giving 00:16:53.899 --> 00:16:56.659 his own poem an equally long one. Lines composed 00:16:56.659 --> 00:16:59.759 3 ,000 miles from Tintern Abbey. Huh. Collins 00:16:59.759 --> 00:17:01.679 specifically zeroes in on that middle section 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:03.720 of Wordsworth's poem, the part that deals with 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:06.160 the memory of his former visit, the gleams of 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:08.980 half -extinguished thought, and the sad perplexity 00:17:08.980 --> 00:17:11.259 of trying to revive the picture of the mind. 00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:13.660 And our source notes another poet, simply named 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:16.200 Mills, who restates Wordsworth's grand sentiment 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:19.079 in a much more direct pedestrian way. Mills writes, 00:17:19.259 --> 00:17:21.680 I was here before, a long time ago, and now I 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:24.019 am here again. It really distills it down. It 00:17:24.019 --> 00:17:26.980 does. The source points out that this elaborates 00:17:26.980 --> 00:17:30.380 on a deeply universal thesis. No matter how hard 00:17:30.380 --> 00:17:33.440 you try, revisiting a place or an occasion will 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:35.859 always fall short of recreating the absolute 00:17:35.859 --> 00:17:38.220 freshness, the shock of that first impression. 00:17:38.460 --> 00:17:41.180 We can never truly go back. The river is technically 00:17:41.180 --> 00:17:43.559 the same river, but the person looking at it 00:17:43.559 --> 00:17:45.819 has a completely different mind. This raises 00:17:45.819 --> 00:17:47.400 an important question, though, about the very 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:49.579 nature of how we perceive that beauty in the 00:17:49.579 --> 00:17:52.539 first place. Wordsworth relies entirely on his 00:17:52.539 --> 00:17:54.960 eyes and ears, the steep cliffs, the rolling 00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:57.779 waters. But what if you remove those senses? 00:17:58.430 --> 00:18:00.490 This brings us to a much more recent response 00:18:00.490 --> 00:18:03.529 from 2023 by the deafblind writer John Lee Clark. 00:18:03.809 --> 00:18:06.250 This part of the source material completely fascinated 00:18:06.250 --> 00:18:08.930 me. It's incredibly moving. John Lee Clark wrote 00:18:08.930 --> 00:18:11.390 a piece called A Protactile Version of Tintern 00:18:11.390 --> 00:18:13.789 Abbey. Because he is deafblind, he approaches 00:18:13.789 --> 00:18:16.490 the poem entirely outside the visual and auditory 00:18:16.490 --> 00:18:18.789 realms that Wordsworth so heavily relied on. 00:18:18.950 --> 00:18:21.450 He translates the experience into the protactile 00:18:21.450 --> 00:18:23.630 language, which relies on physical touch and 00:18:23.630 --> 00:18:26.130 somatic engagement rather than visual signs or 00:18:26.130 --> 00:18:28.650 spoken words. The source describes Clark's work 00:18:28.650 --> 00:18:31.650 as a tangential attempt to embrace Wordsworth's 00:18:31.650 --> 00:18:34.069 challenge through physical rather than conceptual 00:18:34.069 --> 00:18:37.089 means. Clark is attempting to capture the profound 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:40.220 beauty of a place without sight. He uses tactile 00:18:40.220 --> 00:18:43.339 language to evoke sensory depth, mapping the 00:18:43.339 --> 00:18:45.519 landscape onto the body itself. It's a completely 00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:48.480 novel angle. It forces the reader to appreciate 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:52.180 a familiar classic text in a brand new way. And 00:18:52.180 --> 00:18:54.440 in doing so, Kroc might actually be getting closer 00:18:54.440 --> 00:18:57.059 to reviling that deeply inward experience that 00:18:57.059 --> 00:18:58.839 Wordsworth considered so crucial to communicate, 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:01.500 taking the visual out of it entirely and relying 00:19:01.500 --> 00:19:04.240 purely on the internal sensory feeling of a space, 00:19:04.339 --> 00:19:06.259 the physical weight of the air, the vibration. 00:19:06.539 --> 00:19:09.039 of the ground it's a brilliant modern evolution 00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.619 of the internalized landscape wordsworth was 00:19:11.619 --> 00:19:14.680 trying to describe absolutely Both of these modern 00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:17.180 responses, from Billy Collins trying to bridge 00:19:17.180 --> 00:19:20.519 the gap of memory across 3 ,000 miles to John 00:19:20.519 --> 00:19:23.619 Lee Clark bridging the sensory gap through procactile 00:19:23.619 --> 00:19:26.160 translation, prove that Wordsworth tapped into 00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:29.220 something incredibly durable. The desire to hold 00:19:29.220 --> 00:19:31.740 on to a feeling, to let a landscape shape your 00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:34.579 inner life and anchor your morality, is a universal 00:19:34.579 --> 00:19:38.089 human instinct. So what does this all mean? When 00:19:38.089 --> 00:19:40.549 we put all these pieces together, the breathless 00:19:40.549 --> 00:19:43.130 mental composition on the road to Bristol, the 00:19:43.130 --> 00:19:46.069 pantheistic philosophy, the sweaty cyclops of 00:19:46.069 --> 00:19:48.150 the iron forge that got left on the cutting room 00:19:48.150 --> 00:19:51.150 floor, we see that lines written a few miles 00:19:51.150 --> 00:19:53.869 above Tintern Abbey is so much more than a poem 00:19:53.869 --> 00:19:55.910 about a ruined building. Especially since the 00:19:55.910 --> 00:19:57.710 building isn't even described in the text. Right. 00:19:57.809 --> 00:20:00.529 It is an absolute masterclass in how memory shapes 00:20:00.529 --> 00:20:03.269 our moral being. It shows us how a single landscape 00:20:03.269 --> 00:20:06.329 can anchor our purest thoughts. But it also reveals 00:20:06.329 --> 00:20:09.079 that art... And perhaps memory itself sometimes 00:20:09.079 --> 00:20:11.980 requires us to crop out the ugly, noisy, toxic 00:20:11.980 --> 00:20:14.440 industrial smoke in order to find our own tranquil 00:20:14.440 --> 00:20:17.039 restoration. Which leaves us with a final thought 00:20:17.039 --> 00:20:20.920 to mull over. If Wordsworth, whether subconsciously 00:20:20.920 --> 00:20:23.759 or totally consciously, erased the noisy ironworks, 00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:26.880 the paper mills, and the sooty forges to construct 00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:29.740 his perfectly idealized memory of the River Wye, 00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:33.799 wait, sorry, I mean, if he erased all that, what 00:20:33.799 --> 00:20:36.269 parts of your own past are you editing out? When 00:20:36.269 --> 00:20:37.930 you look back at your own favorite memories, 00:20:38.130 --> 00:20:39.970 the ones that bring you comfort on a hard day, 00:20:40.049 --> 00:20:41.990 how much of your inner peace relies not just 00:20:41.990 --> 00:20:44.049 on what you choose to remember, but on what you 00:20:44.049 --> 00:20:46.230 actively choose to forget? A brilliant question 00:20:46.230 --> 00:20:48.190 to leave you with. Keep questioning the frame, 00:20:48.329 --> 00:20:50.509 keep examining your own landscapes, and keep 00:20:50.509 --> 00:20:52.029 seeking your own tranquil restoration.