“Awful doubt” and “faith so mild”: the images of nature from William Blake to Matthew Arnold

• Authors: Łuczyńska-Hołdys Małgorzata
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In the present article I intend to explore chosen images of nature in selected poetical works by William Blake, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, in order to trace significant shifts in their use of natural imagery. While in Romantic poetry, in general, images from nature are used to portray spiritual experience of finding comfort and sustenance in communing with nature, or, alternatively, a sense of being overwhelmed in the face of an omnipotent power, Victorian poems register deep uneasiness and a fear of nature, which has nothing to do with the experience of the sublime. This shift can be attributed, at least in part, to ground-breaking scientific discoveries and overwhelming technological progress in Victorian England, which resulted in confusion and disquiet as far as basic existential issues (the existence of God, the relation between God and man, the origin of the universe) were concerned.

Keywords

EN

English poetry; Romanticism; Victorian Age; natural imagery; spirituality; faith; science

• Publisher: Wydział Neofilologii, Uniwersytet Warszawski
• Journal: Acta Philologica
• Year: 2016
• Issue: 49
• Pages: 163-173

Contributors

author

Łuczyńska-Hołdys Małgorzata

• Uniwersytet Warszawski

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