Wordsworth and Frost Nature and the Individual

¶ … Wordsworth and Frost

Nature and the Individual

One's relationship with nature is a theme that has been explored often in poetry and across global borders. In "The World is Too Much With Us," William Wordsworth writes about the disconnect that individuals have with nature and a desire to reestablish a relationship with it. On the other hand, in "The Road Not Taken," Robert Frost looks to nature in order to help him to make life decisions and uses it as inspiration for the future. Wordsworth and Frost use nature as a means of defining whom they are and what they choose to do.

In "The World is Too Much With Us," Wordsworth feels as though people have become disconnected from nature and wishes that he could find a way to reconnect. Wordsworth laments, "The world is too much with us; late and soon,/Getting and spending, we lay wasted our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours" (Wordsworth lines 1-3). Through this lament, Wordsworth contends that people have overtaken Nature and despite all their getting and spending, they have nothing to show for it. Furthermore, Wordsworth contends that people have given away their most precious belonging, their hearts, without a second thought, whereas Nature is reciprocated with everything that it gives away. Wordsworth writes, "The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;/The winds that will be howling at all hours,/And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;/For this, for everything, we are out of tune;/It moves us not" (lines 5-9). However, despite this disconnect, the narrator wishes to reconnect to Nature and states, "I'd rather be/A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;/So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,/Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn" (lines 9-12).

On the other hand, Robert Frost looks to Nature as advisor. In "The Road Not Taken," Frost's narrator must make a choice of what life path to take and basis his decision on the signs that Nature provides for him. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator has come upon "[t]wo roads diverged in a yellow wood,/And sorry I could not travel both/And be one traveler, long I stood/And looked down one as far as I could/To where it bent in the undergrowth" (Frost lines 1-5). It is this fork in the road that forces the narrator to come to a decision as to which road to travel, however, since the only thing he knows is that both roads end in the same place, he must make his decision based upon what he observes. While one of the roads bends in the undergrowth, the other is "just as fair,/And having perhaps the better claim,/Because it was grassy and wanted wear;/Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same" (lines 6-10). While the narrator contemplates which road he takes, he takes into consideration how each road will impact him in the future. At last, the narrator makes his choice and states, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- / I took the one less traveled by,/and that has made all the difference" (lines 18-20). In this poem, the roads are symbolic of the choices that the narrator makes. By taken the road less travelled, the narrator chooses to make his own path in the world and to not follow others, but rather to become someone that is followed. Frost is able to demonstrate that Nature can inspire people to be more than followers and allows them to make decisions that inspire others, which the narrator has never regretted.