Mrs.

Rekha Rajiv Goel

Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry (TOJQI)

Volume 12, Issue 8, July, 2021:6713 - 6718

Comparison between Wordsworth and Robert Frost as a Nature Poet to Develop a

Human Behaviour

Mrs.Rekha Rajiv Goel

Abstract:
This article focuses on comparison between Wordsworth and Robert Frost as a nature poet. It
analyses importance of nature in increasing the knowledge of human. The exploration is to obtain a
model of human knowledge respects. The analysts led the examination with inside and out insights
of nature reliant on human intelligence, extraordinary medications during the time spent improving
the knowledge of human instinct and honorable qualities in regard for nature. The examination was
exploratory in nature the subjective technique was utilized the majority of the poems by Wordsworth
and Robert Frost utilized as the information. The substance examination utilized as the strategy of
information investigation. The forest areas speak to the magnificence of nature and this scene is
extremely dazzling for the intelligence of human instinct.
Keywords: Wordsworth, Frost, Romanticism, Nature, knowledge, wisdom and human behaviour

Introduction: Nature is certainly a vital subject in writing and a source of amusement for the sappy
personalities, particularly whenever they want to exit from the plans of busy city life. William
Wordsworth was a nature devotee, a nature expert, or a senior minister. His passion for nature was
unmistakable and communicated in a way that no other English writer had done before or after. In
his sonnets, nature takes on a separate or independent role and it is not handled as lightly as it had
been by artists before him. Wordsworth had an inimitable way of thinking about nature, a distinct
and singular viewpoint.
On the other hand, Robert Frost applied nature to express his views on human life, as well as
the detail he includes making his poetry interesting and simple to visualize in our brains. William
Wordsworth and Robert Frost used "Nature" as the subject of their sonnets on a regular and frequent
basis, but their individual medicines of a similar subject have striking differences in dealing with
different themes, resulting in these two world-famous artists becoming elaborately distinct and
enormous. This research shows how nature is utilized as a subject in sonnets. The main goal is to
reveal the significance of nature in increasing human intelligence.
Both poets see Nature in different ways although there are some aspects of the subject which
are clearly the same. As a poet of Nature, Wordsworth stands supreme. He is a worshipper of Nature,
Nature’s devotee or high-priest. He has a full-fledged philosophy, a new and original view of Nature.
Frost, on the other hand, is not interested in Nature for itself. Unlike Wordsworth, he finds no
sustaining power or source of joy and moral health in nature. For both poets Nature brings the same
thing, yet in very different ways. Frost maintains artistic detachment from his writing while
Wordsworth clearly involves himself in the subject matter of his poetry. Frost is deceptively plain
whereas Wordsworth is genuinely simple. Frost is pragmatic, worldly and anti-romantic. On the

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Comparison between Wordsworth and Robert Frost as a Nature Poet to Develop a Human Behaviour

other hand, Wordsworth is transcendentalist, romantic and mystic. Frost's poetry begins in delight
and ends in wisdom, whereas Wordsworth's poetry begins in delight and ends in delight.
William Wordsworth advised that poem "has its birth from sensation remembered in
stillness, “he had that tradition of common verse as a high priority “(Almiqdady, Abu-Melhim, & Al-
Sobh, 2015).”This calm condition may be evoked most successfully if the artist goes out into nature,
observes his surroundings and breaks down his feelings and impressions into sections. Following
that, visionaries like Henry David Thoreau, in his sonnet "Tribute on Intimations of Immortality
from Recollections of Early Childhood," achieved exactly that (Lehman, & Jackson, 2019).
There were two types of Romantic connections between nature and spirit. On the one hand,
the environment was regarded as an extension of human personality, capable of understanding man's
emotional condition. Nature, on the other hand, was seen to be a vessel for spirit in the same way
that man was; God's breath pervades both man and the ground. The enjoyment of unspoiled
environment and the innocent existence of rural dwellers was a favorite literary topic. This emotion
for rural living is usually coupled with a broad romantic sadness, a sense that change is impending
and that a way of life is being threatened (Johnson, 2015).William Wordsworth is considered as a
‘Father of English sentimental verse’. He critically viewed the nature.
William Wordsworth considered the nature as a significant idea for him and for other
English sentiment artists who belongs to his age and for ages after him as well. English
sentimentalism considers the nature more noteworthy element of English verse and it is a more
critical part of it. When Wordsworth and his companion Coleridge turns out to be exceptionally
evident towards nature while taking a gander at expressive song and that was distributed without
precedent for 1798. The interpretation of nature and its consequences is always depending on the
time, circumstance, subject and age in which the work is presented, as previously said.
Nature is extolled in the sonnets that have been remembered and it provides the mind a fresh
direction. Shepherds have a strong connection to nature and these sonnets were given or sung by
them. Shepherds devote more time and effort to their flocks in open regions of nature in remote parts
of England. The language in the book had administered the straightforwardness of nature.
Wordsworth held nature in high respect and offered himself as a teacher, saying, "Let nature be your
teacher" (Cop, 2014). Other romantic authors have taken gender as a pleasurable Endeavour to
imitate Wordsworth's disposition. Wordsworth is a major source of inspiration for numerous writers
and poets.
Robert Frost's worldview was fundamentally different in an effort, as seen by his attitude
toward nature in comparison to the temperament of English sentimental painters. Frost's sonnet
Halting by Woods on a Snowy Evening is an expressive ideal because of his unique perspective on
nature, which differs from that of other English romantic artists of the period. The imaginative
creation of Ice was influenced by Ralf Waldo Emerson. Frost-associated objects are unique in nature
and are connected to otherworldly phenomena. This viewpoint is consistent with the 1840s notion of
Transcendentalism as instilling individual confidence.
Wordsworth advocates the use of simple, ordinary language in poetry. He is of the opinion that
poetry should be written in a “selection of language really used by men in humble and rustic”. He
sets himself to the task of freeing poetry from all its “conceits” and its “inane phraseology”, and of
speaking the language of simple truth. The simplicity of the following lines, for instance, is
noteworthy:
A violet by a mossy stone,

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 Mrs. Rekha Rajiv Goel

Half hidden from the eye;

Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

One could quote numerous examples of the successful and effective manner in which Wordsworth
handled simple language. All Lucy poems offer striking examples. A poem like the one on daffodils
represents the successful simple style too. Robert Frost, on the other hand, is deceptively simple in
his poetry. His poems on the surface seem simple. He puts on the familiar mask of a shrewd Yankee
farmer who speaks of the simple rural folk and birds and animals, and the cycle of seasons, and
whose utterances are full of poetical wisdom.
The poems in reality have deep significance, and show Frost’s penetrating insight into the
primal instincts of man. Frost reveals the complexities of rural life in the garb of plain words. Many
of his monosyllabic words are difficult to comprehend as these are charged with symbolic meanings.
The body of his poetry wears an ordinary garment but beneath it remain messages that need one to
introspect for clear understanding. Frost uses symbols taken from nature to express the intended
meanings or messages. Frost’s diction is apparently simple but behind the simple is great art. A
majority of his poems offer more than one interpretation.
The rich texture gives the poems an inexhaustible quality. The best examples are perhaps
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Birches”. At the end of “Mending Wall”, we do not
quite know which side Frost is on, for there are different meanings to be understood from the poem.
He expresses his personal thoughts, feelings through his poems. Subjectivity is the key note of his
poetry. In “Ode: Intimation of Immortality” the poet expresses his own/personal feelings. Here he
says that he cannot see the celestial light anymore which he used to see in his childhood. He says,
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-
Turn wheresoever’s I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see on more.

Frost, on the other hand, maintains what Eliot terms as ‘artistic detachment’. Except in elegies, Frost
does not always involve himself in the subject matter of his poetry. Wordsworth has a superabundant
enthusiasm for humanity. He is deeply interested in the simple village folk and the peasant who live
in contact with nature. Wordsworth emphasizes on the kinship between man and nature.
Wordsworth’s philosophy of human life rests upon his basic conception that man is not apart from
Nature but is the very “life of her life”.
In childhood man is sensitive to all natural influences; he is an epitome of the gladness and
beauty of the world. Wordsworth explains this gladness and this sensitiveness to Nature by the
doctrine that the child comes straight from the Creator of Nature. This kinship with nature and with
God, which glorifies childhood, ought to extend through a man’s whole life and ennoble it. This is
the teaching of Tintern Abbey in which the best part of human life is shown to be the result of natural
influences. According to Wordsworth, society and the crowded unnatural life of cities tend to
weaken and pervert humanity; and a return to a natural and simple living is the only remedy for
human wretchedness.
In Wordsworth's poetry, nature is supreme, where humans and nature forge an intimate
communion; humans and nature are never found hostile to each other. In Frost, rural people are

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Comparison between Wordsworth and Robert Frost as a Nature Poet to Develop a Human Behaviour

supreme and nature has been made subordinate to humans. It is hard to describe Frost as the poet of
nature, if we determine Wordsworth as the standard. Frost himself admits: “We have had nature
poetry for a hundred years.” He is interested in locating the relations between nature and humans. It
is true that both poets sought to find solace and delight in nature.
The poem “Birches” offers the best example of how the poet blends observation and
imagination, fact and fancy, feeling and wisdom. The poet says that he used to be a swinger of
birches and that he would like to return to this activity when life begins to seem too burdensome to
him: I’d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. When life
becomes a little too much for him, he needs to escape briefly, to get off the ground just as a birch
swinger does. However, he stresses that he would not like to leave life permanently because “Earth’s
the right place for love”. The meaningful relationships of life cannot be fulfilled if one tries to get
away. Moreover, there does not seem to be any other realm in which one can achieve such complete
satisfaction as on earth.
Wordsworth says nature "never did betray the heart that loved her". To Frost, nature is
unfriendly, malevolent and malignant; it creates barriers to the smooth fulfillment of human and
social obligations. From this perspective, Frost is comparable to Thomas Hardy and W. B. Yeats.
Nature is a menace and discomfort. Although, to Frost, the woods are “lovely, dark and deep,”
humans should not stay there for long, as they have duties elsewhere, they “have miles to go” before
they sleep. In the poem “Come In’’, Frost promises: “But no, I was out for stars: I would not come
in.” To Frost, there are barriers between humans and nature, between humans and humans, and
between the creator and the creation. Yet he does not cease to work; he rather tries to adjust himself
with the barriers created by nature.
Frost's Transcendentalism shines brightest in the penultimate line, when he writes of the
gorgeous, boring and profound forest areas. He continues by saying that he has promises to honor
and that he has a long way to go before he dies, suggesting that he has already died. Frost makes a
link between nature, death, and the afterlife in this passage. That was in response to Emerson's way
of thinking, which spoke Frost's worldview was fundamentally different in an effort, as seen by his
attitude toward nature in comparison to the temperament of English sentimental painters.
Frost's sonnet "Halting by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is an expressive ideal because of his
unique perspective on nature, which differs from that of other English romantic artists of the period.
The imaginative creation of Ice was influenced by Ralf Waldo Emerson. Frost-associated objects are
unique in nature and are connected to otherworldly phenomena. This viewpoint is consistent with the
1840s notion of Transcendentalism as instilling individual confidence. Frost pays respect to nature,
as do other English romantic authors, but in his sonnet, he utilizes it as an expressive example with
motives for this thought.
Frost's Transcendentalism shines brightest in the penultimate line, when he writes of the
gorgeous, boring, and profound forest areas. He continues by saying that he has promises to honor
and that he has a long way to go before he dies, suggesting that he has already died. Frost makes a
link between nature, death, and the afterlife in this passage. That was in response to Emerson's way
of thinking, which spoke too plainly of the beliefs of people who support the Transcendentalist
expansion (Van Doren, 1923).
The value of nature has changed continually since the beginning of time. Nature does not
have the same gravitas or convey the same feeling of grandeur as nature. It showed how English
emotional artists exploited nature through Wordsworth's unique proof, as contrasted to a comparable

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topic being used in America through unique evidence from Robert Frost. Wordsworth's attitude
toward nature may be used as a source of stanza inspiration as well as a source of admirable quality.
Wordsworth saw nature as something with which to connect, and with which a warm and
impassioned bond might be formed. Nature is something that a certain link might be formed at the
conclusion of the day. Information and direction may certainly be found in nature; according to
Wordsworth .People might acquire so much from their general state and common things that they
become alive in their genuineness. Wordsworth was the precursor of English emotional verse and the
father of English sentimental section, and other English sentimental poets, such as Blake, Shelley,
and Keats, shared his attitude.
When comparing Ice's attitude toward nature to Wordsworth's, the impact of
Transcendentalism on his ideas may be seen. Frost liked nature and utilized it in his poems, but it
also functioned as a method for reflection and a strong desire to attain a greater degree of
otherworldliness and theory about life on Earth by incorporating what occurs after death (Ogilvie,
1959; and Pritchard, 1960). English romantic painters, on the other hand, regarded nature as a source
of poetic inspiration as well as a pleasant location where a relationship could be formed and enjoyed
via nature.
Wordsworth’s attitude towards nature can be described as that of a source of inspiration for
the composition of verse as well as a source of beauty and joy to be enjoyed. Nature to Wordsworth
was something to establish a bond with and with which a very affectionate and passionate
relationship can be created. In other words, it is something that an intimate relationship can be
created with. To Wordsworth, nature can certainly be a source of knowledge and an inventory of
instruction. We can learn a lot from our surrounding environment and the natural things that live
with us in our world. The views of other English romantic poets such as Blake, Shelley and Keats
were very similar to that of Wordsworth’s since he was the pioneer of English Romantic poetry and
the father of English romantic verse.
Frost’s attitude towards nature in comparison with Wordsworth’s can be understood in terms
of the impact that Transcendentalism had on his views. Nature was a means of meditation and
religious inspiration for Frost to reach a higher level of spirituality and philosophy towards the life
here after including what happens after death. In contrast, English romantic poets looked at nature
only as a source of inspiration to write poetry and a comfortable place in which a bond can be
created and enjoyed with nature.
Conclusion: At last, it might remain inferred that albeit equally Wordsworth and Frost commended
nature and set nature in an extremely extraordinary spot of their rundown needs; everyone saw it in a
moderately unique way. Wordsworth saw nature as a wellspring of motivation in the procedure of
refrain. He took a gander as something that can be adored as well as appreciated. That was likewise a
method for motivation and a cause which activates the utilization of creative mind that was pivotal of
the way toward making verse. Frost was seen nature like a method for contemplation to yield him
towards a more elevated level of otherworldliness.
In this manner, Frost regarded nature as spiritual and flawless, whereas Wordsworth and other
English romantic authors loved nature largely as a simple source of inspiration for composing
stanzas, as well as its impact as a teacher and a rich fountain of human knowledge. Therefore, Frost
viewed nature as something that is related to the divine, while Wordsworth and other English
romantic poets simply enjoyed nature and viewed it as a source of inspiration to compose poetry
coupled with its power to be a teacher and to serve as a rich source of human knowledge.

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 Comparison between Wordsworth and Robert Frost as a Nature Poet to Develop a Human Behaviour

Wordsworth has taught us how to be friendly to nature and how to obtain solace from it in times of
psychic crisis, and Frost has taught us how to engage in ceaseless work and also to seek transitory
relief by being away into wildlife and communicating with the innocent unacknowledged rural
people.
Work cited list

1. Beer, John. Wordsworth and the Human Heart. Macmillan, 1978.

2. Gardiner, Alan. The Poetry of William Wordsworth. Penguin Critical Studies, 1990.
3. Gerber, Philip L. Robert Frost. Bombay Popular Prakashan 1969.
4. Hill, John Spencer. The Romantic Imagination: A Casebook. Macmillan, 1977
5. Kirk, R. W., & Klotz, M. Faulkner's people: a complete guide and index to characters in the fiction
of William Faulkner. Univ of California Press. 1963.
6. Kunzmann, U., &Baltes, P. B. Beyond the traditional scope of intelligence: Wisdom in action.
American Psychological Association. 2003.
7. Lehman, D., & Jackson, M. The Best American Poetry 2019. Scribner. 2019.
8. Moynihan, W. T. (1958). Fall and winter in Frost. Modern Language Notes, 73(5), 348-350.
9. Ogilvie, J. T. (1959). From Woods to Stars: A Pattern of Imagery in Robert Frost's Poetry, The South
Atlantic Quarterly, 58, 1, 64-76.
10. Pritehard, W. H. (1960). Diminished Nature, The Massachusetts Review, 1, 1, 475-592.
11. Van Doren, C. (1923). The Soil of the Puritans, Robert Frost: Quintessence and Subsoil, The
Century Magazine, 15, 1, 629-636.
12. Wordsworth. W. (1986). The Oxford book of travel verse, 40.
13. Waggoner, Hyatt Howe. The Humanistic Idealism of Robert Frost American Literature, November,
1941, pp. 207-23

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