Romanticism versus The Enlightenment: How William Wordsworth “Turned the Tables” In Poetry

“The Tables Turned” by William Wordsworth

 

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you’ll grow double:

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

 

The sun above the mountain’s head,

A freshening lustre mellow

Through all the long green fields has spread,

His first sweet evening yellow.

 

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:

Come, hear the woodland linnet,

How sweet his music! on my life,

There’s more of wisdom in it.

 

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:

Come forth into the light of things,

Let Nature be your teacher.

 

She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless—

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,

Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

 

One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,

Than all the sages can.

 

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—

We murder to dissect.

 

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.

 

In the poem “The Tables Turned,” William Wordsworth is expressing to his audience that they should not focus on material objects that make up the physical world. Instead, Wordsworth urges the person in the audience to go out into nature to “find” themselves and the truth–a belief that is strongly influenced by Romanticism. As seen in the third stanza, Wordsworth encourages us to let Nature (in this case personified to be a person) be our teacher. I find this viewpoint ironic, because if Wordsworth doesn’t want us to gain knowledge from reading books, he must have known that in order for us to learn from his writing, it must be read from a book.

“The Tables Turned,” I feel, is a longer, more descriptive and engaging version of “The Rainbow.” In this other poem, Wordsworth is expressing the same Romantic values and ideas: that nature is the ultimate force that guides us through life, and it is nature that holds the truth. Wordsworth explains how when he sees the rainbow and takes in its beauty, “So was it when my life began/ So is it now I am a man” (3-4). He realizes it is the rainbow that is teaching him the truth of life and nature, so it makes sense that this revelation would lead him to teaching this viewpoint to others in “The Tables Turned.” Romanticism is an act against The Enlightenment (those who believed in reason, logic, and science), so quite literally, the tables have turned when the focus is now on the importance of nature.

I believe that “The Tables Turned” should have been included in our studies, and should be included in future editions, because it’s an elaborate continuation of “The Rainbow” that helps us understand the growth of Romanticism, the movement itself, and how Wordsworth promoted logic and knowledge by way of nature in his poetry. Because I’m in another class that is focuses primary on Gothic/Realist/Pragmatic literature, reading this poem by Wordsworth gave me a further insight into the world of Romanticism and provided a strong contrast from that literature. They act as opposing forces in a way, and Wordsworth’s “Let nature be your guide” Romantic attitude would make for a great lecture/analysis in future editions of “Mentor Book of British Poets.”