Robert M. Ryan's "Wordsworth's Response to Darwin" is an article that discusses two men's views about nature. This article compares and contrasts the different views while also teaching some background of the two different men. The main point of this article is to explain to the reader the approach that the men have. It also focuses on how this affected people. Darwin had a very scientific approach when he spoke of nature and William Wordsworth had a more relaxed, open-minded view. These different views had a huge impact on people of the world, it was hard to know who to believe after the Darwin theory came out. A quote that can support this is "Through his numerous and influential disciples the dead Wordsworth rose to offer a serious challenge to Darwinian thinking in the second half of the 19th century." This article has a lot of information in it and was a great way to learn about how Wordsworth saw nature. The majority of the article explains Wordsworth's theory. Only a little part of it goes over the Darwin theory. Charles Darwin is the man responsible for creating the theory of natural selection. This is a process of evolution where organisms best adapted to their environment are the ones that survive.
People were shocked after hearing this different approach to nature. They had always believed that nature was an innocent place, because that's what Wordsworth and all the other Romantic poets had taught them. The only way people learned of nature was through poetry. After years and years of believing Wordsworth's theory that nature is god, conflict arose because people no longer knew who to believe. I think it was hard for people to know who to believe because for so long Wordsworth was a very well trusted English poet, no one wanted to believe he was wrong. His religious approach to nature showed in every poem he ever wrote. In some complex way, he always added in something that symbolized nature or God. Conflict began when science proved that Darwin's theory was correct. To the people that had been Wordsworth believers, they felt betrayed that for so long they believed something inaccurate. To this day, some people still pick the Wordsworth view over Darwin's. Religion plays a huge role when it comes to deciding who to believe. Religious people are mostly the ones that follow Wordsworth's word because he was a man that never doubted God's energy, he just accepted it. In this quote, Robert M. Ryan illustrates this point. "Wordsworth rarely concerned himself with questions of the origin or history of creation. He was interested in testifying his own experience of divine Presence immanent in Nature, whose reality, benevolence, and moral intent he never doubted." I think Robert Ryan wrote this article, not only to explain the different ways of seeing nature, but to also show the passion that William Wordsworth had toward nature and God. Romantic poetry was his whole life and he helped to start it. Wordsworth could go anywhere and see anything and he would come up with a beautiful poem to explain how he viewed it. There is few spots in this article where it focuses all the attention on Darwin. I think this is because one of the the main reasons for writing this article was to talk about Wordsworth. People saw Darwin's theory as "insulting, brutal, and godless" so to the world, Darwin was the bad guy for announcing his theory. After all this time has gone by, most people have accepted Darwin's theory because science has proved it to be accurate. But there are still some people that have a religious, innocent, spiritual and creative view of the world. Those people don't want to accept Darwin's way of thinking. This article was a great way to learn about the effect that two opposite views can have on people. It is also a great article to read to learn about how William Wordsworth thinks. The main point that I took from this article is that people still feel connected to nature because of Wordsworth's influence. Even when Darwin's theory has been proven, Wordsworth's view is still the right one for some people.
No comments:
Post a Comment