Wordsworth's+Expostulation+and+Reply+and+The+Tables+Turned

Title: Wordsworth's 'Expostulation and Reply' and 'The Tables Turned.'.(works by poet William Wordsworth). Author(s): Christopher S. Nassaar. Source: [|**//The Explicator//**]57.3 (Spring 1999): p138(3). (730 words) Document Type: Magazine/Journal  Bookmark: [|Bookmark this Document] Library Links: Poet William Wordsworth's poem ' Expostulation and Reply ' has a biblical base in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, verses 13-16. It appears to be asserting that the true Christian experiences God both in Christ and in nature and its language links Wordsworth to Jesus Christ's disciples and Matthew to the opposing forces. The blending of Christianity and the poet's religion of nature continues and reaches a higher pitch in the companion poem 'The Tables Turned .' William Wordsworth's poem " Expostulation and Reply " has a biblical base that surprisingly has escaped critical attention.(l) In the Gospel of Matthew 13. 13-16 (KJV), Jesus says to his disciples about the scribes and pharisees: Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and heating they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.(2) In "Expostulation and Reply ," Wordsworth has eyes that see and ears that hear: "The eye - it cannot choose but see; We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will."(17-20) His misguided friend Matthew, however, whose name is clearly ironic, becomes the modern equivalent of the scribes and pharisees in his insistence that books are the only source of knowledge. Unlike pharisees, though, he seems open to conversion, and Wordsworth looks on him as a "friend." It is obviously Matthew who is blind as he seeks light in the wrong places. Although the universe is forever speaking to him, he is oblivious to her message: He neither hears nor sees. In the poem, Wordsworth's synthetic vision collapses the differences between Christianity and the worship of nature and unites them through the Romantic imagination. Through the language, the poet seems to be asserting that the true Christian experiences God both in Christ and in nature. The language of the poem links Wordsworth to Christ's disciplines and Matthew to the opposing forces. The language, then, with its clear biblical echoes, dispels the possibility that Wordsworth may be rejecting the Bible along with all the books that contain purely academic knowledge. On the contrary, he is at pains to associate himself with Christianity and to blend it with his vision of nature. This is further emphasized in the note that he later attached as a preface to the poem: "This poem is a favorite among the Quakers, as I have learned on many occasions. It was composed in front of the house at Alfoxden, in the spring of 1798."(3) The blending of Christianity and Wordsworth's religion of nature continues and reaches a higher pitch in the companion poem, "The Tables Turned ." The throstle is referred to as a "preacher," and nature has the power to "bless" and to teach "Of moral evil and of good." Most important of all, however, is the stress on the human heart, which is only implicit in the earlier poem. It is the "heart / That watches and receives" that will open up a new universe for human beings, not the heart that has "waxed gross." In the final analysis, Jesus condemned the scribes and pharisees because of their cold, unreceptive hearts. The language of the poem mixes worship of nature with Christianity and ties the two inexorably, opposing them to academic knowledge, which is "barren" and "murder(s)" the spiritual essence of the universe. - CHRISTOPHER S. NASSAAR, American University of Beirut NOTES 1. A biblical base is not foreign to Wordsworth's poetry. U. C. Knoepflmacker and G. B. Tennyson, for instance, in Nature and the Victorian Imagination (Berkeley: U of California P, 1977), have observed that the rainbow in "My Heart Leaps Up" is meant to recall the covenant God made with Noah after the flood, whose sign is the rainbow. And Geoffrey Hartmann, in Wordsworth's Poetry. 1787-1814 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1967), has argued that the poem "Michael" is based on the story of Abraham and Isaac. 2. I am indebted for this observation to Nathalie Shaheen, a graduate student of mine at the American University of Beirut. 3. This note appeared in a later edition of Lyrical Ballads. A second edition, containing many new poems and the famous preface, was published in 1800, and a third edition, also containing new material, appeared in 1802. WORK CITED Wordsworth, William. Selected Poems and Prefaces. Ed. Jack Stillinger. Boston: Houghton, 1965.
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**Source Citation:** Nassaar, Christopher S. "Wordsworth's 'Expostulation and Reply' and 'The Tables Turned.'." __The Explicator__ 57.3 (Spring 1999): 138(3). __Academic OneFile__. Gale. TEL AONE Access from Google Scholar. 25 Feb. 2009 .
 * Gale Document Number:** A55082526