A Delusive Art

A delusive art is what Charlotte Smith defines the game of a muse in Sonnet I. Therefore it is not surprising that the tone of the poem is overcast by a delusive and melancholy state as well. The Old English Dictionary defines delude as “to frustrate the aim or purpose of….” And the muse does exactly this – she confuses our feelings between friendship and unhappy love, between serenity and turmoil. But there must be more than just the muse on the surface.

As I read the sonnet over and over again I could not escape the idea of the muse representing the wildness of nature and its delusive state as well. Nature tricks us and frustrates us in the same way as a muse. It is pristine and beautiful and yet can be destructive and horrific without any notice. Nature tempts us and frustrates us but we would not be able to survive without the natural world and its elements.

Charlotte Smith notes that - those who never learn of the muse’s delusive art will be much happier. However this is also true in the representation of the wildness of nature. Those who turn a blind eye to the destructive beauty of nature are likely to be happier than those who have experienced firsthand the power and mockery of natural disasters. The picture below demonstrates the muse of nature – beautiful but destructive… a delusive art.

Top Left: Land before Hurricane Katrina
Bottom Left: Land after Hurricane Katrina
Right: The Delusive Art of the Nature

A Purple Orgasm?

In the sonnet “On Seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep at a Tale of Distress” the color purple is representative of the blood flowing through Wordsworth veins. The pumping of Wordsworth is a direct consequence of seeing Miss Helen cry. Purple is not only a symbolism of royalty as we typically assume, but it is also the combination of red and blue. Red is symbolic of strong emotions and blue is symbolic of the human emotion of sadness; the combination of these two colors express the sentimental tone of the poem.

In the last half of the poem the two colors of red and blue seem to collide again although purple is only mentioned in the first line of the sonnet. “Dear was the pause of life…” can be interpreted as a sexual orgasm – and as we all know and orgasm is filled with strong emotions from both participating parties and the human emotion of sadness when the pleasure is over. The two emotions combined create the color purple which we originally examined, for intensely flowing blood is needed for an orgasm. The idea of two colors uniting and being representative of an orgasm seems rather abstract but can be represented by the painting below.

Symbolism of Five?

For five years Wordsworth travels about and writing his ballads and for five years he has not seen the very spot in which he stands. “Tintern Abbey” is about returning to a town after a five year exclusion into nature and the collision of past and present thoughts.

Yes – the number five represents the actual years Wordsworth has been gone. But as I have learned there is always a deeper more “wild” meaning to the words that Wordsworth puts to the page. The number five symbolizes human life, and for Wordsworth his life has been drastically altered by his experiences in the past 5 years. He understands the difference between escaping what he dreads and following what he loves. This ballad is a type of autobiography of his life in a mere 160 sixty lines.

As Wordsworth is looking down onto the town there seems to be a picturesque balance between the babbling stream, cottages, grand old cypress and pastoral farms. In the town there is balance between the natural world and society, and he seems to be greatly satisfied with his place in the midst of it all.
The harmonious balance reminded me of another symbolism of five in the Wheel of Being used in both Celtic and Druid societies. It represents the four powers or elements united by a fifth... balance in all.

The symbolism of five only strengthens Wordsworth’s ballad and I believe it was no mere accident.

The five fold pattern of the Wheel of Being with the middle representing balance!