Wordsworth: “Through Meagre Lines and Colours”

Billy Schraufnagel

April 13, 2000

English 125-8, Fayen

Wordsworth Paper

“Through Meagre Lines and Colours”

Not many people on New Haven’s streets at 4:30 on a Thursday morning. I looked forward to a nice, quiet, Wordsworthian walk to a nearby 24-hour convenience mart for a sandwich, after having finished the last glorious lines of “The Prelude.”

“Sometimes embodied on a public road, / When, for the night deserted, it assumes / A character of quiet more profound / Than pathless wastes” (Pr. IV, 366-369).

As I crossed Old Campus to the ATM machine, my mind twirled. I had to plan a paper to write about what I had just finished reading, but my thoughts were too scattered to form anything coherent and worthy of an essay.

“I summoned my best skill, and toiled,... Dragging all precepts, judgements, maxims, creeds, / Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind, / Suspiciously, to establish in plain day / Her titles and her honours; now believing, / Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed... I lost / All feeling of conviction” (Pr. XI, 279, 294-298, 302-303).

That train of thought leading me nowhere, I told myself, “No, this is a study break. You need to relax your mind now, so that when you get back to your room, you will be refreshed.” I didn’t quite convince myself, though. I began to imitate Wordsworth’s practice of trying to remember childhood experiences that contributed to the development of his mind and personality.

“Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch / Invigorating thoughts from former years; / Might fix the wavering balance of my mind... whose power / May spur me on, in manhood now mature, / To honourable toil.” (Pr. II. 621-626). 

This practice helped me out for a while. To be sure, I was not visited by any Wordsworthian revelations, but at least my mind was occupied. For a couple of blocks, I was very content, my eyes mostly devoted to watching the rhythm of my feet stepping as I walked. This rhythm was broken by a familiar figure running at me from across Elm Street. A homeless man I recognized from several previous encounters. He was particularly eager this time about getting money from me, and bold enough to ask for $6.50. He told me an involved story about some kids who had jumped him at a nearby shelter, that he feared for his life, and that Jesus Christ demanded that I give him my money. I was sympathetic. I listened to his story, and tried to be nice to him, but I have been well conditioned in my time at Yale, and he got no money.

lost

Amid the moving pageant, I was smitten

Abruptly with the view (a sight not rare)

Of a blind Beggar who, with upright face,

Stood, propped against a wall, upon his chest

Wearing a written paper, to explain

His story, whence he came, and who he was.

Caught by the spectacle my mind turned round

As with the might of waters; an apt type

This label seemed of the utmost we can know

Both of ourselves and of the universe; (Pr. VII. 636-642, 645).

This image from “The Prelude” stayed with me for the remainder of my trip. In the few marvelous lines quoted above, Wordsworth moves from being lost in the throng of London’s streets to making a sweepingly profound statement about the nature of knowledge, man, and the universe. The impetus or medium for this shift in thought seems to be rather commonplace; Wordsworth himself admits it is a “sight not rare.” However, through close examination of the passage against the context of the entire “Prelude,” we may follow the progression of Wordsworth’s mind and possibly access some of the essential impulses and energies that underlie the poem as a whole.

To begin, we must understand Wordsworth’s initial state of mind, via the word “lost.” He is in London, and he has just described the environment that he is in: “That huge fermenting mass of human-kind / Serves as a solemn back-ground, or relief” (Pr. VII. 621-622). This passage suggests at once a formless and disunified non-structure against which Wordsworth relates his musings. Drawing from his environment, he marvels at the capacity for this “huge mass” to fragment itself into individual parts, although he soon realizes (with some frustration) that the smaller units within the mass are as devoid of meaning to him as the mass itself: “‘The face of every one / That passes by me is a mystery!’ / Thus have I looked, nor ceased to look, oppressed / By thoughts of what and whither, when and how,” (Pr. VII. 628-631). The mass splits into individual faces, and each face linguistically splits into four questions. The sheer volume (“moving pageant”) of unanswerable questions swirls through the poet’s mind, “oppressing” him and causing him to feel “lost.”

All of a sudden one of the countless faces zooms at high speed into prominence. The blind Beggar is a “sight not rare,” true, but these phrases are framed by the words “Abruptly” and “with upright face.” This transforms the otherwise unremarkable into a focal point. For Wordsworth in his current scattered state, any focal point is worth noting, because it signals a definite direction in his thought process and narrative. It is no more than a focal point, however, because although “upright,” the beggar’s face is still as much a “mystery” as every other stranger’s.

At this point, Wordsworth examines the beggar, and relates to the reader the key image that he sees: “Wearing a written paper to explain / His story, whence he came, and who he was.” The framing of this passage with the words “propped” and “spectacle” implies both a theatricality or display quality to the beggar in an artificial sense, and the idea of the paper as a prop, or some artificial representation. Wordsworth uses both “prop” and “spectacle” earlier in Book VII. He describes visiting a museum as a “spectacle within doors... that ape / The absolute presence of reality,” (Pr. VII. 230, 232-233). The word “prop” is given a slightly more favorable connotation: “the curious props / By which the world of memory and thought / Exists and is sustained.” (Pr. VII 453-455). Considering both “prop” and “spectacle” as implied alternative definitions of the “written paper” suggests something that is imitative and artificial at the same time as being prolonging and unifying.

Considering the words “written paper,” one might immediately infer that Wordsworth views poetry this way. Indeed, Wordsworth describes Nature’s transmission of energy to him through other literature/poetry images at the end of Book VIII: The Spirit of Nature “diffused, / Through meagre lines and colours, and the press / Of self-destroying transitory things, / Composure, and ennobling Harmony.” (Pr. VIII. 768-771). “Meagre lines” could easily be a reference to poetry and “self-destroying transitory things” could just as easily be the words that comprise poetry. In both passages, poetry is both temporal and eternal, fragile and fixed, an impediment and a medium of energy transmission.

As we have already seen in “prop” and “spectacle,” Wordsworth frequently describes things twice, perhaps so to provide greater complexity and shading to each word he uses, to try and avoid labeling or clichéd meanings to words. Another example of this technique is his double usage of the word “shrine.” One prominent appearance of the word is in a discussion of books, similar to the discussion of poetry in books VII and VIII: “Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad / Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail?” (Pr. V. 48-49). Another use of the word is in a similar context, but with a different connotation: “I would give, / While yet we may, as far as words can give, / Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining, / Such is my hope, the spirit of the Past / For future restoration.” (Pr. XII. 282-286). In these two passages, Wordsworth gives us a very specific and complex understanding of what he means by “shrines” as books, literature, and words in general. They are frail, and somehow limited (“as far as words can give”), but at the same time, they have the power to give “substance and life” to a feeling and provide a sort of mental bridge between the past and present.

In a few short, simple passages, Wordsworth gives a strong sense of how he views poetry, words, and books. Although they are meager, frail, self-destroying, and transitory, they contain a vital energy without which the world of memory and thought nor a bridge between the past and the future would exist. Like Donne’s conceits, words are physical receptacles that we must use in order to communicate with each other and express our relationship with Nature’s enemy: “O, wond’rous power of words, by simple faith / Licensed to take the meaning that we love!” (Pr. VII. 119-120).

Wordsworth acknowledges both the deficiencies and necessities of words, and therefore places himself in a difficult position. He has an intimate relationship with Nature that he wishes to explore within himself, with his sister, and with the readers of his poetry. He laments the fact that he is terribly hindered in his full expression: “But who shall parcel out / His intellect by geometric rules,” (Pr. II. 203-204). “Geometric rules” implies discreet packets of knowledge or experience, what is necessarily done in the act of writing poetry. Wordsworth recognizes the need for some kind of representation, but is still frustrated: “Could find no surface where its power might sleep... It lies far hidden from the reach of words.” (Pr. III. 166, 187).

To combat this block, Wordsworth employs a poetic style that mirrors the process of how Nature works upon his consciousness: “By inward concords, silent, inobtrusive, / And gentle agitations of the mind / From manifold distinctions, difference / Perceived in things, where, to the unwatchful eye, / No difference is... and obscure sense of possible sublimity” (Pr. II. 297-301, 317-318). Wordsworth deliberately overuses language in an attempt to fight cliché or slogans. We have already seen how multiple definitions of the same word is an example of how Wordsworth’s poetic style works to make complex but subtle impressions, as “charms minute / That win their way into the heart by stealth,” (Pr. XIV. 240-242). The sheer length and rolling verse of “The Prelude,” also forces the reader to concentrate on the poetry and the ideas locked inside it as an exercise of the mind, the asset Wordsworth seeks to develop in himself and the reader. Wordsworth’s ambition, one must assume, is to act upon the reader in the same, gentle, suggestive way that Nature has acted upon him his whole life: “An insight that in some sort he possesses... Creative and enduring, may become / A power like one of Nature’s” (Pr. XIII. 308, 311-312).

Having postulated awhile on Wordsworth’s philosophy, techniques, and goals as poet, let us return to our original examination, the blind Beggar. Upon seeing the man with the written piece of paper across his chest (which we have guessed may be a representation of poetry and literature, but is simply a piece of paper when Wordsworth himself sees it), Wordsworth’s mind turns “round / As with the might of waters,” implying a dissolving or complete restructuring of his perspective. His conclusion immediately thereafter is that “This label seemed of the utmost we can know, / Both of ourselves and of the universe.”

What, then, is the “label”? Surely it is some sort of external representation that contains an essential skeleton of information, but lacks complexity. With such a strong statement, however, it seems Wordsworth pushes this image further than first expected. If we follow the considerations above about the written piece of paper being essentially words and language, then the beggar’s label is language and his use of language– “His story, whence he came, and who he was.” The label defines him from Wordsworth’s point of reference, and from any passerby on the streets of London. Perhaps, then, Wordsworth has concluded in this alarmingly short amount of time that the individual is defined by language, and a specific individual is defined by how well he or she uses language. Consider the fact that only an individual has access to his or her thoughts and feelings, and the expression or validity of those thoughts hinges upon that person’s ability to articulate those thoughts and feelings. Furthermore, Wordsworth suggests that one’s ability to understand one’s self is based upon use of language and words– “the curious props / By which the world of memory and thought / Exists and is sustained.” To continue along this line of thinking, our understanding of our place in the universe and the natural forces around us also depends on our ability to use a language of some sort– whether that be our linguistic language or the language of mathematics, or a natural science.