Romanticism, as a poetic manoeuvre, has always been equated by literary scholars and associated intellectuals with the phrases, ‘return to nature’; ‘revival of the golden age’; ‘willing suspension of disbelief’; and ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful sentiments’. Romantic critics rarely debate outside the circumference of the individual adorning the external green cosmos, and the rhetorically embellished expressions of the personal emotions of the poet. However, with the acclaimed advances in literary theories, the modern, contemporary critics, while analyzing the text and the context, deconstruct the effigies of ‘Nature’ and ‘Woman’ devised by the author’s pen, which has been a keen area of eco-feminist studies. This paper attempts to de-romanticize the poetic quests of William Wordsworth – the pioneer of the Romantic era, along with S.T. Coleridge, and the Poet-Laureate succeeding Southey – more prominently, his Tintern Abbey and Lucy Poems, from an eco-feminist perspective. Although the poet does not remark highly on his thoughts on gender issues, despite the decade witnessing the dawn of feminism with Vindication, the poet’s portrayal of ‘Woman’ temperament amongst the green of ‘Nature’ has aroused eco-feminist critics’ attention. The research scrutinizing the psyche of Wordsworth, and the personal emotions of the poet, de-romanticizes the idyllic landscape and the poised woman in the pastures as the victims of culture; and masculinity – both of which have sculptured the former into effigies of appreciation, adornment, and adoption.
Shruti Dugar (Mon,) studied this question.