Wordsworth’s Leech-gatherer: Stoicism in Resolution and Independence

In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth meets the question of “what” a poet is by placing her/him directly and inextricably within the context of the world. A poet sees “man and the objects that surround him as acting and re-acting upon each other … He considers man and nature essentially adapted to each other, and the mind of man as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting qualities of nature” (Wordsworth, Preface 271). Wordsworth’s poet, like the wise Marcus Aurelius, valuates according to his/her understanding of being caught up in the actions and events of the world.[1] The poet’s mind is “naturally the mirror” of natural qualities, which is to say that he/she faithfully reflects surroundings. Wordsworth expressed similar sentiment in saying that the poet “[delights] to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe” (Preface 269). Wordsworth indicates not only the passive role of the poet-subject – cohering with his/her surroundings – but also the active role of striving for that relationship with Nature. In the final paragraph of Meditations,

Aurelius explicates the further ethical and dispositional aspects of the subject by admonishing “man” to let go of the worry regarding his fate. This is preferable because nature is sovereign and will run its course with or without “man[’s]” consent (585).[2] The above considerations suggest that the “delight” of Wordsworth’s poet is the “life according to nature” that the Stoics strove for (Zeller 219).[3] For both Wordsworth and the Stoics, this consists in a harmonizing of one’s expectations and mindset to actuality, to the nature-of-things. This “actuality” or nature, is in Wordsworth’s system, the entirety of those “actions” and “reactions” that he says a poet sees. In this way, the Stoic doctrine of altering one’s perspective towards nature runs parallel to Wordsworth’s account of the poet’s attitude in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads.[4] It is through a shift in perspective that one enters into a satisfying relationship with the world.

Clearly, there are parallels between Stoic philosophy and Wordsworth’s thought.[5] While the comparisons to be made here are numerous, Wordsworth was obviously not a Stoic philosopher per se and thus a purely conceptual juxtaposition of Wordsworthian thought and Stoic thought yields – in addition to the aforementioned similarities – some disparities. For example, it is difficult to reconcile a Stoic view of the “passions” with Wordsworth’s account of the same subject in the Preface. Though mitigated and reasonable emotion is not frowned upon in Stoic thought, Wordsworth’s passions may be interpreted to be the very “spontaneous overflow of emotion” that Stoic philosophy proscribes (Sandbach 59-68). Because of the lack of rigorous explication of his ideas, it is difficult to tell to what extent Wordsworth was Stoic in his thoughts, but what is clear is that “he put the interest of poetry before those of philosophy” (Gill 46). In light of this, it would be misguided to make him out as purporting to be a deliberate and precise philosopher.[6]

With this mitigated understanding of Wordsworth’s similarities to Stoicism in mind, it is nevertheless safe to say that the grounds for comparison between the two are very strong.[7] These grounds have led to some very astute comparison of the philosophical aspects of Stoicism and Wordsworth, but there has been a lack of concentrated scholarship that seeks to penetrate further. Despite close parallels in theory, little to no amount of scholarly effort has been put into Stoic readings of Wordsworth’s poems and little analysis has been done of the Stoic ideas that may consist therein.[8]

Wordsworth’s Resolution and Independence lends itself well not only to analysis of subsistent “Stoic” sentiment, but also to a Stoic “reading” or understanding of the poem as a whole. The very drama of the poem consists in the narrator’s struggle to relate to nature in such a way as to promote happiness (or the Stoic equivalent: eudaimonia). [9] The narrator expresses that the struggle to relate to nature is atypical for him, but he cannot suppress his worries. It is in direct contrast to the “warbling” sky-lark and “playful hare” that the narrator finds himself in painful travail; instead of basking in his surroundings, he is overwhelmed by thoughts of “Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty” (RI; V).[10] The “pleasant noise of waters” and the joy-connoting warble of the sky-lark becoming sardonic mockeries or irrelevant ambiance to him. The bifurcation between the narrator’s disposition and the ways of nature leads the traveler to worrisome thought in which he relegates himself to eventual “despondency and madness” (RI; I, VII).[11] Thus, it is the plight of the man who ceases to conform himself to nature to be incapable of living in it. When the “Traveller” is on his walk, he is surrounded by beauty, yet he cannot help but let his mind wander to considerations of the future, troubles that lie outside of his control. The Stoics, like Wordsworth, traced much discontentment to this very same inability to live according to nature or to conform one’s perspective into one of gratitude and deference. Epictetus’ Discourses deal with the subject extensively:

For that which alone is in your power, the proper handling

of your impressions. Why do you insist on dragging

in these things for which you are not responsible? That is to

make trouble for yourself … … our circumstances being as they

are and as nature makes them, we may conform our mind to

events (249).

Subsequently Epictetus chases out his thoughts regarding what the “punishment” is for those who choose not to “conform” to events: the punishment is to remain in their own miserable state (Epictetus 249). In corollary fashion, though nature itself does not disseminate punishments and rewards, the Stoic’s reward is remaining in a state of eudaimonia resultant from his/her coming to nature’s terms.

The question regarding eudaimonia is not a Stoic one, it is a human one: what is Stoic in Resolution and Independence is the analysis: this poem propounds the eminent human question amidst a Stoic diagnosis of the narrator’s ills.

This “diagnosis” rests fundamentally on the affinities between a Stoic and Wordsworthian conception of the world. In most formulations of Stoicism, there is no dichotomy between God and Nature, “the history of the universe is the history of one thing, which can be signified by many different names … Uncreated and imperishable Nature, God, pneuma or universal logos” (Long 168).[12] This is echoed by Wordsworth when he writes

…Such consciousnesses seemed but accidents

Relapses from the one interior life

Which is in all things, from that unity

In which all beings live with God, are lost

In God and nature, in one mighty whole… (Onorato 150)

According to the Stoics the flourishing of the spirit relies on coming to terms with all that there is, Nature’s divine and ultimate terms. Flourishing is found in “apathia” towards one’s place in the “whole.” Because one’s part in it cannot be otherwise, controlling one’s mind is paramount to cohering with God and Nature. Thus, it is not surprising that the objectified answer to the narrator’s troubles with life-in-nature should come in the form of an un-worrying, adapted, Stoic leech-gatherer.

Even from the first few moments in which the narrator beholds the “old man” in the pool, it is clear that the man has a synergy with the natural way of things: that he has come to grips with his transience amidst the world’s changes. The multiple comparisons of him to natural phenomena, including comparisons to a stone or a creature of the sea suggests unanimity with nature: an understanding fit naturally, if extraordinarily, to the ephemeral surroundings.[13] It brings to mind Wordsworth’s Preface in which he speaks of a man who is “naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting qualities of nature” and who is perpetually “delighting” to meld into the goings-on of nature (Preface 269 & 271). Though the old man is “bent double” as if a “more than human weight upon his frame had cast,” and though when his words come they emerge “feebly,” his speech is unexpectedly powerful and wise in its handling of the quotidian inquiry regarding his occupation (RI; X, XIV). In spite of his lowly occupation, the travails of his age, and his “hazardous and wearisome” employment, he speaks to the narrator with a resolute resilience that can only be natural. Wordsworth once again uses a natural simile in order to reveal how the narrator is swept away in the leech-gatherer’s tranquil, Stoic, and adaptable nature: “But now his voice to me was like a stream Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide” (RI; XVI). The wisdom of the old man is Stoic in that it is remedial to the narrator’s doubts by showing him the natural way: like a stream slowly and holistically teaching him the value of harmony and the futility of discord: “This is what it is to be wise… the goal of human existence is complete harmony between a man’s own attitudes and actions and the actual course of events” (Long 108).[14]

The vocation of leech-gathering is in-itself significant to the idea of unifying man and nature. To stand in a muddy pool, staring into the murk as if “reading in a book” is an intense illustration of an intimacy and delicate balance with nature (RI; XII). The leech-gatherer in Resolution and Independence reads nature as a book of knowledge to be learned from and adapted to. This thought is correlative to Stoicism as expressed by Aurelius: “No longer let thy breathing only act in concert with the air which surrounds thee, but let thy intelligence also now be in harmony with the intelligence which embraces all things” (552). Furthermore, Robert N. Essick points out that a leech-gatherer’s sustenance is entirely dependent upon nature. It is especially illuminating to consider how intimately a leech-gatherer’s fate is intertwined with Nature by way of the weather. Leeches are fickle and unpredictable: a leech-gatherer must adapt to varying natural contingencies as best he or she can in order to gain an “honest maintenance” (Essick 100; RI; XV). This is once again the cornerstone Stoic sentiment that eudaimonia or flourishing is accomplished by living in accord with Nature (Baltzly). Compared to the past, the old man finds leeches infrequently and with relative difficulty, yet he responds simply and deferentially: “… still I persevere, and find them where I may” (RI: XVIII). It is as if the Leech-gatherer tacitly acknowledges Aurelius’ dictum that “If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgement about it” (550).

When the narrator initially encounters the old man, he inquires of him: “What occupation do you there pursue?” (RI; XIII). A short way into the leech-gatherer’s explanation the narrator finds himself drifting back to his former worries, worries that the leech-gatherer himself objectifies. In the circumstance of the confident leech-gatherer, the narrator observes the “cold, pain, and labour” that he dreads (RI; XVII). The leech-gatherer’s initial explanation alludes to “hardships” which further galvanizes the narrator’s insecurities and causes him to reach a state of panic. In this panic he re-phrases his question to more overtly capture what he has been curious about all along: how to find eudaimonia. “How is it that you live, and what is it you do” (RI; XV, XVII)? Whereas the first of the narrator’s questions regards vocation, the latter regards the ubiquitous human question that both Wordsworth and Stoicism attempt to answer. The leech-gatherer patiently responds to the second question in the same way as the first, in doing so he demonstrates that “how he lives” is by synthesizing his understanding and actions with his understanding of the world and nature. There is no actual division between how he lives and how he endures. He does not let unnatural concerns needlessly bother him; he meets them with “apathy” (apathia). As the leech-gatherer continues to explicate his Stoic tendencies for a second time, the narrator finds that he is still “troubled”; it takes him some time to realize the old man is profoundly wise, and not just avoiding the issue he finds so weighty.

…when he ended,

I could have laughed myself to scorn to find

In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.

‘God’ said I, ‘be my help and stay secure;

I’ll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!’ (RI; XX)

It is the wisdom of the “Man” that brings the narrator to the point of epiphany. The leech-gatherer’s firmness of mind is associated with peace amidst trials and a dissolution of unnatural worry; this is exactly what the narrator desires.[15] The narrator’s good mood emerges with his newfound understanding of mind and nature. This is further solidified in the penultimate line by the narrator’s plea to “God” for help. Notably, the ultimate and penultimate lines are separated by semi-colon in place of a period, indicating a degree of connectedness between the lines. Wordsworth writes these closing lines in such a way as to suggest a parallel in significance between the narrator’s plea for God’s help and “[thinking] of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor” (RI; XX). In assessing the meaning of this, it is important that both Stoic and Wordsworthian thought emphasize the all-pervading, immanent nature of “God”. This entails that God fully consists in – or is – the natural reality of the world that is to be reasonably deferred to.[16] By referencing both God and the lesson of the Leech-gatherer in the final lines of the poem, Wordsworth is making the final connection: the Stoic “mind” of the old Leech-gatherer is wise inasmuch as it shares the mind of God: the ultimate expression of the actively natural in Stoic and Wordsworthian thought[17]. As both the Stoics and Wordsworth homogenize God and nature, the ultimate line of Resolution and Independence rings true to the idea that eudaimonia is found by living in accord with nature as exemplified by the Leech-gatherer.[18] The sage, decrepit Leech-gatherer’s lessons act as the conduit for the question, “How is it that you live?” that is best answered, “what gives me peace of mind is true and in harmony with nature” or “[by having] similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe” (RI; XVII; Epictetus 232). The former quotation contains the words of the Stoic Chrysippus and the latter quotation is from Wordsworth, but both constitute a Stoic answer to the ultimate question of life, as it is lived out in Resolution and Independence.

 

Works Cited

Aurelius, Marcus. “The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.” Trans. G. Long. The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers. Ed. Whitney J Oates. New York: Random House, Inc. 1940. 491-586.

Averill, James H. Wordsworth and the Poetry of Human Suffering. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980.

Baltzly, Dirk. “Stoicism.” 13 Sept. 2004. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University. 30 April 2007 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/>.

Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Vol. 1. New York: Doubleday, 1962.

Epictetus. “The Discourses of Epictetus.” Trans. P.E. Matheson. The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers. Ed. Whitney J. Oates. New York: Random House, Inc. 1940. 223-485.

Essick, Robert. “Wordsworth and Leech-Lore.” The Wordsworth Circle 7 (1981).

Gill, Stephen. Wordsworth: The Prelude. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.

Hardy, Thomas. “The Darkling Thrush.” The Norton Anthology: English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt and M.H. Abrams et al. Vol 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Long, A.A. Hellenistic Philosophy. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons: 1974.

Merlan, P. “Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus.” The Cambridge History of Later Greek & Early Medieval Philosophy. Ed. A.H. Armstrong. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1967.

Onorato, Richard J. The Character of the Poet: Wordsworth in The Prelude. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971.

Radcliffe, Evan. “Wordsworth and the Problem of Action: The White Doe of Rylstone.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 46 (1991): 157-180.

Rist, John M. “Zeno and Stoic Consistency.” Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Ed. John P Anton and Anthony Preus. Volume II. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

Sandbach, F.H. The Stoics. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1975.

Spiegelman, Willard. “Some Lucretian Elements in Wordsworth.” Comparative Literature 37 (1985): 27-49.

Wanko, Cheryl. “Leechcraft: Wordsworth’s ‘Resolution and Independence’.” English Language Notes (1989): 58-62

Watson, J.R. Wordsworth’s Vital Soul: The Sacred and Profane in Wordsworth’s Poetry. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press Inc. 1982.

Wordsworth, William. “Preface to Lyrical Ballads.” The Norton Anthology: English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt and M.H. Abrams et al. Vol 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

—. “Resolution and Independence.” Wordsworth: Poetical Works. Ed. Thomas Hutchinson and Ernest De Selincourt. London: Oxford UP, 1936. 155-157.

Worthington (Smyser), Jane. Wordsworth’s Reading of Roman Prose. Archon Books, 1970.

Zeller, Eduard. Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. New York: Dover Publications Inc. 1980.

[1] See Long 201 regarding Seneca’s understanding of proper “valuation”.

[2] On the topic of the Stoic “wise sage” see Zeller 221 and Long 205. A.A. Long’s account of the sage is especially helpful in dispelling the myth that there is no room for emotion in Stoic philosophy (consider Long’s synopsis of Seneca’s views on the subject). On the stoic conception of “Fate” or “Providence”: Copleston 389.

[3] This is true particularly of those Stoics following in the wake of Zeno, the founder of the “early stoa”. Zeno himself strove after “consistency” which progressively evolved in the thought of his students into the concept of living “naturally” (Rist). Stoics subsequent to Zeno inevitably found Nature to be the broadest expression of this “consistency”: a comprehensive explication of the mantra universalized (Zeller 219).

[4] For the Stoic perspective see Colpeston 396. For Wordsworth’s perspective see Preface 271.

[5] See Worthington Smyser for an extensive comparison.

[6] This is especially true in regards to “Stoic” philosophy per se as Jane Worthington Smyser has meticulously investigated Wordsworth’s intellectual history and has documented some persuasive reasons for why the earliest substantive formations of his ideas, though they may correlate to Stoic ones, were not inspired directly by Stoic philosophers (49).

[7] See Worthington Smyser 43-74 for a detailed comparison of Stoic philosophy and Wordsworth’s tenets.

[8] Most, if not all, of the work that alludes to “Stoic” elements in Wordsworth does so minimalistically and in passing as it is not the focus of the author. For example see Radcliffe 28. Jane Worthington Smyser’s comparisons are valuable and exceptional, but they are also broad and do not take place within the context of analyzing entire poems as such.

[9] See (RI; III-IV). This will hereafter by my format for citing Wordsworth’s Resolution and Independence: the numerals following “RI” indicate the stanza(s) cited.

[10] See Onorato 238.

[11] One cannot help but noticing the affinity in usage and image between Hardy’s “Thrush” and Wordsworth’s sky-lark. In both cases the bird grasps “Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware” (Hardy 1871).

[12] For a detailed explication see Sandbach 75-76, 79.

[13] Watson 232 – See Lionel Trilling quote.

[14] Pace: “The virtue of the happy man and a well-running life consists in this: that all actions are based on the principles of harmony between his own spirit and the will of the director of the universe” – Diogenes Laertius (Long 179).

[15] pace: Epictetus 249. The tremendous import of the subject’s state of mind and thus their state of interaction with the world insofar as it relates to happiness is a theme that is very prevalent in Wordsworth’s poetry; it is also very Stoic. See Averill 89-90.

[16] See Worthington Smyser 52-55.

[17] Copleston 395-396; Zeller 217; Long 148-149.

[18] Long 182-183; Watson 157-158