Week 5
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth’s poetry has no style because nature and life has no style. The perfect plainness of his poems gained him popularity. He mostly wrote about nature and man and is considered the world’s greatest nature poet. The world was very late in recognizing his merit. However, glory found its way to his grave. The Leech-Gatherer, alternatively titled ‘Resolution And Independence’ is the universal symbol of eternal human labour.
The Leech Gatherer by William Wordsworth
“The Leech Gatherer” by William Wordsworth is a poem, also called “Resolution and Independence.” The title of the poem mainly draws from the content in the poem. The author narrates his experience when he meets with a leech gatherer. Therefore, this poem is written in the first person form. The speaker in the poem is the author himself. In the poem, the author narrates about his walk in the moor one spring morning. He experiences a strange phenomenon when he meets an old man, who was a leech gatherer, wandering in the moor, in search of leeches. At this point, the element of nature is already manifesting in the poem. This is through the use of seasons such as spring morning, and the use of landscape such as the moor, as well as the presence of leeches, which are part of nature. Many other elements of nature occur in this poem, even though they have been used to portray different meanings.
In this poem, the leech gatherer had spent most of his past many days looking for leeches up and down in the moor. Although leeches are scarse in this season, the leech gatherer does not give up searching for them, as his life depends on them. In this scenario, William Wordsworth presents a deeper meaning of what the leeches are, and what the old man’s struggle represents. Therefore, although the leeches are part of nature, William Wordsworth looks beyond their physical presentation and thinks of them in a deeper view, thus, giving them a different meaning, which is more deep and spiritual. The scene of a person hunting is quite fascinating, and is a representation of nature. Therefore, in William Wordsworth’s poem, the old man searching for leeches is an act that considerably reflects on nature. This is mainly through the interdependence between human beings and other elements in nature. Therefore, this scene creates a natural relationship. However, William Wordsworth does not just look at this as plainly as it appears. William Wordsworth compares this relationship between the leech gatherer and his leech searching to a determined and perseverant poet. Although the season was not favorable for leeches, the leech gatherer did not give up hope but went ahead to search for leeches, hoping that he would gather some. Therefore, this has a deeper meaning of a poet, who is faced with adversity and solitude, but he is strong-hearted enough to endure the adversities before him.
