Ann
Chai
Prof.
Sacha Frey
The Frontier:
“Tintern
Abbey” and “Spatial Stories” Response
“Tintern Abbey” by Williams Wordsworth
illustrates the story of a boy who has returned to Tintern Abbey and reminisces
over the experience and comfort he received from the place as a child. The
narrator contrasts the peacefulness of Tintern Abbey to the busy world he
encounted during his five year travels. His memories shift into care for his
sister, and hopes that she will receive the same comfort from Tintern Abbey in the
future. Wordsworth creates a kind of spatial story described by Michel de
Certeau in his writing “Spatial Stories”. This poem contains two major
boundaries in time, the past and the present. The narrator is able to cross
these boundaries with the use of a frontier in the spatial story.
De
Certeau writes, “the story’s first function is to authorize, or more exactly,
to found”, it serves to set up a space and place for the actions of the story
(123). Wordsworth sets up a spatial story through founding or defining this
place and space. Wordsworth gives “place” to Tintern Abbey through visual
imagery such as “steep and lofty cliffs,/That on a wild secluded scene” and
“These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts”. Wordsworth gives the
value of “place” by describing Tintern Abbey in its physical attributes. This
provides a solid and tangible “map” explanation of this spatial story. However, Wordsworth also sets up “space” for
the place by describing the actions related to the place. Specifically, the
narrator is recalling his childhood days of play, “when like a roe/I bounded
o’er the mountains, by the sides/Of the deep rivers, and the lonely
streams,/Wherever nature led”. The ample use of imagery employed by Wordsworth
paints a clear image of the landscape of Tintern Abbey, yet also provides the
emotion attached to the place.
In
Wordsworth’s poem, the narrator moves across the boundaries of the past and
present through the frontier which “creates communication as well as
separation” (de Certeau 127). Most importantly, in “Spatial Stories” by De
Certeau, he emphasizes how a frontier is significant in how “he establishes a
border only by saying what crosses it, having come from the other side” (127).
Wordsworth does precisely this through the use of the narrator’s memory. The
poem begins with the introduction that states how the narrator has been gone
from Tintern Abbey for “five years have past; five summers, with the length/Of
five long winters!”. The narrator remembers himself as a boy with “animal
movements” who saw nature as his all when he was in Tintern Abbey. Yet time has
passed and he has crossed the frontier to become a man faced with “the fever of
the world”. However, the narrator is not reluctant to move on, but rather uses
a tone of thankfulness towards Tintern Abbey as a source of strength through
his years away. Having crossed the frontier, the narrator views his past self
as less intelligent, using oxymorons such as “aching joys” and “dizzy
raptures”. Hence, although the frontier is a divider of time, the narrator who
is from the other side, is able to consider the two spaces of his past and
present.
Wordsworth’s
“Tintern Abbey” illustrates several points de Certeau emphasizes in “Spatial
Stories”. Specifically, “Tintern Abbey” creates a spatial story that is marked
by the boundaries of time. At the same time, the narrator is able to cross
through these boundaries because of the “space between” that is defined by frontiers.
I think your most compelling points are at the end when you focus in on the "space between" and the frontier as "creating communication and separation." If you were to rewrite this by making this a central focus of your interpretation, I think you'd be able to better frame your analysis of time and space in Wordsworth. The marking of temporal boundaries that you note in the poem is also blurred in the between-space of memory and consciousness. This frontier that you identify astutely in memory, also means that the threshold between country and city may be less clear than the poet suggests, since they coexist in the storied spaces that the he inhabits--defined always in terms of each other. I think there is a lot of strong initial observations here that in a revision you would have much to work with. Some clarification is needed on the way you you are using space and place, so be sure to return to the text in future work. And talk to me should you have questions, of course.
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