Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
PÉTER DOLMÁNYOS Wordsworth and the Mountains: The Crossing of the Alps and the Ascent to Snowdon
Wordsworth and the Mountains: The Crossing of the Alps. 21 inviting path that leads upwards. As time passes their increasing worries are justified and the peasant they meet tells them that they have come the wrong way. Instead of the upward path they have to follow the stream and this can be translated in only one way —they have a downward journey to take. If the passage is read carefully, it turns out that the highest point during their journey is the "halt ing-place", their way leads downward from there: when they set off to join the others they "paced the beaten downward way that led / Eight to a rough stream's edge, there broke off" (237,11. 568-569). When they learn from the peasant that they have to return to the juncture, they have to descend there. The road to take follows the stream —as streams have downslope courses, they are to have a downward walk for the rest of their journey. The "halting-place" then is the highest part of their journey, the 'climax', however, is missed. Consciousness of this is gained only when they learn that a downward course is ahead, and the disappointment is so overwhelming that Wordsworth does not return to the scene which was the highest location for them in the whole course of their Alpine experience. The passage that follows the 'crossing' is addressed to the imagination. Wordsworth apologises for the use of this word, pointing at the "sad incompetence of human speech" as the cause for his choice. This "Power" (this word is hardly less overused than the other one) rises unexpectedly, which is compared to the sudden appearance of "an unfathered vapour". Wordsworth is lost in this moment of 'usurpation' —nothing remains for him but the humble admittance of the might of his soul: "I recognise thy glory" (239, 1. 599). The word "usurpation" is heavily loaded as it is used here —the imagination 'usurps' on the senses of the poet and he is lost; yet the moment is also an instance of the "inherent paradox of the imagination", as Geoffrey Hartmann explains: [...] the imagination, because it depends on a human will "vexing its own creation," hiding itself or its generating source like mist, cannot be true either to itself or to Nature, unless usurped by a third power (here the immortal soul) at the moment when the creative will is at rest, as after an intense expectation or when the possibility of willed recognition has been removed. (Hartmann, 13) The experience is doubtless accompanied by an intense expectation and it is after the removal of the willed recognition that the sublime vision can occur, with its intimation of infinity, and this is all facilitated by the usurping soul. This constitutes the fundamental greatness of the human being, this gives the essence of human life:
