Language, Imagination, and Nature in "Nutting"

In the preface to “Lyrical Ballads,” William Wordsworth described his goal for crafting this specific group of poems: to write about situations from common life using language “really used by men,” to relate the situations in a style that colored the situations with imagination, and especially to make the situations interesting by “tracing in them….the primary laws of our nature” (Broadview, 148). All three of these goals are met in Wordsworth’s “Nutting.”

“Nutting” describes a particular day when a young man chose to harvest nuts in the woods, an ordinary event in rustic life. The language used in the poem generally reflects language really used by men. The few word choices that stand out as not common to real language include “motley accoutrements” (line 11) and “luxuriates” (line 41).   Otherwise, the language in the poem reflects common language.

As the speaker travels through the woods, he discovers a grove of trees that hasn’t yet been harvested. Word choice colors the description with imagination. As he sits in the shade of a tree, he remarks on “fairy water-breaks” (line 32) that murmur, “sparkling” (line 33) foam, and stones that “lay round me scatter’d like a flock of sheep” (line 36). Wordsworth's use of similes and metaphors help create the imagination in the poem. 

Wordsworth achieved his goal of tracing the primary laws of nature in “Nutting.” Early in the poem, he uses language rich in imagery to reveal nature in “Nutting.” He describes the bounty that undisturbed nature offers. On first discovering the unvisited nook, the speaker sees this scene:

….not a broken bough
Droop’d with its wither’d leaves, ungracious sign
Of devastation, but the hazels rose
Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,
A virgin scene!

This particular section of the woods had possibly been hidden from the human eye for five years (“The violets of five seasons re-appear/ And fade, unseen by any human eye,” lines 30-31). Wordsworth describes this discovery as a “banquet” (line 24), one that offers the guest a feeling that “after long and weary expectation, have been blessed with sudden happiness beyond all hope” (lines 26-28). Wordsworth described the potential harvest as “rich beyond the wealth of kings” (line 50).  Wordsworth demonstrates through this language that nature evokes emotion in man and offers treasure to man.   Wordsworth also encourages the idea of nature as a living entity by repeating the word “murmur” three times and comparing stones to sheep. Wordsworth writes that the nook “patiently gave up their quiet being” (lines 46-47), insinuating that the nook could have stubbornly held on to its harvest rather than share. The speaker admits to a sense of pain when he sees the results of his harvest of the trees, which adds strength to the idea of nature as a living entity and of the reciprocal relationship between man and nature. Finally, in the concluding line of the poem, Wordsworth directly states, “There is a Spirit in the woods,” encouraging the reader to be gentle with nature.

In crafting “Nutting,” Wordsworth achieved his goals of incorporating the real language of men, coloring a common situation with imagination, and tracing the laws of nature throughout the poem.