Dualism of Natural World in the Works of Wordsworth and Kamala Das

Abstract

             This research paper will look at how William Wordsworth and Kamala Das's poems shows nature in a dualist way. These are two poets who lived very different lives in terms of geography, culture, and cycles, but were both deeply inspired by and connected to nature. For Wordsworth, nature is a good thing; it is a guiding spirit, a soul-soothing nurturer, and a way for God to give us spiritual insight. Nature is often portrayed in his works as a harmonious, beautiful, and kind of friend in times of loneliness and a guide to higher truths. Kamala Das, on the other hand, connects with nature in a deeper and more personal way, and she often projects her own emotional problems onto nature. In her works, nature is also both a place of redemption and repression. On the one hand, it is a place of sexual freedom, and on the other, it is a place of frustration and social slavery. Wordsworth finds balance and unity in the duality of nature in his work; Das has a split identity because of nature's mysteries. Their use of contrast in their poetry is not just about having two different points of view; it also deals with problems of identity, gender, and cultural awareness. The paper adds to one’s knowledge of how people have used nature to shape the human experience and also in writing by comparing these different points of view. This research paper will look at how Wordsworth's Romantic optimism and Das's confessional realism are different by comparing how nature can be calm and chaotic at the same time, caring and uncaring. One can look at Wordsworth's poems like “Lines Written a Few Miles above”, “Tintern Abbey” and “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud in light”, of Das, “An Introduction” and “The Dance of the Eunuchs” to help figure out how each of the poems described the codes nature. Ecocritical and psychoanalytic approaches are used to show how nature can mirror the self in a way that doesn't make it into a state of transcendence or a state of chaos.