Life and Nature - Scf - State College of Florida

Introduction
As the years move on, more poets, such as Dante and Petrarch, begin using
another form of natural poetry called eclogue, which was created by Virgil in 37
B.C.E. This poetry incorporates peace and serenity into rural places where
shepherds can converse. This poetry “become something of a requirement for young
poets [because it was a] form they had to master before embarking upon great original
work” (“Nature Poetry”). Traditional nature poetry took a different turn and had the
strongest influence on transcendentalists like Thoreau and Frost when William
Wordsworth proposed that poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquility (qtd. in “Nature Poems). The best way to find this tranquility is by going
“into nature [to] observe the world… and translate…emotions and observations into
verse,” which is exactly what Frost did (“Nature Poems”).
Romantics are also keen in the wonderfulness of nature and its effect on life.
From a Romantic‟s point of view, nature is a source of healthy feelings. “It is therapy
for a diseased, overcivilized heart” (“Understanding of Nature”). Nature helps humans
to find their emotional health, which can lead them to clarity, whether it is moral or
spiritual. Self-identification is also a part of it. “Romantic „nature‟ is a vehicle for selfconsciousness”
that either drives or carries a person to discover one‟s identity
(“Understanding of Nature”). Robert W. Service is a poet that focuses on this in
some of his poems, “My Cancer Cure” in particular. Nature can be a person‟s
pathway to recovery and living a potential life, and Romantics are the ones that know it
the best.