Imagination, Perception and the Experience of Nature in Literature Essa

Imagination, Perception and the Experience of Nature in Literature Works Cited Missing I am a psychology student with an English minor. While the combination seems odd at first glance, the two studies actually compliment each other quite nicely. I have always been fascinated by the way in which writing can reflect the inner workings of an author's mind, by the way it effects the reader in such a profound, defamiliarizing way, as well as by the way that it can be used to explore the many facets of human nature in a much more effective way than any research study. Because of this thought process I have been particularly interested in several of the poets that we have looked at and their exploration of the effects of the forces of imagination and sensual perception on their perception of nature. The debate over how much of our personal experience is based upon what we see and hear and how much is based on what we feel and believe is long standing and crosses many fields of study, psychology being only one of them. William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey", Percy Shelley's "Mon t Blanc" and to an extent Samuel Coleridge's "Chamouny: the Hour Before Sunrise" all represent different stances on the issue and therefore aid the reader in exploring the effects of perception and of imagination on experience. In Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey", the poet explores the experience of nature as collaboration between imagination and sensual perception. He reflects on how the Wye valley has existed for him in his imagination in the years since he first visited the valley, and how now that he has returned to the same site "with gleams of half-extinguished thought, / With many recognitions dim and faint / And somewhat of a sad perplexity, / The p... ... nature is affected by their attitudes and the degree to which their attitudes are in place because of their experiences with nature. Wordsworth seems to hold back from committing himself to any one view of the relationship between experience and attitude, sensual perception and imagination. He seems to best appreciate the two way street that the aspects of unified perception operate on. While there can be no conclusions drawn as to the degree to which our experience of anything is based upon sensual perception or upon our imagination, I think that it is safe to say that our unified perception of the world around us is based upon interplay between the two. Exploration of the nature of experience by the poets discussed in the previous paragraphs further highlights the relationship between psychology and literature and helps to explain my fascination with both. Imagination, Perception and the Experience of Nature in Literature Essa Imagination, Perception and the Experience of Nature in Literature Works Cited Missing I am a psychology student with an English minor. While the combination seems odd at first glance, the two studies actually compliment each other quite nicely. I have always been fascinated by the way in which writing can reflect the inner workings of an author's mind, by the way it effects the reader in such a profound, defamiliarizing way, as well as by the way that it can be used to explore the many facets of human nature in a much more effective way than any research study. Because of this thought process I have been particularly interested in several of the poets that we have looked at and their exploration of the effects of the forces of imagination and sensual perception on their perception of nature. The debate over how much of our personal experience is based upon what we see and hear and how much is based on what we feel and believe is long standing and crosses many fields of study, psychology being only one of them. William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey", Percy Shelley's "Mon t Blanc" and to an extent Samuel Coleridge's "Chamouny: the Hour Before Sunrise" all represent different stances on the issue and therefore aid the reader in exploring the effects of perception and of imagination on experience. In Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey", the poet explores the experience of nature as collaboration between imagination and sensual perception. He reflects on how the Wye valley has existed for him in his imagination in the years since he first visited the valley, and how now that he has returned to the same site "with gleams of half-extinguished thought, / With many recognitions dim and faint / And somewhat of a sad perplexity, / The p... ... nature is affected by their attitudes and the degree to which their attitudes are in place because of their experiences with nature. Wordsworth seems to hold back from committing himself to any one view of the relationship between experience and attitude, sensual perception and imagination. He seems to best appreciate the two way street that the aspects of unified perception operate on. While there can be no conclusions drawn as to the degree to which our experience of anything is based upon sensual perception or upon our imagination, I think that it is safe to say that our unified perception of the world around us is based upon interplay between the two. Exploration of the nature of experience by the poets discussed in the previous paragraphs further highlights the relationship between psychology and literature and helps to explain my fascination with both.