Expostulation and Reply

In this poem, Wordsworth is asked why he sits on an old stone dreaming his time away. Wordsworth begins to reply, "The eye it cannot chuse but see,/ We cannot bid the ear be still;/ Our bodies feel, where'er they be,/ Against, or with our will." Here he tells Matthew of the senses that are stimulated while being surrounded by nature (whether one would like them to or not). Nature is something you can see, hear, touch, smell and taste. The imagination is stimulated by actual sensations happening to your body, and that is what Wordsworth is trying to explain to Matthew. Matthew believes knowledge through reading is more valuable. He might not understand until the end that when one's imagination is stimulated through text, no actual stimulants affect your body, except ones you could only imagine. What Wordsworth makes clear to the reader is that both the presence of nature and knowledge through text are both forms of dreaming, but the actual sensual stimulations received by nature cannot be reproduced in text. Therefore, dreaming in nature is more valuable.

Let's test Wordsworth's philosophy.

First, read this poem slowly and imagine what all five of your senses would be like if you were experiencing this for yourself.

The Snow

Second, go outside, close your eyes, take a deep breath and take time to think about anything for a minute. Which one is more stimulating to the sense? Which did you gain more from mentally?