Photo by Daffa Rayhan Zein: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-gray-shit-sitting-on-rock-boulder-694458/
Nature has always played an essential function in literature, particularly in poetry. Writers and poets have often used nature to describe their feelings and ideas about life, death, love, and war.
The Task of Nature in Literature
Nature is the environment that surrounds us; it can be a medium that effectively delivers ideas or reflections of someone who is writing to describe the close affinity between humans and their environment.
The world has always been an essential subject for poets and prose writers. It is where they come up with some ideas that come up with some beautiful verses and proses.
Romantic poets, for example, often wrote about stunning rural geographies as a source of joy, making nature poetry a popular poetic genre.
They use nature as a metaphor for beauty and love. They often integrate it with natural or other features in terms of their aesthetic appeal.
Such Landscapes include the physical elements of geophysically defined landforms such as peaks, hills, and water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds, and the ocean.
Literature, in particular poetry, in this manner, is the most satisfactory way to express something that came from the bottom of something deep within your heart, something deep within nature!
The relationship between the landscape and poetry is
nothing new.
For as long as the written word had existed, and even before, when myths and legends were passed from clan to clan, whispered from ear to ear, nature was at the center of everything.
“In the heart of man is the core of nature. In the heart is the core of human nature” – F. Engels
The aesthetic perception of man towards reality is formed by the influence of the nature of the human heart and human perceived reality in the world. Thus, literature, specifically poetry, is the core of the complete expression of the relationship between man and his reality.
Self-Reflection in Nature
Humans have been increasingly alienating themselves from nature in the name of futuristic advancement. We have isolated ourselves from the natural world as if we are not innately a part of it.
We dream of creating a world apart that no longer relies on nature. Is this because of the constant need to prove that our presence is unique and significant?
To show we have a means over our lives that other animals can never possess? We have been heading toward the technological power of our species and away from the center of our existence, nature. We have separated ourselves from nature, built our walls, and proclaimed our authority over all the world could offer.
We have even begun to forget the beauty of nature. We are becoming disconnected; fewer people have the opportunity to experience nature as we move to cities by the thousands. A void is left in the human spirit when it is deprived of nature.
Most do not even notice the necessity, the yearning for intact landscapes, the nature that we may have never seen with our own eyes, yet we instinctively know lies waiting for us.
Even those among us who swear by the concrete—finding comfort in the designs we have created for ourselves, architectural and otherwise—cannot help but feel a slight and wordless longing for more than the flash of natural and whole Liberty felt on a long drive.
Being Reflective
We all make meaning by reflecting on nature’s wisdom in
different ways. Either we are doing it through personal and intimate reflection or interactive reflection with the things around us.
Reflection can make people contemplative. It can make them dissect each thought with the same precision as a skilled surgeon. This means that their power to introspect on each discussion they have throughout the day can push them to continuous disruption.
Similarly, the author Alan Goldman a reflection after sharing the feeling of having freedom of the hills wherein he had some incredible expedition on his life’s passion; mountaineering.
They are not the kind of individuals who would leap in the ocean without probing about it because, if they do, the pleasure is lost. They would rather spend days meditating on how excellent the experience would be and then think about actually hopping right in with a soft push.
Wandering Will 