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Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

by William Wordsworth

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In "Tintern Abbey," does Wordsworth believe that experience brought "abundant recompense"?

Quick answer:

Wordsworth does not delude himself in the poem, but is instead sharing his mature perspective with Dorothy.

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In the poem, William Wordsworth looks back at his younger, impetuous, passionate self and contextualizes that way of being and feeling with the person he has become. He believes that his current appreciation of the wonderful natural landscape is an "abundant recompense" for lost youth. Back then he was ignorant of the greater significance of nature; what he beheld generated emotion

That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied....
Now, however, he comprehends on several levels the spiritual significance of nature. He has felt
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
Now he realizes that nature offers
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Toward the poem's end, we see that he is addressing the poem to his friend and sister (Dorothy). He tells her about the deeper meanings he has learned, suggesting she will still retain that when they finally part, and that he loves the place even more because it is associated with her.
...these steep woods and lofty cliffs, this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
In sum, the full complexity of his changing understanding is not just the older self reflecting on the young but a brother sharing his deep experience with his sister. This does not seem to be self-delusion.
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The answer can be found just after the quote you highlight, where the speaker in this poem protests that even though he has lost his childlike innocence when regarding nature, he has only exchanged it for something that is much more worthwhile and valuable. Instead of having a wild passionate relationship with nature, the speaker now has a much more profound connection that is based on a more serious aspect. The speaker is now able to sense "something far more deeply interfused, / Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns." This speaks of a relationship that is far more intense and visceral than the way in which the speaker describes the kind of relationship he had with nature when he was younger. Consider the following quote, where the speaker says:

And in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

In short, there is far more of a sense of the mystical relationship that the speaker has with nature now than the way he describes it before. This would be "abundant recompense" indeed.

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