Wordsworth’s Romanticization of the Elderly

Two of the poems for Tuesday’s class, “Simon Lee” and “Old Man Travelling,” are stories about a narrator who comes across on old man on his travels. Wordsworth’s poem “The Old Cumberland Beggar”, which we read earlier in the course, contains similar subject matter.

Wordsworth seems to romanticize the old men in his poems in multiple ways. First, he emphasizes their connectedness with nature. He idealizes them as good people. He acknowledges their decrepit physical states but asserts that their age has made them more respectable than younger people.

In all three of the poems, the narrator encounters an old man in nature. Simon Lee and his wife live in a moss-grown hut of clay (line 57), and both the old man travelling and the Cumberland Beggar are perpetually on the road. Because they live in nature, these men are connected to it in a way that other people are not. Simon Lee lives off the land. The old man travelling is guided by nature to perfect peace (lines 12-13). The Cumberland Beggar’s eyes “have been so long familiar with the earth [that they] no more behold the horizontal sun rising or setting,” (lines 180-182).

Although the men are pitiable because of their old age, Wordsworth portrays them as venerable as well. Simon Lee’s gratitude makes the narrator mourn for him prematurely. The old man travelling possesses many admirable qualities, including patience, peace, and thoughtfulness. Wordsworth represents the Cumberland Beggar as useful (line 67) and deserving of reverence (line 170). Some of these men’s respectability comes from their age, as it has taught them good qualities and made them stoic and persistent in their endeavors.

Wordsworth acknowledges that the men in these poems are in poor health, even near death. However, their “animal tranquility and decay” are the roots of their best qualities. Wordsworth used his writing to promote treating the elderly with kindness. I guess it’s a good thing that Wordsworth lived to be 80, so he could take advantage of the advice he gave to others throughout his writing career.