A Question of Nature: Byron and Wordsworth by J. Andrew Hubbell is an article that goes into depth from the views of Romantic eco-criticism to do a Wordsworthian eco-poesis of Lord Byron using the terms of “dwelling” and “nature”. (In the rest of the paragraph I will summarize the article I have read and try to explain parts that I feel need further explanation. My purpose is to summarize as best as I can and I have no intentions of plagiarism, all credit goes to the author J. Andrew Hubbell.) Though Lord Byron is ignored by most critics and seen as an outsider to Romantic poetry he is still an “important Romantic nature writer”. This article explains the dwelling, wandering, nature, culture, and the environment as binaries (something based on two parts) to the final product of important Romantic nature writers. Lord Byron is one of those writers, but for different reasons than most of them. Three binaries are what help describe the Romantic nature writers, and they specify on nature and dwelling. The main dwelling-wandering binary reinforces the other two which are nature-culture and ecocentric-anthropocentric binaries. According to Hubbell dwelling is to embed oneself within the texture of one’s place. This means that one is fixed into a certain place and its surroundings for deeper reasons other than where that place is. Dwelling can also become a synonym for “rootedness” because there’s more extensive action the greater the length of time spent in a place. Wandering is referred to as “touristic mentality” because it becomes a state of mind that does not understand the environment for what it actually is. So they view the environment as a resource instead of valuing its meaning. Wanderers don’t necessarily see the depth of life, but the outer top “beauty” or in their eyes “resources” and they are more self-centered. Hubbell refers to nature as nature as wild, unspoiled backcountry, the antithesis of the modern, anthropocentric city. This means that the city is tame, neat buildings that we see today, and according to Wordsworth a place where one achieves less. The article refers to nature as a place where a poet can “strip off corrupting layers of culture, and then dwell, achieving environmental consciousness.” This goes back to combining nature and dwelling because the sense of true nature is felt; whereas the city is combined with culture because it is more corrupt and unattached to nature. The same goes with ecocentric which is nature centered and anthropocentric which is self centered. Now that all definitions are explained, I can explain the rest of the article that has to do more with Lord Byron and where he fits into this question of nature. According to the definition of eco-poet Byron is excluded because he spent most of his life going from one tour to another and never dwelt anywhere, he was a wanderer. Hubbell states that, “Byron recognizes that as soon as ‘nature’ is represented in art, it becomes part of culture; there is to ‘nature’ in art”. With this Hubbell is explaining how Byron explains his thought in rhetorical statements and questions making his point clear to others. It also shows how Byron views nature and culture as “different parts of the same whole”. Byron had a way of viewing both sides of the binaries and bringing both aspects into his life. This is proven when Hubbell ponders on whether Byron’s wandering was a sort of dwelling or not. To further explain this Hubbell writes of Byron’s trips to Greece and how they helped Byron be a “dweller in the landscape”. And in the end Byron achieved the same sense of place through his dwelling in Greece that Wordsworth achieved through his dwelling in the Lakes. This understanding for nature can be derived from either dwelling or wandering in the end because it is possible to gain that knowledge of culture and environment.
After thoroughly reading through Hubbell’s amazing article [that I personally though I would not understand and not enjoy, which turned out to be wrong], I can understand why Lord Byron was not accepted as easily as other poets in the Romanticism society. I knew that his sexual preferences, descriptive poems, and way of life had made him widely unpopular and made him disliked, but I would have never guessed that his understanding for nature, or even his trips to other countries, would have affected his life as a poet. This article has made me think about so many things that I had not thought of when researching Romanticism at first. It has also made me understand Lord Byron and the question of nature and even how his poetry was affected by his beliefs of nature and wandering. Byron’s poems really convey his beliefs of wandering and city, a perfect example would be Don Juan, with the more “city-boy’ poem than actually explaining nature in depths such as other Romantic poets. But in the end I can conclude that no matter the life style one may live we can all still have an understanding for the environment and the city, for culture and nature, for being self centered and nature centered. I think that as long as there is a balance that one can live with, one that understands with both sides of life, that we, as people in general, will be able to live a life better for others and nature. A life where we don’t only care about people or what’s on the earth, but also for the earth we live in and the environment we dwell (or wander) on.
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