The Trunk of an Old Yew Tree, painted by Vincent van Gogh, represents a fundamental symbol of mankind and his/her existence during the period of the late 18th and early 19th century. What makes the yew tree so important to the image of the Romanticism era is its long-lasting relationship with humanity. The yew tree has the potential to live for thousands of years, making it an excellent companion to the tools of man as well as its aftermath effects. The yew tree is often a loner in its environment and the uniqueness of standing by itself places a ‘wonder and curiosity’ about its solid but penetrable complexity. The branches are strange in itself, portraying a grungy scattering of limbs that serve to shoot out in different directions like an untouched primitive artwork. The beauty of the yew also provided the Scotts with tools that aided in ceremonies of divination as well as acts of war. The trunks served as favorable material for durable shields and the fact that the yew was poisonous, secured its representation as a paradoxical symbol portraying beauty with a lethal ‘pierce’. Although the yew is just a tree, it represents a movement of artistry that chose to question the politics of society during a time of frequent injustice and unethical oppression with paradoxical literature and picturesque images of the natural environment.
Slavery was in full effect and no doubt paralleled woman’s oppression of liberty. “Second-generation Romantics such as Byron and Shelley sympathized with the principles of equality and individuality embodied by the Revolution’s beginnings and embraced these principles to critique English government at home. However, their poetry eventually turned outward toward involvement in other European conflicts” (Heath). From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge depicts the slave trade through the eyes of a mariner who brings about a curse after shooting an Albatross off his journeying ship. The once favorable omen the bird symbolized quickly disappears and a grim hex is placed on the mariners ship which kills off his whole crew. The mariner eventually offers sympathy for killing the Albatross and his guilt brings about self-reconciliation for murdering a creature of God’s image. It is then that a metaphysical spirit of angels comes and saves the mariner from his imminent death so he can preach the message of humility and consideration for all creatures of God’s image. The dead albatross is a metaphor for slavery in that society, as a whole, took the lives of men for the pure benefit of materialism and capitalism. The mariner goes on to tell his story to whoever shall hear it, hoping to influence and alter an idea of change in the bonding evil of the slavery-induced society.
Another example of literature that emphasized oppression is “The Thorn”, by William Wordsworth, which took upon the sadistic mentality towards woman. Here a spark of energy is seen from a moss that naturally weighs down on a thorn bush, trapping it to the earth where it first sprouted. Ironically, the moss also entangles a promiscuous woman’s child, who was conceived in an adulterous act. The infant child represents a change in the woman, hoping to return “her senses back agin” but she is reluctant to change and conveys Wordsworth’s theme that nature is similarly reluctant to change. Society, in a way, is resistant to change as long as the senses of the individual remains insensitive to the existence of others.
Change is brought up in the idea of a concept that is evoked from sensing an object that gives weight to a feeling of anxiety from the spontaneous contemplation of the idea and all its contingent attributes. Even though the anxiety can be severe or minor, it brought about an unorthodox idea that the mind is not familiar with, allowing for improvement in accepting and grasping a new concept after repetition of exposure to the human consciousness. For past reference, in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, when the seaman returns from his cursed voyage, he has a developed an appreciation for all life after shooting the Albatross. The mariner used his gift of sense to determine what is right in his own conscience after witnessing the horrors of humanity and makes it his mission to expose fellow souls to the inhumane acts of man on other men.
Some people have a hard time dealing with the realities of life and embark on personal journeys to escape personal pains like in Kubla Khan where Coleridge experimented with the addictive mind-altering drug opium. In this vision, Coleridge sees the imagination as reality in his eyes and the use of opium serves an addiction for individualities existing suffering. Although a temporary fix, escaping from the pains of oppression is a challenge for humanity as society has learned to accept itself for what it is. This realization of pain comes from the idea of experience presented in a collection of work by William Blake. Blake used the concept of perception and gradual learning experiences as a way to depict his philosophy of adapting to the environment from a pure innocent nature to an observant being in the reality of the conflicted world. In his collection, Songs of Innocence and Experience, “The Clod and the Pebble” discusses the concept of love through a clod of clay, calling out the joys of selfless love and how:
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair" (1-4).
The pebbles intrusion recants the clay with its selfish attitude after years of forming to the flow of society,
"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite" (9-12).
The only way for the pebble to be happy is to selfishly absorb the delights of others in vane of its own existence. By declaring this, a hopeless attitude is attributed to the past experiences of what has happened, and for the sake of humans’ emotional realization, a persons memory in this depress mentality can realize the deeper actualization of human existence, which isn’t projected upon itself. In another poem of Blakes, “The Tyger”, the idea of a fierce Tiger is thrown into the conscious understanding of the passive lamb of God, "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?" (20). If nature has given society two opposite traits of instinctual being than what is fierce is also good and natural because it also in the image of that which made the lamb. A spiritual moral no doubt but the realization of this idea is given when comparing life’s struggles with the Aristocratic life to an environmental setting, much like a ‘dog-eat-dog world’ or a jungle of mysterious creatures.
The gothic parallel to the medieval era is an allusion commonly used in books of the Romantics The jungle perception of utopian life, as you could call it, is a symbol to the Romantic idea of the primitive, “untouched-spirit”, and serves as a therapeutic healing for the soul’s competitive nature. Even though conflict exists, the greater personal morale of spirit is deeply imbedded in the observant nature of being creatures in a world untouched by society, effects of the picturesque. Hopefully, the realization will want to spark an idea or make something out of nothing and a great deal of this opinion has to do with idea of the environmental setting being an important factor in determining the action, ideas, and perceptions of the being. Shannon Heath explains in Worster's Nature's Economy, "at the very core of [the] Romantic view of nature was what later generations would come to call an ecological perspective: that is, a search for holistic or integrated perception, an emphasis on interdependence and relatedness in nature, and an intense desire to restore man to a place of intimate intercourse with the vast organism that constitutes the earth" (82). From this connection to the environment, then we can begin the healing process of metamorphism and build one’s soul to the existence on this world rather than the expectation that we have towards it.
‘The elimination of the ego’ is also a vague way of seeing it but the overall idea is to embrace nature for what it is and can be seen in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The creature holds a wonder and fascination when observing the mountains that it provoke so much terror in its mind. A terror that is inspired by the sublime that “emphasizes natures awe inspiring power and generally diminishes man to the role of a passive observer” (Bill Murray). Appreciation for this feeling can attribute to a want to love and care for the world, however the creature of Victor Frankenstein’s obsessive conception of reason and science and existence never learns to accept the love of others because the love is blatantly never given, for he is not of humanity’s normal complexion and is indeed an idea of imagination rather than truth. The grim depiction of the monster is a character of gothic mentality but it represent a satire for society not accepting other because of incompatible traits, a natural sensing perception back with spite from the unique.
In a way, the yew tree, in itself, represents the symbol that the Romantics strive to be like. The yew was a loner, much like the mind of a wanderer looking for a direction that may shape its attitude and inspire to be better and greater than its present and past existence. Victor Frankenstein maintains this persona in his tragedy as he fails to look to the environment and love of other as a way to handle his confliction with the existence of science and human reasoning. So much that his idea of science toxically rubs off onto the creature when he wishes for him to create another character (vision) that may make him satisfied in his pursuit of an expected happiness in a world that rejects him for who he is. Perhaps the message to take away from the environment, is to love the everything for what it is; fiber for the minds manifestation in constructing a stronger mentality of life and stoic appreciation for accepting what is and what could be. Whether good or evil, the yew’s unique figure seems unnatural to its environment and it is there the we may learn to control our poisonous frame from taking for granted the beauty and aesthetics of subtle life.
Sources:
Worster, Donald. Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.
Comparing Enlightenment vs. Romanticism. Digital image. The Republic of Pemberley. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 May 2013. <http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/grecgths.jpg>.
"Celtic Meaning of the Yew Tree." Weblog post. Celtic Meaning of the Yew Tree. Www.whats-your-sign.com, n.d. Web. 08 May 2013. <http://www.whats-your-sign.com/celtic-meaning-yew-tree.html>.
Heath, Shannon. "The Culture of Rebellion in the Romantic Era." Weblog post. Romantic Politics. Univ. of Tennessee, n.d. Web. 8 May 2013. <http://web.utk.edu/~gerard/romanticpolitics/rebellion.html>.
Gogh, Vincent Van. Trunk of an Old Yew Tree. Digital image. Wikipaintings. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2013. <http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/trunk-of-an-old-yew-tree-1888>.
over used the word beauty.
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