人と自然の相互ケア

ワーズワスの描く庭と湖水地方の里山的景観

抄録

William Wordsworth’s nature is basically a benign presence that comforts and sympathises with humans, while it is sometimes indifferent to human affairs and self-restorative as can be seen in “Hart-leap Well.” On the other hand, his Guide to the Lakes (1835) and “Kendal and Windermere Railway” (1844) express concern about nature being irreparably damaged by human activities. How are these inconsistent images of nature—transcendent but sympathetic and healing, resilient but fragile—connected in Wordsworth’s view? This essay considers the question from the perspective of the mutual care in several meanings including sympathy, attention, protection, and maintenance between man and nature, examining three representations of gardens depicted in “The Ruined Cottage,” Home at Grasmere and The Tuft of Primroses, which would later be respectively revised and incorporated in The Excursion (1814). First, I trace the evolution of Wordsworth’s ideas about “caring nature”— how, from MS. B to MS. D of “The Ruined Cottage”, and to the widower’s garden in Home at Grasmere, the image of nature changes from something indifferent to human suffering to a presence that sympathises with man. I also examine how the idea of gaining solace and regenerative power by caring for green things developed into the idea of reciprocal care between man and nature, through the poet’s practice of gardening at Dove Cottage, which is fancifully described in “A Farewell.” Then I consider how Wordsworth’s ideas about “nature to be cared for” evolved, by examining his lament for the massive felling of trees in Grasmere and the abandoned and desolated garden of the Sympson family, expressed in The Tuft of Primroses. Here I will also refer to Select Views in Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire (1810) to explore Wordsworth’s idea of landscape as a joint work of nature, time and human activities — or a satoyama landscape. Lastly, I will reveal how Wordsworth’s ideal of the relationship between man and nature is reflected in his revision of the representation of the Sympsons’ garden in The Excursion, which presents a community that has kept harmonious negotiations with the natural landscapes over a long period of time.