The Matthew Poems - Themes

Themes

Loss is an important theme in the "Matthew" poems; To Geoffrey Hartman, "radical loss" haunts both the "Lucy" poems and the "Matthew" poems. The "Lucy" poems, written at the same time as "Two April Mornings", share their discussion on separation, but the "Matthew" poems make it clear that a loss cannot truly be replaced. The "Matthew" and "Lucy" poems, which express doubt about the ability of nature to comfort individuals experiencing loss, are thematically unique in Wordsworth's earlier poetry, according to Grob:

the great lyrics written at Goslar, the 'Matthew' poems and the 'Lucy' poems, strongly indicate that even in the earliest phase, those years when Wordsworth spoke most confidently of the Utopian possibilities held out to man by nature, his optimism was tempered by at least momentary misgivings, recognition that there are areas of human experience, vital to our individual happiness, in which man is invariably beset by difficulties and sorrows for which nature could furnish no comforts and surely no solution.

Although there can never be another individual such as Matthew or his daughter, his daughter is able to return to Matthew in his memory, and Matthew is able to return in the memory of the poet. Matthew is able to overcome his feelings of loss through nature, and, to E. D. Hirsch, there is spirit of affirmation in the poems. Matthew serves as a teacher about life and is viewed by the narrator as a source of wisdom. He is capable of rejoicing in nature, but he is also certain of the realities of nature, including death. He is able to mourn without despairing.

Anne Kostelanetz believes that the poems inhibit a "structural irony... which works against the authority of Matthew's statements", and she believes that Matthew "has rejected the very essence of nature—the eternal cycle of joy and vitality, the constant possibility of spontaneous delight in the beauty of being". Similarly, David Ferry views "The Two April Mornings" as Matthew "offered a choice between the living and the dead, and he chooses the dead". However, John Danby disagrees, and believes that Matthew merely does "not wish her mine, to undergo all the risk of loss again". Also, Grob believes that, in "The Two April Mornings", "The most likely explanation... one that receives support from the similar choice made by Matthew in The Fountain" is that "His rejection of the living child is less a free and reasoned judgment than an emotionally compelled and necessary acquiescence in the unalterable laws of human nature."