Wordsworth, Loss and the Numinous

Abstract

Wordsworth's intuition of the sublime parallels Jungian notions about how the numinous operates through the unpredictable and mysterious movements of the self. In the words of Casement and Tacey, the numinous is like 'awesome' and refers to the emotional quality of religious (xvi). Wordsworth describes it Tintern Abbey as an aspect more sublime; that blessed mood which we are laid asleep / In body, and become a living soul (132). This notion of the sublime as a kind of state of connection with a deeper sense of reality, by way of nature, enables one to into the life of things ... (133). In this paper. from the perspective of a Jungian analyst, I consider the encounter with the numinous, particularly whew it may be facilitated by formative experiences of loss. Rather than invoke the vast library of works on Wordsworth and the sublime, for the purposes of my discussion, I propose that for Wordsworth, the sublime is an aesthetic and affective experience of the environment that becomes something numinous. In moments of numinous encounter, one moves beyond or behind the sensual daily reality accessed through psychological and physiological systems, and instead tries to find ways to emotionally and cognitively process, and symbolise, such an experience. The numinous is a term Otto coined from the Latin numen (divine presence) to refer to non-sensory, non-rational experience of feeling directed towards something beyond oneself. The numinous is usually unavailable to be seen or experienced because humans simply do have the faculties available to experience it (5-7). However, the moment of encounter with the numinous, one is afforded a momentary glimpse into, or intuition of, depths a view, image, object, sound or sensory stimulus. From the patterns Wordsworth's life and the multiple bereavements he experienced as a child, it appears to me that his experiences of loss influence more than his affective states and contribute to the constellation of numinous experiences his poetry. Several related questions help to set the scene to explore this possibility. First, how might interrupting experiences of loss the midst. of life, and the grieving which arises from them, get projected onto the landscape, evoking experiences which seem to be both other and familiar? Second, might one see phenomenological examples of these experiences Wordsworth's poetry? Third, how might this experience be manifested others no matter where they live (town or country), and how might one begin to make sense of what Wordsworth describes, Jungian terms? To illustrate, I offer fictionalised clinical material which provides, through the portrayal of themes which have cropped up my practice, versions of vivid inner experience, impressions of how loss may get projected into, and at times apparently transformed by, landscape, or cityscape. I propose that the mystery inherent loss; that is, of a loved one being one moment, and being the next, may somehow become re-constellated by way of a projection of that affectively unsolvable mystery onto the external or natural world. That mystery, turn, can afford access to the deeply felt intimations described by Wordsworth his poetry. In Mourning and Melancholia, Freud writes, in mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty ... (254). This impoverishment and emptying out of the familiar environment (which he contrasts with depressive states where it is the ego which becomes empty) may make it likely that a heightened awareness of what is there, not there or hidden the environment becomes an often unnoticed legacy of the loss, particularly for a child whose formative relations to the environment are more open to influence. For some people, Wordsworth included, loss and mourning create the conditions for the generation of numinous experiences. …