"Mutability" by William Wordsworth (poetry reading)

Mutability means time's inexorable demolition. He didn't mean mutation in the genetic sense because he believed in the Bible and not in evolution. Anyway, "On the Origin of Species" wasn't published until nine years after he died. An Evolutionary Philosopher would draw different conclusions.

Dissolution meant that things dissolve and disperse, as in "The Dissolution of the Monasteries." I dont think he meant dissipated, or any moral disintegration.

Similarly he uses "awful" as Kipling did in, "God of out fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle line, beneath whose awful hand we hold dominion over palm and pine."

Melancholy didn't necessarily mean despondency or dejection. In Milton's "Il Penseroso", which means "The Thinking Man" he concludes, "These pleasures Melancholy give and I with thee will choose to live."

This is a very well-made sonnet and it represents Wordsworth at his best. To precis as best I can,

Decline and fall is constant but it has a certain sad melody, a rhythm which is right and natural. People who are dishonest, unkind or broody are unhappy because they're not in harmony with the natural way of things. (Eastern philosophies like Buddhism and Taoism say the same thing.)

Truth is immutable and it doesn't change. However even things which seem the most lasting will still fail in the end, like the morning frost that vanishes. Even the most durable of man's constructions will fall down eventually.

"royally wear his crown of weeds" could refer to King Lear's decline. In the end he becomes
"As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow."

Now for the rebuttal. Wordsworth is as usual full of tautologies. Frost melts, buildings fall down, all your teeth fall out and you drop dead. We know that but why accept it? Find a good dentist, take vitamins and get insured. Acceptance is too close to petrifaction and fossilisation. Dont accept it, do something about it.

It's not true that cheating, stealing and lying make people unhappy. People who live an amoral and self-deluded existence are quite happy. All motivations are inherited anyway and they wouldn't be so persistent and if they didn't provide benefits. Happiness depends not on accepting truths but on believing fallacies, religious palliatives.

However, evolution works for the genotype not the phenotype. The individual is only a test run of a specific set of genes. The survival of individual genes matters more than the survival of individuals. We're all expendable. Therefore some motivations which seem to be anti-survival are actually pro-survival because they get rid of useless genes. Suicide, for instance.

Misery is just nature's way of telling you that your genes are crap and so not worth keeping. If you're miserable find a different survival strategy, change your job, leave your partner, go and live somewhere else. If you keep on doing what you're doing, you will keep on getting what you're getting.

In any nesting community of birds there are some foragers, who collect nesting materials, and some thieves, who steal them. It's clear that birds are born with motivations both to forage and to steal, but it can't be predicted whether an individual bird will be a thief or a forager. If nesting materials are easy to collect, more birds will steal. If nesting materials are scarce, more birds will forage. Aint it the truth, though?

But evil-doers are troubled by conscience and the righteous by temptation. They hear the voice of the other strategy.

So where's the benefit in truth and honesty, when self-deception and dishonesty are so effective and beneficial? This is the sad part. Those rare individuals who bravely embrace the truth suffer more themselves but they contribute more to humanity's collective wealth of knowledge and art. That's why their genes survive.

Truth isn't a thing we can accept because acceptance implies we already know what the truth is. Wordsworth thought that the truth was in the Bible. (Still, in Eastern stories the hero keeps to the rules come what may - in Western stories the hero breaks or bends the rules.) What we consider to be truth is constantly being revised and refined. People who seek to find the truth seem to be the most unhappy. The lives of great thinkers are often short and tragic. "Whom the Gods love die young", said Byron, so they must have loved him but not Wordsworth nor me.

As Bernard Shaw observed:
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
The unreasonable man attempts to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore progress depends on unreasonable men."

Wordsworth on Helvellyn 1842 (he was 72) by Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846)

For another perspective, see this ppt presentation:
http://literature08.wikispaces.com/file/view/Mutability.ppt

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[aphidreiter]

I disagree with Wordsworth on all counts however I think the poem is well wrought. Thanks.

[SpokenVerse]

Wordsworth was a great poet and his poetry is sublime. I'll revise my notes to show him due respect.

[aphidreiter]

I think he is playing with biblical themes.

Humans are the quintessence of mutability whereas God's laws are immutable. I've always read dissolute as "sinful". You can see a similar grouping of sins in Revelation 21:8 where the fearful are lined up along with the murderers, whoremongers and sorcerers (drug dealers).

Truth (God) does not fail but his earthly ambassadors eventually crumble and surrender their crown of weeds (not quite thorns).

[SpokenVerse]

I don't think Wordsworth would have used dissolution in the way it is used today, but just plainly as dissolving or dispersing. Similarly, awful just meant "full of awe". So many words have changed meaning and value.

"royally did wear his crown of weeds", may refers to King Lear, who at the end was:

As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;

Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,

With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,

Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow.

[hamiltonpaul73]

I should add, the "shout" from 'King Lear' that we must be meant to hear is: "Never never never never never!"

[hamiltonpaul73]

I hear Chaucer in the "drop"ing of this monumental tower. From 'The Knight's Tale': 

Mine is the ruin of the highe halls, The falling of the towers and the walls.

The "crown of weeds" allusion to 'King Lear' that you point out adds a tragic dimension to this poem I never heard before. Thank you.

[savedbydeath]

NOW