As I've mentioned in other posts, I have been reading Adam Sisman's book The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge. It's a fascinating look at not just the friendship but the collaboration between these two men, the two titans of the Romantic literary movement. And even though my PhD is in English Language and Literature with a specialty in 20th century American dramatic literature, I know good poetry when I see it.
But what first drew me to the book was the talk about how much William Wordsworth walked. It is estimated that he walked 186,000 miles in his life, and walks of 30 or more miles a day were common with him. Combine that with the richness of his poetry, and his life makes him a natural fit for this blog with the role that exercise played in his writing.
As I mentioned earlier, Wordsworth usually composed when he was walking. Not impressed? Well, he often composed entire poems while walking, and would not write them down until he had completed them in his head on one of his 30 mile janunts. Still not impressed? Then read "Tintern Abbey," a Wordsworth poem that is firmly entrenched in the literary canon. And try to compose something like this--a 159 line poem--in your head while walking. Revise it while outside, and don't even think about coming ins and committing it to paper until it's ready to be published. According to Sisman, "The whole poem was carried in his mind; not a word of it was written down before they reached Bristol, and not a line altered afterwards" (250). Read this for more on Wordsworth's legendary poem.
But for Wordsworth's creative juices to really flow, not just any walk would do. He needed even ground. According to Sisman, "Coleridge liked to compose in walking over uneven ground, or breaking through the straggling branches of a copse-wood; whereas Wordsworth always wrote (if he could) walking up and down a straight gravel walk, or in some spot where the continuity of his verse me with no collateral interruption" (244).
Assuming you do some thinking when you exercise, what environment elicits your most creative thinking or productive ideas? Is there a certain route you cover? I have been in the San Francisco and Palo Alto area all week on business, and as I type this I am at a hotel across from the beautiful campus of Stanford University. Whenever I come here, I look forward to a long run on campus. It's flat, serene, and beautiful, an effortless run that gives me a great opportunity to think.
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