The spiritual correspondence between man and nature can be illustrated as being a "spiritual communication" between the two, which is the affect of how they interact with each other. The use of nature in a way that is both beneficial to man and nature can be described as a harmonious spiritual correspondence. .
The poems I have analysed, "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "An Advancement of Learning" and "Roe-Deer", have their focal point revolving around encounters between man and nature. Each poem is unique to one another due to these differences; the time they were written, their themes, the representations of man and nature used, the rhythm and rhythmic pattern of each, the imagery used and lastly the similes and metaphors. These differences will allow me to explore the concept of a spiritual correspondence between man and nature in each poem, and thus justify these poems as being good or bad representations of Sir Paul Harvey's comment. .
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There is a definite likeness between these poems, as they are all thematically linked. An example of this is that in each, there is some sort of conflict between man and natures representations i.e. the knight and the faery, the boy and the rat, and also the man and the deer. Beyond the words of the poem, an on-going interaction between man and nature can be found. .
In "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", this interaction results in man, or the knight in this case, losing out in a spiritual conflict to nature, or the faery's child, "And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill's side". The quote itself actually is a good example of how Keats brings about a cold feel to the poem at this point, which is ironic as we associate cold temperatures with loss. .
However, this conflict takes a new twist in the Heaney poem, "An Advancement of Learning". This time the conflict goes one step further and is ironically portrayed in a militaristic style with "I established a dreaded bridgehead" and "This terror (the rat) retreated- and was actually won by man, or the boy in this case, "He trained on me.
