Memory as Salvation: Captured in a Single Photograph

“Memory As Salvation: Captured in a Single Photograph”

While driving in my car I noticed the beautiful Pennsylvania landscape as I drove past. This view from my car instilled in me a sense of peace and happiness. As I passed these scenes, I noticed that in my rearview mirror these scenes were captured for a few brief moments instilling in me once again how they made me feel when I passed them in the first place. Even though these scenes were merely pictures, now captured in my mirror, I still remembered the feeling they gave me when I was originally driving past. This mirror represents the ability my brain has to grasp images and retain them, so that when I want I can return to these scenes that once made me smile. No longer was that scene part of my present but now it was part of my past. It will forever be stored in my memories. This was the inspiration for my picture and I feel that this picture would inspire William Wordsworth as well.

Wordsworth was very fond of nature and often in times of sadness he would go out into it and reflect on its beauty. If for some reason he could not go out into nature he would rely heavily on his memory. “Nature, in all its forms, was important to Wordsworth, but he rarely uses simple descriptions. Instead he concentrates on the ways in which he responds and relates to the world. He uses his poetry to look at the relationship between ‘nature’ and human life, and to explore the belief that ‘nature’ can have an impact on our emotional and spiritual lives.” (http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/)

These memories of the nature he encountered were what got him through the day and out of his depressed state. As we pass things by in life we store those things as memories so that one day we can return them. Memory as salvation is the term that he used when describing this way of dealing with his melancholy.

“Lines: Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July13, 1781,” is one of his poems that he addresses memory as salvation. I feel that my picture would