The Seasons by James Thomson

First published: 1730; revised, 1744, 1746

Type of work: Poetry

The Work:

A cycle of four long poems in blank verse with a brief concluding hymn, The Seasons celebrates the magnificence and harmony of nature as a manifestation of the Supreme Being. It embodies literary, philosophical, and theological ideas characteristic of the eighteenth century, yet it also prefigures the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century, particularly in its depictions of storms and wilderness. It enjoyed extraordinary popularity and influence in both centuries, and its impressive, picturesque landscapes made it a favorite text for illustration.

The poem evolved gradually, beginning with a short piece called “Winter,” published in 1726. As he expanded and revised the work, James Thomson adopted the Georgics (c. 37-29 b.c.e.; English translation, 1589) of the ancient Roman poet Vergil as his literary model, finding there a precedent for his subject matter (nature), his four-part structure, and his elevated style. Standing in the middle ground between the pastoral and the epic, “georgic” verse was expected to use lofty diction in celebrating the earth’s bounty. Whereas pastoral poetry uses nature artificially as stage scenery for the philosophizing of urbane shepherds, georgic poetry draws inspiration from the noble labors of the farmer. Thomson by no means restricts himself to the farm, however; he seeks in untamed nature a special quality that fascinated his age: the “sublime,” the paradoxically uplifting experience of awe and even of terror.

Each of the four poems opens with conventional elements: an invocation to the poet’s muse and an elegant address to his patron. Thereafter, each loosely adheres to a different structural principle. The first poem, “Spring,” celebrates the influence of the season over the whole Chain of Being, starting with the lowest, inanimate matter, and ending with the highest of beings on earth, “Man.” Thomson prefers not to depict nature for its own sake but to do so for what it teaches, and many of its glories become occasions for edifying digressions. After describing the breezes warming the soil, the poet argues for the dignity of his theme, for agriculture crowns the British Empire as it once crowned the Roman Empire. Describing a rainbow after a spring shower, he contrasts the scientific theory of Sir Isaac Newton with the dumb amazement of the ignorant swain. The thought of the virtues in herbs provokes a long discussion of humanity’s lost innocence. In days of old, reason governed passion and even the lion was gentle, but, since the Flood, afflictions have beset humanity. Yet, humankind still neglects the “wholesome Herb” and consumes the flesh of harmless animals. Some readers have criticized the looseness that results from this circuitous method, and no doubt the long, cumulative process of composition worked against the development of a rigid structure, but this lack of architecture reflects Thomson’s sense of nature, for the poem possesses an underlying coherence that may be discerned only intermittently beneath the wonderful variety of the surface.

Birds follow vegetation; the poem relates how, infused with love from the “Source of Beings,” they mate and build nests, brood over their eggs, and at last teach their offspring the art of flight. This springtime diffusion of amorous passions dominates the rest of the poem, but it refuses to conduct—out of respect for female readers, says the poet—a detailed discussion of animals and gives rise instead to a lecture on the torments that befall youthful lovers and the happiness of those who join in marriage and bring forth a delightful “human blossom.” Moralizing or “didactic” verse of this kind (besides being sanctioned by Thomson’s literary model) was considered to be an integral part of the “topographical” poem, in which an impressive landscape becomes the occasion for profound and edifying meditation. Indeed, The Seasons inseparably intertwines description and didacticism, arguing throughout that our experience of nature inspires feeling, feeling inspires thought, and thought inspires praise of God.

“Summer,” the longest of the four poems, traces a single day from morning to night, but it also uses the eye of imagination to describe the harsh climate of the tropics. The sun rules majestically over the summer day. All beings are its courtiers; his reign extends even to shining metals and gems that lie within the earth; ponds and oceans glitter with the sun’s reflected light, yet nothing equals it. Having stirred the reader’s wonder at the power of the sun, Thomson uses it for his devotional purpose: How, then, should he sing of God, its source? Yet, if men were silent, all creation would praise him. The theology of The Seasons has been a topic of controversy: Some interpret its God as deist, a Supreme Being who has revealed himself only in his creation. Here, however—and at the end of “Summer”—Thomson insists that the human mind cannot fathom the deity, and his poem echoes passages from scripture that imply a traditional Christian position, despite the absence of references to Jesus Christ. His concern with the limitations of the human perspective reemerges in a subsequent passage when he emphasizes that, although science reveals that nature seethes with innumerable microscopic life-forms, as these lives are to us, so are human beings to the vast plan that comprehends all things.

The centerpiece of this poem is a reverie at noontime, when the poet retires in fancy to a grove and enjoys an idyllic landscape with a waterfall. The view is clearly idealized. Composed and almost framed, such landscapes show the influence of Renaissance artists such as Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, and Salvator Rosa. From within this dream setting, the imagination travels yet further to the jungles, groves, and savannahs of tropical lands. From a mountaintop in Africa, the poet watches a prodigious storm gather and break, washing over the continent and replenishing its rivers, and then recites the horrible fates that befall the people of the “torrid zone,” impressing the reader with the awesome and sublime power of nature. Returning to England, another storm occasions two narrative episodes about lovers. The first issues a warning: Though innocent Celadon fears nothing, lightning slays his beloved Amelia. After the storm subsides, the poet recalls Damon, who cannot resist watching his beloved Musidora as she bathes, but at last flees, leaving her a pledge of his honor, which she finds and welcomes.

Patriotic sentiment represents another major theme in The Seasons that has a precedent in Vergil’s Georgics. The earth’s bounty testifies not only to the goodness of the Creator but also to the glory of the state and the empire. The afternoon portion of “Summer” is spent walking in the valley of the Thames, where the countryside’s prosperity inspires the poet to enumerate its great kings, adventurers, soldiers, statesmen, philosophers, poets, and, finally, its beautiful women.

“Autumn” opens with an extended passage in praise of “industry,” or labor. The sun’s entry into Virgo and Libra (the scales) brings cloudy skies and ripe crops, and the keynote of this poem is harmony, not only nature’s harmony within itself but also the human obligation to balance enjoyment of the earth’s riches with self-discipline and virtue. Industry lifted humanity out of primitive barbarism and produced civilization; with civilization comes justice, the polity, and commerce. Thomson, however, only touches upon modern luxuries before turning the reader’s attention to the tale of a poor and virtuous gleaner, an adaptation of the biblical book of Ruth. One day, when the maid Lavinia is gleaning the fields of Palemon, a young nobleman notices her and falls in love. Amazed by her likeness to his old patron Acasto, he learns that she is in fact Acasto’s daughter, and he makes her his wife.

Thomson then returns to a subject raised earlier in “Spring,” namely, the morality of hunting. The peaceful muse spurns the hunter’s triumph over the helpless hare or stag. Thomson is lenient, however; in “Spring,” he concedes that skillful fishing is humane, and here he consents to hunting the “robber fox.” After describing a vineyard and the various tasks involved in wine-making, the poet discusses precipitation and the origin of lakes and rivers. The 1730 version of the poem endorses the old, erroneous “percolation” theory, which states that sand and gravel draw the ocean’s saltwater up to mountain springs, removing salt in the process. Later, Thomson inserted lines setting forth the condensation theory of astronomer Edmond Halley and shows the entire system of precipitation and drainage working harmoniously, demonstrating that science sustains rather than opposes faith in Providence. Nevertheless, scientific “Reason” needs to be informed by “Imagination,” and later in the poem, in a sequence reminiscent of John Milton’s Il Penseroso (1645), a fit of “philosophic melancholy” descends upon the poet. Let others pursue a life of activity; the poet’s supreme pleasure is a simple rural retreat, where he can study nature and be caught up in philosophic rapture.

As in “Summer,” the emphasis in “Winter” is on the season’s extremes, and Thomson exploits the possibilities for sublime effects. This poem also, however, exalts the indoor pleasures of study and the contemplation of history, proceeding toward the final moral: When winter seems to have ruined everything and only human virtue survives the universal wreckage, spring returns and life awakens again, renewing hope.

Winter approaches with fierce storms of winds, hail, and blinding snow; an unfortunate swain loses his way and perishes while his family waits at home. This introduces a passage reflecting on the many miseries of human life, but the universal theme soon becomes the occasion to comment on a contemporary political problem. In 1729, a parliamentary committee was appointed to investigate allegations of torture in English jails. Thomson’s plea on behalf of the abused prisoners is personal; nine members of the committee, whose unspoken purpose was to score points against the Whig government of Sir Robert Walpole, were subscribers to The Seasons.

“Winter” draws the reader into scenes of the utmost desolation: Wolves descend from the mountains, hunting down horses and bulls and even snatching infants out of their mother’s arms. These horrors, however, enhance the appeal of the contemplative life that dominates the center of the poem. Although Thomson praises the simple virtue of the Swiss peasants known as Grisons, he would himself retire to more sophisticated and urbane pastimes, meditating on the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome. Their “ancient shades” parade before his eyes, and after them march the great English poets, with Thomson’s revered contemporary Alexander Pope in the rear. The last portion of the poem returns to desolation, a shipwreck in the Northwest Passage and the Siberian wasteland, to prepare for the final note of life’s resurrection. Frost, though seemingly ruinous, actually renovates the earth, and winter gestates the new life of spring.

The short, exuberant finale, “A Hymn on the Seasons,” echoes Psalm 148 in its praise of God for revealing himself in his creation, though Thomson emphasizes each season as a distinct manifestation of God. The hymn functions as a synopsis of the devotional theme of the whole poem. In the end, however, when human words and voices fail, only “expressive Silence” remains.

Bibliography

Campbell, Hilbert H. James Thomson. Boston: Twayne, 1979. A convenient introduction to Thomson’s life and works, with extensive commentary on The Seasons. Includes an annotated bibliography.

Cohen, Ralph. The Unfolding of “The Seasons.” Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970. An exhaustive full-length study of the poem, arguing that the poem’s literary merits and historical significance have been underestimated.

Goodman, Kevis. “The Microscopic Eye and the Noise of History in Thomson’s The Seasons.” In Georgic Modernity and British Romanticism: Poetry and the Mediation of History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Uses Thomson’s reference to the “microscopic eye” in The Seasons to analyze the poem. Traces how the phrase, which originated in the natural science of the seventeenth century, was transformed in the eighteenth century to refer to a professional observer of public institutions and society.

Irlam, Shaun. “Vatic Tremors: Unworlding and Otherworldliness in James Thomson’s The Seasons.” In Elations: The Poetics of Enthusiasm in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999. Argues that the concept of enthusiasm was central to the aesthetics of early eighteenth century British literature. Traces the development of this concept and how it was reflected in Thomson’s sentimental portrayal of the landscape in The Seasons.

Lethbridge, Stefanie. James Thomson’s Defence of Poetry: Intertextual Allusion in “The Seasons.” Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer, 2003. Examines the allusions to Ovid, Vergil, John Milton, and other writers in the poem as well as its use of the genre conventions of pastoral poetry, romance literature, and sermons. Argues that Thomson intends The Seasons to defend poetry as a culturally relevant pursuit.

Sambrook, James, ed. Introduction to James Thomson, “The Seasons.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. This authoritative critical edition of The Seasons offers a clear presentation of the complicated series of revisions that produced the final work. The introduction surveys the poem’s principal subjects and the history of its composition and publication.

Spacks, Patricia Meyer. The Varied God: A Critical Study of Thomson’s “The Seasons.” Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959. A readable study of the significance of Thomson’s revisions, showing how the moral and devotional purposes emerged.

Terry, Richard, ed. James Thomson: Essays for the Tercentenary. Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press, 2000. The essays analyze the politics and aesthetics of Thomson’s major poems, discuss the critical reception of his work after his death, and assess his influence on later writers. “The Seasons and the Politics of Opposition” by Glynis Ridley analyzes this poem, while another essay by W. B. Hutchings examines Thomson’s landscape poetry.