Wordsworth and McLuhan: Visionaries from Different Eras

I grew up on the poems of William Wordsworth. If you read them, especially this, my favorite one, you will probably wish you'd read them as a child too.
Marshall McLuhan in his book, The Medium is the Massage, quotes this verse from Wordsworth's poem, Expostulation and Reply (McLuhan 44):

"The eye, it cannot choose but see;

    We cannot bid the ear be still;

  Our bodies feel, where'er they be,

      Against or with our will."    

  - Expostulation and Reply, 1798



These lines were spoken by Wordsworth when his friend Matthew asked him why he was sitting, looking out to the lake, daydreaming his time away, when he should instead be spending his time reading books and enlightening himself. Wordsworth, a strong believer in the power of nature to provide man with a kind of knowledge that books would never be able to impart, said he was in fact enlightening himself just by allowing nature and his present surroundings to take control and stimulate his senses. 

Wordsworth's response aptly summed his philosophy about the relationship between man and his immediate surroundings and it is this philosophy that McLuhan further explores throughout themes of his book. 

Both McLuhan and Wordsworth are not just revolutionary thinkers from different eras, but true visionaries. Their words still hold true and are very relatable today, to a generation way ahead of each of their times. 


(L) Portrait of Wordsworth by S.Crosthwaite, 1884 
(R) Photo of McLuhan by L.McCombe, 1967