William Wordsworth, a British Romantic Poet Research Paper

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William Wordsworth is often held as the ultimate example of the English Romantic period, particularly with his publication of the Lyrical Ballads. Together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he is credited with having started the entire movement, which was radically different from what the reading public knew (Davies, 1980). Other analysts indicate numerous other writers of the time who might have given Wordsworth some impetus. “Thomson, Burns, Cowper, Gray, Collins and Chatterton are honored as precursors, Percy and the Wartons as initiators.

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The trio, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, are recognized as the founders and, as time progressed, Byron, Shelley and Keats were added in spite of the fact that this new group of poets denounced the older for political reasons” (Welleck, 2003). These writers, Wordsworth included, were heavily influenced by the events that were taking place in their worlds. An understanding of Wordsworth’s life and times may help to provide some insight into his works of poetry.

Although the Romantic Period would seem to be so named because of an unusual fascination with stories of love and what we consider ‘romance’ today, the actual literary movement was characterized by a complete ideology that focused on the natural, picturesque and the fantastic as they might have been understood in an idealized Golden Age of society. As a literary movement, it is recognized to have begun sometime during the 1770s and extended into the mid-1800s, a bit longer in America (“Introduction”, 2001).

Nature was esteemed not only because of the creative element inherent in it, but also because of the manifestation of the imagination that could be found within it in the sense that we create what we see, beginning to recognize how the representation of social issues might help to bring about change in these same social issues. The world was full of symbols and signs that would portend future events and actions which were knowable through their relationship to the myths and legends of antiquity.

In addition to the return to nature, many of the concepts that emerged as a part of Romanticism were reactions to the social upheaval that was taking place at this time coupled with a shifting economic structure. During the ‘Romantic Period’, the poets took part in a movement against the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, where they protested (with their poetry) the ideals of those Europeans who sought to bring reason and ‘Enlightenment’ to the world. Grob, for instance, argues that Wordsworth’s purpose was to challenge the present social order that was focused on the “disorganized and directionless” (1973: 19) mode of existence found in “the fretful stir / Unprofitable, and the fever of the world” (Wordsworth, 52-53) and present a more favorable development. The Romantics expressed their defiance of the so-called ‘reason’ that both the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment brought to society.

These elements can easily be traced through Wordsworth’s poetry and life experiences. Wordsworth was born in 1770 the second child of five and generally known for having a wild nature. He was particularly close to his younger sister Dorothy, who was only a year younger than he and went along with his wild games (Davies, 1980). His childhood was filled with the experiences of nature and its importance in his later life can be easily tracked through such poems as Tintern Abbey and throughout the Lyrical Ballads.

His parents both died while he was still young, forcing his uncles to take care of the children and bringing about the separation of Wordsworth from his sister as he was sent to Cambridge. Although he did finish school, he did so based upon his own study program and spent the years following school wandering through revolutionary France. It was here that he picked up many of his ideas regarding needed social and political change (Davies, 1980). Like the natural world, many of these ideas would find expression in his poems.

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An example of how these issues became integrated into his work can be found in the sense of disillusion indicated in Prelude, particularly in book seven, lines 696-741. Although the book describes Wordsworth’s experiences of Bartholomew Fair, these lines focus more narrowly upon his impressions of the city in general from his Nature-influenced and withdrawn perspective. “Of what the mighty City is itself / To all except a Straggler here and there, / To the whole swarm of its inhabitants” (696-698) is how he describes the people he encounters. This indicates a single-image mentality imbuing the minds below.

The concept of the single mind is highlighted further as Wordsworth describes the people as “The slaves unrespited of low pursuits / Living amid the same perpetual flow / Of trivial objects, melted and reduced / To one identity” (700-703). Not only do these people have no free will, as indicated by the choice of the word ‘slaves’, they also have no sense of value, constantly chasing after things that don’t matter and that all represent the same end result, one common identity.

The idea that these pursuits are valueless is underscored with his qualification that these “have no law, no meaning, and no end” (704). This image conjures up, especially to an individual as intimately familiar with nature as Wordsworth was himself, impressions of beehives, anthills and other pesky, swarming insects that do little to ease a person’s comfort or to highlight the unique nature of the self. In this sense, the city and the people in it has become “an undistinguishable world to men” (699), further separating the concept of the individual from the hive.

This hive mentality is not necessarily the choice or design of the people, nor does it indicate a lack of mental faculties, rather Wordsworth tends to see it as the inevitable result of living in such constrained conditions. “Oppression under which even highest minds / Must labour, whence the strongest are not free” (705-706). The image that emerges of London in general is of a hive of mindless activity with no purpose, no end and no promise in which thinking minds, creativity and innovation cannot possibly thrive.

Wordsworth’s life and experiences went a long way toward informing the poetry that would make him famous for centuries to come. Through his early life and later escapes, Wordsworth continued to take refuge and seek reinvigoration within the confines of nature rather than in the greater density populations of the cities and towns. When too many people came together, he felt the natural order and grace of human nature was disguised and corrupted.

By standing back and taking an objective viewpoint, not becoming a part of the crowd at all, Wordsworth indicates that one can gain the sense of self that seems to be completely lacking in the humanity of the city because of the ability to see not only the individual parts as they mill around below, but also of the whole design, which becomes liberating in much the same way that he has found in nature. While this sense of harmony was not available to the population in general, Wordsworth himself was able to find a sense of peace, beauty and design by separating himself from the general press and allowing himself to simply observe, thus creating a new genre of poetry that would have a lasting impact on numerous writers to come.

Works Cited

Davies, Hunter. William Wordsworth. New York: Atheneum Press, 1980.

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Grob, Alan. “The Empirical Phase: Tintern Abbey.” The Philosophic Mind: A Study of Wordsworth’s Poetry and Thought, 1797-1805. 1973.

“” A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature. New York: Brooklyn College, (2001). Web.

Wellek, Rene. “Romanticism in Literature.” Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia, (2003). Web.

Wordsworth, William. (2000). The Major Works Including the Prelude. Stephen Gill (Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "William Wordsworth, a British Romantic Poet." August 28, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/william-wordsworth-a-british-romantic-poet/.

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