The significance of man in Wordsworth's poetry

Abstract

This thesis has been planned to show that Wordsworth was a poet of personality and character, to distinguish and to rescue his handling of man from the modern lay-man's attitude that he is a mere nature poet. He was, rather, a poet deeply interested in humanity and able to express his concern and insight subtly and truthfully. In fact, by his zealous search for truth, and his faithful representation of men in the commoner walks of life, he was able to do what neither his contemporaries nor his predecessors could do so well, that is, depict men's lives as they were lived, and make of them truly living and thinking human beings. Just as the title of comedian might be ccnferred on Shakespeare by a reader who had overlooked his tragedies, so might the title Nature poet be given Wordsworth by one who had not delved into his poems on personality. It is toward this goal then, that these pages will strive; to find Wordsworth, the poet of man, not by minimizing the importance of the nature poems, but by realizing that they were the doorways through which the vision of man first appeared to the poet.