Wordsworth and the Great System: A Study of Wordsworth's Poetic Universe

by Geoffrey Durrant

Professor Durrant has two aims in his book, First, he shows that Wordsworth was less hostile to the world-view of the scientist than has been supposed: on the contrary, his poetic vision is from one point of view a translation into terms of feeling and perception of a systematic view of the universe. Second, examination of individual poems reveals a poetic language in which that system is translated into images: star, rock, flower, tree, mountain, cloud, lake, sea. The poems are not sentimental anecdotes, they are 'acts of mind', which turn this world-view into feelings, expressed in a language not far from that of every day. This is inherently a tragic insight; for it sees the individual's consciousness as delight in the natural order, which inevitably brings the death which ends the consciousness. In his great period, from 1798 to 1805, Wordsworth held that vision steadily and whole.

Hardcover

First published July 31, 1970

Reviews

[Geoffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I'm sure some contemporary critics would find Durrant old-fashioned, for me this book was tremendously helpful both in appreciating and teaching Wordsworth. His argument is that Wordsworth was more influenced than is generally supposed by his eighteenth-century scientific and mathematic education and that his seemingly generic nature imagery is often undergirded by consistent, Newtonian patterns. Even if Durrant may occasionally overstate or misapply his case at times, overall, this book has helped me further understand Wordsworth as more than a fuzzy sentimentalist and instead as a fairly thoughtful and precise writer. Particularly helpful are the chapters on the Lucy poems and on "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud."