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From preface: This study seeks to give a perspective on Wordsworth's achievement in sonnet, taking into account all the sonnets he wrote, from the outburst of sonneteering in 1802 to the final decade (1840-1850). My chief concern has been to trace Wordsworth's handling of form and theme throughout his poetic career. A subordinate but related concern has been to try to show that Wordsworth's powers do not diminish after 1815, a date which is sometimes regarded as marking the beginning of the poet's "decline" ~ Wordsworth’s skill in blank verse and in other types of lyric is widely acknowledged; his dexterity in the sonnet form is less well recognized or thought to be limited to fewer poems (usually those of the earlier years) than there actually are. As a result, his performance in sonnet is sometimes underestimated, there being more sonnet concerns and structural patterns than the well-known few reflect. It is possible that Wordsworth's own ambiguous attitude to the genre as expressed in his prose writings, together with his insistence that his sonnets were not amongst the best of his poems, has helped to foster such a view. His practice in sonnet, however, proves that his genius is as evident in some of these poems as it is elsewhere, whether he esteemed them less or not.

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Influential later eighteenth-century critics and philosophers (Stewart, Knight, Alison, Jeffrey, Godwin) argued that poetry's moral and practical benefits derive from "analytical" modes of reading rather than from the poet's instructive intentions. Frequently exploiting the philosophical "language of necessity," Wordsworth's essays and prefaces (1798-1815) protested that poetry directly improves the reader's moral code and ethical conduct. This dissertation discusses Wordsworth's criticism in the context of analytical principles of interpretation current in the 1790s, providing terms for exploring the theme of reading in early mss. of Peter Bell and The Ruined Cottage (1798-1799), the 1798 Lyrical Ballads, and later poems such as "A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags," "Resolution and Independence," "Elegiac Stanzas," and The Prelude (Book V). / These poems anticipate Wordsworth's presentation of reading as the "art of admiration" in the "Essay, Supplementary" to the 1815 Poems, and indicate a sustained search for alternatives and correctives to detached investigative approaches to the aesthetic experience. Attempting to reconcile the extremes of the credulous or fanciful response, reflecting a childlike desire to be free from all constraints, and the analytical response, fuelled by perceptions of contrast between poetic illusion and reality, Wordsworth's criticism and poetry depict the reader as the"auxiliar" of poetic genius. The purpose, traditionally undermined by critics as peremptory and egotistical, was to challenge readers to examine their basic motives in seeking poetic pleasure.

This thesis examines the role of imagination in "The Prelude," within the context of recent criticism. In accordance with the impact of new historicism on contemporary Wordsworth studies, considerable attention is given to new historicist readings. It is argued that new history's methodological approach generally undervalues the complex texture of subjectivity in "The Prelude." New historical critiques tend to interpret the Wordsworthian imagination merely as a narrative strategy that enables the poet to displace or elide socio-historical realities. However, "The Prelude" does not entirely support such a reading. On the basis of Wordsworth's autobiography and related prose works, it is asserted that the poet's consciousness of creative decline and mortality potently informs his sense of imagination, and eventuates in a mode of self-perception that precludes subjective autonomy and socio-historical displacement.

Wordsworth's works between his departure from London on 10 July 1793 and the visit by Coleridge on 10 June 1797 are key documents in any discussion of the development of his poetry as they span the transition from Descriptive Sketches to Lyrical Ballads. Despite the key critical question of the originality of Lyrical Ballads, no exhaustive examination of Wordsworth's use of literary sources during this period has yet been undertaken. In this thesis a pattern of sources for each poem written during the period 1793-1797 is established, especially Wordsworth's developing use of his own verse as a source. There are many literary sources that had not previously been discovered, and this necessitated a reassessment of the role of sources in Wordsworth's poetry generally. In particular, the importance of certain eighteenth-century authors and ideologies had been underrated as influences on Wordsworth's poetry. An overview of Wordsworth's use of his sources shows significant changes during the period. In earlier poems they were incorporated into his poetry with little modification, but in later poems they were often radically transformed and complexly assimilated. Literary sources played a key role in the development of Wordsworth's works, critical theories, and world view. Finally, a brief examination of passages from The Prelude confirms the view that the importance of literary sources in Wordsworth's changing poetry and the workings of his poetic imagination was not confined to the period 1793-7.