The aim of this thesis is to show, by means of a chronological study of poverty as treated in the poetry dating from the early 1790's to 1807, that Wordsworth's treatment of this topic was both highly politicized and unusually probing. To look at his treatment of poverty is also to gain some understanding of his changing political and social views over these years. He began writing about poverty and the poor in a period in which picturesque and/or sentimental ways of viewing poverty alternated with moralisitically judgmental ways. His approach and attitudes are soon seen to be different. After a period of fervent protest at the very existence of poverty, he proceeds to probe the more hidden costs, to the indigent, of poverty, an approach which is less overtly polemical. This study seeks to demonstrate that this stage is no less committed, and, indeed, comprises an insightful analysis of the social and psychological damage consequent on poverty, damage now widely recognised as one of the major costs of poverty both to the individual and to the state. Furthermore, Wordsworth becomes concerned with the alienation both from the self and from the other consequent on poverty. It is this that he recognises as a major, yet rarely acknowledged, component of poverty. He recognises too, his increasing inability to understand the impoverished other. Conscious of the divide that separates the privileged from the indigent, he can only wonder at, and acknowedge, the powers of endurance of which some seem capable. From such examples he, in his precarious vocation of poet, can learn much. Such admiration of the reolution and independence apparent in some of the indigent leads him to espouse values and judgments which tend to differentiate clearly between the deserving and the undeserving poor. Although such attitudes become increasingly prevalent in Wordsworth after 1807, the work of the preceding years remains a rare, forceful and multi-dimensional cry of protest against poverty.

Consacrée au rapport idéologique entre le romantisme anglais et les Lumières françaises (aboutissant à la Révolution de 1789), cette thèse entend combler une lacune critique sur des échanges intellectuels reconnus et méconnus. Parmi les auteurs anglais, ces liens entre les cultures lettrées anglaises et françaises se sont très clairement manifestés sous la plume de William Wordsworth (1770-1850), initié à la pensée des Lumières par le capitaine militaire français Michel Beaupuy (1755-1796). Notre recherche évalue la dette contractée par Wordsworth envers des auteurs majeurs des Lumières dans le traitement de quatre sujets clés : la démocratie, la sensibilité, la religion et le langage. Cette thèse vise également à mettre en évidence le développement original de ces thèmes dans les oeuvres poétiques de Wordsworth. Pour ce faire, nous avons choisi d'articuler notre étude autour de comparaisons et d'analyses de textes. Le premier chapitre est consacré au Contrat social (1762) de Rousseau, le second à La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761) de Rousseau, le troisième à Zadig (1747) de Voltaire, et le dernier chapitre à VEssai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines (1746) de Condillac. Bien que les sujets et les oeuvres abordés soient apparemment disparates, l'ensemble est intimement lié à l'épanouissement de l'oeuvre poétique de Wordsworth : cette contribution effective sous-tend et justifie leur traitement dans une même étude. Sur le plan théorique, l'argumentaire de cette thèse se base sur la théorie poétique de Harold Bloom, telle qu'exposée dans The Anxiety of Influence (1973). Faisant appel à la notion freudienne du complexe d'OEdipe, fondée sur la rivalité palpable entre père et fils pour l'amour de la mère, Bloom constate qu'une rivalité semblable existe entre les poètes et leurs modèles d'inspiration poétiques. Cette opposition permet à terme de se distinguer comme poète ou, pour reprendre le terme de Bloom, comme poète « fort ». L'étude intertextuelle menée ici montrera comment Wordsworth s'établit comme « poète fort », via ses sources d'inspiration.

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This essay compares Wordsworth’s and Arnold’s conceptions of nature and suggests reasons for the differences found. Both poets were keenly sensitive to the leveliness of the external world, and found in nature a soothing and healing power for the troubled mind of man. Both derived sensuous enjoyment from the beauties of nature, and found in nature permanence, peace, and tranquillity. The fundamental difference in their doctrines of nature is in their conceptions of abstract nature. To Wordsworth, nature was a benevolent force which actively participated in the moral and spiritual growth of man. His was a doctrine of joy and optimism. To Arnold, nature was a great and indifferent force which man must transcend. His was a doctrine of stoicism and pessimism. The differences are mainly due to the progress in science and thought from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Wordsworth inherited the eighteenth century belief in a benevolent and all-powerful Deity, who manifested his goodness in nature. By a synthesis of this philosophy, the assumptions of associationist psychology, and his own experience, he explained the moral and spiritual growth of man. Wordsworth believed that through love of nature, man was led to love of his fellow man and of God. He believed that nature participated in man’s moral growth, through the senses, with the aid of some super-sensuous power – ‘a superadded soul’, an ‘auxilier light’, which he believed to be the imagination. Through semi-mystical and visionary experiences, he became convinced of the unity between the soul of man and the soul of nature. This was the source of his joy in nature. Arnold took for granted many of the assumptions of nineteenth century science regarding nature. Through these, and his own search for truth, he lost faith in a benevolent force in the universe. He saw no evidence of harmony or teleological purpose in nature. He found in nature only an edifying example of tranquility, steadfastness, and stoicism. The central tenet of his doctrine was of the superiority of man over nature, through his reason and conscience. On a broader basis, the change in attitude to nature between Wordsworth and Arnold is due to the changed conception of men’s place in the Chain of Being. In the eighteenth century, man held the most important earthly place in nature’s Chain of Being. In the nineteenth century, he lost that place. The Industrial Revolution created a materialistic world in which only the fittest survived economically. Biologists and zoologists reduced man to the level of all other creatures. He lost his favoured place in the Chain of Being, and for him nature lost all order and purposiveness. A pessimistic view of nature was logical and common. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation is a study of the romantic elements in Bernard Malamud's fiction that can be seen as representing a romantic ideology closely related to the romanticism of William Wordsworth.

William Wordsworth was not the civic-minded public servant who is often thought of when good citizenship awards are given. However, it can be said that through his writings, he did much to arouse others to an awareness of political, religious, and educational needs of his country. This thesis examines his views in these areas and how they contributed to him as a citizen.

This thesis discusses the influence of Milton on the poetry of Wordsworth.

This thesis consists of a comparative study of William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman.

Sadness in literature has often been thematically interpreted as an indication of literary originality. Notions of solitude, silence, and alienation contribute to the idea that melancholy benefits the introspective work of the artist. But it is also possible to explore sadness as a more complex literary phenomenon, one that expands the dimensions of affect and influences possibilities of aesthetic and ethical renovation that gesture beyond the usual themes of melancholy and solitude. Sadness thus does not come to be conceived as merely an aspect of mourning, but as a structure of loss that is intrinsic to our concept of the world's composition and insufficiencies. The energies that surround the experience of sadness measure the degree to winch many writers have been able to develop their sense of unhappiness into a way of charting the difficulties and transformative power of their own labours. As well, sadness in literature can be seen as illuminating a loss that writers generate in order to achieve through their art the possibility of aesthetic and even social reparation.

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