Romanticism
Wordsworth, Death and Politics
By by (November 2003)
Sections: Romanticism
Subjects: Literature, Religion.
People: Wordsworth, William .
Periods: 1000 - 1999, 1700-1799, 1800-1899.
Key Topic: death.
Abstract
Wordsworth's 1810 Essays Upon Epitaphs appear to be a conservative (Christian-Burkean) response to social and spiritual alienation. Life's hollowness, he argues, is redeemed by the chastening influence of the dead. However, Wordsworth's poetic sympathy for the damaged and outcast also suggests a politically progressive criticism of alienation, suffering and death in social life.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2004.00008.x
This article abstract has been viewed 5689 times.
Top 5 related articles
-
Wordsworth, Epitaph, and the ‘Epitaphic’
By By
(Vol. 1, November 2003)
Literature Compass -
The Grave Scholarship of Antiquaries
By , University of Wisconsin-Madison
(Vol. 2, November 2005)
Literature Compass -
Imaginary Pilgrimages: Felicia Hemans, Dead Poets, and Romantic Historiography
By , Indiana University
(Vol. 2, April 2005)
Literature Compass -
Solitude and Sociability: Wordsworth on Helvellyn
By , Stanford University
(Vol. 1, July 2004)
Literature Compass -
Wordsworth's Excursion: Narrative Memory and the ‘Minds of Men’*
By , Lancaster University
(Vol. 1, June 2004)
Literature Compass
Top 5 Related Blackwell Reference Chapters
Death and Literature: Melville and the Epitaph
And after all came Life, and lastly Death;Death with most grim and griesly visage seene,Yet he is nought ...
By Edgar A. Dryden
Death and Afterlife
The human drive for meaningfulness is faced with challenges, not the least of which is death. Most religious ...
By Douglas J. Davies
Survival of death
Do human beings survive bodily death? Many answers to this question have been given. Some affirmative ...
By STEPHEN T. DAVIS
Death
The last act of a dying Jew is to recite a special confession of sin (“viddui”) and the Shema. After ...
In Two Voices, or: Whose Life/Death/Story Is It, Anyway?
Collaborative compositions have become a subgenre of illness narratives. A few examples are Sandra Butler ...
By Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan