Wordsworth’s Uncertainties

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Wordsworth’s first readers turned against him because he was undignified, but today we are more likely to turn away from him because he is too dignified. He knows what he knows so surely that he cannot think against himself; among the great English poets, only Milton is more devoid of humor. Wordsworth’s political evolution from radicalism to conservatism was so complete that radicals of the younger generation denounced him as a sell-out. But it would be more accurate to say that Wordsworth’s turn away from politics was what allowed his poetic talent to flourish in the first place. Between Wordsworth’s early principles and his late principles came a period of about ten years, starting in 1797, when he had no certainties, only questions and intuitions, and it was from these that his great poetry was born. What makes him a living possibility for today’s readers and poets is not his moral teaching, but the way he used verse as a medium for introspection and self-questioning.</jats:p>