Elizabeth’s Reviews > Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World > Status Update

Absolutely fascinating that so much of the national parks movements in both Britain and the US can be traced back to the influence that Wordsworth had on his readers. John Muir, for instance, was a huge fan, Wordsworth being a poet of the sublime beauty of wild places.

Fascinating! Bate also explores the emergence of another literary form in the late 1700s: the travel guide!! I kept thinking of Pride and Prejudice since the travel guides were often about the Lakes and of course Wordsworth came to be known as a Lakes poet. Sooo interesting.

French critic Hippolyte Taine writes in 1864: “On the eve of the 19th century began in Europe the great modern revolution. The thinking public and the human mind changed…then was manifest the disease of the age…discontent with the present, the vague desire of a higher beauty, and an ideal happiness, the painful aspiration for the infinite…” (316-317).

Wordsworth writing about his poetry after bad reviews: “Trouble not yourself upon the present reception of these poems, of what moment is that compared with what I trust is their destiny, to console the afflicted, to add sunshine…by making the happy happier, to teach the young and gracious…to see, to think and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous…” (309-310).