Man in Society: Creative and Uncreative Separation

Abstract

Wordsworth, in his early poetry, was concerned with two things: the good community, with its possibilities for an independent, free and creative experience; and the individual’s responsible use of that freedom, in his relation with the society in which he lives. When that society is in need of reform, the individual is seen as struggling to maintain the integrity of his beliefs and behaviour in the face of inimical conditions. The state of late eighteenth-century society (outside the relatively primitive society of Wordsworth’s childhood) was such that the good man was compelled to become marginal. So we have the poet himself in London; Beaupuy among his fellow officers in France; and figures such as the soldier’s widow and the sailor, who are neglected and destroyed by society. How man reacts to such a falling-short of the ideal community is part of Wordsworth’s chief concern: the sailor becomes a criminal and a fugitive, though retaining his essential benevolence; Rivers and Mortimer become outlaws, one for the best of motives, the other using his separation from society malevolently.