https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/202004/the-greatness-william-wordsworth
I know we’re a bit past Wordsworth now, but I found this article a few days ago and had been waiting to share it on the class blog. Surprisingly enough, Wordsworth is even relevant in the field of psychology. Steve Taylor–the author of the article–believes that Wordsworth’s works can be viewed through a psychological perspective. Wordsworth’s writing is the paragon of the evolution of the consciousness during the romantic period; previously, poems had a subject, but Wordsworth made the subject the poet. Through works like “Tintern Abbey”, “The Intimations of Immortality”, and “The 1805 Prelude” Wordsworth captures the moments in which our awareness of self becomes more intense; those existential moments where we become aware of our own presence in the world and the ways that we interact with the things around us. In a way, this connects with the discussion that we had in class about our existential childhood thoughts, the moments where we realized–or at least I realized–that I was not a robot. It is interesting to see connections being made between our modern and scientific understanding of the human consciousness and romantic literature.
I think this is right–that Wordsworth is the poet of a kind of healthy self-consciousness, examining the complexities of moments of intense self-awareness, and mix of feelings (from anxiety and sadness to joy) that they can bring. One of his contributions to the history of literature is to show how this can the the topic of poetry. We take this for granted now, but before Romantic period writing, it’s pretty rare. We see self-consciousness performed on stage in Hamlet, but that’s not quite the same thing.