Abstract

The meaning of "community" in William Wordsworth's poems deserves further exploration. Recent studies have shown an increasing interest in Wordsworth's thoughts and feelings regarding community. Of all the ongoing debates, the most interesting is the one between Lucy Newlyn and Simon J. White. In an article whose subtitle is "Community in The Prelude," Newlyn argues that in writing The Prelude Wordsworth's "aim was nothing less than to show how the foundations of a benevolent society might be laid using 'the growth of the poet's mind' as the starting point. Self, as he understood it, was best seen in terms of its responsibilities to community."1 This view is challenged by White who, on the one hand, acknowledges...