William Wordsworth Research Paper

Introduction

Amongst the dogmatic religious past, which when confronted by the enlightened present became more rigid in its practice and conformity, and enduringly factual and empirical science lived a man called William Wordsworth, so sentimental and philosophic that even greater minds couldn’t solve completely the cipher that his word created, or rather couldn’t completely understand the legacy that he left for the modern era. Even when heard or looked upon different meaning and various analogies appear into the mind of people to which it soothes.

William Wordsworth, born on 7 April 1770, saw England revolutionize and succumbed to the unpredictable freedom; he walked with an expression of a wanderer with revolution in his mind and heart.

Even then such similarities between both seem hard to explain if not looked closely into Wordsworth’s life history. He have seen a lot ups and down with the death of his parent at an early age as well death of siblings, hardened maternal family where he even thought of committing suicide, and the glory and the failure of French Revolution. Many people came and went from his life, many prominent persons, which helped him in his inspiration but there was one person who made the hugest impact. Many say it was Coleridge who was with him at the time of his most creative days but it should be wrong to call him his inspiration. They both worked side by side, enhancing each other’s capacity but his inspiration was another man whom he met during his time in Paris around French Revolution. This man has been on a walking tour from Madras, through Arabia and Persia, across Africa and all of Europe up to North America and Canada. This man was John ‘Walking’ Stewart (1747-1822) a man famous for his materialist philosophy called “The Apocalypse of Nature” published in 1791. This man was hugely inspired by Indian philosophy which talks about the atomistic philosophy which says that every particle however minute or inert has consciousness, which had earlier been expressed by David

Here a mystical quality is given to this man who is the real inspiration behind Wordsworth’s philosophy of nature. He calls him a knight of Arabian Desert and describes his knowledge of stars as like God. There is a certain admiration with which he has written about Stewart.

Stewart talked about constant material change that takes place in a body influencing a moral change with every change of body, composing and decomposing itself with each second passing. He was rambling inspiration to Wordsworth who first met him amidst the revolutionary days. And when a dejected Wordsworth return back to England with his daughter estranged across the neighbouring country with no hope to see her ever, at this time the effect of Stewart was established completely.

He was the philosophical guru of Wordsworth as said by Kelly Grover in her article “Dream Walker: A Wordsworth Mystery