Thesis
Seeing green: nature and human relationships with the environment in Wordsworth
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2009
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101081
Abstract
This thesis examines William Wordsworth's writing about the physical environment of the Lakes in his Guide to the Lakes and in his early poetry. My first chapters make a case for the relevance of the Guide to Wordsworth studies in general and, more particularly, to critical discussions about the social and political references that pervade the poetry of the 1790s. I endeavor to characterize Wordsworth's views of the Lakes in terms of ecology and examine the relationship between human social structures and nature as he understood it in the Guide. Overall, my work attempts to synthesize Wordsworth's politics with his views on the environment. The Preface to Lyrical Ballads, "The Ruined Cottage," "Michael," and "Book 1" of the Excursion provide a means by which readers can understand the interplay between changes in the social and political milieu of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and gradual alteration of the landscape in Wordsworth's creative work. Of these productions the Preface and "Ruined Cottage" are singled out as particularly important sites for complex interaction between people and nature.
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Details
- Title
- Seeing green
- Creators
- Hillary M. Roberts
- Contributors
- Debbie Lee (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525387801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis