Wordsworth wrote that he longed to compose ‘some philosophic Song / Of
Truth that cherishes our daily life.’ Yet he never finished The Recluse, his long
philosophical poem. Simon Jarvis argues that Wordsworth’s aspiration to
‘philosophic song’ is central to his greatness, and changed the way English poetry
was written. Some critics see Wordsworth as a systematic thinker, while for
others, he is a poet first, and a thinker only (if at all) second. Jarvis shows instead
how essential both philosophy and the ‘song’ of poetry were to Wordsworth’s
achievement. Drawing on advanced work in continental philosophy and social
theory to address the ideological attacks which have dominated much recent
commentary, Jarvis reads Wordsworth’s writing both critically and philosophically,
to show how Wordsworth thinks through and in verse. This study rethinks
the relation between poetry and society itself by analysing the tensions between
thinking philosophically and writing poetry.