The Sympathetic Sublime: The Unknown and the Universal in the Poetry of William Wordsworth

Authors

Aidan Raudenbush, Binghamton University--SUNY

Publication Date

2024

Document Type

Book

Description

In an 1818 letter, John Keats critiqued the “wordsworthian or egotistical sublime,” an approach that transforms every subject in a poem into an extension of the self. Even as Wordsworth studies have evolved, Keats’s charge has remained influential. Sympathy in Wordsworth’s poetry is often frustrated, especially in encounters with solitary rural figures. The result of this frustration does not proliferate the egotistical sublime, but rather generates what is referred to as the sympathetic sublime. In this sublime, the unknowable experience of the other imbues them with irreducible yet universal value. In readings of “The Old Cumberland Beggar” and “The Solitary Reaper,” among other poems, this research explores how the sympathetic sublime functions as a key tenet of Wordsworthian philosophy. This tenet is not a self-absorbed aesthetic, but a vision of human worth, where a person’s value cannot be measured by the utilitarian metrics gaining favor in an industrializing Britain.

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Recommended Citation

Raudenbush, Aidan, "The Sympathetic Sublime: The Unknown and the Universal in the Poetry of William Wordsworth" (2024). Research Days Posters 2024. 151.
https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2024/151