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Our Will: A Presence That Disturbs.(criticism of William Wordsworth)(Critical Essay)

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From: ANQ
Date: 20010922
Author:SWINGLE, L. J.

And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts.... ("Tintern Abbey" 93-95)

William Wordsworth's reputation seemed almost transcendentally secure in the early decades of the twentieth century. The fit audience but few that, following Milton, he had tried to cultivate during his own lifetime had built up over the years since his death to the point that by the turn of the century there was quite a mob, an enthusiastic host, wandering about lonely as clouds, musing upon the daffodils of life. "Most serious-minded people," Aldous Huxley announced in ...

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