The environmental ethic in Wordsworth's poetry

Abstract

Wordsworth's poetry, with its emphasis on the independent existence and consciousness of nature , has a distinctive place in the Romantic movement. His interest in the external world is not, of course, totally new and original. He prefers to take man, nature and society as the main sources and subjects of his poetry. However, the way Words worth handles his themes is revolutionary and unique. Nature, for him, is an in dependent and self - sufficient presence having its own consciousness and the ref ore it is treated exclusively in various parts of his poetry. Man, like other beings, belongs to the larger family of nature in terms of both his individual and social existence. In this context, Words worth's poetry functions as an insistent reminder that man ought to adapt himself as well as his society to the broader order of nature.