Wordsworth's revisionary republicanism, 1792--1816: Beaupuy to 'Dion'

This dissertation examines Wordsworth's sustained attempts to reform and enliven republican political philosophy well after the early spoilage of the French Revolution. I propose that, rather than inviting abandonment and repudiation of radical initiatives, revolutionary failures catalyzed Wordsworth's revisionary engagement with the classical republican tradition whose bright promises had been strongly impressed upon him by French revolutionary actors. Based upon his friendship with Michel Beaupuy and his own broad knowledge of classical literature, I situate Wordsworth's political interests at the confluence of several important themes stemming from the classical republican tradition: (1) the ideal of the ancient lawgiver, (2) the utopian yearning to reinvent republican greatness, (3) self-consciousness about the instability of a demanding, all-or-nothing politic logic and fear of its ironic consequences, and (4) careful scrutiny of ethico-political values. (1) and (2) motivate Wordsworth's career ambitions; (3) and (4) help illuminate the direction of his political thought. The result is a philosophically informed counter-discourse that pits Lucretian-Epicurean biases against Stoical ones, wrests the promise of egalitarian rhetoric from the grip of elitist conventions, and privileges sympathy as the steering ground and symbol of a re-valued republicanism. I track this counter-discourse through its initial adumbration in the Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads (1798), its expansion in the 1802 Preface, the testimony offered by the Prelude (1805) about its continuing appeal, and its utopian presentation in The Excursion (1814). The study concludes by examining the post-Waterloo poem "Dion" (1816) in its capacity as a belated and self-incriminating epitaph of Wordsworth's spent utopian investments in a philosophically rejuvenated republicanism.