On The Sense Of Human Suffering In William Wordsworth's Poetry

William Wordsworth is generally regarded by the readers and critics as a great nature poet. Very few of them, however, seem to have noticed the fact that he pays more attention to country folks' hard life. So it is easily found that most of his poems on man describe human suffering, in which he expresses apparently his attraction to the humble and lower people—the old, the insane, beggars, idiot children, unmarried mothers and shows unmistakably his strong compassion for their misfortunes.This thesis is primarily a study of Wordsworth's poetry of human suffering. First it deals with the definition of Wordsworth's poetry of human suffering and its features. Wordsworth's poetry of human suffering is concerned with social-edged characters, whose keynote is composed of death and tragedy. Then it traces the trajectory of origin of Wordsworth's poetry of humans suffering. Through investigating his life experience and historical background, it may be known that Wordsworth's life was full of sorrows and pains. During an age of great turbulence, his inner world was filled with sadness. As to cultural factor, Wordsworth was greatly influenced by the 18^th British sentimental poetry. Subsequently, it is devoted to exploring Wordsworth's humanistic ideas in his poetry of human suffering. By analyzing his solicitude for human eco-environment, his criticism for inharmonious human society and his effort to amend the alienated human nature, the thesis aims at drawing a conclusion that the sense of human suffering is the major characteristic of Wordsworth's poetry, so he is also a humanistic poet.This thesis hopes to exert some potential significance to contemporary society. When Chinese people are puzzled in industrialization and modernization, Wordsworth has been prophetic enough to foresee the problems that are now harassing the modern man today, such as environmental protection, and the degradation of human nature. In his poetry, Wordsworth's strong proposition of building up a harmonious human society and advocacy to adjust to human-nature relationship offer some kind of referential solutions to the predicament in our contemporary society.