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stood to the poetical literature of England in the immediately 

 preceding age, and what new elements he introduced into it, by 

 his twofold interpretation of nature and man. 



[I omit the earlier paragraphs of this Lecture, which dealt 

 exclusively with the first of these two points — the life and 

 individuality of the poet — since that has been often and ably 

 unfolded : and I pass to the second of the questions raised in the 

 preceding sentence.] 



I have now to ask, What was it that Wordsworth did for 

 literature and for the world, as no poet before him had done, and 

 no one need attempt to do again 1 What, in other words, were 

 the distinctive elements of his genius and his power, constituting 

 him a teacher for all time 1 It is a large question, and one to 

 which many lectures might be devoted. 



It is to him, beyond question, that we mainly owe the 

 nineteenth century renaissance, in the poetical literature of England. 

 The so-called poets of the eighteenth century were simply " men of 

 letters." They had various accomplishments, and great general 

 ability ; but their thoughts were expressed in /rose, or in mere 

 metrical diction, which, in the low ebb tide of creative imagination, 

 passed current as poetry, without being so. Towards the close of 

 the century, however, there was a reaction, and a quickening of 

 mind, which took shape in many different directions. One of its 

 most prominent signs was a rise in the poetical temperature. 

 This may be traced mainly to two great European influences ; to 

 the growth of modern German philosophy, and to the social and 

 political forces that culminated in the French Revolution. In 

 Germany Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, and Jean Paul, were all the 

 products of this movement. A new way of looking both at Nature 

 and Society had been inaugurated by Rousseau, and our insular 

 mind — never long unaffected by the great pulse of European 

 thought — caught the contagion, and responded sympathetically in 

 many ways, carrying forward the stream of tendency, to new and 

 original issues. Amongst the poets, in whom we trace the working 

 of the new spirit, themselves influenced from very diverse quarters, 



