William Wordsworth's A Letter To The Bishop Of Llandaff

William Wordsworth grew up during an age of revolution. He was born in England in 1770 to a farming family. By the age of thirteen he was orphaned, so he understood the hardships that afflicted the lower classes. He could not help but be touched by the spirit of the times. As a young man, after grammar school, he went on a tour of Europe. This gave him a perspective that many others did not share considering most individuals during this time never travelled very far from the homes they were born in. Wordsworth’s political leanings changed over the years and these changes can clearly be seen in his writing. He wrote about the plight of the common man and admonished, in “A Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff,” Richard Watson for rebuking …show more content…
Previously, the Bishop supported the revolution and therefore Wordsworth considered him a hypocrite and traitor to the cause. Wordsworth took offense to the bishop’s apparent change of heart. He did not publish the letter, perhaps because “A Proclamation against seditious writing was made in May 1792, and in December Thomas Paine…was found guilty of sedition for having written The Rights of Man, Part Second” (Unknown, 43). He readily identifies himself as a republican in the full title of the letter, “A Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff on the Extraordinary avowal of his Political Principles contained in the Appendix to his late Sermon by a Republican” (Wordsworth, “Prose” 48). Throughout the letter he defends the sentiments of the rebellion and the drive of the common people to have a say in their government. He writes, “the safety of the people, her supreme law, is her consolation” (Wordsworth, “Prose” 52). The “her” in this line is referring to “true Liberty” and he insinuated that the people need a say in “her supreme law.” Wordsworth states in his letter, “you would rather have regretted that the blind fondness of his people had placed a human being in that monstrous situation which rendered him …show more content…
Additionally, within “The Preface” lies the heart of the French Revolution, the common man. At this point in his life Wordsworth may have been losing some of his more radical political leanings, but the basis of that revolutionary spirit, the plight of the common man was still very much an idea that stuck with Wordsworth. In the “Preface” he writes, “Low and rustic life was generally chosen because in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language” (Wordsworth, “Lyrical” 174). He held the common man in high regard and these feelings were leftover from the ideologies he held so close to his heart during the start of the French Revolution. English Professor Yu Liu writes, “Wordsworth had early imbibed a deep respect and admiration for the ordinary working people” (Liu 747). William Wordsworth wanted to lift the working people of Europe up and connect to them through his poetry, but in order to do this he had to separate himself from the violence and death that came from the