ABSTRACT
The greatest commonplace, repeated often enough, becomes a cultural fact of some significance, and in William. Wordsworth’s probing of the resonances of the idea of liberty in the Prelude, for example, it was to that culture, to the feelings and associations evoked in that popular clamour, that he addressed himself. Wotton had commended that “true Enthusiastick Rage which Liberty breathes into their Souls who enjoy it”, inspiring men with lofty thoughts and elevating their souls to a “higher Pitch than the Rules of Art can direct”, and Dennis, while reserving religion as the highest source of inspiration, ascribed poetic Elevation to the influence of liberty. Freedom-in-nature and political freedom itself are reviewed in turn and passed over, each significant in evoking capacities and fostering desire, yet each gesturing towards worlds unrealised, gestures fulfilled only at the highest level, in Wordsworth’s “genuine liberty” of imagination.
