ABSTRACT
Wiliam Wordsworth's new local poetry, which dominated the 1820 edition of the River Duddon, was local in its details but national in its mission. The local geography, traditions, and people of the Lakes, marked by idiosyncrasy and a narrative of rugged resistance, stood in a synecdochic relationship to an idealized vision of the nation. This landscape was both commonplace and exotic, representative and rare, representative of the nation paradoxically because it was becoming increasingly rare. In a passage that appeared in The Morning Post but that was struck when the letters were republished, William Wordsworth makes clear that the question of taste is a question of class. In chastising those who seek to educate the lower classes through open access to recreation, Wordsworth states: The constitution of society must be examined with reflection. As long as inequalities of private property shall exist, there must be privileges in recreations and amusements.
