ABSTRACT
Wordsworth as he has appeared so far has been the poet of Fortitude rather than Nature, and of perturbed compassion rather than joy. The most deeply felt poems up to now have been dedicated to endurance and to tenderness, an endurance that must continue past the ultimate thresholds: desertion, poverty, the certainty of loneliness, death. The lyrical ballad, however, is only one of Wordsworth's poetic forms during this period. The opening of The Prelude also seems to have Coleridge's 'Frost at Midnight' in mind. The wooden Miltonese, the confident dressing-up of approved public theory in approved poetic costume Coleridge made the responsive vehicle for a genuine self-communion. 'Tintern Abbey' follows it as a Wordsworthian comment and companion-piece. 'Tintern Abbey' takes its cue from 'Frost at Midnight'. The basic Wordsworthian concern is with the transactions that take place between the living person and his environment.
