ABSTRACT
Wordsworth's three supreme achievements are the Lyrical Ballads of 1798 and 1800, The Prelude as first completed in 1805, and the Poems, in Two Volumes published in 1807. The present study is offered in the conviction that one can learn to read Wordsworth with a perception and enthusiasm like theirs, and that his best work deserves all the effort which can be brought to bear upon it. The main emphasis in this study will be on Wordsworth's characteristic way with words, but it will be clear throughout that the process of learning to appreciate his distinctive style is not only an aesthetic but a moral education. Matthew Arnold was of course right: there are vast areas of experience which Wordsworth deliberately neglects and which other writers have dealt with. All of his works from shortest lyric, through lyrical ballad, to The Prelude come fully to life only when they are heard, aloud or at least in the mind's ear.
