Sympathetic Communal Ethics and the Poetics of Unproductivity in Wordsworth’s Early Poems

Abstract

Topics like community, sympathy, and unproductivity are meaningful to offer clues to figuring out how Wordsworth’s communal ethics is responsive to the societal problems of the poor and charity. These topics, first of all, give a vantage point from which one could rethink what it means to be community. Through his early poems, Wordsworth articulates his idea of community as a response, and a viable alternative, to the problems he sees in his contemporary government. More specifically, conjoining charity, poverty, and economic discourse, the poet addresses precisely the issue of unproductivity. The force of unproductivity inherent in both language and charity provides an antidote to utilitarian belief in the nature of poverty and charity contemporary with the poor laws in his poem. This essay begins with a basic question: how are the economical, linguistic implications of unproductivity expanded to comprehend the workings of the charitable responsibilities in the community?