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Abstract
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This work is relevant to Romantic scholarship because it establishes Wordsworth as a nature poet and as a teacher-poet, in the sense that his work represents a special kind of didacticism. This didactic impulse, far otherwise, is the major purpose of his poetry. It is also a response to the negative stereotype of didactic poetry being preachy in nature. Rather, it shows that, to Wordsworth, his teachings are phenomenological experiences, and are embedded in the very process of reading (Abrams 68–75; Hartman 112–118). this point of view gives a more complete idea of the Romantic mingling of beauty with moral teaching.
The work also has value in the area of phenomenological literary criticism. In its reliance upon the theory of intentionality discussed by Husserl and the focus on perception discussed by Merleau-Ponty, it presents the concepts through which poetry reveals moral truths of lived life (Husserl 7–13; Merleau-Ponty 3–12). In addition, it has pedagogical implications: the concept of learning by Wordsworth as a part of nature, mundane daily life, is similar to the contemporary pedagogical theories that emphasize experiential and transformational learning (Iser 20–29). Accordingly, this Thesis will show that the poetry of Wordsworth is never obsolete preaching but the prototype of the pedagogy of experience in literature.
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