Wordsworth's Bardic Vocation, the most comprehensive critical study of
the poet since the 1960s, presents the poet as balladist, sonneteer,
minstrel, elegist, prophet of nature, and national bard. The book argues
that Wordsworth's uniquely various oeuvre is unified by his sense of
bardic vocation. Like Walt Whitman or the bards of Cumbria, Wordsworth
sees himself as 'the people's remembrancer'. Like them, he sings of
nature and endurance, laments the fallen, fosters national independence
and liberty. His task is to reconcile in one society 'the living and the
dead' and to nurture both 'the people' and 'the kind'. Review Comment:
'This erudite exposition, profligate with its ideas ... succeeds as few
others have done in apprehending Wordsworth's career holistically,
incorporating all its diversities and apparent inconsistencies into a
unified vision. It justifies fully the notion proposed by Hughes and
Heaney that he was England's last national poet.' - Duncan Wu, Review of
English Studies