Nationalism and Irony: William Wordsworth’s Political Sonnets of 1807

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines William Wordsworth’s political sonnets in his 1807 volume of poetry to reconsider their political implications in post-revolutionary Britain. While critics have viewed these sonnets as evidence of the poet’s embrace of patriotism and conversion to conservative ideology, I argue that his sonnets are far too ironical and (self-)critical to be characterized as jingoistic. In these poems, Wordsworth does not so much endorse patriotism as he critically reflects on its conceptual foundations such as the ideas of the nation and national identity. His sonnets, in particular, dramatize the process by which the poet achieves the “ironical” conception of the nation as a social and cultural construct, by juxtaposing his contrasting, yet supplementary, visions of community: namely, natural nationalism and cultural nationalism.