Wordsworth and Cobbett: a Comparison

Abstract

This chapter compares the Golden Age ideals of William Wordsworth and William Cobbett during the Industrial Revolution in England. The common elements of their moral critiques can be gauged from the several heads below. The main concern here is the social perspective involved. Wordsworth and Cobbett are compared as members of the dependent ranks of the old landed order, in general, and the lower-middle ranks of small independent producers, in particular. Or, better still, their similar social and economic beliefs are explained by direct reference to their rural educations and upbringings in Old England. Both men are viewed as representatives of an anti-modernist tradition, in Old England, which was resisting the growth of modern, urban society, on the one hand, and the rise of industrial and commercial capitalism, on the other. Their rural assumptions and experience provide a social and economic framework for understanding the origin and significance of their Golden Age ideals of small-scale farming communities in the Lake Counties and in the south-east of England. They explain the writers’ specific commitment to old standards of rural education, domestic economy, cottage industry, and the cult of the ‘whole man’. Likewise, they explain the writers’ general support of paternal relationships between the ranks of the old landed order, as well as the appearance of populist ideas in their radical, whig and tory creeds: for example, their vehement opposition to the development of class relationships and collective action in the new factory towns, enclosed fields, and commercial centres of the day.