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Wordsworth versus Darwin (series)

Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Photo: Charles Darwin in 1855, by Maull and Polyblank, Literary and Scientific Portrait Club, via Wikimedia Commons.

William Wordsworth’s Posthumous Challenge to Darwinian Nihilism

Paradoxically, Wordsworth's theology may have formed a more effective counterforce to Darwin's ideas than Biblical orthodoxy itself. Read More ›
Charles_Bradlaugh_Statue_Northampton
Photo: Statue of Charles Bradlaugh, Northampton, England, by en:User:Cj1340, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Wordsworth and the Faith of the Victorians

Even Charles Bradlaugh, the first atheist member of Parliament, was haunted by the psalmist’s reproach, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Read More ›
William Wordsworth
Image: William Wordsworth, by William Shuter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Apotheosis of William Wordsworth

What many responded to in Wordsworth’s evocations of Nature’s sacrality was his restoration of a partially obscured link between Nature and the divine. Read More ›
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Photo: Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Josiah Johnson Hawes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Wordsworth: Disciples at Home and Abroad

In 1848 Ralph Waldo Emerson is on record as having paid a return visit to the then aged Wordsworth. Read More ›
Lake District
Image: Lake District, 1825, by John Parker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Wordsworth: The Sage of the Lakes

Wordsworth gave rise not just to a minority group of high-culture admirers but to a popular revolution in ordinary people’s thinking. Read More ›
Tintern Abbey
Image: Tintern Abbey, by J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

A Wordsworthian Disciple: William Hale White

Many reported being “converted” to a Wordsworthian view of the world after reading him. Read More ›
Tintern Abbey
Photo: Tintern Abbey, by Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Darwin, Wordsworth, and Natural Theology

I give here a short sample of just one of the passages in “Tintern Abbey” where Wordsworth reports undergoing what might be described as a moment of epiphany. Read More ›
William Wordsworth
Image: William Wordsworth, by Benjamin Haydon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Natural Revelation and Natural Selection: Wordsworth versus Darwin

It has long been recognized that the many hymns to Nature in the poetic works of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) convey an implicit belief in natural theology. Read More ›

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