The Origins of British Romanticism: Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—

A Poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And they my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.
  1. British Political Theory and British Empricism: Hobbes and Locke (1632-1704)
    1. Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan (1651): Life in a state of nature would be "…nasty, poor, brutish, and short."
    2. Life, Liberty, and Property
    3. Materialism in Knowledge
  1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78): Proto-Romantic Philosopher and Increased Rights
    1. The Discourse on Inequality (1755)
    2. The Social Contract
      3. (1762): "Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains."
    3. The Problem of the Confessions
    4. Jefferson’s Pursuit of Happiness.
      5.
  1. Edmund Burke (1729-1797) and the Nature of Political Principle
    1. Whigs and Tories
    2. A Man of Contradictions
    3. Burkean Conservatism
  1. Burke’s Revolution: The Disagreement with Price
    1. Richard Price, author of A Discourse on the Love of Our Country
    1. "to chuse our own governors"
    2. "to cashier them for misconduct"
    3. "to frame a government for ourselves"
    1. Burke’s Refutation
    2. Giving Tradition a Voice