WORDSWORTH’S TREATMENT OF WOMEN IN HIS POETRY

Abstract

Women in the poetry of Wordsworth have always been the centre of interest. It cannot be denied that he was very much influenced by contemporary status of women in society. Women in his personal life, also, had a role to play. But, how did he depict women in his poetry? The objective of this paper is thus to explore the treatment of women in the poetry of Wordsworth. The findings reveal that in Wordsworth’s poetry, women are important but they are never dominating. He maintained this strange balance in his poetry. Although female figures, in Wordsworth, manifest suffering, isolation and alienation, they never fail to occupy the central position. Besides, readers cannot but sympathize and fall in love with these women. Although Wordsworth was not a feminist in the strict sense of the term; his way of paying tribute to women, in a patriarchal social construct, is exemplary