Wonders in the Deep: Sailors and the Imagination in the Poetry of William Wordsworth

Keywords: Wordsworth; Poetry; Romanticism; maritime; sailor The poetry of William Wordsworth is haunted by rootless mariners, filled with elevated powers of imagination and a fervent desire to share their gothic tales. Wordsworth’s sailor poems may be grouped into four classes: those in which a sailor or sailing features prominently throughout the poem (with “The Thorn” as the exemplar case); those in which a sailor or sailing features prominently in one part of the poem; those in which a sailor is missed by his family and friends; and those in which ships are observed, but sailors do not appear. Yet despite sailors’ quasi-poetic abilities, derived from their sublime experiences upon the waves, they are ultimately unable to articulate their experiences. Wordsworth’s sailors are imaginative, yet highly emotional; compelled to repeat their stories, but uninterested in dialogue; and eager to be heard, but incapable of integrating themselves into the community. They possess numerous poetic gifts, but their lyrical potential is stymied by the very qualities that lead them to sea in the first place. Their vast capacity for imagination and disposition to self-expression notwithstanding, sailors’ physical rootlessness and disinterest in community correspond to an inability to ground their words. Much as they wander across land and sea, they drift across the surface of language itself, never settling upon a solid meaning