Choice of Wordsworth’s Verse

R. S. Thomas distinguishes in the Introduction to his selection of Wordsworth’s poetry between the ‘flat, rather featureless, often mawkish verse with which the poet dutifully exemplified his theories of language, and that very great poetry ‘soaring into the upper air of the spirit’ with which Wordsworth transcended his theories and became a supreme poet of atmosphere.

Most will agree that R. S. Thomas is among the best qualified of living poets to judge that distinction and illuminate it in the choice he makes of Wordsworth’s verse.