comment-And Then There Were Two-2 And Then There Were Two

Though this paper’s introduction is alarmingly abstract – even returning to it after reading the rest of the essay, I feel more bewildered than oriented – you roll out a wonderfully engaged reading of Tintern Abbey, one that finds a dialogic imperative at its heart. “And then there were two” proves a canny title, applied to a variety of instances here: two moods driving WW (confidence, fear), two realms of contact explored (nature, human), two fates balanced (preservation, extinction), two persons on the scene (William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth), and finally two recipients of the address (Dorothy Wordsworth, you).

A little bit of reordering might help here – you could stick more clearly to an argumentative plot, in which William Wordsworth asserts private providence, cracks appear in his confidence, fear of loneliness creeps in, he turns to Dorothy Wordsworth. Imposing a simpler progression might help you to even more firmly to highlight the stakes of that turn.

It’s a turn that, as you show, undermines claims of an all-sustaining relationship with the nurse/guide/guardian/soulmate that is nature. And yet you prove a most sympathetic reader of William Wordsworth by considering this apposition as the terms of an “internal dialogue” – instead of denouncing him for contradicting himself, you honor the openendedness of Tintern Abbey, a “work in progress.” You might have acknowledged the ways William Wordsworth’s prophetic tone somewhat obscures his experimental approach, but this essay’s sophisticated sense of “thematic displays of dualities” seems to do justice to a poem that does so much shuttling back & forth.

With a more gently paced intro, some reorganization, and the adjustment of a couple of claims about details that seem to ride over their context (ex: the plots of cottage ground, dizzy raptures), your strong insight would be even better served. As it is, this is a compelling reading that seems likely to deepen anyone’s idea of William Wordsworth’s conflicted messages.