William Wordsworth’s sense of self and future depend on his sensibility as a poet. Sensibility, in a Romantic sense, is the vulnerability to emotional movement and the ‘sensible’ were prone to having grand emotional reactions to even the most insignificant of things, which could be perceived by them as emotional. Wordsworth, in his poem “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”, shows a large dose of sensibility in his musings on nature and his place in the world. He shows great emphasis on reflecting on the past, and moving mindfully into the future, while also remaining connected to nature, and enjoying the simpler things in life, without becoming caught up in the “rash judgements, nor the sneers of evil men” (ll. 130, pg. 185, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature). This reflection on the past allows for future growth and progress that is otherwise abandoned in the name of precedent, without consideration for the modern day. Mary Wollstonecraft, a writer in the same period as Wordsworth, also notes the past as a barrier for moving forward, and despite arguing for a very different reason, they both hold the view that to be able to move forward and understand that the present is ever changing is important to both the political and the poetic worlds.

In his lyrical ballad, “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth pays close attention to the nature around him, and the beauty of the natural world. He explores his past, remarking that, “the heavy and the weary weight / Of all this unintelligible world is lightened” when he comes to the Abbey and is able to escape (ll. 40-1, pg.184, BABL). The ability to escape from the bustling cities and relax into a spot of grass under a tree is of great importance to Wordsworth, and demonstrates his sensibility. He finds appreciation in the little things in life, and is able to draw a varied emotional response from nature and his surroundings. In the city, Wordsworth is often overwhelmed by the noise, but writes that the memories of the abbey are “felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,” a statement that is very emotionally stirring. To love something so much he feels it in his heart, in his blood, is very Romantic and Sensible of him. 

Wollstonecraft was often a political writer, as shown by her work, “A Vindication of the Rights of Men”. Here, she provides a rebuttal to Edmund Burke, a British Loyalist who despises women and the poor. Wollstonecraft, opening her argument with an accusation that Burke had, “a mortal antipathy to reason,” continued on to say that “to reverence the rust of antiquity” was to allow the government and society to grow corrupt and to rot (pg. 63, BABL). Her view of the past is far less kind than Wordsworth’s, and yet there is some overlap here. Wordsworth, while showing a gentle spirit that appreciates nature, also sought to combat the ever-growing pressure to remain steadfast in the “overtly artificial language” that poems were written in (pg. 175, BABL). Here, Wollstonecraft and Wordsworth both desire to leave behind the precedents of the past, and seek to create a new way of living and writing that embraces change and uplifts the disenfranchised. 

Wordsworth seeks to show that poetry is overrun by “gaudiness and inane phraseology,” which speaks to the high expectations set and maintained by elitist poets in order to keep the more impoverished out of poetry (pg. 176, BABL). By using common language and writing about the experiences and passions of the average man, Wordsworth subverts the notion that the past is all that should influence the present. He argues that the present should also be impactful. Wollstonecraft, in her vindication, notes that “the civilization which has taken place in Europe has been very partial… And what has stopped its progress? – hereditary property – hereditary honours…” (pg. 64, BABL). Wollstonecraft unintentionally supports Wordsworth’s point here, despite advocating for the voices of the poor and rebuking Burke for his “tyrannic spirit”, and not the ability to write in a modern, succinct tone that doesn’t alienate the lower classes, they both want the same thing (pg. 64, BABL). They want the lower classes to be part of society, and to be able to appreciate things the same way. “Hereditary honours” are the root of the problem in both cases (pg. 64, BABL). Honoring the past in such a way that isolates people in the present is a reasoning that both Wordsworth and Wollstonecraft resent, and seek to eliminate in their own worlds.