Wordsworth’s Ecclesiastical Heritage

Ecclesiastical Sketches (1822) is an attempt to promote national ecclesiastical unity at a time when Wordsworth considered the Anglican Establishment to be threatened by the prospect of Catholic Emancipation. In preparation for this sonnet series, Wordsworth engaged closely with the work of the Anglo-Saxon scholar, St Bede. This chapter explores the importance of Bede’s eighth-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People as both a model for Wordsworth’s sonnets and as a channel through which he became particularly aware of his heritage as a descendent of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. In this light, the chapter argues for an expanded view of what constitutes Wordsworth’s ‘local’ region, noting that Grasmere was once part of a powerful Kingdom that stretched across the breadth of England. In order to balance his local attachments and appreciation for monasticism with his political opinions, Wordsworth shifts the sonnet form towards the loco-descriptive inscription.