Lessons from William Wordsworth on Leadership and Strong Citizenship

 

Lessons from William Wordsworth on 

Leadership and Strong Citizenship

Jesse Bluma at Pointe Viven.  All rights reserved.

William Wordsworth’s body of work serves as a sophisticated blueprint for social reform and civic life.  He was not an idle dreamer of the pastoral, rather Wordsworth a proponent of a disciplined, virtuous spirit essential for civic rectitude.  By bridging the 19th-century (1800s) Romantic aesthetic with our modern ethical imperatives, we derive lessons on how the "immortal Spirit" of a people is sustained through the exercise of moral power.

In the "Character of the Happy Warrior", Wordsworth offers a profound meditation on the temperament of the virtuous agent.  Contrary to the paradigm that equates leadership with unyielding force or stoic aggression, Wordsworth posits that true authority is rooted in a synthesis of strength and compassion.  The lesson here is that the ideal leader becomes "more alive to tenderness" precisely because he is exposed to common and widespread challenges and conflicts in communities.

Similarly, Anglican cleric John Donne (1572-1631) noted, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”.  In other words, living in, supporting, and participating in community strengthens ourselves as well as the religious, business, judicial, educational, and political spheres within our world and much more.  Successful communities, resilient communities, are dependent on a conscious and well-intentioned public.  

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This is not a matter of passive sentimentality.  Wordsworth promulgated the "exercise of a power" that subdues and transmutes bad influences into moral good.  The leader remains "placable" as a disciplined choice of the soul.  By turning the "necessity" of pain into "glorious gain," the leader preserves his humanity in the face of conflict, ensuring that his authority remains redemptive rather than destructive.

"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,

And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

...

Thence, also, more alive to tenderness."

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In "To the Spade of a Friend," Wordsworth highlighted Thomas Wilkinson, a Quaker friend whose "industry of body and of mind" led him to refuse the lures of trade and commerce to remain on the "old track".  Wilkinson spent his leisure hours shaping pleasant walks by the river Emont, a localized act of service that Wordsworth elevates to the level of high virtue.

The lesson for modern civic life is that social health is a prerequisite of manual and mental labor applied to one’s immediate community.  The "humble Spade" is a more noble trophy than the sword because it represents a commitment to beautification and scaffolding rather than conquest.  Wordsworth suggests that the quiet rectitude of the volunteer who improves his neighborhood is the true engine of social stability.

"That man will have a trophy, humble Spade!

A trophy nobler than a conqueror's sword."

Wordsworth identified the challenge and internal conflict of the "weight of too much liberty".  In the sonnet "Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room," he explored the benefits of self-imposed discipline and specific civic duty.  He argued that structure is helpful for the soul, providing the necessary focus for the pursuit of truth.

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For the modern leader or volunteer, this is a call to localism.  Solace is found not in unanchored globalist abstraction, rather by committing to a "scanty plot of ground".  By choosing to be "bound" within the narrow room of a specific duty, the individual finds genuine liberty through the structure of service.

"Pleased if some Souls...

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find brief solace there, as I have found."

The health and wellness of the community frequently depends upon the "obstinate hill" of reform, a toilsome and often "dire" path.  Wordsworth’s own life and the lives of those in his communal network, individuals like Thomas Clarkson and Raisley Calvert, illustrate the virtues nature of service.  Clarkson, the "intrepid liegeman" of duty, dedicated his life to the "dire" task of Abolition, a struggle for truth and human dignity that eventually won the "palm" for all nations.

Equally vital, was the civic act of financial patronage exemplified by Raisley Calvert.  Faced with the "hopeless wasting" of his health, Calvert bequeathed £900 to Wordsworth, a sum that saved the poet from being "forced into one of the professions" and enabled his lifelong work.  This bequest was not mere charity; it was a strategic investment in the future.  Both the public citizen and the private benefactor serve as "yoke-fellows of Time," proving that service requires both the courage to climb the hill and the foresight to support those who do.

"O true yoke-fellow of Time,

Duty's intrepid liegeman, see, the palm

Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!"

Discover the poetry that shaped the modern world by William Wordsworth.  Purchase essential works on Amazon for your collection.

The overarching philosophy of Wordsworth’s literary ethics is distilled in the maxim: "small service is true service".  Using the metaphor of the "unpretending Rill," he contrasts the quiet, persistent stream with the "overweening" greatness of the Ganges or the Nile.  While the world fixes its gaze on the monumental, the "immortal Spirit" of a community is actually built through the accumulation of individual, unpretending acts of service.  Wordsworth argued that resilient societies are not the products of "overweening Statesmen," rather of the "quietness secure" and "pure enjoyments" fostered by the common citizen.

Bibliography

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“MORAL AND NATURAL VALUES IN THE WRITINGS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND RALPH WALDO EMERSON.”  International Journal Impact Factor.

The Project Gutenberg Ebook of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne., www.gutenberg.org/files/23772/23772-h/23772-h.htm. 

The Project Gutenberg Ebook of the Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Volume IV (of 8), by William Wordsworth, www.gutenberg.org/files/32459/32459-h/32459-h.htm.