Conceptual Basis for William Wordsworth’s Rejection to Science. Computational Analysis of the Lexicon in The Prelude

Abstract

Much of the literary criticism devoted to interpreting the work of W. Wordsworth tries, on the one hand, to overcome and moderate, or, on the other hand, to directly accept the manifest opposition against science and scientific practices that the poet maintains, mainly throughout his work The Prelude. I will examine the conceptual basis of such hostile attitude by digitally analyzing the lexicon used in this work. The results obtained permit confirming Wordsworth’s hostility towards science, and more precisely, the prejudice that modern science would not allow a humanized perception of nature. But I argue that this attitude is due to a latent enchanted worldview, in a Weberian sense, more suitable for the sentimental description than for the perception and description of the natural landscape based on the explanatory knowledge of nature.