In Wordsworth’s 1799 Two-Part Prelude, the poet achieves sincerity by speaking to the reader as a recollecting man instead of a poet. His sincerity begins with self-doubt in the form of rhetorical questions. He is uncertain as to why he has such powerful childhood recollections. He is curious if the only reason he experienced them was to write them into poetry. And he is dissatisfied that poetry, sola logos, is the only way to poetically express these fond recollections. Ideally, Wordsworth would choose a different vocation to express
himself other than poetry. As he meditates, his self-doubt grows into poetic paralysis and he ultimately chooses to expand The Prelude rather than complete The Recluse, for the past is comforting to him, and the future is terrifying. Wordsworth prefers the unmediated recollections of pure nature and childhood over the analytical subjects of The Recluse, the personal over the impersonal. He struggles to be his sincere, non-poetic, experiencing self, but poetry as a form makes it difficult. Ultimately, Wordsworth is most sincere when he is deriding (explicitly or latently) the art he is most known for.

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The sincerity with which we are concerned in the Two-Part Prelude is the union of interior feeling and conviction, with the external manifestation of that feeling. In other words, is this poetry written in a way that truly conveys to the reader what is in the poet’s mind? And more importantly, does it “make sense” well enough (Milnes 121)? Li-onel Trilling has called sincerity the “congruence between avowal and actual feeling” (Trilling 2), avowal being the medium of poetry.
 

Guilhamet has revealed the procedural difficult with writing sincere poetry by seeing sincerity in terms of “the conflict between the formal qualities of poetry and the ‘real’ self of the poet” (Guilhamet 269). The struggle with sincere poetry , then, is inherent in the demands that poetry puts on the poet. It seems that the ideal effusive poem, not bound by form by still reliant on the word, would be a continuous single line, in a Molly Bloom stream-of-consciousness style. Wordsworth is aware of these difficulties, and in proclaiming that all good poetry “is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wu 514), struggles with form and diction to convey truly what is going on in his mind. His conception of poetry, after all, focuses on the poet and his mind, not external subjects. Largely unprecedented in poetic history, as David Perkins says, “neither Pope nor his predecessors would have dreamed of asking themselves the dreadful question: is my poetry sincere?” (Perkins 1).

One method by which Wordsworth attempts to be sincere is questioning. By asking rhetorical questions, Wordsworth situates himself not as an obstinate sage-poet, but as a “man speaking to men.” He questions whether his blissful, natural childhood was in vain for his current status as an anxious poet. He also questions throughout how, and even if, to write the poem for which the present one is a prelude, in a shocking likeness to Byron and his “Difficulty of Beginning” (Mole). These questions combat the restrictive form of poetry and let Wordsworth speak to the reader sincerely because they reveal uncertainty.

The fact that Wordsworth begins his autobiography with a question is irony enough. Immediately it shows the poet’s uncertainty with his task. Considering how vivid Wordsworth’s impressions of his childhood are, we should expect a definitive starting locus of his life. And considering his confidence that these memories have broad implications for the life of the mind, such as the “spots of time” (I. 288-296), or the “two consciousness” that seem to arise when an adult thinks of his or her childhood (II. 30), we should expect the beginning of the poem to sound like it comes from a confident, theoretical poet. But the rest of the poem shows that Wordsworth is concerned with passive recollection. His greater responsibility, to write on the great debates of science, philosophy, and religion in The Recluse, is given a back seat. Ultimately, the self-doubt that is manifest in his questions and his style of describing memories indicates poetic paralysis, resulting in the failure to write The Recluse.

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That Wordsworth’s rhetorical questions reveal his self-doubt is well-known. If he were truly confident in his self-epic, the “birth of a hero” as Geoffrey Hartman calls it (Johnston 11), he would certainty not question the use of the task at hand. He would write more in the style of Milton, who leaves behind an analysis of his own mind to pursue an argument about external matters. John T. Ogden has said that the question “indicates self-questioning, self-doubt, self-reproach. It appears to be rhetorical: of course it was not for this” (Ogden 372). But Wordsworth never explicitly tells us what “this” is. Daniel Shore has even entertained that the poem begins mid-sentence, that the antecedent is in the ether (Shore 398). Hartman, though, and John A. Hodgson who follows him, come closest by asserting that “this” refers to “this poem” (the Two-Part Prelude) (Hodgson 131, Johnston 13, Ogden 372). All these critics see the question, and indeed the entire poem, mainly as a complaint about Wordsworth the man. In other words, “this” primarily refers to the present poem and, for Hartman, has an existential connotation; Wordsworth questions why he is alive (Johnston 11). But they do not take it far enough, for they ignore the poem’s status as a “prelude.” The question “Was it for this?” is related to Wordsworth’s task of writing what could have been the gigantic Recluse. Specifically, the question refers to Wordsworth’s poetic paralysis in the face of such a task. Throughout the Two-Part Prelude, he attempts to justify his ability to complete the task. But he ultimately confesses to paralyzing anxiety. It is this union between inner turmoil and poetic questioning which makes the Two-Part Prelude sincere.

Wordsworth was obsessed with preparing to write The Recluse. In the Preface to The Excursion, Wordsworth says he writes The Prelude to “take a review of his [sic] own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such an employment”
(Wordsworth). He hopes “his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself” (Wordsworth). His preparation overrides his aspirations, resulting in the incomplete Recluse. But readers of the Two-Part Prelude should have seen this coming. For Wordsworth is not only obsessed with preparing, but is obsessed with his past. At the end of the first part of the poem, he says “I began my story early, feeling, as I fear, the weakness of a human love for days disowned by memory” (I. 443-445). He longs for the past. Devoting his future to philosophical contemplation unrelated to himself seems unimaginable.

At this point, Wordsworth seems uncertain if he is worthy to write The Recluse. Simply testing himself to see if he has the mental power and experience to embark is a sign that he has already convinced himself that he is unworthy. There is a hopeful turn, though, during which Wordsworth believes that the past will actually help his future endeavors. Specifically, he hopes to find “reproaches” from his childhood, “whose power may spurn [him] on...to honourable toil” (I. 450-452). In a final turn of uncertainty, though, we find a Wordsworthian rhetorical question, but one that is certain in its answer of “yes.” He asks, “Yet should it be that this is but an impotent desire, that I by such inquiry am not taught to better understand myself?” (I. 453-456). If we read this as Wordsworth’s desire to embark on The Recluse, by asking this rhetorical question, he has convinced himself that the prospect is futile. He is kept back by his desire to dwell on his past.

There is a reason why Wordsworth dwells so much on his past, completing The Prelude instead of turning his attention to the future world of ideas that could have been The Recluse. He is afraid of the future, afraid of poetic ambition, afraid of not talking about himself, and ultimately afraid of the unknown and death. We can see his attachment to the past first in his repetition of “I remember” and its variations: “I remember well” (I. 296), “Nor less do I recollect” (I. 328), “Nor...may I well forget” (I. 375-379), “Yes, I remember” (I. 391). Rather than simply stating what he remembers, he is insistent on assuring the reader that he remembers it. In a realistic, and sincere, gesture of story-telling, Wordsworth shows his anxiety that (1) we will not believe him and (2) the constant flow of memories which, if not tempered, will keep going. It is only the interruption of the rhetorical question at the end of the first part which provides a respite for his memory.

We also see his attachment to the past in the last line of the first part. After questioning whether he should abandon talking about his childhood, he calls those years “a visible scene on which the sun is shining” (I. 463-464). Lightness and sun are significant for Wordsworth. Later in the second part, he talks of the dearness which he feels for “visible things” (II. 216). He also “began to love the sun...(as a pledge and surety of our earthly life, a light which while I view I feel I am alive)” (II. 217-221). Light is an important phenomenological symbol. In a mutated Cartesian experience, if he sees light he knows he

is alive. For Wordsworth, the past is light and the future is dark. His sureness of memory is juxtaposed with his questioning of the future. And as he shows in his conclusion to the second part, he expresses no confidence in humanity but only in “thine, oh nature!” (II. 492). There is a hidden pessimism here, then, which first manifests itself in Wordsworth’s dejected questioning, and then in his wincing at poetic labor.

Wordsworth’s self-doubt, fear of future, and poetic paralysis are all elements of the poetry’s sincerity. They are elements of sincerity because they are anti-performative and signal that there is a side to Wordsworth that does not want to be a poet. Though the inaction is similar to Coleridge’s Dejection, the frustration is not the same. For Wordsworth, it is more of a longing. In other words, all Wordsworth wants is tranquility in nature like he had as a child. Coleridge wants to write poetry, but Wordsworth’s ideal is to give it up. And what could be more sincere than a poet who wants to stop writing about experiences and just experience them? Isn’t that the height of sincerity, the poetic life? We are almost in the waters of Lionel Trilling, who says we should not talk about sincerity or authenticity, lest they lose their meaning (Milnes 2). The “this” of “was it for this?” could feasibly be “a poet.” In other words, must a poet be the only vocation for a man who feels such a deep connection to nature and to the poetic spirit? Wordsworth writes poetry because it is the only way to put into words his feelings and memories, but he would rather live these memories or find some other poetic vocation.

One instance of Wordsworth’s dissatisfaction with poetry can be read from his hatred of the “mean and vulgar works of man” (I. 135). In describing his natural education, he much prefers the “high objects, with eternal things...purifying thus the elements of feelings and of thought, and sanctifying...both pain and fear; until we recognize a grandeur in the beatings of the heart” (I. 136-141). Included in the works of man are not only such things as “a town,” as Wu advises us in his note (Wu 461). Poetry is also a work of man. It is curious that Wordsworth uses “vulgar” and “mean,” words with strong connotations to language and tone. In this instance, poetry, since it is a work of man, is inadequate for recognizing “grandeur.”

A second indicator of Wordsworth’s dissatisfaction with poetry is a comment on the inadequacy of language. He sees a girl walking with a pitcher on her head. “An ordinary sight,” indeed, “but I should need colours and words that are unknown to man to paint the visionary dreariness...” (I. 320-322). At first glance, the lines seem to be a simple comment on how beautiful the sight was. But upon further examination, this “ordinary” sight need not be described in such a way, because it is ordinary. Wordsworth is doing two things here: (1) he is undercutting the standard for a poetic subject by incorporating the most normal sights into poetry’s realm, and (2) he is telling us that if he cannot even describe this instance well enough with poetry, a seemingly bland, regular sight, poetry alone is not adequate to describe anything, even the most “beautiful” things with the most obvious admirable qualities. In two of Wordsworth’s only comments on poetry in the Two-Part Prelude, the art is not exalted. Though not apparent at first, a close reading shows that it is insulted. Like Sartre’s assertion that “words actually contribute to insincerity,” (Perkins 5) Wordsworth wants to get away from language. He would rather return to the time of “infantine desire” (II. 24) than to write poetry. For as long as he does, he is complicit in insincerity.

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Sincerity in the Two-Part Prelude stems from Wordsworth’s self-doubt. By questioning himself and his abilities, he destabilizes his position as a poet. His childhood did not require insight, only observation. As a poet, his task is insight through representation. Wordsworth would rather have sola repraesentatio. Moreover, he exploits the conflict between experience and analysis. Poetry makes experience a thing, an object to be written about. Wordsworth values experience as an intrinsic continuum over experience as poetic material. In this way, he speaks to us as a “man speaking to man,” a poet longing to escape the bondage of poetry and just live. If ever we sought the union between avowal and actual feeling, a poet rebuking poetry as a flawed form of expression, revealing his own poetic paralysis, is the height of sincerity.