Amidst the growing emphasis on reason of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and the revolutionary ideas that gripped Europe at the same time, a new literary movement emerged. Ushered in by the work of English poet, William Wordsworth, Romanticism emphasized nature and its connection with intense human emotion over the empiricism that pervaded Enlightenment philosophy. Born in 1770 and writing through the nineteenth century, Wordsworth became one of the most influential writers of the Romantic movement. After the deaths of both parents, the adolescent Wordsworth turned to nature for solace. Having walked an estimated 180,000 miles over his lifetime, "Wordsworth made walking central to his life and art" (Slonit 104). This incredible amount of time that he spent traversing the English countryside governed not only the content of his poetry, but also Wordsworth's own fundamental beliefs. Yet his time spent walking outdoors was not solely devoted to inward reflection; instead, "walking was both how he encountered the world and how he composed his poetry" (Solnit 104). To Wordsworth, walking embodied not only a means of travel and a method for composing his poetry, but also became a political act. Walking was Wordsworth's way of blurring the social distinctions of his time and instead focusing on that which can be learned in nature. He communicates this concept of walking as an expression of his political views most poignantly through the setting, content, and language of his poetry.
             The the social commentary that Wordsworth incorporates into his poetry. In Book Sixth of The Prelude, Wordsworth and a companion embark on foot on a trek across the Alps. The fashion of the time was for young aristocrats to embark on a Grand Tour, which typically began in Paris and ended in Italy's cultural capitals of Florence, Venice, and Rome. However Wordsworth's odyssey was far more radical than the Grand Tour t...