SOURCE: "England in 1830—Wordsworth, Clare, and the Question of Poetic Authority," in Critical Survey, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1992, pp. 62-66.

In the following excerpt, Lucas compares a well-known and admired sonnet by Wordsworth with a little-known, radically unconventional sonnet by Clare and argues that it is time that both sonnets and their respective authors be granted the respect or "authority " that each deserve, but that only one has yet received.

In November 1830 Wordsworth set out from his home in Grasmere for Cambridge, where he was to stay for a night or two at his old college, Trinity. His route took him across the Pennines and through Derbyshire, and passed close to the Duke of Devonshire's famous house and grounds of Chatsworth. The following sonnet was almost certainly written from the comfort of the poet's former college rooms.

 Chatsworth! thy stately mansion, and the pride
Of thy domain, strange contrast do...