Wordsworth's religious quest

Biblical influence reflected in Wordsworth's work and in the moral and social character of his sense of mission is a dominant factor in shaping the poet's early life and thought. An examination of his characteristic mode of perception through analogy with Martin Buber's dialectic of relation reveals, first, a strong similarity in experience and response and, second, a world-view which may be traced to a common source in the Old Testament, to Hebraism as the origin of both Judaism and Christianity. Hebraism accounts for that quality which causes many readers to sense in Wordsworth's work a nonChristian mode of thought and helps to establish a valid premise upon which to view the whole of his life and work as consistently dedicated to a mission founded upon and defined by Hebraic elements underlying his religious faith and social ethics.