Title: The Politics of Imagination: Nationalism in The Convention of Cintra

Abstract: William Wordsworth’s political pamphlet The Convention of Cintra expresses such political ideas as national self-determination, independence and liberty. They are conveyed through the poetic vehicle of imagination proposed by the poet in his earlier years. In the 1802 “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” Wordsworth’s abstract utilization of the concept of imagination and his seemingly republican rhetoric features particularities and needs practical examination. This process reappears in The Convention of Cintra, and is used by Wordsworth in examining political realities. In this process, literary imagination participates in political imagination of a nation, and serves as a political tool for the resistance of Napoleon’s imperial invasion into the Iberian Peninsula. For Wordsworth, however, it proves his poetic integrity of self-identity.

Keywords: William Wordsworth, The Convention of Cintra, imagination, nation, nationalism

Author: Hao Wu, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Foreign Languages, Peking University, Beijing, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2024.02.002