Wordsworth renews traditional themes through the device of characterisation. In Lyttelton's "Lucinda", his female character Lucinda "simply completes a definition of the good life, whereas Wordsworth's Dorothy offers a link with the past." The presence of a loved companion is linked to the stability and love that the poet feels for nature. "However, where Cowper is quiet in his sincerity, Wordsworth is much more earnest in his plea for Dorothy."

Renewal for Wordsworth means a renewal of passionate emotions and a strong sense of loyalty to the landscape, as seen in his poem Tintern Abbey. Akenside uses his imagination to write elegies and is lead by a nature muse, whereas Wordsworth is led by nature itself. Both poets celebrate landscape as something that shapes and guides their imaginative minds, yet Wordsworth goes a step further by seeing nature as "a source of regeneration."

The author also raises a...