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Scrutinizing concrete modern elements in William Wordsworth’s life and works, this paper traces the nature of relationship between the poet and modernity. It has found consequently that modernity played an important role in both his life and works. At the time of the breath-taking advance of modernity for British society, the poet was quite intriguingly positioned between tradition and modernity. With Raisley Calbert’s small sum of money on which he must build both life and career, he relied on modern finance to start a poet’s life. His poetic career started and ended with a huge success also with the context of modernity. For the rapid modernization of the society bred strong yearnings for old English rural way of life and Wordsworth happened to be the one who represents it par excellence in both his life and poems. In his works, both verse and prose, modernity appears mostly as a destroyer or to some adverse effect at least. But there are some few cases in which the poet evinces pro-modern attitude or positioning. Tracing them in detail, this paper tries to ascertain the subtle tones of each statement concerning modernity. The conclusion is Wordsworth not only took advantage of the modern changes of his world but also voiced his approval of them when he was complacent with the status quo. But his heart was always with the life of Cottage Ornee, his and many other intellectuals’ and artists’ chosen way of life then. He was no friend of modernity after all.
