'le temps de l'insurrection': Robespierre to Wordsworth.

This article examines the influence of Maximilien Robespierre’s speeches on William Wordsworth’s political views, particularly as expressed in Wordsworth’s "Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff by a Republican," written in early 1793. It argues that Wordsworth’s time in Paris during the French Revolution, including his attendance at the Jacobin Club where Robespierre presided, deeply shaped his revolutionary sympathies and language, aligning him more closely with Robespierre and the Montagnard faction than with the more moderate Girondins. Wordsworth’s writings reflect Robespierre’s themes of revolutionary necessity, the use of violence for liberty, and a mystical vision of political transformation. Although Wordsworth later distanced himself from these views, the article contends that his early political stance was significantly inspired by Robespierre’s rhetoric and revolutionary ideology.