Intellectuals, Romantics and Cultural Policy

This paper explores the relationship between intellectuals, Romantics and cultural policy, with particular reference to the work of William Wordsworth (1770–1850) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). It first examines the idea of the intellectual in an English context and then briefly traces the idea of cultural policy from its use in practical policy discourse to its more theoretical application within a general politics of culture. Within a plurality of “romanticisms”, Wordsworth’s Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1801), his Essay, Supplementary to the Preface (1815) and Shelley’s A Defence of Poetry (1821) are identified as particularly significant “moments” of English Romanticism. The paper goes on to explore the extent to which these poets might be considered intellectuals and how, in these texts, they articulated ideas of cultural policy which have continued to resonate strongly in the contemporary world.