{
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  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "Wordsworth's nature as moral teacher",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH07.P021",
      "oid": 177,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH07.P021",
      "exact": "Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson.",
      "start": 812,
      "end": 867,
      "prefix": "worshippers of Isis and Cybele. ",
      "suffix": " But Nature is not solemn to Fra",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH07.P021#char=812,867"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "Wordsworth gives Chesterton a concrete point of comparison in ‘The Tables Turned’, first published in *Lyrical Ballads* (1798). Its speaker directs a bookish friend outside: ‘Let Nature be your teacher’ (line 16). More pointedly, lines 21–24 claim that a woodland impulse can teach more about human moral good and evil than the sages. This is the authority Chesterton disputes: whether a natural process or encounter can supply the standard by which people ought to act. [Read the 1798 text](https://cha.artsci.tamu.edu/LyricalBallads/HTML/lb98-bp/lb98-bp_TABLES.html).\n\nBut ‘solemn mother’ is an argumentative compression. The poem's birds are blithe, its wisdom comes through health, and its truth through cheerfulness; the scene contains much of the lightness Chesterton reserves for Francis. Nor does this one poem establish Wordsworth's entire theology or identify a direct source for Chesterton. It makes the contrast intelligible while showing its limit: the real disagreement here concerns nature's moral authority more than the presence or absence of delight. The inspected text is Texas A&M's online transcription presented as the 1798 *Lyrical Ballads*, pp. 186–188, rather than an unspecified modern collected edition.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://cha.artsci.tamu.edu/LyricalBallads/HTML/lb98-bp/lb98-bp_TABLES.html",
      "title": "William Wordsworth, The Tables Turned, Lyrical Ballads (1798), Texas A&M online transcription",
      "locator": "pp. 186–188; lines 13–24 and 29–32",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://cha.artsci.tamu.edu/LyricalBallads/HTML/lb98-bp/lb98-bp_TABLES.html",
      "title": "Read the 1798 text"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "Primary comparison, not evidence that Chesterton had this particular poem in view."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-07-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P021",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Theological contextualization",
        "question": "How closely does the sister-versus-mother distinction match Francis's own Canticle?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Interlocutors and historical debates",
        "question": "What primary evidence explains the claim that Wordsworth treats nature as an authority?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
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  "created_at": "2026-11-07T18:08:03Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_lgzxkpdf",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_lgzxkpdf/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}