uncompanionableness

Updated: August 17, 2026

There seems to be nothing for the poet to do, then, but to accept the hostility of the world philosophically. There are a few notable examples of the poet even welcoming the solitude that society forces upon him, because it affords additional opportunity for self-communion. Everyone is familiar with Wordsworth's insistence that uncompanionableness is essential to the poet.

Elizabeth Atkins - The Poet's Poet : essays on the character and mission of the poet as interpreted in English verse of the last one hundred and fifty years