While the Romantic poets described themselves as suggesting that “the best words in the best order” was something that arose from Freedom, democratisation and the subaltern, they simultaneously suggested a new hierarchy in which the poet would be the arbiter of right and “best” to all of humanity, rather than the elimination of all hierarchies. This is reflected in the co-opting of working class preoccupations into the poetry of the romantics for its aesthetic value rather than as a means to challenge material, contextual hierarchies- ()as indicated by Wordsworth’s 1800 preface to Lyrical Ballads- that he chooses the themes and language of the English subaltern “in that condition, the essential passions of the heart … are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language.” Furthermore, of the most notable Romantic poets only two were of working class origin- John Keats and William Blake. Wordsworth states that a poet is inherently more than common people. The poet is “has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind.” Romantic poets often maintain a egocentric sense of martyrdom, as seen in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s use of first person pronouns in “Ode to the West Wind;” in which he metaphorically suggests that he can be the source of Revolution. “Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!/I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!…Drive my dead thoughts over the universe/ Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth!”
