The present paper offers a comparative study of the poetry of the seventeenth century Metaphysical poet Thomas Traherne and the prominent Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Reflecting on the controversy over determining the scope of comparative studies, Susan Bassnett argues that comparative studies in literature do encompass as well those studies conducted on the works of authors writing in the same language. Furthermore, comparative studies need not focus on incongruent and dissimilar elements in the works of the compared authors. Accordingly, the present article attempts to conduct a comparative study of the works of two English poets belonging to two different literary traditions and separated from each other by a span of more than a hundred years. Reading the poetry of the two in the light of the cultural, historical, and literary contexts of their production and the intellectual and philosophical presumptions of their authors, we found out that there are a number of characteristic features common in the poetry of the two which connect their literary productions through invisible thematic and structural threads through the years. These resemblances include the two poets’ inclination towards an experience of the sublime that reverberates in their poetry, the celebration of childhood visionary innocence, glorification of nature and natural beauty, pantheism, mysticism, and the philosophical and spiritual concept of felicity or joy.
