Beggars: Jeremy Bentham versus William Wordsworth
对比了浪漫主义时期边沁和华兹华斯对乞丐的不同看法：边沁主张将乞丐强制送入工厂，而华兹华斯则强调乞丐作为社会纽带的内在价值，对理解文学与经济学交叉视角下的贫困问题有参考价值。
During the Romantic period (roughly 1789 to 1834), social critics valued poetry as a guide “to the conduct of life and the establishment of moral principles.” John Stuart Mill observed that Jeremy Bentham rejected poetry because poets employed words imaginatively and not solely for “precise logical truth.” Bentham and William Wordsworth disputed the treatment of the poor. Bentham proposed forcing them into houses of industry. Wordsworth, who declared that “man is dear to man... [because] we have all of us one human heart,” celebrated a beggar’s power as a social agent. He reminds villagers of past acts of charity and offers the wretched poor an opportunity to give charity. Barely able to survive herself, one old woman “builds her hope in heaven” by sharing a small handful of meal with the beggar. Although the beggar has no economic value, he does have intrinsic value to the community.