"Michael" is a pastoral poem, written by William Wordsworth and first published in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, a series of poems that were said to have begun the English Romantic movement in literature.[1] The poem is one of Wordsworth's best-known poems and the subject of much critical literature.[1] It tells the story of an ageing shepherd, Michael, his wife Isabel, and his only child Luke.[1]
Analyses have claimed "Michael" to have been a political statement regarding the modernization of England, due to the advent of the enclosure system—erasing the idyllic pastoral way of life that Michael formerly enjoyed.[2] Nevertheless, scholar Deanne Westbrook interpreted the worked to be as a New Testament-esque parable and even a metaparable.[3]