This study presents a close reading of Wordsworth's "Resolution and Independence " from a dialogic perspective, making use of the method of discourse analysis developed by Mikhail Bakhtin in his book on Dostoevsky's art. More broadly, the essay draws on the socio-linguistic theory of discourse and literature expounded by the Bakhtin school. It argues that when such a perspective is applied to the poem, it emerges as an intricate dialogic text ultimately figuring the inner dialogue of the narrator. Such dialogue is presented in the poem as enacting the narrator's response not only to himself but, through himself, to another and to the world. The reverse is equally true. This is in keeping with Bakhtin's notion of dialogue as the inevitable addressivity of the individual-the fact that one cannot escape the condition of having to form a mental response to life, that is, to others, and to oneself in relation to others. In this respect, the poem offers an implicit illustration of the basic tenet of dialogism that the subject is constituted in relation to others, and that otherness is the condition of identity.* It is commonly accepted by Western scholars that "all the significant writings signed by Voloshinov and Medvedev had been written largely by Bakhtin." See P. Morris, "Introduction" in The Bakhtin Reader, ed. P. Morris (London: Arnold, 1994), p.2. In light of this information the references to the extract from Voloshinov's Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (1929) in The Bakhtin Reader will be documented in the text by indicating joint authorship.