Wagner addresses her subject in a scholarly fashion. She isolates particular themes in Wordsworth's sonnets which she then uses to explore the sonnets of her other chosen poets. She focuses largely upon the form of the sonnet. Wordsworth introduces the united, spherical sonnet. The lack of division, the removal of the volta alters the possible content of the sonnet.
Poetic thought can remain on a single concept without interruption.
In a sense, by removing the break between the octave and the sestet, Wordsworth removed the necessity of a new idea, a new poetic paragraph. The spherical sonnet enhances the opportunity for self-reflexivity. Wagner suggests that it is this newly found self-reflexivity which Wordsworth found attractive in the spherical sonnet. He abhorred the sentimental, 'feminine' qualities associated with sonnets until he examined the possibility of a more philosophical sonnet. It is a move from the private to the public, from a 'womanly' to a 'manly' sonnet, from the sentimental to the philosophical.