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WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM (1770-185o)
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See also:WORDSWORTH, See also: When it came to this, his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London towards the See also:close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure to enter any of the regular professions, published his poems An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches in 1793, and in 1794, still moving about to all See also:appearance in stubborn aimlessness among his See also:friends and relatives, had no more rational purpose of livelihood than See also:drawing up the See also:prospectus of a periodical of strictly republican principles to be called " The Philanthropist." But all the time from his boyhood upwards a See also:great purpose had been growing and maturing in his mind. The Prelude expounds in lofty impassioned See also:strain how his sensibility for nature was " augmented and sustained," and how it never, except for a brief See also:interval, ceased to be " creative " in the See also:special sense of his subsequent theory. But it is with his feelings to-wards nature that The Prelude mainly deals; it says little regarding the See also:history of his ambition to See also:express those feelings in See also:verse. It is the autobiography, not of the poet of nature, but of the worshipper and See also:priest. The salient incidents in the history of the poet he communicated in See also:prose notes and in See also:familiar discourses. Commenting on the See also:couplet in the Evening Walk " And, fronting the See also:bright See also:west, See also:yon See also:oak entwines Its darkening boughs and leaves in stronger lines—" he said: " This is feebly and imperfectly exprest; but I recollect distinctly the very spot where this first struck me. It was on the way between Hawkshead and See also:Ambleside, and gave me extreme See also:pleasure. The moment was important in my poetical history; for I date from it my consciousness of the See also:infinite variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by the poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them; and I made a See also:resolution to See also:supply in some degree the deficiency. I could not at that time have been above fourteen years of age." About the same time he wrote, as a school task at Hawkshead, verses that show considerable acquaintance with the poets of his own country at least, as well as some previous practice in the See also:art of verse-making.' The fragment that stands at the ' See also:Memoirs of William Wordsworth, by See also:Canon Wordsworth, vol. i. pp. to, u. According to his own statement in the memoranda dictated to his biographer, it was the success of this exercise that " put it into his See also:head to compose verses from the impulse of his own beginning of his collected See also:works, recording a resolution to end his life among his native hills, was the conclusion of a See also:long poem written while he was still at school. And, undistinguished as he was at Cambridge in the contest for See also:academic honours, the Evening Walk, his first publication, was written during his vacations.' He published it in 1793, to show, as he said, that he could do something, although he had not distinguished himself in university See also:work. There are touches here and there of the See also:bent of See also:imagination that became dominant in him soon after-wards, notably in the moral aspiration that accompanies his Remembrance of See also:Collins on the See also:Thames:-- " O glide, See also:fair stream! for ever so Thy quiet soul on all bestowing, Till all our minds for ever flow As thy deep See also:waters now are flowing." But in the See also:main this first publication represents the poet in the See also:stage described in the twelfth See also:book of The Prelude: " Bent overmuch on superficial things, Pampering myself with meagre novelties Of See also:colour and proportion ; to the moods Of time and See also:season, to the moral See also:power, The affections, and the spirit of the See also:place Insensible." But, though he had not yet found his distinctive aim as a poet, he was inwardly bent upon See also:poetry as " his See also:office upon See also:earth." In this determination he was strengthened by his See also:sister Dorothy (q.v.), who with rare devotion consecrated her life henceforward to his service. A timely See also:legacy enabled them to carry their purpose into effect. A friend of his, whom he had nursed in a last illness, Raisley See also:Calvert, son of the steward of the See also:duke of See also:Norfolk, who had large estates in Cumberland, died See also:early in 1995, leaving him a legacy of boo. It may be well to See also:notice how opportunely, as De Quincey See also:half-ruefully remarked, See also:money always See also:fell in to Wordsworth, enabling him to pursue his poetic career without See also:distraction. Calvert's See also:bequest came to him when he was on the point of concluding an engagement as a journalist in London. On it and other small resources he and his sister, thanks to her frugal management, contrived to live for nearly eight years. By the end of that time See also:Lord Lonsdale, who owed Wordsworth's father a large sum for professional services, and had steadily refused to pay it, died, and his successor paid the See also:debt with interest. His wife, See also:Mary See also:Hutchinson, whom he married on the 4th of See also:October 18o2, brought him some See also:fortune; and in 1813, when in spite of his See also:plain living his family began to See also:press upon his income, he was appointed See also:stamp-distributor for See also:Westmorland, with an income of £500, afterwards nearly doubled by the increase of his See also:district. In 1842, when he resigned his stamp-distributorship, See also:Sir See also:Robert See also:Peel gave him a See also:Civil See also:List See also:pension of £300. To return, however, to the course of his life from the time when he resolved to labour with all his See also:powers in the office of poet. The first two years, during which he lived with his self-sacrificing sister at Racedown, in See also:Dorset, were spent in half-hearted and very imperfectly successful experiments, satires in See also:imitation of See also:Juvenal, the tragedy of The Borderers,2 and a poem in the Spenserian See also:stanza, now entitled See also:Guilt and Sorrow. How much longer this time of self-distrustful endeavour might have continued is a subject for curious See also:speculation; an end was put to it by a fortunate incident, a visit from See also:Coleridge, who had read his first publication, and seen in it, what none of the public critics had discerned, the See also:advent of " an See also:original poetic See also:genius." mind." The resolution to supply the deficiencies of poetry in the exact description of natural appearances was probably formed while he was in this See also:state of boyish See also:ecstasy at the accidental See also:revelation of his own powers. The date of his beginnings as a poet is confirmed by the lines in The Idiot Boy, written in 1798 " I to the See also:Muses have been See also:bound These fourteen years by strong indentures." ' In The Prelude, book iv., he speaks of himself during his first vacation as " harassed with the toil of verse, much pains and little progress." 2 Not published till 1842. For the history of this tragedy see Memoirs, vol. i. p. 113; for a See also:sound, if severe, See also:criticism of it, A. C. See also:Swinburne's Miscellanies, p. 118. And yet it was of the See also:blank verse of The Borderers that Coleridge spoke when he wrote to Cottle that " he See also:felt a little man by the side of his friend." Stubborn and See also:independent as Wordsworth was, he needed some friendly See also:voice from the See also:outer See also:world to give him confidence in himself. Coleridge rendered him this indispensable service. He had begun to seek his themes in " Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight; And miserable love, that is not See also:pain To hear of, for the See also:glory that redounds Therefrom to human See also:kind, and what we are." He read to his visitor one of these experiments, the See also:story of the ruined cottage, afterwards introduced into the first book of The Excursion .3 Coleridge, who had already seen original poetic genius in the poems published before, was enthusiastic in his praise of them as having " a See also:character, by books not hitherto reflected." See also:June 1797 was the date of this memorable visit. So pleasant was the companionship on both sides that, when Coleridge returned to Nether Stowey, in See also:Somerset, Wordsworth at his instance changed his quarters to Alfoxden, within a mile and a half of Coleridge's temporary See also:residence, and the two poets lived in almost daily intercourse for the next twelve months. During that See also:period Wordsworth's powers rapidly See also:expanded and matured; ideas that had been gathering in his mind for years, and lying there in dim confusion, felt the stir of a new life, and ranged themselves in clearer shapes under the fresh quickening breath of Coleridge's See also:swift and discursive See also:dialectic. The Lyrical See also:Ballads were the poetic fruits of their See also:companion-See also:ship. Out of their frequent discussions of the relative value of common life and supernatural incidents as themes for imaginative treatment See also:grew the See also:idea of See also:writing a See also:volume together, composed of poems of the two kinds. Coleridge was to take the super-natural; and, as his See also:industry was not equal to his friend's, this kind was represented by the See also:Ancient Mariner alone. Among Wordsworth's contributions were The See also:Female Vagrant, We are Seven, Complaint of a Forsaken See also:Indian Woman, The Last of the See also:Flock, The Idiot Boy, The Mad Mother (" Her eyes are See also:wild "), The See also:Thorn, Goody See also:Blake and Harry Gill, The See also:Reverie of Poor Susan, See also:Simon See also: Poetically, there-fore, the poem is a success. But rhetorically this particular See also:attempt to "breathe grandeur upon the very humblest See also:face of human life " must be pronounced a failure, inasmuch 'as the writer did not use sufficiently forcible means to disabuse his readers of vulgar prepossessions.
took over Cottle's See also:publishing business in 1799, the value of the See also:copyright of the Lyrical Ballads, for which Cottle had paid See also:thirty guineas, was assessed at nil. Cottle therefore begged that it might be excluded altogether from the bargain, and presented it to the authors. But in i800, when the first edition was exhausted, the Longmans offered Wordsworth Doc) for two issues of a new edition with an additional volume and an explanatory See also:preface. The sum was small compared with what See also:Scott and See also:Byron soon afterwards received, but it shows that the public neglect was not quite so See also:complete as is sometimes represented. Another edition was called for in 18oa, and a See also:fourth in 18o5. The new volume in the 1800 edition was made up of poems composed during his residence at See also:Goslar in See also:Germany (where he went with Coleridge) in the See also:winter of 1798-1799, and after his See also:settlement at See also:Grasmere in See also:December 1799. It contained a large portion of poems now universally accepted :—See also:Ruth, Nutting, Three Years She Grew, A Poet's See also:Epitaph, Hartleap Well, See also:Lucy See also: Coleridge's criticism of his friend's theory proceeded avowedly " on the See also:assumption that his words had been rightly interpreted, as purporting that the proper diction for poetry in See also:general consists altogether in a language taken, with due exceptions, from the mouths of men in real life, a language which actually constitutes the natural conversation of men under the See also:influence of natural feelings." Coleridge assumed further that, when Wordsworth spoke of there being " no essential difference between the language of prose and metrical See also:composition," he meant by language not the See also:mere words but the See also:style, the structure and the See also:order of the sentences; on this assumption he argued as if Wordsworth had held that the metrical order should always be the same as the prose order. Given these assumptions, which formed the popular See also:interpretation of the theory by its opponents, it was easy to demonstrate its absurdity, and Coleridge is very generally supposed to have given Wordsworth's theory in its See also:bare and naked extravagance the coup de grdce. But the truth is that neither of the two assumptions is warranted; both were expressly disclaimed by Wordsworth in the Preface itself. There is not a single qualification introduced by Coleridge that was not made by Wordsworth himself in the original statement? In the first place, it was not put forward as a theory of poetry in general, though from the vigour with which he carried the See also:war into the enemy's country it was naturally enough for polemic purposes taken as such; it was a statement and See also:defence of the principles on which his own poems of humbler life were composed. Wordsworth also assailed the public taste as " depraved," first
i Sir See also: Coleridge says that if he meant this he was only uttering a truism, which nobody who knew Wordsworth would suspect him of doing; but, See also:strange to say, it is as a truism, nominally acknowledged by everybody, that Wordsworth does advance his See also:doctrine on this point. Only he adds—" if in what I am about to say it shall appear to some that my labour is unnecessary, and that I am like a man fighting a See also:battle without enemies, such persons may be reminded that, whatever be the language outwardly See also:holden by men, a See also:practical faith in the opinions which I am wishing to establish is almost unknown."
What he wished to establish was the simple truth that what is false, unreal, affected, bombastic or nonsensical in prose is not less so in verse. The See also:form in which he expresses the theory was conditioned by the circumstances of the polemic, and readers were put on a false See also:scent by his purely incidental and See also:collateral and very much overstrained defence of the language of rustics, as being less conventional and more permanent, and therefore better fitted to afford materials for the poet's selection. But this was a side issue, a paradoxical See also:retort on his critics, seized upon by them in turn and made prominent as a See also:matter for easy ridicule; all that he says on this head might be cut out of the Preface without affecting in the least his main thesis. The See also:drift of this is fairly apparent all through, but stands out in unmistakable clearness in his criticism of the passages from See also: His just, sympathetic and penetrating criticism on Wordsworth's work as a poet did immense service in securing for him a wider recognition; but his proved friendship and brilliant style have done sad injustice to the poet as a theorist. It was natural to assume that Coleridge, if any-See also:body, must have known what his friend's theory was; and it was natural also that readers under the See also:charm of his lucid and melodious prose should gladly See also: There were several respects in which the formal recognition of such elementary principles of poetic See also:evolution powerfully affected Wordsworth's practice. One of these may be indicated by saying that he endeavoured always to work out an emotional See also:motive from within. Instead of choosing a striking theme and working at it like a decorative painter, embellishing, enriching, dressing to See also:advantage, See also:standing back from it and studying effects, his See also:plan was to take incidents that had set his own imagination spontaneously to work, and to study and reproduce with See also:artistic judgment the modification of the initial feeling, the emotional motive, within himself. To this method he owed much of his strength and also much of his unpopularity. By keeping his See also:eye on the See also:object, as spontaneously modified by his own imaginative energy, he was able to give full and undistracted See also:scope to all his powers in poetic coinage of the See also:wealth that his imagination brought. On the other See also:hand, readers
' Wordsworth was not an adroit expositor in prose, and he did not make his qualifications sufficiently prominent, but his theory of diction taken with those qualifications left him See also:free without in-consistency to use any language that was not contrary to " true taste and feeling." He acknowledged that he might occasionally have substituted " particular for general associations," and that thus language charged with poetic feeling to himself might appear trivial and ridiculous to others, as in The Idiot Boy and Goody Blake; he even went so far as to withdraw Alice Fell, first published in 1807, from several subsequent See also:editions; but he argued that it was dangerous for a poet to make alterations on the simple authority of a few individuals or even classes of men, because if he did not follow his own judgment and feelings his mind would infallibly be debilitated.whose nature or See also:education was different from his own, were repelled or left cold and indifferent, or obliged to make the sympathetic effort to see with his eyes, which he refused to make in order that he might see with theirs.
" He is retired as noontide See also:dew
Or See also:fountain in a See also:noon-See also:day See also: No poet has built such magnificent palaces of rare material for the ordinary everyday homely human affections. It is because he has in-vested our ordinary everyday principles of conduct, which are so See also:apt to become threadbare, with such imperishable See also:robes of finest texture and richest See also:design that Wordsworth holds so high a place among the great moralists in verse. His practice was influenced also, and not always for good, by his theory that poetry " takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity." This was a somewhat doubtful corollary from his general theory of poetic evolution. A poem is complete in itself; there must be no sting in it to disturb the reader's content with the whole; through whatever agitations it progresses, to whatever elevations it soars, to this end it must come, otherwise it is imperfect as a poem. Now the imagination in ordinary men, though the See also:process is not expressed in verse, and the poet's special art has thus no See also:share in producing the effect, reaches the poetic end when it has so transfigured a disturbing experience, whether of joy or grief, that this rests tranquilly in the memory, can be recalled without disquietude, and dwelt upon with some mode and degree of pleasure, more or less keen, more or less pure or mixed with pain. True to his idea of imitating real life, Wordsworth made it a rule for himself not to write on any theme till his imagination had operated upon it for some time involuntarily; it was not in his view ripe for poetic treatment till this transforming agency had subdued the original emotion to a state of tranquillity? Out of this tranquillity arises the favourable moment for poetic composition, some day when, as he contemplates the subject, the tranquillity disappears, an emotion kindred to the original emotion is re-instated, and the poet retraces and supplements with all his art the previous involuntary and perhaps unconscious imaginative See also:chemistry. When we study the moments that Wordsworth found favour-able for successful composition, a very curious law reveals itself, somewhat at variance with the common conception of him as a poet who derived all his strength from solitary communion with nature. We find that the recluse's best poems were written under the excitement of some break in the monotony of his quiet life—See also:change of See also:scene, change of companionship, change of occupation. The law holds from the beginning to the end of his poetic career. An immense stimulus was given to his powers by his first contact with Coleridge after two years of solitary and abortive effort. Above Tintern Abbey was composed 2 The Prelude contains a See also:record of his practice, after the opening lines of the first book " Thus far, 0 friend! did I, not used to make A See also:present joy the matter of a See also:song, Pour forth," &c. during a four days' ramble with his sister; he began it on opinions of a poet living in retirement." He communicated the leaving Tintern, and concluded it as he was entering Bristol. II design to Coleridge, who gave him enthusiastic encouragement His residence amidst strange scenes and " unknown men " at to proceed. But, though he had still before him fifty years of peaceful life amidst his beloved scenery, the work in the projected form at least was destined to remain incomplete. Doubts and misgivings soon arose, and favourable moments of felt See also:inspiration delayed their coming. To sustain him in his resolution he thought of writing as an introduction, or, as he put it, an antechapel to the church which he proposed to build, a history of his own mind up to the time when he recognized the great See also:mission of his life. One of the many laughs at his expense by unsympathetic critics has been directed against his saying that he wrote this Prelude of fourteen books about himself out of diffidence. But in truth the original motive was distrust of his own powers. He turned aside to prepare the second volume of the Lyrical Ballads and write the explanatory Preface, which as a statement of his aims in poetry had partly the same purpose of strengthening his self-confidence. From his sister's See also:Journal we learn that in the winter of 1801–18oz he was " hard at work on The Pedlar "—the original title of The Excursion. But this experiment on the larger work was also soon abandoned. It appears from a See also:letter to his friend Sir See also:George See also:Beaumont that his See also:health was far from robust, and in particular that he could not write without intolerable See also:physical uneasiness. His next start with The Prelude, in the See also:spring of 1804, was more prosperous; he dropped it for several. months, but, resuming again in'the spring of 1805, he completed it in the summer of that See also:year. In 1807 appeared two volumes of collected poems. It was not till 1814 that the second of the three divisions of The Recluse, ultimately named The Excursion, was ready for publication; and he went no further in the See also:execution of his great design. The derisive fury with which The Excursion was assailed upon its first appearance has long been a stock example of See also:critical See also:blindness, yet the See also:error of the first critics is seen to See also:lie not in their indictment of faults, but in the prominence they gave to the faults and their generally disrespectful See also:tone towards a poet of Wordsworth's greatness. See also:Jeffrey's petulant " This will never do," uttered, professedly at least, more in sorrow than in anger, because the poet would persist in spite of all friendly counsel in misapplying his powers, has become a byword of critical cocksureness. But The Excursion has not " done," and even Wordsworthians who laugh at Jeffrey are in the habit of repeating the substance of his criticism. Jeffrey, it will be seen, was not blind to the occasional felicities and unforgetable lines celebrated by Coleridge, and his general judgment on The Excursion has been abundantly ratified.3 It is not upon The Excursion that Wordsworth's reputation as a poet can ever See also:rest. The two " books " entitled The Church-yard among the Mountains are the only parts of the poem that derive much force from the scenic setting; if they had been published separately, they would probably have obtained at once a reception very different from that given to The Excursion as a whole. The dramatic setting is merely dead See also:weight, not because the See also:chief See also:speaker is a pedlar—Wordsworth fairly justifies this selection—but because the pedlar, as a See also:personality to be known, and loved, and respected, and listened to with interest, is not completely created. There can be little doubt that adverse criticism had a depressing influence on Wordsworth's poetical powers, notwithstanding his nobly expressed defiance of it and his determination to hold on in his own path undisturbed. Its effect in retarding the See also:sale of his poems was a favourite topic with him in his later years;' but the See also:absence of general appreciation, and the ridicule of what he considered his best and most distinctive work, contributed in all See also:probability to a still more unfortunate result—the pre-mature depression and deadening of his powers. Goslar was particularly fruitful: She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways, Ruth, Nutting, There was a Boy, See also:Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe, all belong to those few months of unfamiliar environment. The See also:breeze that met him as he issued from the See also:city See also:gates on his homeward See also:journey brought him the first thought of The Prelude. At the end of 1799 he was settled at Grasmere, in the See also:Lake District, and seeing much of Coleridge. The second year of his residence at Grasmere was unproductive; he was " hard at work " then on The Excursion; but the excitement of a tour on the See also:Continent in the autumn of 1802, combined perhaps with a happy change in his pecuniary circumstances and the near prospect of See also:marriage, roused him to one of his happiest fits of activity. His first great See also:sonnet, the Lines on See also:Westminster See also:Bridge, was composed on the roof of the See also:Dover See also:coach; the first of the splendid See also:series " dedicated to See also:national See also:independence and See also:liberty," the most generally impressive and universally intelligible of his poems, Fair See also:Star of Evening, Once did She hold the Gorgeous See also:East in See also:Fee, See also:Toussaint; See also:Milton, See also:thou shouldst be Living at this See also:Hour; It is not to be Thought of that the See also:Flood, When I have See also:Borne in Memory what has Tamed, were all written in the course of the tour, or in London in the See also:month after his return. A tour in See also:Scotland in the following year, 1803, yielded the Highland Girl and The Solitary Reaper. Soon after his return he resumed The Prelude; and The Affliction of See also:Margaret and the Ode to Duty, his greatest poems in two different veins, were coincident with the exaltation of spirit due to the triumphant and successful See also:prosecution of the long-delayed work. The Character of the Happy See also:Warrior, which he described to Harriet See also:Martineau as " a See also:chain of extremely valooable thoughts," though it did not fulfil " poetic conditions,"1 was the product of a calmer period. The excitement of preparing for publication always had a rousing effect upon him; the preparation for the edition of 1807 resulted in the completion of the ode on the Intimations of Immortality, the sonnets The World is too much with us, Methought I saw the Footsteps of a See also:Throne, Two Voices are there, and See also:Lady, the Songs of Spring were in the Grove, and the Song at the Feast of See also:Brougham See also:Castle. After 1807 there is a marked falling off in the quality, though not in the quantity, of Wordsworth's poetic work. It is significant of the comparatively sober and laborious spirit in which he wrote The Excursion that its progress was accompanied by none of those casual sallies of exulting and exuberant power that See also:mark the period of the happier Prelude. The completion of The Excursion was signalized by the See also:production of Laodamia. The See also:chorus of adverse criticism with which it was received inspired him in the See also:noble sonnet to See also:Haydon—High is our Calling, Friend. He rarely or never again touched the same lofty height. It is interesting to compare with what he actually accomplished the plan of life-work with which Wordsworth settled at Grasmere in the last month of 1799.2 The plan was definitely conceived as he left the German See also:town of Goslar in the spring of 1799. Tired of the wandering unsettled life that he had led hitherto, dissatisfied also with the fragmentary occasional and disconnected character of his lyrical poems, he longed for a permanent See also:home among his native hills, where he might, as one called and consecrated to the task, devote his powers continuously to the composition of a great philosophical poem on " Man, Nature and Society." The poem was to be called The Recluse, " as having for its See also:principal subject the sensations and
1 This casual estimate of his own work is not merely amusing but also instructive, as showing—what is sometimes denied—that Words-worth himself knew well enough the difference between " poetry " and such " valuable thoughts as he propounded in The Excursion.
2 Wordsworth's residences in the Lake District were at See also:Dove Cottage, Townend, Grasmere, from December 1799 till the spring of 18o8; Allca See also:Bank, from 18o8 to 181x; the parsonage at Grasmere, from 181r to 1813; Rydal See also:Mount, for the rest of his life. Dove Cottage was bought in 1891 as a public memorial, and is held by trustees.3 See also: But Jeffrey, who was too busy to enter into a vein of poetry so remote from common romantic sentiment, would have none of The White Doe: he pronounced it " the very worst poem ever written," and the public too readily endorsed his judgment. Two other poems, with which Wordsworth made another See also:appeal, were not more successful. See also:Peter Bell, written in 1708, was published in 1819; and at the instigation of See also: It was Coleridge's criticism in the Biographia Literaria (1817), together with the enthusiastic and unreserved championship of See also: The " standard See also:text " of the works is the edition of 1849-1850. The " Aldine " edition (1892) is edited by Edward See also:Dowden. The one-volume " See also:Oxford " edition (1895), edited by See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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