689 research outputs found
Wordsworth and death
No full textWordsworth is known as the poet of joy and hope, and to associate his name with death may seem at first strange. Yet, according to his own estimation, he was the poet not simply of joy but of “the very heart of man," of "human kind, and what we are”, of "men as they are men within themselves." Any vision of human nature which does not take into account the facts of mortality and bereavement is blinkered and inevitably inadequate and Wordsworth was committed to clarity of perception and the fullest insights of the Imagination. He did not shy away from the implications of “our mortal Nature”; throughout his career, he sought to portray in poetry the place of death in human life.
Two basic ways of understanding mortality are considered in this thesis: the first is death as disjunction, extinction, the end; the second is death as part of a larger continuity, a threshold, a stage. The conflict between these two visions was fundamental to Wordsworth's thought, and writing. Isolation and despair were the corollaries of the first vision, while the capacity for love and hope which was essential to the life of the human spirit was nurtured and made possible by the second. Wordsworth wrestled in his writings with the effects of these different visions of death on the complexities of human nature.
The thesis has been divided into three main parts. Section I - Death in Wordsworth's Time - seeks to place the poet into a historical context. Section II - Death in Wordsworth' Life - is concerned with Wordsworth's personal experiences of loss and feelings about his own mortality, And in Section III - Death in Wordsworth's Poetry - what he had to say about death is considered in relation to some of the other major themes in his poetry
Dorothy Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge : the poetics of relationship
No full textMy thesis studies Hartley Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth to redress the unjust neglect of Hartley’s work, and to reach a more positive understanding of Dorothy’s conflicted literary relationship with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I provide a complete reassessment of the often narrowly read prose and poetry of these two critically marginalized figures, and also investigate the relationships that affected their lives, literary self-constructions, and reception; in this way, I restore a more accurate account of Hartley and Dorothy as independent and original writers, and also highlight both the inhibiting and cathartic affects of writing from within a familial literary context.
My analysis of the writings of Hartley and Dorothy and the dialogues in which they engage with the works of STC and William, argues that both Hartley and Dorothy developed a strong relational poetics in their endeavour to demarcate their independent subjectivities. Furthermore, through a survey of the significance of the sibling bond – literal and figurative – in the texts and lives of all these writers, I demonstrate a theory of influence which recognizes lateral, rather than paternal, kinship as the most influential relationship. I thus conclude that authorial identity is not fundamentally predetermined by, and dependent on, gender or literary inheritance, but is more significantly governed by domestic environment, familial readership, and immediate kinship.
My thesis challenges the long-standing misconceptions that Hartley was unable to achieve a strong poetic identity in STC’s shadow, and that Dorothy’s independent authorial endeavour was primarily thwarted by gender. To replace these misreadings, I foreground the successful literary independence of both writers: my approach reinstates Hartley Coleridge’s literary standing as a major poet who bridged Romanticism and Victorian literature, and promotes Dorothy Wordsworth as one of the finest descriptive writers of nature and relationship
The Matthew Poems and Wordsworth
No full textWilliam Wordsworth's school life at Hawkshead is very significant in his growtb as a poet. In the present survey, the relationship between his experiences at Hawkshead and his growth as a poet has been examined through The Matthew Poems which are the products of his experiences there. Among other things, his encounter with Rev. Wil1iam Taylor at Haowkshead has deep meaning to his spiritual development. In the Matthew Poems, Wordsworth idealizes this master in the hero, Matthew. By examining these poems, it becomes clear to what extent he respected this teacher and to what degree Taylor exerted his influence upon the poet. Taylor is the person who made a poet of Wordsworth. Also in these poems this writer finds out some of the characteristics of Wordsworth's composition of verse.
In these respects The Matthew Poems should not be overlooked
The Matthew Poems and Wordsworth
No full textWilliam Wordsworth's school life at Hawkshead is very significant in his growtb as a poet. In the present survey, the relationship between his experiences at Hawkshead and his growth as a poet has been examined through The Matthew Poems which are the products of his experiences there. Among other things, his encounter with Rev. Wil1iam Taylor at Haowkshead has deep meaning to his spiritual development. In the Matthew Poems, Wordsworth idealizes this master in the hero, Matthew. By examining these poems, it becomes clear to what extent he respected this teacher and to what degree Taylor exerted his influence upon the poet. Taylor is the person who made a poet of Wordsworth. Also in these poems this writer finds out some of the characteristics of Wordsworth's composition of verse.
In these respects The Matthew Poems should not be overlooked
Staging imagination: transformations of Shakespeare in Wordsworth and Coleridge
No full textThis thesis examines the ways that Wordsworth and Coleridge transform the works of Shakespeare, in order to stage the imagination as it functions in the lives of the characters in their poetry. I look especially at the importance of the play A Midsummer Night 's Dream to their poetic project, and show how elements of the play resurface in various poems, prefaces and prose writings of the two poets over a span of nearly twenty years. I argue that Wordsworth's transformations of Shakespeare contribute to a democratising of poetry, and a valorising of 'our common human heart'. Chapter one discusses Lyrical Ballads as a series of poems, which have Theseus' speech on Imagination as their unifying theme, emulating Shakespeare’s staging of passion. Chapters two and three examine Alexander Tytler's Essay on Translation as a 'negative' stimulus for Wordsworth's challenging poetic theories, and a source for some of his earliest 'transformations' of Shakespeare. Chapter four is a detailed survey of the critical background, and the Romantic reception of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and examines key themes in the play to elucidate the poets' poetry and prose. Chapter five is a comparison between 'The Last of The Flock' and The Merchant of Venice, showing how Wordsworth 'imitates' the tale, and transposes the 'tone' of the comic play into a quieter and sadder 'music'. Chapter six analyses 'Michael', as a transformation of Gaunt in Richard into the 'history homely and rude' of Michael the shepherd. Chapter seven is on Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, which re-tells the tale of the genesis of Lyrical Ballads, and Wordsworth's transformative poetics, as a 'translation' of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Chapter eight returns to Alfoxden, and Hazlitt's 'First Acquaintance with Poets', to revisit the poets as the protagonists of 'the dream' that was, and became, Lyrical Ballads
The notion of nature in Coleridge and Wordsworth from the perspective of ecotheology
No full textThis thesis aims to examine the idea of nature in the works of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth from the perspective of ecotheology.
Its intention is not to identify their works with ecotheology, but it will be
suggested how Coleridge’s search for the unity of the universe and
Wordsworth’s yearning for dwelling relate to recent developments in
ecotheological theory. Ecotheology can thus help us understand their ideas on
nature. There is a historical and disciplinary gap between the works of the
Romantic Period and ecotheology, and, in Romantic criticism, the idea of nature
is often misunderstood as a mere projection of the mind. Moreover, Coleridge’s
poetry has been the subject of an unjustified ideological criticism that has
misrepresented its theological viewpoints, and Wordsworth has also been read
in terms of a secular narrative about nature and consciousness. However, both
Coleridge and Wordsworth to some extent perceive nature as an environmental
landscape, and therefore nature can be understood as an independent reality as
well as a creation of the mind. They develop ideas of God in their literary works
in a way that needs to be understood not in a secular way, but in a religious
sense. Just as ecotheology attempts to articulate the value of the non-human
natural world, so Coleridge’s notion of unity and Wordsworth’s idea of dwelling
affirm similar values throughout their works.
Focusing in Chapter 1 on the writings of a number of twentieth-century
theologians, including Jűrgen Moltmann and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, I will
outline the development of key ideas in ecotheology in terms of three main
elements, the interrelatedness of the universe, the independent sacred value of
nature, and a cosmic eschatology, which will be used as a conceptual
framework for exploring the works of Coleridge and Wordsworth. Chapter 2 will
show that Coleridge’s lifelong search for the unity of the universe reveals the
interrelatedness of the universe, and the sacredness of nature as an
independent value. Chapter 3 will see that Wordsworth’s idea of dwelling also
implies these two elements. Chapter 4 will show that their eschatological
visions are associated with a cosmic eschatology, of which the non-human
natural world constitutes a crucial part
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Lord Lonsdale and his proteges: William Wordsworth and John Hardie
No full textAs it began to dawn. Anthem for Easter
No full textFor four-part mixed voices and organ. --- Words from Matthew XXVIII, Luke XXIV, and part of a hymn by Bishop Wordsworth. --- Caption title
Letter from William Wordsworth to John Edwards
No full textabstract: Concerning the publication of Wordsworth's Poem without expense, his works the Excursion and the White Doe, and Mr. Montgomery's praise.Creation Date Details: Undated Range in the author's lifespan.Seller's Description: Added at the top of the recto of the letter
Paradoxical solitude in the life, letters, and poetry of John Keats, 1814-1818
No full textThis thesis proposes two distinct but connected ideas: that John Keats’s idiom of friendship was haunted by “sequestered” longings and that he ultimately valued specific, one-on-one partnerships as a basis for his poetical character. The Introduction places the thesis within its critical context and outlines “paradoxical solitude,” a concept the poet expressed by joining a “kindred spirit” in a wilderness retreat in “O, Solitude.”
I begin by examining the evolving role of solitude in Keats’s literary predecessors (Chapter I). I then trace the development of ideas of creativity and solitude from his 1814-1815 verse, including his first association with a coterie and the influence of Wordsworth (Chapter II). Building on these findings, I explore the poet’s introduction to the Hunt circle in 1816, assessing his relationships with its members and their overstated roles in the production of Poems (Chapter III). I then discuss how Keats regarded the composition of Endymion in 1817 as a poetic “test,” specifically tailored to reinforce his identity as a solitary poet (Chapter IV).
I contend that Keats engaged in a dialogue of independence with Reynolds, adapted the theories of Hazlitt, and restlessly travelled throughout England as a means of rejecting the highly social periods of 1818 (Chapter V). I then consider the creative gains of his northern expedition with Brown in the summer of 1818. I argue that Keats exaggerated his development into a “post-Wordsworthian” poet, positioning himself outside both the coterie’s sphere and the reach of Blackwood’s criticism, and inspiring the theme of Hyperion (Chapter VI).
In closing, I analyze Keats’s advice to Shelley to be a selfish creator of his poetic identity. Only through paradoxical solitude, I argue, was Keats able to construct the poetic identity that led him to compose the poems on which his fame rests in the 1820 volume
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