93,089 research outputs found
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
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
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
[Autograph] / William Wordsworth.
No full textAn autograph from Wordsworth has been affixed to the back of Faraday\u27s November 7, 1858 letter to George Wilson; as Faraday makes no acknowledgment of the autograph, it may have been affixed there at a later date. See also additional letters in the collection from Faraday.Wordsworth\u27s autograph is affixed below a name and address for James Silk Buckingham, Stanhope Lodge, Upper Avenue Road, St. John\u27s Wood, London, March 7, 1853
William Wordsworth Collection
No full textThe William Wordsworth collection contains manuscripts and letters by the English Romantic poet. Correspondents include John Gardner, Richard Parkinson, Edward Quillinan, Richard Sharpe, and Mrs. Wordsworth
Wordsworth and the cultivation of women
No full textFocusing on the poems of Wordsworth's "Great Decade," feminist critics have tended to see Wordsworth as an exploiter of women and "feminine" perspectives. In this original and provocative book, Judith Page examines works from throughout Wordsworth's long career to offer a more nuanced feminist account of the poet's values. She asks questions about Wordsworth and women from the point of view of the women themselves and of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century culture. Making extensive use of family letters, journals, and other documents, as well as unpublished material by the poet's daughter Dora Wordsworth, Page presents Wordsworth as a poet not defined primarily by egotistical sublimity but by his complicated and conflicted endorsement of domesticity and familial life
Susanna Blamire, Medicine, and Romantic Women's Poetry
No full textThis event took place on 28 April 2022 and was in collaboration with the University of Northumbria.
Romantic poet Susanna Blamire (1747-1794) was a prolific Cumbria-based writer who explored topics including healthcare, religion and travel in both verse and prose. Little of her body of work was published during her lifetime.
Over the last 25 years the Wordsworth Trust worked with Christopher Hugh Maycock, Blamire’s descendent and biographer (A Passionate Poet, Hypatia Press 2003; Selected Poems, Bookcase, 2008), to preserve her surviving manuscript works. Her writings not only reveal the hidden history of women’s medical work in the 18th century but form a starting point for exploring what good healthcare looks like in past, present and future.
In this event our speakers took an in-depth look at Blamire’s life and writing, and showcased manuscripts and objects from the Wordsworth Trust’s collection. They explored topics including the experience of illness and disability in the late 18th century, how women influenced healthcare while being barred from medical school, and how creativity can interact with wellbeing.
This event accompanied ‘(Re)Acting Romanticism: Disability and Women Writers’ at Wordsworth Grasmere, an exhibition that took place from April-May 2022.
If you enjoyed this video, please consider making a donation to the Wordsworth Trust: https://wordsworth.org.uk/support
The origin and the artistic originality of the collection of poems "Lyrical Ballads" by W. Wordsworth and S.T. Colriedge
No full textThe article deals with the origin of the collection of poems УLyrical BalladsФ. The artistic originality of the collection of poems is analyzed. The author dwells upon the letter which was written by Wordsworth while crossing the Alps. The article also surveys some aspects and principles of methodology of a literary research
An analysis of a broad selection of the poetry and philosophical prose of James Beattie within its eighteenth-century context.
No full textThis study explores the significance and relevant contexts of the collected poems of James Beattie, within a detailed study of his own prose works and wider eighteenth-century intellectual debates. His position on the periphery of the literary canon means that this thesis deals largely with primary material, which permits a more thorough and objective analysis than has been conducted before. The first half of this study deals with Beattie’s poetic output. Chapter 1 focuses on Beattie’s first volume of poetry, Original Poems and Translations. In this chapter I analyse the poems within the context of other eighteenth-century poets, and explore Beattie’s engagement with patronage, the eighteenth-century conventions for success as a new poet, and poetic genius. Chapter 2 deals with Beattie's second volume, Poems on Several Subjects, to illustrate the evolution in his ideas concerning the usefti๒ess of poetry as a vehicle for philosophical investigation, and his engagement with eighteenth-century social and political issues. Chapter 3 explores his best known poem, The Minstrel: Or, the Progress of Genius. This chapter discusses the poem in its entirety and within the context of Beattie’s career as a poet and philosopher. Chapter 5 focuses on Beattie's final volumes of poetry, which represent his desire to control his poetic legacy. The second half of the study deals with selected critical and philosophical works, which provide insight into the development of Beattie’s poetry and express in prose many of the subjects in lus poetry. The most detailed attention in this section is given to the Essay on Truth, although there are also chapters examining other relevant critical works including Dissertations Moral and Critical. On Poetry and Music and On Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, and Beattie's collection of "Scoticisms." There are few modem critical studies of Beattie, and many of them are limited to The Minstrel and to specific areas of interest within this work. This study's comparative and interdisciplinary approach to Beattie’s poetry and selected prose aims to justify Beattie’s inclusion in our study of the eighteenth century. It is also intended to raise awareness of Beattie’s importance in the eighteenth-century and to illustrate his influence on three first- generation Romantic poets of generally recognised importance, namely Scott, Coleridge, and Wordsworth
Hibernia's tears forever flow, her harp in silence slumbers [first line]
No full textstrophicpiano and voice1841Johns Hopkins University, Levy Sheet Music Collection, Box
066, Item 038Written by [William] Wordsworth. Composed by J.G. Maeder.Composed for and Sung by Mrs. Emma Gillingham Bostwick by J.G. Maeder.Lith. of Sarony & Major N.Y.; Ben Marcato Eng'r
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