1 1 1 1 Wordsworth and later eighteenth-century concepts of the reading experience 1 1 by 1 Gordon Tweedle © A thesls submltted to the Faculty of Graduate Studles and Research ln partial fulfllment of the 1 requlrements for the degree of PhD. 1 1 J

Gordon TweedÏf~ Dept. of English 1 McGl1i University Montreal. P. a. March.1991 1

J 1 1 J 1 1 1 1 Abstract

1 Wordsworth and later eighteenth-century concepts of the reading experience 1 Gordon Tweedie PhD., Department of Enghsh McGiII University 1 March, 1991 1 Inlluentiallater eighteenth-century cr:lics and philosophers (Stewart, Knight, Alison, Jeffrey, 1 Godwin) argued that poetry's moral and practical beneflts derive from "ana1ytical" modes of reading, rather than trom the poet's instructive intentions. Frequently explolting the phllosophleal "language 1 of neeesslty," Wordsworth's essays and prefaces (1798-1815) protested that poetry dlrectly improves

t,le reade(s mOial code and etl1ical conduct. This dissertation discusses Wordsworth's cntlclsm ln the

1 context of analytical pnnclples of interpretation current in the 1790s, providing terlT's for exploring the

- ln 1 theme of readrng early mss of Peter Bell and The Bujned Cottage (1798-1799), the 1798 ~ Ballads, and later poe ms such as "A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags," "Resolution and 1 Independence," "Eleglac Stanzas," and The Prelude (Book V). 1 These poems anticipate Wordsworth's presentation of reading as the "art of admiration" in the "Essay, Supplementary" to the 1815~, and indicate a sustained search for alternatives and 1 correctives to detached investigative approaehes to the aesthetie experienee. Attempting to reconcile the extremes of the credulous or fanciful response, reflectiiIQ a ehildlike desire to be tree 1 from ail constralOts, and the analytieal response, fuelled by perceptions of contrast between poetic illusion and reality, Wordsworth's cnticism and poetry dt:pict the reader as the "auxlliar" of poetic

1 geOlus. The purpose, tradltionally underrnined by cnties as peremptory and egotistical. was to

challenge readers to examine their baSIC motives in seeking poetie pleasure. , j 1

1 Résumé

1 Wordsworth et la notIon de lecture à la fin du dIx-hUItième sIècle 1 Gordon Tweedle Doctorat de TroisIème Cyel'" Département de littérature AnglaIse 1 Unrversité McGill, MarS,1991

1 À la fin du dIx-huitième sIècle, les cntlques et philosophes qUI font authonté (Stewart, Knlght. 1 Alison, Jeffrey, Godwm) maintiennent que le progrès moral et pratique procuré par la poésIe est le fruIt d'une lecture "analytique" plutôt que de la volonté dIdactique du poète. MaIS Wordsworth, pUisant 1 abondamment dans le lIlangage de la néceSSIté" philosophIque, récuse cette notion dans ses essais et préfaces (1798-1815), soutenant que la poéSIe amende de façon directe la morale et la condUite

1 du lecteur La présente thèse traIte de la critIque formulée par Wordsworth, dans le contexte des 1 critères d'Inlerprétatlon analytIque ayant cours vers 1790, et fournit les termes qUi permettent d'étudier le thème de la lecture dans les premiers manuscnts de ~.6.e.ll et de The Rumed Cottage 1 (1798-1799). dans les Lydcal Ballac;ls (1798), puis dans les poèmes posténeurs, entre autres "A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags," "Resolution and Independence,lI lIEleglac Stanzas" et ill 1 Prelude (livre V). 1 Ces poèmes annoncent l'interprétation que donnera Wordsworth de la lecture - "l'art de l'admiration" - dans "Essay, Supplemenlary" des ~ de 1815, el sIgnaient une recherche étendue 1 de formules susceptibles de se substituer aux méthodes d'analyse du sentrment esthétique, ou de les corriger. S'efforçant de conCIlier d'une part la réaction crédule ou fantaISIste, qui témOIgne du déSir 1 enfantm de se dégager de toute contrainte, et, à l'autre extrême, le Jugement analytique, qu'alImente

la perceptIon de l'opposition entre illusion pOt.~tique et réalité, Wordsworth dépeint le lecteur, dans sa

1 cntique et sa p'Jésie, comme "l'aUXIliaire" du génie poétique. Son propos, que les cntiques ont 1 traditionnellement taxé de péremptoire et d'égoïste, est d'engager le lecteur à étudIer les motIfs profonds qui le poussent à rechercher le plaisir poétique. 1 1 1 1 1 1 Acknowledgments t 1 1am grateful to McGl1I Profs. C. Heppner and 1 Gopnik for their mvaluable comments on my dissertation during Its formative stages. The timely encouragements, 1 mSlghts, and editonal expertise of my thesis supervisor, Prof Kerry McSweeney, are the fmer spint shapmg thls project. More th an the poets and sages, Susan ~als Tweedle

1 has taught me the strength that hes in the "soft Impulse." 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 J . 1 1 1 1 1 Table of Contents 1 IntroductIon ...... 1

1 Chapter 1...... 20 1 Chapter 2 ...... '" .. 46 Chapter 3 ...... '" ... . 72 1 Chapter 4 ...... 100 Chapter 5...... 146 1 Epilogue ...... 188 Notes ...... 204

1 Bibliography ...... 226 1 1 1 , 1 1 1 1 1 ) 1

.J 1 List of Abbrevlatlons

A ArchIbald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Pdncjples of 1aste, 1 (1790; Hartford, Conn .. G Goodwin, 1821) f William Godwin, The EngUirer. Reflectjons on EducatIon. Manners, and Ltlerature, (1797. New York' Augustus M. Kelly, 1965).

1 J FranCIS Jeffrey, Contnbutlons to the Edinburah Beyjew (PhIladelphia' Carey and Hart, 1846). 1 K Richard Payne Knlght, An Analvtjcallngujry joto the PnpClples ofTaste, 2nd. ed (London, 1805~.

eJ. William Godwin, Pohtlcal Justice, ed. K. Codel! Carter 1 (1793. Oxford. Clarendon, 1971)

EY:i WIlliam Wordsworth, The Prose WOrks of Wjl!jam Wo~, 1 3 vol., ed. W. J B Owen and Jane W. Smyser (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974) Dugald Stewart, Elements of the Philoscphy of the Human Mjnd, l (1792; New York. Garland, 1971) 1 J 1 1 1 1 J ) 1

1 Introduct!""n 1 A Battle Wlthout Enemles 1 1.

1 My approach to Wordsworth's poetry IS via hls essays and prefaces, watten between 1798 and 1815 DISCUSSions of Wordsworth's cnticism have usually focussed on hls theones of ooetlc language ln

1 Wordsworth as CritlC (1969), W J B Owen argued that the "main obJect of the Preface of 18001510 1 defme and dE'fend a partlcular rhetonc. to assert the poetlc value of a selection of the reallanguage of men ln a state of vlvld sensation and of the language of prose" He concluded Ihat "10 Ihls 1 comprehensive motive behmd the Preface ail other motives suggested by Wordsworth, and more especlally by hls cnt,cs, are eventuafly subordlnate ,,1 ThiS dld not accurately reflect Ine diverse

1 interests of the "Preface" One of the most Visible of Wordsworth's "other motives" was the 1 improvement of the readlng habits of hls audience Three years before OWen's text appeared, Paul M Zall had polnted out that Wordsworth's 1 cnticism was "Iess concerned wlth settlng up a consistent aesthetle system than wlth explalnlng the practlcal powers of poetry to a practlcal-mlnded pubhc,',2 WQrdsworth's comments on the nature and

1 effects of readmg address a vanety of Issues concemed wlth poetry's SOCial and moral relevance 1 However, It 15 sometlmes difflcult to see Wordsworth's handhng of these Issues as sen,.lng the dlslnterested, pedagoglcal purposes suggested by Zall. Wordsworth began hls "explalnlng" by 1 snubbing the cnties ("Advertlsement" ta the 1798 LyncalBallads), ended It by bltterly assaulling thelr inco."petence and narrow-mlndedness ("Essay, Supplementary" ta the 1815 PQems), and 1 repeatedly suggested that the hterary establishment was incapable of understandmg hls revolutlOnary theones A number of Wordsworth's contemporary revlewers considered hls cntlClsm to be arrogant

1 and antiSOCial The poetic countenance of ois "egotlsm," as descnbed by Hazlitt and subsequently 1 many others, was "sublime," but his cnticlsm, especially the "Essay, Supplementary ," was seen as seH-serving and narcissistic.3 1 1 p',

1 2

1 ln "Wordsworth, the Public, and the People" (1956), Patnck Crul1well observed that 1 dehberately antagonlzlng elements ln the essays and prefaces were aimed at others besldes entlCs. Makmg "blandly egolstlc Identifications between a IIklng for hls poetry and a taste for any poetry, and 1 between a lack of taste for por.try and a general moral dehnquency," Wordsworth deplcted the enUre readlng public as "corrupted, morally and totally" Cruttwell argued that this "fine sweepmg nonsense" 1 was hlstoncally Important Wordsworth was not the flrst poet to imagme a "dream-public . who se taste was, mlraculously, both unlettered and correct," but he was the first to "declde that the taste of the

1 /lterary was corrupt because they were hterary," and to "tum from them to the unllterary" on that basis 1 Cruttwell's explanatlon of why Wordsworth spurned the Iiterati - he was "hurt" by the negatlVe revlews of hls poems - was not new, and can be traced back to Hazlitt, who beheved that Wordsworth's 1 soeiablhty had been soured by the "undeserved ridicule" of cntics.4 Wordsworth's comments on readmg taste and habits refleet dismterested motives, theoretical and practlcai, but al50 a "biting

1 contempt for the hterary world of hls tlme ,,5 1 The recent preoccupation of cntlCS wlth reader-response theones has created a cllmate tavourable to reassessmp.nts of Wordsworth's views on reading. Don Blalostosky's MaklOg Tales: The 1 Poetjcs of Wordsworth's Narrative Expedments (1984) used the essays and prefaces to illumlnate the reader-response strategies enacted by the 1798 Lyncal Ballads. Cruttwell had suggested that

1 Wordsworth was typlcal of the Romantic Poet ln that he "demands devotees rathor than mere 1 readers ,,6 ln Blalostosky's view, Wordsworth's "mast important demand" is for the "active studyof poetry as a systematlc diSCipline," more ngourous than devotlon because "grounded in the work of 1 the understandlng ,,7 MakmQ Tales Implled that Wordsworth's cntlcism dld not attempt to sandbag the contemporary tlde of taste because It had turned against hlm, but because it obscured a universal

1 system of laws that cou Id govern poetic readers of any historical period; and that those who had

described Wordsworth's interpretatlons of these laws as kneeJerk reactions to negative critlClsm, or as

1 appeals to a bOdy of unsophist!cated readers ("practical-mlnded," "unllterary" etc ), had 1 misunderstood the theoretical foundations of Wordsworth's vlews on reading 1 1 ----~----- 1 3

1 81alostosky argued that Wordsworth's mterpreters, followmg Colendge's lead, had been 1 blinkered by the Anstotehan entlcal tradition Wordsworth's early narratlvt: "expenments" broke wlth this tradition by focussmg on poetlc language as represented speech, conveymg "tones tha! connect 1 the words wlth the situations [emotlOnal, mtellectual, moral, etc] they resolve" The essays and prefaces also pomt to a Platomc "poetics of speech," as opposed to a "poetlcs of Imltated action," and

1 stress the Importance of narrative forms (dialogue and monologue) as the best means JI m'ikmg poel 1 and reader "equal or potentlally equal participants" ln the aesthetlc expenence 8 ln representmg speech unmedlated by the poet, Wordsworth tnvlted the reader to take upon hlmself the 1 responslblli\les of full and aceurate interpretatlon However, as slgnalled by "Tintern Abbey," Wordsworth's more usual habit atter 1798 was to present poet-personae who mterpreted thelT

1 relationships wlth Nature, and thelr human encounters, Wit!i a vlew te medlallng the reader's 1 responses. Bialostosky repeatedly emphasized what Hazlitt called the "pnnclple of equahty" ln 1 Wordsworth's wntmgs, and dld not deal wlth the fact that the essays and prefaces chastened enough classes or types of reader to glve the Impression of attackmg the entlre readmg pubhc 9 Wordsworth's 1 criticism particlpated aggresslvely ln the contemporary debate over proper readlng habits, and need 10 be more fully understood m that context. Wordsworth entered thls debate parti y ln order la challenge

1 the nght of readers to pass judgment on poets One can see why defenders 01 Wordsworth's 1 dlslnterested critical motives have been reluctant to dlscuss this aspect of the essays and prefaces, for It appears to undermlne the principle of equahty, and potentially provldes the Interpreter of 1 Wordsworth's poems with reasons for Ignonng the essays and prefaces altogether It is sigmficant that the most mfluentlal modern mterpretation of Wordsworth's poetry, Geoffrey

1 Hartman's Wordsworth's Paetry. 1787-1814 (1964) pald almast no attention to th€' ''''''ays ând 1 prefaces, and denied that they are essential ta a full understandmg of the poe ms 10 It IS nevertheless clear that Hartman and interpreters of Wordsworth's cnticism such as Blalostosky and Za" share the 1 view that the poems promote a relatlonshlp of equals, an "ennobllng Interchange" (1805 Prelude, Book XII. 1 376) between poets and readers. Wordsworth's poetry frequently mvokes a qUiescent 1 1 1 4

1 response, but thls has been seen as awakenlng a receptlve power ln readers that corresponds wlth 1 the poers hvely medltatlons on nature and humanlty As Hartman pornted out, "Recelvrng IS an active vlrtue," and Wordsworth's ereed of "wise passlveness" IS not essentlally "quletlstlc ,,11 Such 1 arguments put Wordsworth and hls reader on a potentlally equal footrng as Interpreters of a shared aesthetlc experrence by emphasizrng the active power that rnheres ln the contemplative response

~ Yet Wordsworth also subverted thls equahtarran pnnclple ln some of hls poems, and at Important 1 pornts rn hls crrtlClsm He dld thls malnly to convlnce readers of the dlrec!. positive Impact of poetry on thelr moral-aesthetlc codes This position was not taken up merely ta castlgate unsyrripathellc entles, 1 or for purposes of self·advertlsement Il was partly intended to dlSSlpate the rnfluence of later elghteenlh-century cnllcs and phllosophels who had promoted the authonty of the Informed reader al

1 the expense of poetlc genlus

James Avenll's Wordsworth and the Poetry of Human Suffenng (1980) placed Wordsworth's

1 preoccupations wlth reader-response ln the context of later-elghteenth century aesthetles and 1 sentimental morahty Aven" argued thal some of Wordsworth's early poems of sentiment and pathos eue readers 10 carefully examine the moral underpmnrng of thelr reactlons to the hterary uses of 1 human mlsery, and enact a Jissatlsfied expenmentatlon wlth a number of laler elghteenth-eentury Iheones ot Iragle response These theones dld not sattsfy Wordsworth because, unlrke hls "senous

1 exploration of the moral improvement rnduced by traglc response," they were rndlfferent to the Idea 1 thal art IS morally instructive 12 Another branch of later elghteenth-century aesthetlcs, that tormulated "analytlcal" pnnclples of reading, actlvely subverted the notion that art models and motivates ethlcal 1 behavlor The modes and habits of rnterpretatlon that Wordsworth's crrticism pressed readers to approach carefully resemble those that were recommended to the publie by later elghteenth-century

1 exponents of analyt.eal reading, such as Dugald Stewart, Richard Payne Knlght, and Archibald Alison 1 The essays and prefaces taught that poetic analysis must be grounded ln a splnt of admiration. In Wordsworth and the Poet!) of Siocedty (1964), DaVid Perklns remal1

ft wlth readers are more than "blandly egotlstlcalldenllficatlons," and ought to be mcluded ln 1 discussions of hls instructIve purposes. rather than tacltly forglven a~ Imperfections ln an aesthetic system that olherwlse !osters a relatlonshlp of equals between poets and readers For Wordsworth. ~ the admtnng response was not Just a desirable emotlon If was a theorellcal conr,ept. a key to the

moral relations between poets and readers He was aware of the splntual nsks that Inhere ln the need - tD be admtred by others, and dlscussed thls problem ln the "Essay, Supplementary," hls mosl 1 ext""sive commentary on reader response As ln hls earlter cntlCl5m, bolh self-servlng and altrUlstlc purlJoses gUided hls views on readmg, but for Wordsworth thls was not a paradox As Perkms 1 tndicated, Wordsworth concelved of the admmng (e~ponse as beneflttmg readers as weil as poels, fulfilling the obligations Imphed by the act of mterprettng a poem The theoretlcal and hlstoncal

1 underptnntng of th,s concept becorrres clearer when il IS placed ln the the context of analytlcal theones of readtng, that placed httle or no falth in the idea of an obhgatory relatlon3hlp between the

1 reader's purposes and those of the poet 1 The term "analytlcal" 15 always amblguous ln a poetlc envtronment It usually Ind,cates a practlcal approach to interpretation, separating a text into Its formai and thematlc elements for internai 1 compansons or for compansons wlth other texts 1 use the word 10 reflect the moral values as weil as the practlcal pnnclples of Interpretation in Wordsworth's wntmgs, and m later elghteenth-century

1 essays, such as Stewart's Elements of the Phj!osoph~ ot the Human Mmd (1792), that poslted the 1 existence of a umversally nght way to read For Stewart, analyzmg a te:ct meant to engage ln processes of companson, dissection, and rpductio But It also meant constructing a new text, 1 substanttally dlfferent tram the onginal, and potentially supenor to 1\ ln moral and practlcal terms Wordsworth pomled ouI the shortcomings of such reconstructions ln hls poet/y, as weil as ln

1 his cntlcism. For example, ln the 1805.Eϟ "analytlc mdustry" (II, 1 398) IS no more than "that taise 1 secondary power by which/ln weakness we create distinctions, thenl Deem that our puny boundanes are thingsl Which we perceive, and not which we have made" (II 221-224).14 The obJect oi thl!': 1 lesson IS not the poet's sympathelic "Fnend" (Coleridge) It is the reader who mlght have been led by analytical theorists to believe that interpretJng a poem IS less a respectful response 10 moral and 1 1 1 "

1 6

1 Intellectual boundanes marked off by the poet than the Imposition of his own boundaries on the 1 poet's amblguous language and un~,ndled emotionalism; who would make no distinction between wnat one percf'ives ln the text and what one projects on It; or who Wf'" .Id argue that truth and 1 knowledge mhere ln the mode of reading a poem, not in the poem itself Wordsworth countered analytical theones of reading by presenting the excellent poem as

œ both a passlonate and a dispé'ssionate performance, enacting the poet's powers of discrimination and J selectivlty as weil as hls mstinctive thoughts and feelings. The object was partly to deprive the analytlcal reader of his clalm to have mastered a poem by setthng order on il, making It serve useful 1 ends. A basic pnnciple of Wordsworth's criticism is that reflned poetry IS mherently practical, for it purifies the reader's moral system, as weil as his emotions. My discussion of Stewart, Knight, and 1 Alison ln Chapter One pomts out that their rules and theories of reading made allowances for the beneficial mfluence of poetry on the emotions, and for its capacity to stir the reader's intellectual

1 cunosity, but implicitly and explicltly denied that poetry can retorm the reader's moral code. 1 The aesthetics of Frances Jeffrey, Wordsworth's primary critlcal foe, were profoundly influenced by the theories of Stewart, Knight, and Alison. Jeffrey acknowledged this in a historical 1 overvlew of theones of beauty, published in the E(j:nburgh Beylmï (May, 1811). Jeffrey's "Essay On Beauty" is also discussed in Chapter One, in order to shed sorne light on his hostility towards

1 Wordsworth's poetic creed. At the heart of Jeffrey's own c(eed is a belief in the interpretive autonomy 1 of the analytical reader, who always reads skeptically and never yields his judgmental powers to emotlonalism. Jeffrey's vituperative, condescending reviews of Wordl)worth's poems and poetic 1 theones were farfrom objective, and gave Wordsworth good reason for resentmg literary middlemen. Nevertheless, Wordsworth's adversarial relationship with his audience resulted ln arguments that

1 cannat be explained awa'J as c:ontempt for cntlcs such as Jeffrey. Wordsworth's vlews on reading , 1 resulted more from his distrust of textual analysts in general than from his dislike of particular critics. Chapter Two places the essays and prefaces in the context of the later eighteenth-century ~J theories of reading discussed ln Chapter One. This helps to pin down the views on reader-response underlying Wordsworth's most contentious and elusive argument, expressed mainly in the "Essay, 1 1 1 7

1 Supplementary", the. elations between a poet and his readers are govemed by IIterary-hlstoncal 1 forces, that assure the timelessness of splritually uplifting poetry and the eventual obscunty of poelry that appeals to popular taste This argument was not supported by sound loglc. and It mlrrors 1 Wordsworth's dlsillusionment over the unpopularity of hls own poe ms But the basIc alm was to suggest that analytlcal pnnclples of interpretatlOn and evaluatlon, reflectmg a dlspasslonate Spirit of

1 enquiry, do not permit the reader 10 ascend to the spiritual heights of poelry Bralostosky's argument 1 notwithstanding, the "Essay. Supplementary" tned to convmce the reader that systematlc approaches to poetry tend to preclude Inslghts mto the poet's altruistic purposes. 1 The theory in the "Essay, Supplementary" that a fit audience is tated for the sublime poet who is ignored or ridlculed by hls contemporanes was shaped by the belief that morally beneficlal

1 knowledge cannot be had from poetry unless it is read in a spint of Informed approbation. The "Essay"

attempted to iIIuminate fixed or universal pnnciples that would Justlfy thls bellef. as weil ta enhst

1 "devolees" for Wordsworth's poems. Wordsworth indicated that there is a direct relatlonshlp between 1 the genuinely admlring response to a poem and the r~ader's capacity to bene"t from the poem's moral lessons, and that thls relatlonship is governed by a pnnclple of necesslty, Frequent and emphatlc 1 references to necesslty in Wordsworth's earlier criticism reinforced his concepts of readlng by suggesting that readers cannot resist the poet's wholesome influence.

1 ln Chapter Three, later eighteenth-century philosophical definitions of necesSlty are 1 discussed in order to iIIuminate the relationships between the themes of readmg and necesslty ln the essays and prefaces. In the Prefaces of 1800 and 1802, the references to necesslty indicate that the 1 moral-aesthetic codes of any reader are unavoidably improved by his encounters wlth excellent poetry, provided only that the reader's mind be bath heahhy and willing to submlt to the poet's

1 guidance. The "Essay, Supplementary" more guardedly observedthat only a few readers possess 1 this unique combinatlon of intelleclual vigour and spiritual humility, and argued that the grAat poet 15 fated to be misunderstood by his contemporaries, except for a minority whose values correspond 1 closely to the poet's Were these views indebted to the later eighteenth-\.entury debate on free will and necessity? 1 1 , 8

1 ln splte of the close attention pa~d by critics to Wordsworth's philosophical orientations, there 1 have been dlsagreements over the extent to whlch his poetry and critlClsm were grounded ln necessltanan bellels An overlooked aspect of this question is the rnterplay of concepts of necesslty 1 and cholce rn Wordsworth's vlews on reading. In trying to understand the purooses of Wordsworth's references to necesslty, It IS helpful to remember that later elghteenth-century exponents of analytlcal

1 readlng elther assumed or argued that an author's point ot view must be resisted, and to sorne extent J rejected, if the readtng expenence is to be worthwhile. Wordsworth surmlsed that afftrmmg the poet's pornt of vlew IS an essenttal component of beneticial reading, and that th,s affirmation neeessanly 1 results from the salutary moral and socIal values inscribed ln a poem. Godwin figures promlnently in my discussion of later eighteenth-century erities. He was an

1 energetlc exponent of analytical reading, as weil as a rationalist philosopher - two, possibly related, ) causes for Wordsworth's revoit aglilnst Godwm after fa/ling under his influence in the early 1790s. Arthur Beatty, Melvin Rader, and Alan Grob have argued that the doctrine of necessity in Godwin's 1 politjcal Justjce (1793) played an important rôle in shaping Wordsworth's philosophy.15 Godwin's I)pinions on reading in The Engujrer (1797) and his views on liberty and necessity can be used to

) clarify Wordsworth's views on the moral relations between poets and readers. Godwin's influence on

Wordsworth has long been the subJect of critical debate, but measuring Wordsworth's indebtedness

J to particular texts and authors is less important to my discussion than iIIuminating what it is that he and 1 others in his historical matrix meant by a beneficial reading experience. Chapter Three also brings the concepts of reader-response and necessity in Wordsworth's ] criticism to bear on the the me of "strict necessity" in earty mss. of The Ruined Cottage (1798-1799),

and in a text stemming from these mss., the conclusion of Book IV of The Excursion (1814).16 This

1 frames the general penod of Wordsworth's poetic development that 1wish to consider in Chapters 1 Four and Five, ln whlch his poetic strategies for countering analytical reading values, such as dispassionate judgment, compatitiveness with the poet's point of view, interpretive autonomy etc. are

,) more fully discussed. Wordsworth doubted, and finally discarded, the premise that lite and art are

governed by a law of "strict necessity" because he found the letter of tMt law, as expressed in books ] 1 1

1 of moral philosophy, dehumaniztng. Nevertheless, the Ideal readers postulated by the early mss 01 1 The Bu!Oed Cottage, and by the related passages ln Book IV of The ExcurSion are far from belng free and active participants on the poetic scene. Thelr qUiescence IS compelled by Ihe poet They are 1 essentlally unmterfenng, unquestlon!Og presences on the poet'r- {erratn. This belies the tact that Wordsworth's cntlclsm, as weil as several of the poems wrtt "between 1798 and 1815, prompted

1 readers to be wary of the dangers of respondmg 100 passlvely 10 a poem, smce Ihls can lead 10 mere 1 credulousness. Chapter Four focuses on the theme of reading in the 1798 l,yOca! Ballads, and ln peter Bell 1 (composed 1798; revised and published 1819).17 This bnngs ou: complexlties in Wordsworth's poetic vlew of readlng that are not reflected ln The ByJOed Cottage. Several of Ihe Ballads enact

1 Wordsworth's cntical view of ide al response as grounded 111 a spirit of approbatton, and hls resistance

to the analyllcal reader, as conceived ln the later elghteenth-century texts on reading dlscussed ln

1 Chapters One and Two It is true that poems such as "The Thorn" have been subjected ''to elaborate 1 and ambiguous alJegoOzation" as lessons on readlng.18 The best way to avold such amblgultles whlle trying to Illuminate the theme of reading in the Lyrjcal Ballads is to bring together and discuss those

1 poems that show an overt JOterest ln this theme, no matter how diverse Ihe forms of the poems Words such as "read" "reade(' and "book" are unmistakable markers of this interes\, but they

1 are also no guarantee of its thematic depth. As the title indlcates, "Lines wntten ln earfy Spnng" is 1 conscious of its status as a published teX!. Yet, in order to argue that the poem 15 a comment on that status, or on the kind of reader it invites, one must deny or put off discussmg its more urgent moral 1 and social concerns. The woman who speaks "The Female Vagrant" is a passlonate book-reader This background detai! is noteworthy, particularfy in ItS historical context, but it is of mlnor Importance

1 to the poem as a whole. However, reading images are of central importance to "L1nes left upon a 1 Seat," "Lines wntten at a small distance," "Tintern Abbey," "SmlOn Lee," "Expostulatlon and Reply" and "The Tables Turned." Apparent gaps between these images and other thematlc concerns can be 1 overcome if close attention is paid to shadowy figures such as the "Traveller," the ·Sister," the "gentle 1 1 1 10

1 reader," and "Matthew," who model the dispositions of the ideal reader. (Sy reading Images, 1 mean 1 language that vlvldly câlls to mmd mterpretmg the wrinen, whether that language 15 poetry or prose.) ln "Simon Le&''' an enJgmatlc presence, a silent audltor whom the speaker Identifies as a 1 "gentle reader," IS the obJect of a direct address. The "Traveller," who pauses to read the lm es of the Yew- Tree poe m, IS the obJect of an apostrophe on pride. Would il be wrong to assume that these

1 figures are more hterary th an human? ln the "Advertisement, Il Wordsworth claimed to have shown 1 "human characters" mvolved ln "human mCldents" and capable of "human passions" œw, i, 116) Il IS easler to flesh out the lessons on readmg embodied by the "gentle reader" and the "Traveller" If one 1 can flrsl see these figures as "human characters," but the obstacles to this can seem so basic as to to be immovable. Can one even say for sure whethor the "Traveller" is a male or a female, slnce

1 Wordsworth 50 often deplcted wandering women'; The "Traveller's" gender is not grammatically

Indlcated, and attempting to settle this deliberate ambiguity iIIummates the pcem's lessons on the art

1 of readmg. Ooes the "gentle reader" represent a female or a male principle? Was Wordsworth 1 Implying that readers ought to be self-posse5sed or subtle in their judgments of the poem? Or was he perhaps suggestJng that a polite reader should not be judgmental at ail? The "Sister" in "Lines written 1 at a Small Distance" IS a book-reader. Do the pcem's descriptions of her feminmity and dome5tlclty

convey distinct attitudes towards reading taste and habits? Such questions are deeply ingrained JO

1 the poems, and dlfflcult to resolve. It becomes clear that the social vindication of the female-reader 1 was not among the chief purposes of the Ballads. Like Trlstram Shandy, Wordsworth hoped thal "ail good people, both male andfemale .... may be taught to think as weil as read.,,19 He steeped his 1 reading images in the domestic affections and in conventionally feminine values mainly 10 teach his readers the Importance of selflessness, meditative silence, submission to nature's instructive power,

1 and to the moral purposes of poetry. 1 Wordsworth's intent was to humble as weil as to humanize readers, and the adversarial relationship between poets and readers depicted in the essays and prefaces is much in evidence in 1 poems such as "Lines left upon a Seat ... ," 'Simon Lee," "Expostulation and Reply," and "The Tables Tumed." Wordsworth's fame would have bee" short·lived if his poetry did not challenge readers to 1 1 1 11

1 become, in Bialostosky's words, "actively co-creative" with the poet Yet tne Ballads are also 1 cautlonary tales, designed ln part to Improve the reader's moral stance towards the exercise of hls analytlcal skills. These poems do not equate the reader's Interpretlve abllitles wlth the poet's creative 1 powers. On the contrary, they suggest a desire to have readers deplore pre-set methods and modes of mterpretatlOn that mtght lead hlm to a proud or complaeent vlew of hls authonty over the poet

1 Although the more overt alluSions to readlng in the 1798 Ballads are structured by Slmllar 1 pedagoglealimpuises, they have not yet ail been brought together for companson Wordsworth deliberately cultivated a spmt of vanety ln composlng the Ballads Differences ln the form, quahty, and 1 reputatlon ot the poe ms in which reading images appear are extreme For example, "The Tables Turned," a wlHy poem composed ln the traditional ballad quatrain, and "Tintern Abbey," a greater

1 romantle lyric that bears resemblances to the elegy, the ode, and the Colendgean conversation poem, 1 do not lend themselves easily to compansons, even to more general ones than 1am now proposln9 Nevertheless, as suggested by recent studles of the Ballads thls path 15 a Ilkely one to follow ln order 1 to iIIummate Wordsworth's concepts of readlng.20 The dlverslty of the poetic expenments in the Lyncal Ballads - the title embodles that dlverslty, 1 implying a blend of the narrative qualities assoClated with the traditional ballad and the personal senslbihties assoelated with the Iyrieal impulse - appeals to an open-mmded reader, who is not P", ne

1 to measuring the merits of a po('m by formai yardsticks. ThiS is also the kmd of reader who IS meant to 1 benefit the most trom Wordsworth's critieal investigations into metre and poetlc diction These investigations undermined rigid codes of interpretation by argumg that prosalsms ln a poem are not 1 necessarily a bad thing, that there is no essential difference between poetry and prose, and by suggesting that tradltional poetic figures and forms, sueh as persomfieatlon, tautology or repetltlon,

1 personification, and prosodie arrangements in general, do not represent inflexible standards by whieh 1 poetry should be Judged. Chapter Five is a discussion of themes and images ot reading in poems written after the 1798 1 Ballads. such as "A narrow girdle of rough stones .. " (1800), "Resolution and Independence" (18J2), the Drearn of the Arab episode in in Book V of the 1805 prelude, and "Elegiac Stanzas" (1806), that 1 1 1 12

1 actlvely promote respect for poetry's instructive power The overlapping themes of reading and 1 "fancy" in these poems furthered Wordsworth's expenments wlth the credulous response ln "The Idiot Boy" and Peter Bell, and refleet a sustained effort to rehablfttate the narrowly analytlcal reauer ln

1 the "Preface" to ~ (1815) the credulous response, Impllcitly ideahzed by the commentary on fancy, represents a possible alternative to textual analysls. However, in the "Essay, Supplernentary,"

t thp. credulous reader was reJected by Wordsworth as Intellectuafly and rnorafly infenor. 1 Wordsworth's poetlc concepts of fancy can be seen as attempts to reconelle the polanzed vlew of readmg expressed in his cntlClsm, embodied by dichotomies such as "wonder" and 1 "admiration," "active" and "passive" The poems on faney suggest a sustamed attempt to resolve the Ideas of a carefully consldered response to poetry and an Impulsive response, the contrastlng ideals 1 of the studious and the chlldlike reader, and the tension thaï exi;ts between the work and play of

composing or readlng poetry. The play of fancy in Wordsworth's poems was bound up with images of

1 the waking dream. HIs nchly layered presentations of both of these themes suggest that theonsts 1 such as Stewart and Alison were wrong ta assume that the poet, unllke the analytical reader, does not resist the aesthetic experience in arder to seek its moral and practlcal applications to reality. The t Longmian vlew of sublime Imagination as a power of exaggeratlon, that cntlcs such as Hume had

carned forward into the later eighteenth-century, is reflected ln Alison's Essays on the Nature and

1 Pdncjples of Taste (1790). Alison's comments on the dreamlike qualities of the aesthetic experience J rndicate that the poetic imagination longs ta escape reality. In The Elements of Cdtlcjsm (1762), Kames had sought to bnng the poetic 'dream' into the mimetic fold by arguing that it is a duplication of 1 reahty. His theory of readmg as a wakmg dream, based on concepts of ideal presence and real

presence, are used ln Chapter Five ta help trace the theoretical implications of Wordsworth's poetlc

1 attempts to bndge the distance between IIterary escapism and the pragma of literary interpretation.

Since the practlcal mIes and the IIterary-historical theory laid down for the art of admiration in

1 the "Essay, Supplementary" encouraged a view of reading as an act of faith, one wants to know ta 1 what extent Wordsworth's poems overtly reinforce this view. The "Dream of the Arab" episode is particularly enllghtening in this respect, sinee it suggests that boundaries need to be imposed on the 1 1 1 13

1 exercise of "perlect falth" ln reading, and pomts to slmllar suggestions in other poe ms The admlrlng 1 response 15 openly cove~3d by Wordsworth's cnticI5m and by sorne of hls poem5, but hl5 Ideal reader IS far from credulous, unquestlonmg, and unselfconselous. He 15 one who has learned to temper hls 1 analytlcallmpulses with sympathy for the poet's instructive mtentions, and who allows hlmself 10 be drawn lOto the shadowy poet's dream il" order to locate ItS moral substance 1 ln an Epilogue, 1 summanze Wordsworth's vlews on readmg, and eonstruct a model of Ihe

ideal reader from hls wntmgs. My purpose IS to suggest that Word5worth's concepts of reader

1 response had helped entlcs such as Hazlitt, Ruskin, and Arnold to formulate thelr vlews on the 1 function of cnticism, and can be just as useful to modern critlcs concerned wlth the fate of thelr profession. M H. Abrams noled that nmeleenth-century criticism, after Wordsworth, "10 place of 1 analysls, and an inqUiry into causes, undertakes to formulate a verbal eqUivalent for the aeslhetlc effects of Ihe work under conslderatlon.,,21 Matthew Arnold argued Ihat the "grand work of hterature

1 tS a work of synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery," and advised hls readers to "Ieave 1 alone ail questions of practical consequences and applications ,,22 The recol/ery of analytlcal readtng '.'alues from Ihe Me of critlcallmpresslonlsm dld nol begin 10 earnest untll the appearance of 1 A. 1 Richards's Pnncjples of Uterary Cntjcjsm (1925), a text that proloundly influenced theones of reader­ response developed over the past Iwo decades. The reader's moral authonty and mterprellve

1 freedom, central Issues in Wordsworth's poetry and cnticism, have been the focus of attention ln 1 recent books, such as Hartman's Crtticism in the Wildemess (1980) and J. HllIls MI"er's The Ethlcs of Reading (1988). In the 1800 "Preface," Wordsworth expressed concern that hls cntlcal creed would 1 be tho'Jght of as "a battle wlthout enemles," a self-servmg deluslon of pnde (EW, l, 137). 1want to suggest thal this battle 15 we" worth recreating in its theoretlcal and histoncal conlexts, for It ralses

1 issues that are of central concern to modern disputations ol/er the nature and effects 01 readmg

freedom and necessity ln interpretation: the secondarl or servile character of reading as mamfest ln

1 contemporary crttical habits; and the moral irTYt>9ratives of reading. 1 Il. 1 1 1 14 1 1 Wordsworth's battle Image, hke hls other Images of conlhct between poets and readers, suggests that the revolutlOnary Impulses of tus cnticism Will be overlooked or misunderstood If hls enemles are not 1 seen as real forces on hls literary-hlstolical honzon, and as representing maJonty opinions and bellets He saw hlmselt as both embattled and "almost alone" in expressmg hls "practlcal falth" ln the moral j power of poetry The "Essay, Supplementary" expressed the same falth more radlcally, and J Wordsworth again presented hlmseH as Isolated from the hterary establishment, the reading "Public" There are sound reasons why the "Essay, Supplementary" defined Itselt ::ts a vOlce ln the wilderness J Wordsworth's poetry had not sold well.23 The thorns of entles such as F'anees Jeffr\~y, who wrote a scathing revlew ot The ExcumJQO (1814), were probably more wounding than Wordsworth cared to

1 admit ln 1800, however, Wordsworth's honzon was prorTIIsmg Reviews of the 1798 ~yncal Ballads, and ot hls earher publications, Ao Eyenjng Walk and Descnptiye Sketches (1793), had not been

1 unflattenng, and hls prospects for fame were good. He and his sister Dorothy had been reunited, and J the home they shared at Grasmere, enllvened by frequent vislls from literary fnends, was Ideally sUited to his poetlc pursUits And yet, anonymous "enemies" encircled the 1800 "Preface" 1 M H. Abrams's The MirrOf and the Lamp: Bomantjc Theor,y and the Cotical TradiljoD {1953}

dld not shed much light 00 flesh and blood toes of the ideas expressed in the 1800 "Preface;" but It

J did suggest that thelr presence. imaginary or real. had an important historical result. Abrams traced the J development of the eX~'\'essive theory of art, a "way of thinking, in which the artist hlmself becomes the major element generating both the artlstic product and the criteria by which it is to be judged." He J presented Wordsworth as both an innovative and a transitional figure in a "turning-point in English hterary theory ," from a pragmatic or audience-centered aesthetics to one in whlch the poet's thoughts ) and feelings became the "center of critical reference." Wordsworth's critiCism signal/ed this turning­ ] point in that "one of the ma," concerns of his [1800] Preface was to justify his own poetic principles and pi!ictice against the indlfference or adverse judgments of the great majonty of the readers of his ] day"24 1 J 1 15

1 This "maJonty" was a convenlent fiction, and Abrams's argument could be refernng 10 1 Wordsworth's psychologlcal needs (for self-Justification, controversy etc ), 10 hls polemlcal style of wntmg, one that requlred slraw men, or to hls dlsagreements wlth the "pnnclples and pracllce" ot 1 elghteenth-century cnllcs and the.)nsts Abrams Illummated Wordsworth's aHlnlties wllh laler elghteenth-century theonsts, but he also observed that Wordsworth had "taken OVE'r many of Ihe 1 prerogatives whlch had once been exerClsed by his readers:,25 Wordsworth's theones were seen as

conforming wlth others ln hls hlstoncal mlheu, and the question of whlch prerogatives hls cnllClsm

1 denled to contemporary readers was left open Whlch version of Wordsworth as cnllc ought one to 1 accept - the one that has hlm InVlting the reader to be hls equal, or the one ln whlch he denles the reader his traditlOnal nghts and responslbihtles?

1 The truth must lie somewhere between these two verSions, for Wordsworth's Ideal reader 15 a correspondmg fnend of the poet's, and he IS also wilhng to sacnflce his dlsinterested JudO ment ln

1 order to become the enemy of the poet's enemles Charles Rzepka's Self As Mmd, VISion and 1 Identity ln Wordsworth. Colendge. and Keats (1986) gave an Interesting psychologlcal perspective on Wordsworth's encounters wlth his readers. "Where Wordsworth cornes face to face wlth the 1 posslbility that his intentions may be 'mlsread,' he attempts to re-educate his 'reader; the person whom he confronts or before whom he enacts hls sense of hlmself He Will preempt the Other's

1 responses ta his presence, appropliate the Other's responses. In such a way as ta assure hlmself 1 that he is recognized properly.,,26 It is not necessary, however, to put f'Jrward the fictions of an unsympathetic "majonty" of readers, or a self-pro;ected "other," ta see why the essays and prefaces 1 can stnke the reader as hostile and self-servlflg. In vlew of the accusatIons of arrogance almed at the essays and prefaces, It is ironiC that Wordsworth's ideal reader is a relormed analytlcal reader, who has

1 learned to subdue his impulses ta compete with the paet's truths 10 order to estabhsh hls own, who modestly assigns a hlgher value to the morallOtegrity and instructive capaCity of the poetlc text than to

1 his own interpretive authonty. According to Wordsworth, the reader's judgements must necessanly 1 defer to the reverence that he feels, or should teel, towards the poet, and there IS a tully comprehensible system of moral-aesthetic laws to explain why thls is sa. 1 1 1 16

1 Boistered by the pragmatlc tradItion of aesthetlcs descnbed by Abrams, that mamtamed that 1 authors must humbly seek out and adopt the perspectIve of thelr audIences, Stewart and others placed the reader'S assocIatIons at the center of the aesthetlc 'system' Hartman has observed that 1 "Llterature always contends wlth a star-system of some kJnd," and Ihal elghleenth-century cntlclsm "by , an apotheosls that klcked gemus upstalrs, at once acknowledged and negated the Influence of genlus ,,27 ThIs negatlve apotheosls, stamng poetlc gen/us whlle echpslïlg ItS instructIve power, was t lied to cial ms for the moral and practlcal authortly of the dlsmterested reader over the artlstlc product The essays and prefaces dld not court the dlsJnterested reader 50 much as challenge hls authority 1 over the poem, and dld 50 m ways that revlsed rather th an merely re-cyeled prior attitudes and Ideas Nevertheless, Wordsworth's vlews on reader-response have often been seen as conservative

J condUIts of later elghteenth-century aesthetlc theories.

For example, '" Wordsworth's Informed Beader (1988), Susan Meisenhelder descnbed the

" "edueatlonal program" underlylng Wordsworth's strategIes for moulding reader-response as a J "concrete, personallnvestigatlon of the affectIVe power of natural forms," resembhng the aesthetlc Jnvestlgatlons of CritlCS like Gerard, Kames, Beattie, Alison, and Knight. These crities had suggested J that the "slmllanty between object and response underlies the power of Nature to mfluence morahty ,,28 Wordsworth staked his clalm to origJnality on hls perception of the "tness of mlnd and

1 nature. but thls was not an ongmalldea, as Melsenhelder's historical argument Implies. Yet her J argument glves the ITlIsleadJng Impression of a stable, sympathetic foundation for Wordsworth's concepts of reader-response ln later eighteenth-century aesthetics. 1 The Idea of a moral relationshlp between affective natural object!; ~tegorized as sublime, beautlful, plcturesque etc, and aesthetic response was undermined by CritlCS such as Knlght and

J Alison when they spoke dlrectly about reading habits. They charactenzed the relatlol1ship between 1 reader and text as one of master and servant. Knight dismissed an idea that Iles at the heart of Wordsworth's cntlccsm: poetry causes concrete changes in the lives ot its audience. Alison observed 1 that divlnely authored, natural beauty presents the onlooker wlth a "scene of moral discipltne" (A, 457) However, Alison's perspective on poetlc texts suggests that this discipline is much more the J

.1 1 17

1 domaln of readers than of poets Why dld Wordsworth bothlH to InSISt that hls poems are morally 1 mstructlve If Slmllar notions were, as Melsenhelder suggests, "wldespread ln Wordsworth's tlme?" Melsenhelder mamtamed that, "Irom thls conception of Nature's moral power," laler 1 elghteenlh-century cntles developed "a paraI/el argur-'\~nt concernmg IIteralure" "ke Nature, Iiterature promotes vlrtue by "formlf,g those feelings at the root of moral action" As the word "parallel"

1 suggests, these entles dld not closely connect the art of readmg wlth "Nature's moral power" Il 15 1 clear, however, that a entie such as Alison presented the natural (mstlnctlve, emotlOnal) response 10 a text as dlvertlng the informed response away tram its source ln analytlcal modes and habits of 1 interpretatlon Ahson's ~ presented analytlcal habits as mherently moral, as checkmg the pleasures of readmg ln order to glve them a useful purpose On that basls, readtng was separated mlo 1 two, distinct phases The flrst dreamhke phase, unlike the second phase of dlspasslonate ludgment, was not seen as a rehable source for morallmprovement No matl.:r how reverent Alison was towards

1 nature and art, he often Imphed that, anhough one may wander bhssfw'j t~rough a landscape or a 1 poem, trustmg elther to form "feelings al the rool ot moral action" short-Circuits one's capaclty for stonng the tangible beneflts of textual analysls 1 After suggestlng that "Wordsworth arnves al hls conception 01 poetry's moral and affective power along a simllar route" as the "psychological school" of cntlclsm, Melsenhelder dealt wlth

1 Knlght'S An Analyticallngul!y loto the PnnClples of Taste" (1805), one of the few entlcal works to whlch 1 Wordsworth made any detalled written response .. 29 ln the margms of Colendge's copy of the PrinCiples, Wordsworth wrote that Knight was an unpnnclpled "Booby," a "mere Prater," ana a 1 "Rogue."30 ln splte of thlS, slnce Wordsworth was sllent on Kntght's concept of the relallOnshlp of object and response, Ihey were made to agree on the active powers that mhere ln the moral response 1 to natural forms, ln terms of respondmg to texts, as Chapters One and Two of thls diSCUSSion Will bear out, Kmght and Wordsworth held opposite views of poetry's moral Influence. For Kmght, a poem was

1 "anomalous" rather than analogous to natural experience, Poetry Will "exaggerate" the naturallnto the 1 "irregulantles" of dream or revene, and Will disîort the fit relationshlp between mtnd and reahty, unless the reader asserts powers of analy~is that order and overcome the "V1t1ated" text (K, 451) For 1 1 1 18

1 Wordsworth, poetry was an extenSion of natural expenence, Inherently and affectively moral His 1 cntlclsm, and many of hls poems, countered the propnetary attitudes towards poetry dlsplayed by Iheonsls such as Kmght by suggestmg Ihat poetry provldes readers wlth Ideal models of good 1 conSClenc,e and conduct Knlght and Alison were somewhat eqUivocalln thelr presentation of analytlcal values They

J made analysis the moral and practlcal summa of the aesthetlc expenence, but they also reslsted the 1 ImposItIOn of theones on readmg practlce Sensmg the Joss of an essanbal pleasure and mnocençe ln therr ascendencles to mformed, objective pomts of vlew on poetry, they regretted the necesslty Of 1 transformmg the passlonate effusions of poetic genJus Into useful knowledge by applymg hterary Iheones and pnnciples ThiS was nevertheless what they dld, and their texts on readmg represent a 1 vlew of poetry and reader-response that Wordsworth's essays and prefaces undercut by presentmg the poet af'lr1 the poem as the embodiments of commen sem"e, refmed Judgment, and dlscrimlnating

1 accuracy of expression. f The theory ln the 1800 "Preface" that "upon the accuracy with whlch simiitude m disslmlltude, and dlSSlmlltude in sl!T1lltude are percelved, depend our taste and moral feeling" (.E.W, i, 148) was not

1 based on the pre mise that the response to a text depends ultlmately 011 the mode of reading It, Of mamly on the reader's predispositions Unlike Kmght's Principles, the "Preface" assumes that

1 InterpreUve accuracy, "good sense," and "rational sympathy" (fW, i, 132) already mhere ln the 1 excellent poem, and Ihat th,s can onl' be confirrned by the discrimmatmg reader. "Our taste and moral feeling" points to a ground shared by poets and readers. Yet it becomes clear, particularly in the 1802 1 additions 10 the "Preface" and in the "Essay, Sup.,lementary," that the reader is being reminded that , hls Interpretlve and creative slatus is spcondary to the poet's. The poet appears as the ideal agent ot moral and social progress, whlle the n~ader IS cast in an auxlliary role. 1 Wordsworth's incurSIons into the tradltional jurisdictlOns of readers were far trom humble, But It 15 unlikely that he would Il. \Ve been so Insistent on the subject of poetry's moral influence If he had 1 not entertamed the posslbillty that hls power over readers was a deluslon of pnde, that he was not, as

he fervently wished to be, a teacher of 1" DW life should be lived, in and beyond the reading 1 1

D 1 19

1 expenence. It seems equally unhkely that hls stand on the direct relatlonshlp between poetry clnd 1 moral behavior would have been made at ail Il he had not lelt that an opposite view was bemg strongly Impressed on the public mmd The arguments that carned Wordsworth's subverSions of the analytlcal 1 approach to readmg mto the public mmd wei e, at points, unabashedly sell-servmg However, thls

should not lead one to bypass opportunltles to dlscuss hls mdlctments of the readmg public tn terms

1 less diffuse than egotlSm. or 10 assume that Wordsworth's adversanal attitude towards hls readers IS 1 ummportanl to his poetry and cnticism as a whole The demands that Wordsworth makes on hls readers are o11en as passlonalely Ideahsllc as hls 1 effusions on the moral and social roles of the poet. The "Essay, Supplementary" IS a dramallc mamfestation Dt the dlssatlsfactlOns wlth reallty that can resu" frorTi Ideallsm. but Il is no less IdeallStlc 1 for that The "Essay" turns away Irom the reader who IS self-Immersed, a hedontst m that he reads

purely for escape or for pleasure, to a dlspasslonate analytical reader, Ideal ln some respects, but

1 prone 10 interpreting poetry according to systems hkely to be fliled wlth perverse errors Wordsworth 1 then consldered the rehgious or devotional reader, and found a senous flaw ln that such as reader wou Id try to fil the poem lOto dogmatlc moulds, and approve or disapprove of It on that basls The

1 grounds ot falth and admiratIon upon whlch Wordsworth concelved of hls Ideal counterpart were ln an area of compromIse between the analytlcal and the devotional reader, both of whom had imphcltly

1 learned to discard what Wordsworth, in the 1798 "Advertisement," had ca lied "pre-estabhshed codes 1 of decision" (fW, i, 116). 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 20 1 Chapter 1 1 The True Mode of Reading ln The Enguirer (1797), Godwin observed that the "reason why reading has fallen into a partial

1 dlsrepute IS that few men have sufflclently reflected on the true mOje of reading" (E, 364}.1 Godwin, 1 Stewart, Kmght, AIi~on, and Wordsworth were among those "few men" who tried to remedy this , "partIal disrepute" by telllOg the public what happens, and what ought to happen, wh en they read Wordsworth shared GOdwlO'S opinion that the taste and habits of the re&Jing public, whieh had

doubled ln size stnee mid-eentury, were seriously debilitated. For example, the popular eonsumptlOn

1 of novels he Ihought of as depraved.2 However, his poetle and critical concepts of readtng 1 suggested Ihat the solution was not to convert readers into textual analysts, as proposed by Godwin. Godwin's "true mode of reading" is a process of textual dissection. However, 10 the varied 1 contexts of The EngUJ(er, "mode" can also mean any or ail of the following: (a) a particular literary genre, fietior.al or non-fictional; (b) the presiding mood of the reader; (c) the modus operandl of the

1 reading process (how reading actually and always proceeds); or, (d) general habits and plans of

readmg that retlcct the reader's taste. The terminology of later eighteenth-century essays on 1 aesthetics is often ambivalent. Benedetto Croce complained Ihat even the best of these essays are 1 too ecleetie, entirely lacking in "scientific method; on each page theïr writers pass trom physiologïcal sensationahsm to morallsm; from the imitation of nature to mysticism and transcendent finalism Wlthout 1 the slightest sense of incongruity. It would be absurd to take them seriously. ,,3 Gordon McKenzie

argued Ihat they can be taken seriously if their ove rail intention is kept in view, for most of them are

1 "more int~rested in the wol1< of art itself than in theories about method, and the resu~s they get are 1 almost ttlways to sorne extent eclectic. These resutts contain a mixture of approaches or theories about method which lie in the background and are not alwa~$ easily perceived or separated."4 The 1 concepts of reading to be discussed in this chapter are best perceived in the context of their moral and practical intentions. 1. 1 1 . 1 21

1 The theories a ',d rules of reading given by Godwin, Stewart, and other analytieal enties, were 1 grounded in moral pnnciples. ThIs was also the case wlth Wordsworth's comments on readmg ln hls essays and prefaces Although h6 argued in the opening of the 1800 "Preface" Ihat hls poetry 1 embodies a theory of "moral relatIons" between poets and readers, that ln a seHtng outslde of poetry would lend itself to a "systematic defense," he was unwilling to be secn reasontng out thls theory ln 1 his cnticlsm œ,W, l, 120). HIs comments on the rôles of the poet and the reader appear less as vIsible 1 links in an invisible chain of logical propositions than as expressions of falth ln the moral purpose of ~.;~try. How deeply Wordsworth was commltted to theories or methods of readmg that SUIt thls 1 purpose is a question that cannot be satisfactorily answered apart trom ilS hlstoncal context.

1 1. The Reader's Rights

1 How one reads, actually or ideally, is often no more th an an implled subject in later eighteenth-century 1 essays on aesthetics. Howelfer, essays by Stewart, Alison, and Knight discuss reading habits and methods directly, and in ways that seem particularly reveahng of the assumptlons at work behind the 1 masks of disinterested inquiry. It is generally true of their essays that when specifie habits and processes of reading are the subject, the authors tend to assume the rôle of the morallOstructor,

1 rather than remaln in the guise of the disinterested crltie. 1 Stewart's Elements of the PhUosophy of the Human Mind is of particular Importance in selttng the stage for a discussion of Wordswo.tt}'s concepts of reading. In attemptmg to shed light on the 1 nature of "active" and "passive" reading, Stewart anticipated an important dichotomy of terms and ideas in Wordsworth's crit.cism. He outlined a theory and a practieal method of reading, both of which 1 were grounded in his opinion that readlng should always be competitive w.th the authors point of view, and never undertaken merely for the sake of entertainment. He used reading as an example in

1 arguing that there are always acts of judgment taking place in the mind that mediate the Interaction of 1 the perceiver and the percelved. Reading, like seeing, is never instantaneous or free trom the mind's powers to discriminate and organize. Even at the most basic level of sensory response the mind is 1 1 1 22 t never Innocent of the discernlng powers of judgement, although these may often be said to operate 1 imperceptlbly "When we read a book, (especially m a language which IS not perfectly famihar to us) we must perceive successlvely every dlfferent letter, and must afterwards combine these different letters 1 lOto syllables and words, before we comprehend the meanlng of a sentence This proeess, however, passes through the mlnd, wit!1out leavlng any trace ln the rnemory" This observation led to the

~ conclusion that the discnmrnatmg powers of the mind are never entirely or essentially passive ln the 1 reading process, or absent from it Passlvity of mind, submisslon to a text, was consldered by Stewart to be a bad reading habit, that ImphCltly denies a universal truth. there is a/ways a "judgment of the 1 understanding antecedent to the perception" It is only "familiarity with such processes [as reading] from our earliest infancy" that makes the discriminations informlng perception seem "instantaneous" 1 (S, 104).5

The empineal values of obJectivity and disinterestedness underpinnir.~ the Elements are

J evident in its presentation of )udgment as controlling unconscious perception. Unlike a critie su ch as J Burke, Stewart was not rnclined to separate the aesthetic response into reason and emotlon, or thinking and fe~hng 6 ln Stewart's view, reading meant the application of analytical powers to the

] dissection and reconstruction of a text along lines suitable to the reader's own needs. (He spoke not

only of scientific or phllosophieal texts but also of historical and poetic texts) He argued that "when

J we are employed in inquiries of our own, the conclusions which we form make a much deeper and 1 more lasting impression on the memory, than any knowledge which we imbibe passively from another" (S, 445). This statement was mean1 to reflect a universallaw of reading, but "we" could realistically l mean only that small percentage of the population who had the leisure time to launch sueh independent studies, and of these only men who valued practical knowledge arrived at by judgment 1 more than knowledge arrived at by feeling and intuition. 1 Stewart set himself finnly aga::-.st pre-established opinions that might prejudice his analysis of a text. This meant not allowing present custom to interfere with the appreciatio:1 of antiquated texts, J and shedcting personal or cultural bias against a particular author. Yet he was clearly not unbiased in 1 believing that reading merely for the sake of entertainment cou Id never be morally and intellectually 1 1 23

1 beneficlal. He was among those hterary theonsts who felt that popular genres appealed to mfencr 1 classes of reader, membership in which would be fatal to a refined taste. More Importantly, Slewart's laith ln empmclsm blinded hlm to the posSlbllity that m seekmg the shared essence of perception and 1 reading, and flnding It ta reslde m (he faculty of ludgment, he was rationahzmg hls personal interests, prionties, and habits as a reader Sy companng readmg and the more general operations of

1 perception, he felt that he had lound an objective basis on which a moral vlew of ieadmg could be

erected. 1 Llke other writers of the age, Stewart allowed hlmself to travel back and forth oetween 1 science, art and ethics because he found these worlds to be bndged by the lawol association Following his comments on the importance of formmg one's own conclusion, he sa Id that ". when we 1 follow out a tram of thmklng of our own, our ideas are arranged ln that order whlch IS most agreeable 10 our prevailing habits of associahon." What was sCientifical1y true must also be aesthetlcally and morally

1 "agreeable." The perceived adaptablllty 01 this law accounts in part for the eclecliCism of later 1 eighte6llth-century essays on taste, the sudden shifts, for instance, from "physlological sensationalism to moralism" of which Benedetto Croce complamed. It is lrontc thal the law of 1 association was invoked 50 01len by eighteenth-eentury inquirers as objective proo! of the vanablllty of individual tastes in art, but was not used to question the special character of thelr own tastes, or to 1 measure the uncertainty of their own clitical practices. If Stewart had applied it directly 10 hlS own premises and conclusions on the subject of reading, however, sorne of the compelhng starch '" them

1 would undoubtedly have disappeared. 1 The practical steps for right reading that Stewart recommended as a resuh of his ,"Quiry were to read a text through, and "after making ourselves acquainted with our author's ldeas, to study the

1 subject over again in our own way; to pause, from time to time, in the course of our ieading ln arder to eonsider what we have gained; to recoueet what the propositions are, which the aulhor wishes 10

1 establish, and to examine the different proofs which he employs to support them." Stewart's overall 1 aim, not unlike that of a modem reader-response entie such as Stanley Fish, was to slow down the reading process, in order that recollection (associating) and consolidation of ideas may be allowed to 1 1 1 24 ) take place more complexly, and therefore more accurately.7 For Stewart, the purpose of reading is to 1 m:.ke a text of one's own out of the teXl in hand, an aet of appropnatlon and a dlsplay of readrng power wlth beneflclal results for everyone "If the plan of study whlch 1formerly descnbed were adopted. It ) would add greatly to the stock of useful and sohd knowledge, and by rendenng our acquired Ideas in

some measure our own, would glve us a ready and practlcal command of them. not to mention. that if 1 we are possessed of any inventive powers, such exercises would contmually furnlsh them wlth an 1 opportunrty of displaylng themselves. upon ail the dlfferent subjects which may pass under our revlew." 1 Poetry was rncluded by Stewart among those subjects "whlch may pass under our review;" and for hlm poe!ry was like any other text, a cham of propositions that can be !oglcally reduced and 1 adapted to the readers requirements for clarity and common sense: "When we have reduced the reasonmg to that form, which appears to ourselves to be the most natural and satisfactory, we may

1 conclude with cenainty. not that this form is bener in itself th an another, but that it is the best adapted 1 to our memory .It The value of the "form," the reader's re-created text, is relative; but the method Itself was seen as mfallible, of ab50lute value. The reduetive proeess of rea50ning was thought to lead J inevitably to what a modern critie might cali a secondary text in the reacler's mind, for "in maklng such

an experiment, we commonly find, that the different steps of the proc\~ss arrange themselves 10 our

J minds, in a manner dlfferent from that in which the author tlas stated them" (445-449 passIm) ] ln a statement that anticipated an important argument of Wordsworth's, and to sorne extent the argument underpmnmg recent texts on reading such as Wolfgang Iser's The Implied Beader

] (1974), Stewart suggested that in a work of art "if the imitation be carried 50 far as to preclude ail

exercise of the Gpectator's imagination, it will disappoint, in a great maasure, the purpose of the

l artist. .In Poetry, and in every other species of composition, in which one person attempts, by means

,) of language, to preser.t to the mind of another, the objects of his own imagination, this power

[imagination) is necessary, though not in the same degree, to the author and to the reader."8 1 Stewart's program for reading appears to be, at least at first glance, aligned with Wordsworth's, who also insisted in his critJcism that the reader must be activated, must exert a "cooperating power" or a 1 1 1 .25

1 "corresponding energy" wlth the poet if the purposes of the poem are to be fully reahzed The 1 discussion ln Chapter Two will make It clear that thelr attitudes towards reading were very dlfterenl Other remarks of Stewart's show clearly hls intention to promote a readH who IS actlvely ln 1 pursUit of meamng (483-87 passIm) "But It IS not only ln Interpretmg the partîcular words of a descnptlon, that the powers of Imagination and Conception are employed They are farther necessary

1 for filling up the dîfferent parts of that plCtl :re, of which the most minute descnber can only trace the 1 outline. In the best descnptlOn there IS much left to the reader to supply" "Hence It IS eVldent that, accordmg to the dlfferent habits and education of rndlvlduals, according to the livehness of thelr 1 conceptions, and according to the creative power of their imaginations, the same words Will produce very dlfferent effects on dîfferent mlnds." These Ideas were commonplace ln later elghteenth-century 1 cnticism. Vet Stewart's insistence on the reader's intellectual "liveliness" and on the "creative power of the imagination" was prophetie of the romantic emphasis, even If hls view of Imagination was far trom

1 the quasHeliglous perspective on thls faculty developed by Wordsworth. Stewart repeated the 1 associatioOlst vlew of taste in vanous ways, such as "the imaginatIons of no two men cOlnClde therefore, though both may be pleased, the agreeable impressions which they feel, may be wldely 1 different from each other, accordlng as the pictures by which they are produced are more or less happily imagined," or "general words which express complete ideas, seldom convey preclsely the

1 same meaning to different individuals." Although there were always condItions imposed on thls view, 1 in order to restrain its flight into subjectivity, such as the appeal to common sense, or to the tradltlonal concept of consensus gentium, it was the eighteenth-century way of validatrng the reader's own 1 opimons of a text, of givtng him the liberty of prophesying about Its meanrng. Vet Stewart showed remarkably litt le common sense wh en he stretched thls concept of the indivldual effects of indlvldual

1 experience to questionable lengths. He malntained that a man raised in the cIty WIll be less affected 1 by reading a rural description th an one who has been raised ln the countryslde. Wordsworth's compansons of urban and rural existence in his criticism and in sorne of his poems reflected this sa me 1 equation of physical environment and textual experience. He saw favoured poets and readers as 1 1 J 26

1 those who had been exposed in early youth to natural settings, who had been spared the represslve 1 mnuence of the city Stewart's statements on taste would per~aps not have sounded radlcally new to an educated 1 reader ln tha 17905 Yat even the more derivatlva arguments in ~lS text were mVlgorated by hls uncompronllsmg pitch for a ngldly analytlcal approach to the reading process. His enthuslasm on the

t SUbJ9Ct of textual analysis rrppled across the empmcal calm when he argued that "a cold and common­ 1 place descnption may be the means of awakening, in a rich and glowing Imagination, a degree of enthusiasm unknown te the author." Phrases such as "unknown to the author" carry forward the 1 competitive spmt of readmg encouraged by Stewart. Of course, he was not alone in this. For example, Walter Wh!ter based hls readmg rules and theory entirely on the cntlc's abihty to see that 1 which had been "Imperceptible" to the poet. He suggested that readers, in order to sharpen their analytical skills, should always root out and repalr ambiguities that the poet had been unable to

J control 9 It was the self-confident, competitive spirit of analysis manifest in criaics such as Stewart and 1 Whiter that Wordsworth's eritlcal and poetic concepts of reading meant to chasten. Stewart's empincal Vlew of reading as essentially Judgmental and necessarily a self-adapting .1 process of annexation as the result of individual associations was weakened by hls Insistence that in the real world this was not how reading was practiced: "That the plan of reading which is commonly

1 fol/owed is very different from that which 1have been recommending, will not be disputed. Most

people read merely to pass an id le hour, orto please themselves with the idea of employment, while J their indolence prevents them from any active exertion; and a considerable number with a view to the 1 display which they are afterwards to make of their literary acquisitions. From whichsoever of these motives a person is lad to the perusal of books, it is hardly possible that he can de rive from them any

1 material advantage. If he reads merely from indolence, the ideas which pass through his mind will

probably leave !iUle or no impression; and if he reads from vanity, he Will be more anxlous to select 1 striking particulars in the matter or expression, than to seize the spirit and scope of the author's 1 reasoning, or to examine how far he has made any additions to the stock of useful and solid knowledge." The WOrds "material advantage," "useful and solid" are good indicators of Stewart's 1 1 1

1 practlcal and morally-charged approach to hls subJect Vet this sermon on readlng conlradlcts hls 1 repeated acknowledgments of the mevltable dlscrepancles rn rndlvldual tastes and responses to texts, and makes elear that he does nol aeeept that the readrng expenenees 01 the general publie may 1 be, for them, as vahd as those analytlcal expenences that he prescnbes as a cure for morallaxlty Stewart's book was an Important contnbution to the democratlzatlon of thE' reader Il 1 advocated the nghts of ail readers to re-form texts and ta draw the.r own conclUSions rather than submlt to a hlgher authonty, to the author himself or to sorne other textual expert ln valurng more or

1 less equally the rntegrity of the text, the elear-mlnded and rationallmagrnatlon of an author, and the 1 Intellectual need (seen as a natural tendency) of the reader ta make the texl hls own, he antlclpated the coneerns of Wordsworth ln hls essays and prefaces, partleularly hls effort ta charaetenze the rl)le 1 of the active reader. Stewart was more straightforward than other elghteenth-century cntles m

descnbmg an ideal reading method, pragmatlc in its interests, and atomistlc ln ItS operations Because

1 of his faith in the unconscious actlVltles of Judgment, he did not split the readrng expenence mto a Ilrsl 1 (emotional, intuitive, feeling) phase of reading, and a second analytical phase He dlffered, then, trom Alison, who believed that studious readmg, out of whlch critical 1 judgments are formed, takes place after and as a result of a distmct first phase ln hls Essays on the Nature and Princlples of Taste (1790), echolng Hurd, Alison sald that in readtng "we are never sa 1 much satiated with delight as when, in recalling our attention, we are unable ta trace elther the 1 progress or the connectlon of those thoughts whlch have passed wlth sa much rapldlty tl1rough our imagination" (8, 18).10 For cntics such as Alison and Kames reading was inJtially an mnocent and 1 unselfconscious "revene." ln Elements of Cdtjcjsm (1762), Kames wrote that ". the reader's passions are never sensibly moved tlll he be thrown in a kind of revene, 10 which state, forgatting that he IS 1 reading, he conceives every incident as passing in hls presence, precisely as If he were an eye­ witness. ,,11 This stood in direct opposition to Stewart's practical view of reading, and to Samuel

1 Johnson's earth-bound aesthetics, cryptically expressed in his well-known comment, "no man takes 1 his book for the field of Agincourt." 1 1 1 1 28

1 Alison saw a delightful gap between the flrst phase of readlng, whlch is rapid, and a second, 1 slowlng phase brought about by Judgment recalhng the reade(s attention. An imaginative expenence takes place ln readmg only "when we lose ourselves amld the number of Images that pass before our 1 mlflds, and when we waken al last trom this play of fancy as from the charm of a romantlc dream" (A,19) For Alison, as for Stewart, the quallties of active reading were an Important subject. Because

J he thought of emollonal response as a valid experience that leads \0 the judgment of a work of art, 1 Alison suggested that reading mcludes the play of fancy Passivlty is not, as ln Stewart's text, dismissed ~s a bad readmg habit The passive quallties of a reader Include his capaclty to feellove, 1 fidelity, and innocence. Stewart's emphasls on the value of an analytlcal approach to texts, however, was also basIc to Alison's arguments. Even as he repeatedly charactenzed an ideal state of reading as 1 bhssful, wandering, unseHconsClous, it remalned astate that he admlfed trom a distance, and It was only dlmly reflected by his own cntical p(actice and by his rules for right reading.

1 The clalms for cnticism made by Alison in the introduction to hls Essays were not unlike 1 Wordsworth's cIal ms for poetry made in the 1798 "Advertlsernent" (,ew, l, 116-117). Wordsworth said that the legltlmate mterest of poetry is ln "every subject which can interest the human mind." Alison 1 made the same argument on behalf of the "science of criticism," which can turn ifs eyes anywhere, since the qualifies that produce emotlon "are to be found in almost every class of the obJects of

1 human knowledge." Wordsworth described his poems as "expenments." Alison contended that in 1 cnticism there should be "no other method of discovery, than that varied and patient experiment" by which the causes of emotlon can be understood. Wordsworth rested his case for the merit of his 1 poems on the extent to whlch they can be seen by a reader as a "natural delineation of human passions, human characters, and human incidents." (Both Wordsworth and Alison in their 1 introductions emphaslzed the word "human" by repetition.) Alison's arguments were derived less Irom art than trom the "appearances of common nature, and the experience of common men." He

1 wanted ta lead his readers towards seH-sufficiency, "ta think and to feel for themselves" (Intm., iii-ix 1 passim)· With important qualifications, Wordsworth al50 expressed this desire ta have readers be independent. 1 1 1

1 The most mteresling shared charactenstic of Ahson's mtroductory remarks and Wordsworth's 1 "Advertlsement" is the manner ln whlch both wnters struggled under the burden of tradltlOnal termmology Wordsworth questioned the value of usrng the term "Poetry" 10 descnbe hls art. whlle 1 Alison questloned the value of cnticism Wordsworth suggested that the "evldence" of the laws underprnnlng the Unlversal charaeter of poetry are ta be found "not ln the wntlngs of enlies. but ln 1 those of Poets themselves" But Wordsworth not only dlvlded enllcs from pocts, he Imphed Ihat Ihe 1 word "Poelry, a word of very dlspuled meanmg" IS a selHlmllrng one that tles readers and poels 10 "pre-estabhshed eode~ of decislon" Even whlle prornotlng analytlcal readlng, a self-consclous "mode 1 of investigation," Alison complarned that It "fetters" the mtnd, and "dimintshes ItS sense of beauly " He regretted that analysis IS necessary, for It Interferes wlth a more Innocenl pleasure The "mmd ln 1 such an employment, Instead of being at liberty to follow whatever trains of Imagery the compoSition before It can eXCite, IS elther fettered to the conSIderation of some of ItS minute and sohtary parts. or

1 pauses amld the rapldity of Its conceptions, to make them the objects of hls attentIon and revlew" (A. 1 22-23).12 Stewart placed the highest value on these reading pauses Alison resented thelr mevltablhty 1 For Alison, analytical readmg reslsts a text, while the naive, prelimmary stage of reading yields to the text. The only way for the spint of a first reading to be "recalled" 15 by "resignmg ourselves agarn to the

1 natural stream of our thoughts," to overcome the effects of questionlng or uncertatn pauses ln a 1 posthumously published book, Essays on PhilosQDhjcal Subjects (1795), Adam Smith offered an interesting description of the effects of resistance and pauslng dunng the reading process, that 1 iIIuminates the assoClationist thinking underlying Alison's concept of readtng as a "natural" process. When "customary connections be interrupted .. the imagination .. endeavours to bnng them together, 1 but they refuse to unIte; and it feels, or imagines it feels, SOn1ething "ke a gap or interval betwlxt tl1em Il naturally hesitates, and, as it were, pauses upon the bonk of this intgrval; il endeavours to ftnd

1 something which may flll up the gap, which, like a bridge, may so far at least unite those seemngly 1 distant, as to render the passage of the thought betwixt them srnooth, and natural, and easy.·13 80th the gaps and the visible links in the bridge were identified with the law of aSSOCIatIon, but overcoming 1 1 1 30

1 the gaps was seen as taklng place on an associative level of awareri'3SS that is usually "rnvislble" 10 the J reasontng mmd For Ahson thls natural process had the aspect of a dream. As ln Stewart's text, some of Ahson's commenls on readlng, based on the laws of association 1 and tndlVldual expenence, carned wlth them the stale air of arguments made long before he arnved on the cntlcal scene HIS argument that "the beauty of a theory, or of a rellc of antlqulty, IS unintf!lIlglble to 1 a peasant" IS an example A wntten theory would of course be unlntelligible to an Illiterate peasant, but hls argument completely Ignored the efflclency of an oral tradition ln sensltlzrng Ihe uneducated 10 the

1 "beauty" of the past, the tradition reflected by Percy's ReliQues (1765) That the "charms of the J country are altogether lost upon a citIzen who has passed his life ln town," or the reverse argument, was for hlm, and for others such as Stewart and Wordsworth, merely logical (35). This view undercut 1 both the Imagmation of readers and \ne power of texts, such as travelogues, poetry by 'rural' writers such as Bums, or 'urban' wnters such as John Gay, to convey credible impreSSions of physlcal detall,

1 or of the moods of an environment, city or country. Alison and Stewart implicltly denred that a text can 1 slgnificantly influence a reader regardless of his particu!ar experiences and native environment ln another place, Alison condescendingly stated that "the man whose life has been passed in the 1 pursults of commerce .. Iaughs at the labour of the philosopher or poet" (63). 1don't make these observations to widen holes in Alison's exclusionist theory of taste that

1 would, Wllhoul further qualification, seem gaping ta most modern readers. 1want 10 suggest that t some of his categorical arguments Implicitly restncted the art of reading to a coterie of experienced readers or cnties, and that this stood in marked contrast to other comments of his that idealize reading J as a naive actlvity that analysis "never fails to destroy" (70). Analyzing a text WIll always, to some exlent, "end in the destroying of taste" by forcing readers ta become more selective. On the one

J hand, Alison sa id several tlmes that he regrets, even dislrkes, the "rules" that confine pleasure ta ] judgment. On the other hand, he recommended tightly laced rules for the evaluation of art. e.g. in poetry, a descnption should never show "confusion" (97). Given his sometlmes negative attitude ) towards analytical and rule-bound critiClsm, one is compelled ta ask why he practices it at ail. 1 1 1 31

1 Since two very dlfferent answers to thls question are suggested by the Essays, Ahson's 1 divlded vlew of the readmg expenence only deepens without resolutlon Near the end of the Essays. he argued that the highest value that can be placed on art and nature results lrom seemg ln Ihem 1 "scene[s] of moral discipline" Llke Wordsworth and other wnters 01 the penod, Alison sought to mstruct the youthful or inexpenenced reader Although he suggested that the reader's mnocence 15 1 Ideally always evoked by a tlrst encounter wlth a text, It was above ail else the moral power Inherenlln 1 the evaluatlve and self·recovering pauses that he saw as Justlfymg rule·bound analysls, even Ihough Il diffuses dehght That "emotlons of taste are blended wlth moral sentiment, and that [love of beauty]. 1 is made fmally subservlent ta morallmprovement" was his ratlOnalizatlon for the entlre readmg process, from dreamlike escape to objective analysis (457, 454) 1 But there IS a second, contradlclory answer, Implted rather than stated, that IS most notlceable when Alison turned hls attention away tram art to 'readmg' the text of nature Vlewmg (and revlewmg)

1 plcturesque beauty, he dlscussed those "few spots" ln landscapes, "in whlch we are senSible 01 any 1 beauty ln thelr origrnal formation, and wherever such spots OCCUf, they are always dlstinguished by sorne promment character .. greatness, wlldness, galety, tranqullity, or melancholy As soon as thls 1 impression is made .. ,we Immediately become sensible that the diHerent lorms which compose Il are suited ta thls character, we percelve, and very often we Imagine, a correspondence among these

1 parts; and we say, accordingly, that there IS a relation among them, an harmony ," The Irnes that 1 continue this passage are interestrng for the manner in whlch they play agalnst what has already been said. Alison suggested that, desptte a sense of natural harmony that seems Ideal, the vlewer IS 1 irresistlbly led to the amusement of "Imaginrng improvements to the scene, either m throwlng out some circumstances which do not correspond, or in Introducmg new ones, by whlch the general

1 character may be more eHectually supported" The relaxed manner ln which he described thls 1 amusement would not lead one to believe that it results trom a focussed medltatlon on a "scene 01 moral discipline." Alison then became more self-consCÎous about the implications of what he IS saylng. 1 for he added that "ail that we intend, by these imaginary .mprovements ... ls to establish a more perfeet relation among the different parts to this peculiar character" (222-23). 1 1 1 32

1 Alison repeatedly referred to the "Delty," the "Author of Nature" Like Locke or Berkeley, who

also applred dlrectly to the Author of Nature, AlIson grounded hls emprnclsm ln a bellef ln God. The

1 theologlcally-grounded models of mrnd of Locke and Berkeley perhaps freed hlm to suggest, wlthout 1 the worry of heresy, that 'reaUjng' nature IS an attempt to Improve on the works of ItS Author. Such Improvements are made on the extemal matenals of nature rather th an on the Splnt that created and 1 contemplates them ln his discussion of the "spots," however, he did not make the connectlon that begged to be made, between reading the text of nature and the analysis ot man-made texts This

J would have led hlm to the conclusion that crrtlclsm, searching out relations and correspondence 1 between parts, IS amusement It 15 "throwmg out..circumstances," "!. 'roducing new ones" in a tmkerrng search for a text supenor to the one in hand, whatever its harmonious quallties. The 1 Impetuous play Implied here has httle to do wlth moral discipline, but th/s IS a not/on that he cannot admit because It would threaten the stabllity of his axlomatic distinction between the youthful,

.1 innocent Splnt of readrng and the controlled, morally beneficial practlce of textual analysls. 1 Alison's ,de a of human perception was basically solips,stic: "Our minds, instead of being governed by the character of external objects, are enabled to bestow upon them a character which

) does not belong to them, and even wlth the rudest, or the commonest appearances of nature, to

connect feelings of a nobler k1nd or a more interesting kind, than any of the mere mfluences of matter

1 can convey" (450). But he d/d not come to grips with the idea of the self-projecting mind ln terms of art ) Interpretation He elther repeated the aging rule - aesthetic judgments are a matter of indiv/dual taste, and Will vary accordrng to individual experience - or, as we have seen, he turned the negat/ve forces of 1 analytlcal cnt/cism ,nward, and saw them as destroying, temporarily, and perhaps (as he once suggests) permanently, the reader's emotional sensibllitles and taste. That what is improved by the

J adaptations and alterat/ons of reading may be the text as weil as the reader he dld not allow, as least

not as clearly as Stewart allowed It in making his case for how reading should proceed.

1 Alison's embrace of analytical power was hesitant compared to Stewart's. The Essays partially t subverted the mystique of empirical inquiry wlth non-analytical values of innocent admiration. There is a clear distinction between Stewart's positing of analysis as an essential component of reading eVI~n 1 1 1 33

1 priar to perception of meaning, and Alison's separation of analysls from an initiai dreamhke phase that 1 is reluctantly but mevltably abandoned by the reader. lIke Stewart, Alison urged the reader to hone his analytlcal responses in order to reap moral beneflts, and yet he repeatedly suggested that readmg 1 is essentially a passive act of emotlonal and sympathetlc "admiration" The two "qualltles of mmd" that are "capable of producmg emotion are 81ther ItS active or ItS passive qualifies, elther Its powers and 1 capacitles, as beneficence, wlsdom, fortltude, invention, fancy etc, or ItS feelings and affecttons, as love, JOY, hope, gratitude, punty, Mellty, Innocence, etc" (444) Of the qualltles that Alison hsted as

1 active powers, none described the destructive energy that he elsewhere saw as Inseparable trom the 1 "science of cntlclsm." Such a descnption was not tntended. The differences he drew between actIve and passive were vague "hope" and "fortitude," for instance, can easily be thought of as shanng the 1 same emotlonal stream. Emotion itself, he Implled. has the contours of an Ideal "romantlc dream" ln

his more concrete descriptions of readers and reading, however, rather than ln these categones of

1 "powers" and "affections," the different states of mind mdicated by the words active and passIve were ~ more clearly reflected Dunng the Ideal, Initial response to a poem, the reader 15 Impresslonable and amenable; ln respondlng Judgmenta/ly, ho resists his impulses to wander along the trams of thought 1 inspired by the text, resists the "emotions of taste" in order to better understand them A mixed attitude towards analytical readlng similar to Ahson's can be found ln Kntght's ên

1 Analytjcallngujry jnto the Pdncjples of Taste. Knight equated the negatlve effects of rules and

theories on aesthetic response wlth the negative influence of doctnne on moral sentiment He

1 argued that in cultivating taste "though we may analyze the pnnClples of mer as weil as of corporeal 1 pleasure5, we can never discover the full extent of thelr operation, nor eonsequently estabhsh any rules for their limitation. Critics have done nearly the same in taste, as eauslsts [SIC] have ln morals, 1 both having attempted to direct by rules, and limit by deflnitlons, matters, whlch depend entlrely on 1 feeling and sentiment." These qualities "elude ail the suttleties of logie, or intricacles of calculatlon" US. 252-253). Knight was even more divided than Alison in his allegiance to analytlcal values, ln whlch 1 he sees the moral power of cntics to reside. 1 1 1 34

1 Knight's comparison ot poetry and morality was based on the theory that the "end of morahty 1 IS 10 reslrain and subdue ail the irregulanties of passion and affection; and to subject the conduct of hte to the dOminion ot abstract reason, and the uniformity ot established rule, but the business ot 1 poetry, whether tragle or comlC, whether eplc or dramatie, is to display, and even to exaggerate those Irregulanties, and to exhlbit the events of life diversified by a" the wild varieties of ungoverned J affections, or chequered by ail Ihe fantastlc modes of anomalous and vltiated habits. It is, theretore, J utterly impossible.tor the latter to afford models for the former; and the instant that it attempts it, it necessanly becomes tame and vapid; and, in short, ceases to be poetry" (lS, 451). Versions of his J argument agamst theurv appeared several times in his text: "Rules and systems have exactly the same influence upon ta~)te and manners, as dogmas have upon morals." "System ... teaches men to

1 work by rule, inst~ad of by feeling and observation." " .. .in ail matters of taste and eritieism, general rules appear to me to be, like general theories in govemment and polities, never safe but where they

1 are useless ... A rule implies a general negation; and so limited and uncertam is human knowledge ln a" 1 subjects Of this kind, that it never can reach every possible case, nor make any general assertion, whlch will not be Iiable to many exceptions" (237; 240; 252). 1 There are a numberof sirnilarities between Knight and Wordsworth. The 1815 "Essay, Supplementary" said that "no perverseness equals that which is supported by system" (EW, 111,66).

1 rhe unpublished Essay On MoraIs suggested that the laws of morality eannot be rationa"y eodified 1 wlthout sluicing ott the "vital juices" of human truth and experience (fW, l, 103). Knight and Wordsworth shared the vlew that quantity erodes quality in the realm of reading, that repeated use f over time renders re'lned language useless for poetry. They shared a distrust for the word "taste" etc. But ail that 1wish to establish now is (a) that Knight's position on the negative effects of theory is itself

1 not free of theory, and the one that underpins it, besides the ever present lawof association, is that 1 the "whole history of literature obliges us to acknowledge that, in proportion as criticism has become systematic, and cntics numerous, the powers of composition and purity of taste have, in ail ages and J countries gradually deeayed. The case is that men's minds become cramped and fettered, 50 that they look to the authority of rules and their propounders instead of to nature;" and (b) that his view 1 1 1 35

1 that we should not look to poetry for models ot conduct - smce the "only moral good, that appears to 1 result trom either poetry, mUSIC, pamting, or sculpture, arises from their influence ln clvlhzmg and softening mankind, by substitutlOg intellectual, to sensual pleasure, and turning the mlnd from violent 1 and sangUinary, to mlld and peaceful pursuits" - dld not prevent hlm trom ma king comments of a moral nature on reading habits (251, 454) It seemed rather to encourage hlm to make such comments, ln 1 order to do what the poet cannot, provide models for moral behavlor. He was as mclined to mlx theory, poetry, and morals as he was ta define them separately. His stance towards analytlcal entlclsm and

1 towards poetry was clearest when he directly confronted the issue of the debased readlng habits of 1 the general public. Knight addressed those who suffer from morbid curioslty m readlOg, and those who have the 1 habit of reading "swarms of novels": "Perhaps the feeding and pampering thls kind of cunoslty, to a degree of morbid restlessness, is the princlple, If not the only, moral evil resulting from such reading;

1 and this, if must be owned, IS a considerable one: for the habit, which young persons get, of readlng 1 merely for events, without any attention to language, thought, or sentIment, so completely unnerves ail the powers of application, that their minds become incapable of leaming, or retaining any thing 1 Whatever the y read, they read without studying; and merely for the purpose of becoming aequainted with the contents of the book, which they never attempt ta analyze, or digest; or turn mto nutnment for 1 their own minds; without which, reading is, at best, but a mere innocent and idle amusement" His essay, then, both defied the authority of rules and recommended the authonty of certam hide-bound

1 rules to the reading public: selectivity in the cnoice of reading matenals and reasoned analysls, he 1 argued, will always result in the moral improvement of readers. What unfolds in Knight's text, which mast distinguishes It from the diSCUSSions by Stewart and 1 Alison, is an attempt ta overcome the abstractions that result from emplncal inquiry; to. in effect, 1 bypass theory altogether ln favour of advancing a set of moral values and specifie rules of thumb ln an effort to influence the general pUblic 10 adopt a superior mode of reading. Although 10 practice Knight 1 contradicted the idea that theory is an obstacle to felt truth, he argued that theory has a negative effect on the communication of moral values. He il11llied that these values can be learned from the 1 1 1 36

1 analytlcal process of reading itself, rather than from theories or from poems, the moral benefits of which he sawas uncertain and unpredictable. Readers who are vaguely "softened" by the poetie

1 "dream" will not be led by It to effect concrete changes in their reading habits. His sermon on readmg, 1 hberated from from the necesslty of provldmg theories more speclflc and scientlfic than general moral principles, mdulged freely ln the pulpit eloquence of remonstrance and reprobatlon Firming hls stand l against "cunosity," he argued that "By the VICIOUS indulgence of a prunent appetite, the mmd, hke the body, may be reduced to a state of atrophy, in which, knowledge, like food, may pass through It,

1 without adding eltherto ItS strength, its bulk, or its beauty .." (446-47). 1 His view of poetry and novels was nevertheless theoretically based, since he often invoked the associationist model of the seH-projecting mmd. In making differences between hls position on 1 aesthetlc response and the positions of erities suet. as Uvedale Price and Edmund Bur1

1 ~ (1794], is seeking for distinctions in external objects, whieh only exist in the modes and 1 habits of vlewing and eonsidering them ..... (Priee has been] misled bi' the brilliant, but absurd and superficial theories of the InQuiry iD10 the Sublime and Beautiful[1757]." His aim was nevertheless to 1 de-ernphaslze the importance of theory by tying aesthetic response C'.ompletely to perceptual"modes and habits." The law of association was invoked in his description of the "mind of the spectator; 1 whose pre-existing trains of ideas are revived, refreshed, and re-associated by new, but 1 correspondent impressions on the organs of sense," a statement implicitly devaluing the work of art as a moral agency (196). P"etry, and ail true wor1

1 geometry, algebra, or law, w;thout even having a glimpse of anything more amusing, than be 1 condemned 10 pass one's life sleeping over hislory, romances, poetry, and plays."14 Knight is not 1 1 1 37

1 thls extreme, but hls opinion of poetry as impractlcal (and more in need of "civi/izmg" than capable 0111) 1 is essentially ln accord wlth Priestley's view. ln defyrng theory, Knight suggested that there can be no ultimately reliable empirical basis for 1 art critlClsm. A reader's associations may cause hlm to be sensuously refreshed, or Intellectually revlved, by a novel as weil as by a poem. That Knlght dld not carry the law of association to thls loglcal

1 conclusion in the matter of aesthetlc response may be a further denlal that cnticism should be 1 practiced according to established thfJones. A cntlc who perlorms as a moral Instructor, he imphed, can prove the presence of evil merely by pointing to It and saytng its name. And this 15 what Kntght dld 1 when he spoke about reading habits. "Besides thls atrophy, ansing from the habit of reading wlthout attention, there is Iikewise a sort of sickly senslbllity of mind, nounshed, if not engendered, by 1 compositions of this kind [novels) ... which IS the more dangerous and seductlve, as It assumes the name and character of a mest amiable vlrtue ..f1uttenng and fidgety CUriOSlty, - that trembling irntabihty

1 of habit, whlch cannot Sloop to the tameness of reality, or the msipldity of common life, but IS always 1 inleresting it5elf in the more anamated and bnlliant events of fIctIon. is often mistaken for real tenderness and sensibility of temper; and attributed to what, ln the cant language of the tlmes, is 1 called a good heart; whereas it properly belongs to a deranged head ... " (447). ln splte of Knlght's vlew that art cannot, in any practical sense, better the lives its audience, he

1 was convinced that unrefined art can have a profoundly negative influence on a refined taste. He 1 found himseH morbidly fascinated, haunted in fact, by a document he had read in his youth. "It is more than twenty years ago that 1 read. in a collection of French trials. the detalled accounts of the dreadful 1 sufferings of Urbain Grandier and Francis Damiens, and 1 have ever since anxiously wlshed that 1had not read them; since, at certain moments, 1fine! the horrid images haunt my imagination, in such a 1 manner, that 1feel it impossible to expel them, or keep my mmd from fluttering round them 5tart what

new trains of ideas 1 will, they alllead to the same horrible and disgustlng centre; from which :10 efforts

1 can withhold or disentangle Ihem: and yet were such direful scenes to be agaln acted in Europe 1 (which God forbid!) 1 am not certain that the natural prurient and restlessness of curiosity would suffer me to remain in ignorance of them" (445). Ahhough he did not draw logical conclusIons from this 1 1 '1 38

1 memory, Inherent in it IS the argument that the power of a text to disturb one's calm may be equally as J powerfulln strengthening and dlfectinq It, offering a model of conduet for the reader rather th en merely "softemng" or "soothing" hls sensibilitles in preparation for virtuous analyticallabour. 1 The essays by Stewart, Alison, and Knight suggest that some of the claims being made by , entlCs of the penod on behalf of the informed reader were not supported by either logic or common sense. The overall message of these essays, ln terms of the relationsh1tl between poets and readers.

15 nevertheless torcefully and elearly delivered, in ways that would have disturbed a young poet such

1 as Wordsworth, who beheved that great poets are moral teachers. The spiritual authority of the ooet 1 was being countered, and to sorne extent supplanted, by assertions of the moral power of the analytical reader. My emphasis on the attitudes towards reading expressed in these essays has 1 precluded a discussion of sorne of their central interests. (Knight's defmitions of classical and romantic scenery, tor example.) 1have quoted fiberally to give an impression of the sermonic flavour of their

J essays, as weil as to represent sorne of the problems and conflicts that they, sometimes J unconsciously, raise. One of the main reasons for discussing these particular texts in relationship to one another is that thls was also done by Wordsworth's famous enemy, Francis Jeffrey. J Il. Common Sense Slippers J 1 Jeffrey's assessment of the essays by Stewart, Alison, and Knight, unlike his vitriolic reviews of poets, gives us a good idea of his positions on aesthetlc response and on the moral power of poetry. At the 1 core of his comments is his belief that "... our sense of beauty depends entirely on our previous experience of slmpler pleasures or emotions ... beauty is not an inherent property or quality of obJects

1 at ail, but the resuh of the accidentai relations in which they may stand to our experience of pleasures , or emotions" (J, 15-16). 15 If beauty was not thought to be an i nherent property of the art object, the sense of beauty was nevertheless seen to inhere in the reader or beholder on whom the work of art 1 "depends entirely." Jeffrey was aware that his argument, based on associationist principles, was only new in the unequivocal way in which he stated it, for "This theory ...is now very generally adopted, J 1 1 39

1 though under many needless qualifications" He said that a man's "poetry, or hls shppers," because 1 they may awaken a simllar tram of associations, may be equally pc,werfulln stirnng emotlons and sentiments The humour reflects an overa" effort to demystify the aesthetic expenence He wanted 1 to "get nd of ail the mystery. and dlscover that the power of taste 15 nothing more th an the habit of tracing these associations ... " He comphmented Stewart, Alison and Kmght as havlng "an infinite de al

1 of ment, and have among them dlsclosed almost ail the truth that IS 10 be known on the subJect" of

taste, because they cast the aesthetlc expenence in the mould of common sense (J, 20).

1 Yet Jeffrey took Alison to task for assertmg that "our sense of beauty Indlcates a state of 1 mind in whlch the faculties, hait active and hait passive, are glven up to a sort of reverie or muslng." Jeffrey disliked this argument because it presented the aesthetic response as wandenng, "though 1 among kindred impressions," suggestmg that the sense of beauty is awakened by dreamy digressions rather than by focussed attention. He "cannot posslbly admtt" that such meandenng IS

1 "necessary to the perception of beauty." This imphcitly confuted AII:..Jn's concept of two distinct 1 phases of aesthetic response, and echoed Stewart's dismissal of passive or acquiescent values ln reading. Like Stewart, Jeffrey discounted the emotional response as pnor and baSIC to the 1 discriminating response: .... .if the perception of the beauty of the object ... depended upon its havlng produced a series of ideas of emotion ... there seems to be no good reason for doubting, that ugly

1 oiJjects may thus be as beautiful as any other, and that beauty and ugliness may be one and the 5ame 1 Ihing" (21). ln saymg flrst tha, our sense of beauty depends entirely and always on the "suggestion of 1 ideas of emotion," and, shortly followmg, that the perception of beauty depends on somethmg other than the ability of the object to arouse "ideas of emotion," his IoglC 15 foggy. But his main focus ln both

1 instances was on the rational enjoyment of ideas, and the words "sense" and "perception" sigmfy

intellectual discernment rather than the sensu al or emotional response. This was made clearer when

1 he argued that "direct perception ... not only perpetually accompanie5 the associated emotions, but IS 1 inextricably confounded with them in our feelings, and is even recognized upon reflectlon as the 1 1 1 40

1 cause .. " "Direct perception" IS synonymous wlth common sense discernment, and, hke Slewart's ) "Judgment," It was seen as the cause of aesthetic sensations and feelings (32). Slated simply, Jeffrey's position was thal emotions cannot be relied upon in decidmg what is

.J beautlful and what is not. PerceivJng such emotionahsm ln Knight's essay, he descnbed il as "lively, various, and discursive" but not as "systematic and conclusive" as Alison's, whlch came down, so he

t belleved, more decisively on the side of objective analysis. With Stewart's essay he had "Iess , occasion to quarrel," partly because he found it less polemical or controvers.al, but mainly bec au se he agreed wlth Stewart that rational thlnking ought to be valued 10 Ihe virtual exclusion of emotlon (21- .1 22) L.ke the three theorists, Jeffrey drew relationshiJ:là between morali\y and the aesthetic response Near the end of his reVlew, for example, he observed that "The only use of the faculty of taste IS to

J afford an innocent delight, and to aid the cultivation of a finer morality; and that man will certainly have ] the rnost delight from this faculty, who has the mast numerous and the most powerful perceptions of beauty" (38). It js clear that "Innocent delight" dOes not mean the naive response described by J Alison. It means the pleasure that results from disinterested inquiry, and that leads to moral improvement. 1 Jeffrey's respect for decorous poetic diction stemmed from his deviationist view of art: poetry or painting ought never to mirror the ordinary, sinee the ordinary is never a determinant of the "sense

1 of beauty." Jeffrey's man of taste, who knows the differenee between the pleasures of reading and J the comfort of his slippers, is practical 'Jllt he would not enjoy a poem based only on commonplace objects. Wordsworth's critical assault on omate diction. and his poetic illuminations of the inherent

] beauty in even the rnost ordinary natural obJects were condemned by Jeffrey. However, it would be

wrong to assume that Jeffrey was an enemyof poetry that meditates on natural objects. In fact, he was

J most eloquent when he descnbed the "great jubilee of nature; the young of animais bursting into 1 existence; the simple and unlversal pleasures which are diffused by the mere temperature of the air, and the profusion of sustenance; the pairing of birds; the cheerful resumption of rustic toils; the great 1 aUeviation of ail the mlseries of poverty and sickness; our sympathy W1th the young life; and the promise and the hazards of the vegetable creation" (25). This does not sound like a man who would J 1 1

1 not have responded sympathetleally to Wordsworttl's unadorned style and ru5tie subject matter He 1 felt that the poet makes "vegetable creation" even more beautlful, for the "enchanting beauty whlch we sometimes recognize ln descriptions of very ordinary phenomena, will be found to anse from the 1 force of imagination, by whlch the poet has conneeted with human emotions, a vanety of objects, 10 which common mmds could not discover thelr relations." rie charactenzed the poet ln a way that

1 sounds much hke Wordsworth in the 1802 "Preface" "As the poet sees more of beauty ln nature 1 th an ordinary mortals ..50 other men see more or less of thls beauty, exactly as they happen to possess that fancy, or those habits, whlch enable them readily to trace out these relations" (30) 1 The most irreconcilable dlffer,ence between Wordsworth and Jeffrey was due to Wordsworth's belief that readers should look hrst and always to poets rather than to entlCS for the Improvement of 1 their textual habits Jeffrey, Alison, Knight, and Stewart suggested that the laws of refmed reading ean only be learned from the practice of the analytical habits, rules, and theones they recommended

1 ln his reviews of Wordsworth, Jeffrey of course delighted in the polemical opportumtles glven hlm by 1 Wordsworth's resistance to cnties, and by hls notion that readers of his poems should suspend thelr judgment. Unhke Knight, Jeffrey beheved that poetry, although not inherently beautlful, ean 1 "suggest to us, in a more direct way" than by actual encounters with beautiful obJects the "moral and SOCial emotions on which the beauty of ail objects depends" (37). In other words, a poem can

1 instinctively enact a moral response to poetic objects, the rational beauty of whlch can be best 1 understood by the analyt.cal reader. Vet his dislike for Wordsworth was the most acute when he found him advancing a "creed and a revelation" that presented the poet as a moral teacher, capable of 1 reforming the reading habits and the taste of the general public. This was a responsibility that Jeffrey, and the three eritles he reviews, were more than willing to shoulder, and they had no inclination tt) 1 share that burden with poets. ln his reviews, Jeffrey set himself up as a representative of conservatlve and traditIon al norms

1 of taste. He made heretics such as Wordsworth and Southey secm like his natural enemles. The 1 dramatic conflict he imagined was between the critic's "inquisitorial offIce" and the poor wretch who had been dragged before him for judgment. He attacked from a point of safety, rejecting 1 1 1 42

1 Wordsworth's use of "vulgar" or "Iow, melegant expressions," and lamenting the manner in which he 1 scorned artifice or refmed diction ln poetry Those who appreciate common language, "we are afrald , !hey cannot be called readers" Vet Jeffrey's battle IS being fought on moral rather than theoretlcal grounds, and the pnze was the allegiance of common readers. On their behalf, Jeffrey castigated

Wordsworth's styhstlc plamness and primitive emotlOnalism that "Ieads to the debasement" of the

f reader's moral senSlbIh!les.16 ln reprinting two of hls attacks on Wordsworth in hls Contributions to 1 the EdlOburgh Review, Jeffrey apologlzed for theïr vehemence ïn a lengthy footnote, but he was careful ta add that he still retained the opinions that gave rise ta his aggression. 17 These opmions 1 were to sorne extent grounded ln his empirical theory of beauty. Since beauty does not inhere in poetry any more than m a pair of "shppers" or a "saddle-horse," what gives a poet such as Wordsworth 1 the authority ta place an interpretive system between his poems and his reader's rational enjoyment of them? Clearly Jeffrey thought that Wordsworth's effort ta teach his audience how to respond ta

1 poetry was self-serving and arrogant. And underpinning his often vicious wit was the belief tha! the t analytlcal cntle, not the poet, is the guardian of the art of reading. 1 III. Masses on the Mlnd 1 Wordsworth thought poorly of William Goclwin as a stylist.18 Vet it was Godwin, only an occasional literary eritic, who gave the later eighteenth-eentury analytieal mode of reading its most memorable 1 metaphor: "It has been affirmed by astronomers, that the spots discoverable ln the disk of the sun, are a species of fuel calculated ta supply its continuai waste, and that, in due time, they become changed

1 lOto the substance of the sun itself. Thus in reading: if the systems we read, were always ta remain in 1 masses on the mind, unconcocted and unaltered, undoubtedly in Ihat cnse Ihey would only deform il" , (E, 364). As this analogy suggests, Godwin placed the analytical reader rather than the artist or the poet at the center of his aesthetic discussions.

Godwin was a rationalist philosopher, yet he did not teel obliged to question elosely the

1 analytieal way of reading as a reflector of moral conducf. The Engu;rer suggested that the concept of 1 1 . 1 ·13

1 aesthetic meanmg as cl product of the reader's associations rather than as a flxed quahty of the text 1 was, as Jeffrey also maintamed, "generally adopted" by later elghteenth-eentury entics and philosophers The reader's moral power was fully exercised "If we mix our own retlechons wllh whal 1 we read; If we dlssect the Ideas and arguments of our author. If, by hav og recourse 10 ail subsldlary means, we endeavour to clear the recollectton of hlm ln our mmds; Il we compare part wlth part. detect

1 his errors, new model hls systems, adopt 50 much of him as 15 excellent, and explam wlthtn ourselves

the reason of our disapprobation as to what is otherwlse." Stewart's rule that knowledge should not

1 be imbibed passively found in Godwin an energetlc exponent: "A judlclous reader Will have a greater 1 number of Ideas that are his own passlng through his mmd, than of ideas presented to hlm by hls author. He fits hls merits, and bolts his arguments. What he adopts from hlm, he renders hls own, by 1 repassmg in hls thoughts the notIons of which it consists, and the foundatlon upon whlch It reSls, correcting ItS mistakes, and supplylng its defects" (365).

1 Godwin's confidence in objective inqUlry carried him to the extreme vlew that "Ali talent may 1 perhaps be afftrmed to consist in analysis and dissection, the turnmg a thing on ail sides, and examining It in ail its vanety" The reader of genius takes a book ''to pleces, enqUlres into ItS causes 1 and effects remarks ItS internai structure" (49-50). Yet, ln one of his efforts to idealize his reading practlce, GOc:M in became the unlikely ancestor of Keats's camelion poet· "When 1 read Thompson, 1

1 become Thompson; when 1read Minon, 1becorne Milton. 1find myself a sort of mtellectual camellon, 1 assuming the colour of the substances on which 1rest." The dlssective reader was also seen as one whose "mind becomes ductile, susceptible to every impreSSIon, and galnlng refmement from them ail 1 His varieties of thinking baffle calculation, and his powers, wheHler of reason orfaney, become eminently vigorous" (33). In spite of this "vigourous" bow in the direction of the empathlc response, 1 Godwin's remarks on the whole pre5ented the text as virtually powerless in the hands of the analytical reader. He deflated the affective power of texts by arguing "that the impression we denve trom a

1 book, depends much less upon its real contents, than upon the temper of mtnd and preparation wlth 1 which we read it." As both physlcal and intellectual objects texts are "entirely at our devotion, and may be turned backward and forward as we please." Godwin claimed a moral power for readlng that 1 1 1 44

1 Wordsworth would claim for poetry "Reading and leaming, when thus pursued, not only furnish the 1 most valuable knowledge, but afford Incitements to the mind of a thousand denominatlons." For Godwin, Ihe text 15 the receplacle of the reader's mlnd, and Il "furnishes, what IS of ail things mosl 1 Important, occasions for approbation and dlsapprobation" (135; 363; 365-66) Many of the spmted remarks about reading in The EnQUfrer went unexplained, even though

1 Godwin boasted that as a reader he had never sbpped from the sobriely of skeptlcism. HIS book IS a

collect.on of personal opinions, wnHen 10 resemble the wmnmg slde ln a "vely, polemlcal

1 conversation It IS clear, however, tha: nis opinions were based on slrong beliefs. Most pertinent to 1 the present discussion IS his point of Vlew, s.mi/arto Knight's, on poetry as an agency for moral instruction. He found poetry to be an inefficlent conductor of moral princlples, since the reader is 1 already predisposed to see, to overtook, or to mismterpret the moral of a poem, which he dehned as "that ethical sentence to the illustration of whieh the work may most aptly be applied." The moral

1 energy of a poem, whlch he tias down to a single sentence, "ke one that follows a fable, was seen as 1 less important than the poem's general '~endency," whlch he defined as the pleasurable "effect it .s calculated to produce upon the reader."19 Predictably enough, the permutations of th,s calculation 1 were thought by him to result more from the various tempers and habits of readers than from the conscious control of the poet, for whom the tendency of his wOrk, ils effects on readers, was api to be

1 very different from his onginal intention (135-36). 1 Godwm felt that his reading theories were already shared by the educated ebte, and that these theories Meded only to be presented informally to become palatable to common readers. IM 1 Engujrer's determination to appear convivial may explain why its arguments were somewhat carelessly developed. Yet, it IS not diffieult to believe that Godwin's enthusiasm on the subject of textual analysls 1 might have in'ected manyof h.s readers. Jeffrey's literary theories and opinions, appearing in the popular Edjnburgh Reyjew, would have reached a larger and more diverse audience than the essays

1 by Godwin and the other entics considered in this chapter. 1have pointed out that Jeffrey believed 1 that the analytical mode of reading, as formulated and practiced by enties such as Stewart, Knight, and Alison, was well-established ':.Ilether or not analytical theones of reading adually had aoy popular 1 1 1 1 ·15 appeal, It is clear that they were unfriendly to the Idea that liets at the heart of Wordsworth's vlews on 1 reader-response' the poet is capable of directly influencing the moral diSpositions of the reader Wordsworth adopted such a stern attitude towards hls audience ln the es sa ys and prefaces partly 10 1 counter negations of poetry's moral mfluence by crilics and theonsts, and thetr related clalms for the

analytical reader's dlspassionate control of hls responses to poetry. Accordtng to the essays and

1 prefaces, those who believed with Godwm that the "moral of a work IS a point 01 very subordmate 1 consideration" had a great de al to learn about the reading experience. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 46

1 Chapter 2. 1 The Art of Admiration

1 1. Advertlslng for an Audience

~ Since the mlddle of the eighteenth-century, with pnvate patronage in decline, a young author's 1 reputatlon depended increasingly on the 'aye' of critlcs.1 The rnost accessible way for any one, writer or reader, to leam somethlng of the habits and responses of the general audience was to turn to the 1 critlcs. Yet, ln the1798 "AdvertlSement," Wordsworth turned to eritles only to defy them, perhaps because he had been offended by lukewarm reviews of his Descdptjve Sketches and An Eyenrng

1 ~, both published in 1793 2 The "Advertisement" was written to "temper the rashness of 1 decision, and to suggest that If poetry be a subject on whieh much time Las not been bestowed, the judgment may be erroneous, and that ln many cases it necessarlly will be so." "Readers of superior 1 judgment" were told to suspend prevlous experienees and defmitions of poetry in order to benefit lrom the ballad "expenments." They were not to look to the "writlngs of Gritles" in formlng their 1 opinions but to "Poets themselves" œw, i, 116.) How can one justify encouragmg readers to bypass enties by means of cntical prose? The Prefaces of 1800, 1802, and the 1815 "Essay, Supplementary"

1 eontinued the "Advertisement's" effort to deflect potentially negative cliticism. But they also Imphcitly 1 disproved the idea that critlcism is superlluous to poetry. The 1800 "Preface" ended wlth (in acknowledgment of the interdependence of poetry and critical prose: "From wh:at has beun said, ana 1 from a perusal of the Poems, the Reader Will be abfe clear1y to perceivE: the object which 1 have proposed to myself" (.EW i, 120).

1 Although Wordsworth's earlier publications had been damned with faint praise, it is diffieult to

know If he dlsmissed cri fics in the "Advertisemenf" because he was self-confident, or because he was f insecure, feeling the wounds before they had been infhcted. The effect of his antipathy towards 1 crities on hls comments on readlng is best understood in historieal terms. His concept of a cause and , effect relationship between poetry and the moral response was in conflict with a central tenet of the 1 1

1 later eighteenth-century analytical theonsts dlscussed m Chapter One, whlch was that the true mode 1 of readmg has a moral and practlcal hfe Independent of the texts to whlch It IS apphed Because Wordsworth's cntlclsm displays hls own analytlcal abllitles, and reflects a deep respect for the studlous 1 approaeh to hterary mquiry, It is not immedlately elear how resolutely he set hlmsell agalnst those who believed in an autonomous éind infalhb!e readlng method ln the 1800 "Preface," defendmg the

1 absence in his poems of "wh::' IS usually called poetle diction," Wordsworth sald tha! the "pleasure

which 1have proposed to myself to Impart, IS of a kind very dlfferent from that whlch IS supposed by

1 many persons to be the proper oblect of poetry" (EW, l, 130) Who these "many persons" are is left ln 1 daubt. But It is clear that the "Preface" combatted cnlies who pondered the moral and social uses of poetry and found those uses elther negllglble, or entlrely a funetlon of the reader's associations and 1 judgments ln prosodie terms, Wordsworth's redefmition of poetry's purpose meant tha! the Immediately pleasurable effects on the reader's mind of a poem's metncal arrangement are mherently

1 moral. At the outset of the "Prefaces," he claimed that his poetry is "nat ummportant ln the multlpllclty 1 and in the quality of Its moral relations, " and he repeated this verbatlm at the end of the "Preface" (EW, i, 120) 1 Wordsworth's cnticism denied that there was a gap between poetry and morals that can only be bndged by the mformed reader Hume had argued that the "relation of cause and effect must be 1 utterly unknawn ta mankind ,,3 A simllar skepticlsm, applied to the relationship between art and audience, underlies the almast incldental attention pald ta th(;) art abject by theonsts such as Alison

1 and Knight, and thelr concentration on the effects of aesthetic percepllOn Althaugh to sorne extent 1 pragmatlc, in the meaning glven to this term by M H. Abrams, valumg poetry pnmanly for Its Influence on an audience, analytical cntics often restricted poetry's moral influence to the uncertainty of 1 emotional response. 4 Poetry was seen as capable of mlrroring but not slgnlflCélntly altenng a reader's moral code, whlch is due to his habits and associations. HIs taste and textual habits cou Id only be

1 changed by monitonng hls aesthetlc responses, a process that transforms the irregular, passionate 1 energies of art into morally beneficial self-knowledge. 1 1 1 48

J The 1800 "Preface" began by circumscnbing the intimidating task of directly explaining the 1 "moral relahons" of poets ta readers Wordsworth was unwilling ta begin "retracing the revolutions, r,ot of hterature, bullikewise 01 society ilself." He shifted from the theme of moral relations ta a ground J on which his expertise would stand securely, the "formai engagement" implied by the act of reading a poe m, ln order ta inltiate a rflscusslon on "metncallanguage" that he developed further in the 1802

] "Appendlx" on poetlc diction However, the subject of morality was not abandoned, for Wordsworth ) spoke of poetic language as !t!ough there IS no difference between Its affectIve qualities (what Alison calfs a wandenng "natural stream" and Godwin calls "tendency") and the capaclty of the reader ta

] benefit morally from his experience of the poem. The "9Ood poem" embodies "good sense"

1 excluded Irom Wordsworth's ideal audience. But to meet the criteria for interpretation laid down in the ) essays and prefaces, they would have to agree with Wordsworth that poems can be reliable models for go ad conscience and conduct, and then submit their analytical tendencies to the influence of

) poetic genlus on that basis.

J Il. Response and Responslblllty 1 The 1815 "Essay, Supplementary" is Wordsworth's most comprehensive discussion of the 1 relationship between poets and readers. In spite of negative reviews 01 his poetry, Wordsworth was eonvinced that it would survive. And he began the "Essay" by venting his anger at those who had

1 lailed ta appreciate il. He damned his "Adversarles," whom he has come ta "inwardty despise," and ') imagined an ideal critie for his poems, who belonged more to the future than the present. He asked "Whither can we turn for that union of qualifications which must necessarily exist belore the decisions 1 of a critic can be of absolute value," for an "enlightened Critic," who is Mat once poetical and philosophical," altruistic. reflecting the "kindly ... spirit of society," and yet "who se understanding is as .1 1 1 49

1 severe as that of dispasslonate government..tutored into correctness," posses&ed 01 "active facultles 1 capable of answering the demands whlch an author of onginallmaglnatlon shaH make upon them ?" These active faculties were identifled wlth analytlcal powers, predlsposed to sympathy but ruled by "a 1 judgment that cannot be duped into admiration by ought that is unworthy of It" Su ch a cnlic would be 01 "absolute value." ln splte of hls mean-spirited remarks to hls adversanes, Wordsworth recogntzed

1 that unlavorable reviews of great poets are inevitable, and as necessary to the poet's struggle to Win a 1 worthy éludience as flattenng reviews. "The love, the admiration, the Indifference, the slight, the aversion, and even the contempt" of readers were "ail proofs that for the present lime 1 have not 1 laboured in vain" (EW, iii, 62-70: 80). His descriptions of the "enhghtened CritlC" leaned towards an Ideahzation of the textual 1 analyst, who reads poelry "as a study," and whose "dispassionate" reading habits could serve as a model for the inexperienced or unlnstructed. Avenll noted that Wordsworth's "expenmental, even

1 analytical, cast of mmd leads to a wlde-ranglng, inslstently tentative exploration of the relatIOns 1 between the poetlc object and its audience."S ln the criticism written before the "Essay," Wordsworth had also shared the "cast of mind" of analytical CritlCS ln certain basic respects For example, Dugald 1 Stewart's belief that readers should read and form conclusions on thelr own, resist pnor or extnnSIC aut ho rit y, and discard pre-set opinions and prejudices was an ethical prescription reflected by the

1 1798 "Advertisement," ln whlch readers were asked to ignore prior authonty and to suspend "pre­ 1 established" ideas. In the 1800 "Preface," the reader was prompted to ludge for himself, "by hls own feelings genuinely," rather than anticipate how a poem will be received by others (EW, l, 154) 1 Although Wordsworth may have had in mmd the vulnerability of hls poetlc experiments, perhaps more than the Ideal ot disinterestedness, he resembled Stewart and Ali!:lon ln wanting readers to thlnk for 1 themselves. And yet, as the "Essay, Supplementary" makes clear. Wordsworth placed the highest value on the reader's sense of communi:y wlth poets and on his submission to their authority.

1 ln tenns of Wordsworth's views on poetic language. seH-sufflciency meant readers must not 1 allow themselves to be swayed by formai or stylistic prejudlce&, su ch as those that discount tautology and unadomed poetic language, or those that place a premium on art,ficial diction and on such 1 1 1 50

1 dey/ces as personification W/th respect to poetic sUbJects as weil as to poet/c language, a reader 1 should respond sympathel.rcally to poe ms "punfied .. from ail lasting and rat/onal causes of dislike or disgust," wh/ch reflect those "essent/al passions of the heart" or "elementary feelings" found primarily ·1 /n "Iow and rustre Irfe" (Eli, " 124). Th/s was a part of Wordsworth's creed that the aristocratIe Jeffrey found partlcularly offensive. But Wordsworth's was not Idealizmg Ignorance. He was glvrng symbolic

1 shape to the association/st bellef of analyt/cal theonsts. aesthet/c response (although not at ail moral J responslbllity for the readrng experience, which is brought about by conscious discipline) is conditloned by the reader's social and psychologlcal environment. For Wordsworth a poem was 1 already a punf/ed environment, need/ng the pastoral care of readers more th an the'f analytical sk,lIs Stewart had stressed the importance of review, "to study the subject over agaln ln our own

1 way, 10 pause ... to recollect ... to examine" the author's propositions. In a similar vein, the 1800 1 "Preface" requested that if the rtader had been pleassd by "any single composition" of an author, he ought 10 use this as a motive for reV/ewing those poems that he had not pleased him (fW, i, 154; 1 156). (Some of Wordsworth's poems display a thematic interest in the need for pause and recollection ln readlng. i.e. "Read o'er these lines, and then revlew ... Pause with no common 1 sympathy" in "If Nature, for a favonte Child.") Wordsworth was not prone to 'romanticizmg' the readrng experience as wandering or dreamltke in his criticism. He emphasized that poe ms are 10 be carefully

1 and alertly pondered. like Stewart, Wordsworth was disinclined to separate reading inlo an initial 1 stage that is a delightful prelude to informed judgment, or to see reading as anything other than purposive contemplatIon. He did falntly suggest that there are two distinct phases of reading in the 1 "Appendix" on poetic dIction, in which the enlightened reader was seen as penetratmg with judgme~t the less trustwor.hy "delightlul" response. (And many of his poe ms suggest this much more firmly.)

J But the main point was that the reader should "never he willing thal his common judgment and f underslanding should be laid asleep" (fW, i, 160). The 1815 "Essay, Supplementarj" argued that reading must always be tempered by "common-sense" and never "revoit from the swayof reason" 1 (,EW, 111.63). J 1 1 51

1 Reflecting one of Hume's premises for nght reading, Wordsworth argued that readers must 1 weigh the value ai a poem according to ItS "worthy purpose" ŒW, l, 124), Hume did not IOclude the poet among those who wrote from and for any purpose more practical than Ihat ot emotlonal pleasure. 1 but he attached the hlghest Importance to reducmg a text to baSIC "proposItions and reasanmgs ,,6 Although Wordsworth admltted that he did not have speclflc, preconcelved al ms 'n mmd as he

1 composed, he beheved that good habits of medltatlOn conform to distinct moral purposes He was 1 anxlous that he "not be censored tor not having performed what 1never attempted" (EW, 1. 126), ln a letter to Lady Beaumont (1807), he proudly stated that "There is scarcely one of my Poems whlch 1 does nf)t alm ta direct the attention ta sorne moral sentiment, or to sorne general princlple. or law of thought, or of our mtellectual constitution. ,,7 1 The reader soliCited by Wordsworth had sound ethical habits, that prepared his sympathies to be enlarged A reader "in a healthful state of association" would "be in sorne degree enlightened, hls

1 taste exalted, and his affections ameliorated," He would beneflt tram poems such as "The Brothers," 1 that show the "moral attachment" between men that develops "when early associated wlth the great and beautlful objects of flature," or "Simon Lee," which imparts "more than ordmary moral sensations ..

1 If enough minds were exer,~ised ln this "healthful" way, ln reading Shakespeare and Milton. or Wordsworth's awn "feeble effort," the "savage torpor" of the nntion brought about by the

1 "accumulation of men in cities," and the "uniformity of their occupations," which "produces a craving 1 for extraordinary inCident," would be in sorne measure counteracted (EW, l, 126; r 28). Llke Knlght. Wordsworth deplored the power of novels over youthful or nalve readers. Kept by his belief ln the 1 poet's moral power trom contradictmg hlmself too openly on this matter, he shared the belle' that novels, even "extravagant" poems, have the power to corrupt readers. It IS nevertheless eVldent,

1 especially in the 1815 "Essay, Supplementary," that Wordsworth's concepts of response and 1 responsibility are not free of contradictions. Although Knight empowered the analytical readerwith moral authonty. he sometimes shlfted 1 responsibility for taste to the poet, when thls suited his effort to show the power of the analytical reader as against the "ungovemed affections" of art. In the context of Wordsworth's opinion that the 1 1 1 52 t textual habits and taste of the contemporary audience were debilitated, the moral influence of poets 1 seems doubtful Vet Wordsworth assigned the responslbllity for atrophied responses to readers not to poets. The "Essay, Supplementary" suggested that the poet guides the moral response, even 1 controls It by spiritual "conquest," but cannot take responslblhty for Its 90tn9 wrong (.Eli, 1i i, 82) When It does go wrong, It IS the fault of the reader, who IS elther too inexpenenced, a self-pleasing

1 escaplst, a dogmatist proJectrng his expectatlons onto the text, or one who has falled generally to be

submlsslve to the poet's authority.8 At such contestable points in hls crrtlcism, rather than agree wlth

1 cntics such as Knlght or GodwIn that the rrorallnfluence of poetry on readers is unpredlctable, 1 unreliabls, or non-exIstent, Wordsworth turned the tables on the analytical reader by suggesting that he is too self-tnterested, and not attendtng closely enough to the integrity of the poem. 1 Wordsworth's cnticism resembled that of analytical cntics in giving specifie advice to readers on ) how to Improve their reading habits. If the under-structure of reading, those basic princlples on which critical Judgments rely, cou Id be improved, th en "our moral feehngs influencing, and influenced by J thase judgements will, 1belreve, be corrected and punfied." Immediately followrng this remar\< in the 1802 "Preface," as If reacting adversely to the high responsibllity just glven to readers, Wordsworth

] placed the Poet on an even hlgher plane. The Poet was seen as "a man speakmg to men," superior

to them only in degree, but nevertheless superior. He is introspective, "pleased wlth his own f passions and volitions," but the romantlc view of the egotistical poet who sees ail things in himseH was ) superseded by the classical view of the poet as teacher. The poet's texture of thoughts and feelings is not pnvate or primanly self-interested, but a refined distillation of the "general passions," "moral 1 sentIments," and "animal sensations" of ail mankind (EW, i, 137-142). And on that basis Wordsworth suggested that his poems not only give immediate pleasure, but also worked beneficial changes in

1 the reade"s life. This V1ew separatad Wordsworth from those who saw the poem not as a distillation of 1 wisdom but as ItS raw material, an uncultivated or 'natural' tract of thoughts and assocIations that, although rooted ln genius, needs to broken by the blade of reason, made arable by logic and common J sense. For the crities discussed in the preceding chapter, the poem was not an "inalienable inheritance" handed down by the poet. The r'.Jem must be annexed or appropriated by reductive J ) 1 53

1 force trom obscurity created by the passage of time or by the uncertaln workmgs of what Hume catled 1 "mere fictions of the Imaglnatlon."g ln evaluating the moral and social purpose of the Lyrical Ballads the reader was asked to 1 attend to psychologlcal effects, to the "manner ln whlch our feelings and Ideas are assoclated ln a state of excitement," or to the '1luxes and refluxes of the mtnd when agltated by the great and sImple

1 affections of our nature" The reader was to give a hlgher value to "feeling" rather than to narrative 1 "action" (EW, i, 122, 124). Wordsworth malntalned that the flux of feeling represented by the mlnds of the characters ln his Ballads, and the contingent responses awakened ln hls readers, would result a 1 beneficial flow of sensations. The Ballads embodled not only the poet's punhed "emotlon recollected in tranquihty," but hls purposlve moral and mtellectual energy, the pleasures by whlch the poet's 1 emotlons are tempered or "quahfied." What had been true for the poet during composition must, "If 1 the Reader's mtnd be sound and V1gorous," result ln an "overbalance of pleasure" slmllar to the poet's, the contemplation of which would lead the reader to recognize that a reflned purpose, ongmatmg ln 1 the poem. had accompanted its ernotlOnal effects œw. i, 148, 150). Wordsworth's theory of composition reflects a rule of readmg underptnninu the essays by 1 Kames and Alison: the emotional response, whlch they characterized as dream or revene, must glve way to serious study. As 1 suggested eanier, Wordsworth seemed to dehberately avold descnbtng

1 reading in terms of a delightful dream When he spoke of the poet's dehght, model for the reader's, ln 1 the 1802 "Preface," it was glven a scientific quality - the poet, like an astror.. 'mer, "delighltng 10 contemplale ... the r,oings-on of the Universe." However, Wordsworth argued that poetry has an even 1 greater reason to be than science' "The knowledge both of the Poet and the Man of SCience IS pleasure; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our eXistence, our natural

1 and inahenable mhentance; the other is personal and indlvidual acquiSition, slow 10 come to US, and by

no habituai and direct sympathy connectmg us with our fellow-beings." And it was not only the

1 knowledge galned by the pure research of the "Chemist, the Botantst, or Mmeraloglst" but also the 1 knowledge gained by the analytical spirit of reading that Wordsworth was call1ng a "personal and individu al acquisition" (Etl, i, 138-141). 1 1 1 54

1 The underfymg subject in the passage on the Man of SCience is the "direct" or causal relationshlp between poetry's moral power and society, a relationship that could not be drawn by

1 some critlcs because It admlts a pnor relatlonship between poetry and morals that Ihey saw as, at best, 1 merely incldental (Godwin), or as ln any practical sense non-existent (Knight). In the "Essay, Supplementary," wntmg as though he has been much misunderstood on thls pomt, Wordsworth J aeknowledged the obvious Poetle language works mdirectly, by illusions, by metaphoncal and

melneal substitutions for reahty (,EW, 1i i, 63) But these substitutions had for him ail the force, and

1 indeed a more sublime force, than what is no""ally pereeived as real. To say that there is no direct ) relationship between poetry and moral behavior, to behave as though sueh a relationship does not exist, was for Wordsworth the greatest of reading sins, awakening a "world of delusion" that 1 undermines the instructive power of poetry. Slnce Wordsworth thought of poetry as the deepest source of moral power in the readmg

1 experience, It is not surprising that he differed trom Stewan, Knight, ~nd Alison on what the ) underlying motives and end results of reading should be. For these crities, reading was motivated by a desire for moral and intellectual seH-command, that ends in an authontative closure, a Judgement of J author and text. The "Essay, Supplementary," argued that reading ought to be an ongoing correspondence wlth the poem, that resists seH-interest and unfolds in a spi nt of admiration, that ,1 Wordsworth distinguished from mere wonderrnent or credulousness. In the 1800 "Preface,"

anticipating accusations of arrogance, Wordsworth did not want to be seen "reasoning" readers into

1 approbation of hls poems

1 the knowable, rather th an a rapturous (or perhaps ternfled) response to the unlathomable subhme 1 Wordsworth used thls word occaslonally 11'1 the Prefaces of 1BOO and 1B02. then repeatedly. Insistently ln the 1815 "Essay, Supplementary" ln the elghteenth-century code 01 painting. the 1 admmng gaze generally Imphed "medltatlon, ln which one gazes stralght ahead. th~ eyebrows are raised and the pupils are fixed ln the mlddle between the two eyehds" This expression was thought

1 to mdlcate deep "esteem" for the obJect, event, or person beJng pondered Il was distinct Irom gazes 1 "solemn and sublime." or ecstatic. depicted by eyes upltfted. and trom expressions of f8lth and humlltty in whlch the head is bowed and the "eyes and mouth will be shut." The "sublime" expression 1 was a response to "mystenes which the Soul cannot aUain to "10 Admiration was a response to that which is potentlally fully comprehensible. In James Beattie's code of gestures and faCIal expressions. 1 the admtnng gaze was the mest ideal one for the crator to adopt. for It conveyed rational and moral understanding to the audience. 11 Hume used the words "wonder" and "admIration" to slgnlly the

1 moral and Intellectual pleasures aroused by the "discovery and contemplaI/on of final causes ,,12 A 1 modern philosopher. Mortimer J. Adler, exploited !',ese tradltional connecttons ln a discussion on taste. that defincù admiration "as just as much an ex::>ression of taste as enjoyabtltty 15; but wlth one 1 difference. Enjoyment IS Immediate. Admiration may be mediated by thought and dependant upon knowledge. ,,13

1 ln Wordsworth's An Eyenjng Walk (1793), the "admlring" response mlfrors the element of 1 terror in the Burkean Sublime. A ghostlike horseman (followed by "horsemen shadows") is plctured riding along the "midway cliffs, " watcned by mystified villagers, the "admiring vale below," who fear hls 1 "headlong fall" (II. 179-190). "The IdIot Boy" will mock this ghost-nder. and the Gothlc taste he embodies, but for now Wordsworth was content to bring out the 'ear and awe that can attend such

1 imaginative transports. In Peter Bell, substantially completed live years after An EveDing Walk.

admiration accompanies the poet-narrator's 'turo' in the ·Prologue," from the ethereal regions of hls

1 imagination to hls audience. Floating in the "Uttle boat" of his ImaginatIon the poet addresses those 1 below who are waiting for his poelic tale to unfold. "The nOise of danger's in your ears,! And yOu have ail a thousand fearsl Bath for my little boat and me." The audience frets, but "MeamNhile 1tram the 1 1 1 56

1 helm admirel The polnted horns of my canoe,! And did not pit Ytouch my breasV To see how you are

ail dlstressedJ TIll my nbs ached l'd faugh at you" (11.14-20) These giddy fInes have a serious pomt to

1 make Mary Jacobus observed that "If the 1798 "Advertisement" is Wordsworth's earhest cntlcal 1 manlfesto, the "Prologue" to Peter Bell IS hls f"st poetlc one.',14 Wordsworth was suggestmg that readers who woufd follow the poet's sublime, imaginative ascents must aspire to pathos and calm 1 admiration, rather than to exaggerated fear and joy. As in An Eyentng Walk, admiratIon IS associated wlth the responses of a general audience, but It also seems to reflect, somewhat crazily, an

1 intermedlate range of emotlon between the poet's subhmity and the responses of both the down-to- 1 earth or common sense reader, and the reader who 15 entirely credulous. "Admiration" appears near the center of Book VIII of the 1805 Prelude, "Love of Nature 1 Leading to Love of ManklOd" The poet was

Happy ln thlS, that 1with Nature walked, 1 NOl having a too early intercourse With the deformities of crowded life, And those ensuing laughters and conternpts Self-pleasing, which if we would wlsh to think 1 With admiration ancl respect of man Will not permt us, but pursue the minci That to devotion willingly wou Id be raised, Into the temple and the temple's heart. 1 (II. 463-471)

1 The theoretical underpinning of "admiration and respect," as it pertains directly to readlng, can be 1 found in Book V, whlch will be discussed in Chapter Five. But this underpinning also exists in a rejected fragment written for Book VIII in Ms. Y (Oct. 1804).15 The fragment is 236lines long and 1 begins "We live by admiration .... The moral prescription suggested by thls beginning unfolds as a paradigm of the reading expenence. Admiration has its roots in a naive fascination, arislOg out of the

1 "absolute necesslties" of human nature, with "fable and [?romance)" (1. 82, 84). This ref/ects the 1 depiction ln B ik V of the poet's attraction as a child to tales of "fairyland, the forests of romance," suCh as the "Arabian Tales" (V, Il. 477; 484-500). The power of this attraction is not underestimated in 1 "We live by admiration" or in Book V, where il has the capacity to preserve a child trom the 'error" of 1 1 1 57

1 seemg the body of a drowned man (V, II. 426-481). As in Book V, mnocent readlng evolves mto more 1 "sober" stages of aesthetlc development, ln which "words themselvesl Move us wlth consCIOus pleasure" (V, Il. 567-568). In the fragment, the matunng reader, still under the sway of wonderment 1 and credulity, is drawn to books of adventure such as travelogues, the language of whlch 15 made almost as unreahstic as falry tales by the distance that eXlsts between the reader's captlvated mmd and

1 his Jack of expenence in romantlc settings, faraway lands 16 (Among the settings presented as typlcal 1 of these "more sober té'les" are "desert waste~ of sand" (11.104), recalhng the settlng of the "Arab of the desart" eplsode ln Book V, partly based on QQn..Q~ [II 49-165)) 1 Youthful passion, stlmulated by escapist literature, looks for further gratification ln the "contrasts strong and harsh" between ordlnary nature and "fanCllul devlces" apphed to her by 1 scu/ptors, archltects, and gardeners ta make her seem more 5pectacular. But "untutored mmds stop 1 here" (II. 110-120) The truly aVld reader of books and nature moves on to analyze the "contrasts" between art and life. He takes the "optic tube oi thought" Irom Gailleo and other "patient men" 01 1 science, and looks "with tile same eyel Throu9!l the entlre abyss of thlng5" ThiS speculative approach, ln which nothlng IS "taken upon trust" except the basIc 10015 of logle, glves nse 10 a "second 1 birth" of chlldhke wonderment ln this stage, the reader expenences a proud sense of hls own autonomy and "Authonty," similar to that of the "prodigal" chi Id or "dwarf Man" m Book V, who "SlftS"

1 and "weighs" ail subject5, "Takes nothing upon trust" (II. 290-369). Though th,s Jack of failh 15 "an 1 apparent slightl Of man and ail the mld humanities" (1. 213), Il can rnask impulses towards love of mankind, "yearnings" that nature had early planted ln the mrnd of thls "optrc" man r~ounshrng these

yearnings dwing the analytlcal phase results in the ultimate re, ..... 11 Ig expenence, "love and admiration" 1 1 of Nature's "Subllrr,·ty." This is an Instance of Wordsworth's extensive effort to humamze Ihe sublime,

1 and the raie p/ayed in this task by his concept of "admiration," speciflcally as a means of humamzmg 1 audience response, has been overlooked in discussions of his poems and cnticism Since Wordsworth preserved the basic concept of "admiration" for the 1805 Book VIII, he may 1 have rejected the fragm9nt because its theories of reading could be revised and more appropnately presented elsewhere, most obvlously ln Book V. "We live by admiration" can help one to understand 1 1 --- -,. ,

1 58

1 the theme of readmg ln Wordsworth's poetry, partlcularly as It emerged m the Book on "Books" But Il 1 IS just as useful m clanfymg the much dlsputed purposes of the "E:ssay, Supplementary," in wl'ich "wonder" IS distrnguished from "admiration," and the potentlal moral pltfalls that attend every stage of 1 readmg development 'rom Juvenrle pleasure to cntlcal authonty are dlscussed. In the "Essay," as ln the 1804 fragment, Wordsworth was look mg for a reader who would give secondary Importance to 1 analytlcal "theories" of inlerpretalion and pnmary importance to the Idea that "faith growsl Through acqUiescence" Wordsworth's cntical and poetic deployments of admiration reflect a search for

1 "words" that "by frequent repetltlon take the place of theories" of reading that promote analytical 1 values at the expense of poetry's moral power (11.60-62). The "Essay" IS rndebted to later elghteenth-century concepts of admiration, but It is not 1 Immediately clear how, SIDce It both promoted the adminDg respoDse sn poetic readsng, and decried the affinlties of this response wlth r,redulousness and gratuitous applause. In the Enguily ConcerOing

1 the Pnnclples of Morais (1751), Hume said that "morality is determined by sentiment." and defined 1 virtue to be "whatever mental action or quallty gives to a spectator the pleasmg sentiment of approbation .,,17 The "Essay, Supplementary" also associated approbation with moral pleasure, but 1 dlsplayed little confidence in the reader's ability to know what constitutes genuine approval, and downplayed the value of interpreting poetry from the point of VÎew of an Impartial spectator. In A

1 Treatjse of Human Nature (1739-40), Hume observed that "There IS commonly an astonlshment 1 attending everythrng extraordinary; and th,s astonishment changes immediately into the highest degree of esteem or contempt, according as we approve or disapprove of the subject ,48 1 Wordsworth would have agreed that approval can transfonn astonishrnent into este ' '.Jt, like Adler, he suggested that this transformation is not likely to accur "immediately," for it is "mediated by 1 thought and dependent on knowledge." Wordsworth continued to believe that poetry dlrectly

improves the moral codes of its readers, Ï)ut he was more inclined than before to speclfy the

1 conditions under which thls improvement becomes inevitable. In the 1802 "Preface," Wordsworth 1 wrote glowlngly of the poet's capacity to transmit moral sensations by awakening "immediate pleasure" ln the reader, to "immedlately excite in hlm sympathies which, from the necessities of his nature, are 1 1 1 59

1 accompanied by an overbalance of enjoyment" (f)/i, l, 139-40) The "Essay, Supplementary" doubts 1 that the reader who is "lnstantaneously affected" is enJoylng moral sensations Wordsworth's self-assuredness did not prevent h/m Irom belng troubled over the question of 1 whether /t IS appropnate or pretenl/ous and fut!le for a poet to tell h/s audience how they should respond ta hls poems. In the "Essay, Supplementary," he addressed thls dllemma by statmg what hls 1 earher cntlcism had only Imphed: "every author, as far as he IS great and al the same lime oflgmal, has

had the task of creatmg the taste by which he IS to be enJoyed" The "Essay" tned 10 Illummate the

1 nature and sources of the reader's enjoyment, wlth confuslng results But Wordsworth's purpose 1 becomes clearer once one sees the main point of the statement on the '~ask" of "onglnal" authors The pleasures of reading, however they mlght be defined, are pnmarily a funct/on of the author's 1 creative genius, not of the reader's taste. The Independence of poetlc genius tram the reader's predispositions is being asserted, and the autonomous Identlty poslted for the reftned reader by

1 analytical cnties is at the same tlme belng undercut. The "Essay" found ail the classes of reader It 1 discusses potentially self-immersed. And Incompetent "Cntics abound ln them ail," who can ""l'leMn the reader's self-interest wlth rules and interpretive systems that subvert the poet's moral power, thus 1 hindering the poet's ''task of creating the taste by whlch he is to be enJoyed" CEW, IIi, 80,62) As ln the 1798 "Advertisement," Wordsworth presented the responses of the Inexpenenced

1 or "Juvenile Reader" as incompatible with JOtormed judgment The more expenenced audience he 1 divlded into "two Classes of Readers," "a scaHered number of senous persons" who "resert to poetry, as ta religion, for a protection agalnst the pursUit of triVial employments, and as a consolation for the 1 afflictions of hte," and those "who, havlng been enamored of thls art, JO their youth, have found leisure" to read poetry "as a study." Il was only those who studled poetry, and expected more from It 1 than spiritual "consolation," who were "woithy to be depended on, as prophetie of a new work" (e.w., 1 i i i, 62-65 passim). Wordsworth's objection to the devotional reader was that he may read a poem from a self-serving point of Vlew, seeking confirmation of his "religious or moral inclinations H Unless hls 1 convictions are mirrored by the poem, the devotional reader would tend to dlsapprove of it. "Moral inclinations" meant dogmatic assumptions, rather than beneficlal sentiments such as sympathy or 1 1 1 60

1 fellow-feehng ln thls Instance, he and Kmght were in close agreement. Kmght argued that "Aules 1 and systems have exactly the same [detnmental] effect upon taste and manners, as dogmas have upon mora/s" OS, 237) Wordsworth reqUired the reader to set aSlde hls dogmatlc assumptions 50 that 1 he wou Id reap the moral beneflts of readmg poetry. In spite of the warning to the de'/otional reader , about a potenlial pltfall, the "Essay" coveted hls respect for the sanctlty of the wntlen word. Some of the basIc moral qualtfles that the "Essay" recommended to readers, such as se/flessness and humlllty, 1 are the same as those recommended by later elghteenth-century pamphlets on how to read the Bible.19 1 As rndlcated by the 1804 fragment, Wordsworth thought of "admiration" as reflectlng certain "flxed pnnclples" ln the human mmd that can be applled to readmg (EW, iii, 71). Although

1 Wordsworth was unable to say directty what these pnnclples are, he defined them by saylng what they ! are not Don Bialostosky observed that "Wordsworth bases his falth ln the ultlmate tnumph of his work not 10 the fateful tldes of taste or even ln the enduring powers of love or the human heart alone but ln 1 the disciphned activltles of of the human mind ln the enterpnse of hterary study.',20 ln the "Essay," Wordsworth sald that "no perverseness equals that which is supported by system," by which he

J meant moral or phllosophlcal systems, but primanly a narrowly analytical, predetermmed approach to

poetlc Inlerpretation. Properly Illuminated, the laws he pointed to wou Id, ln his view, lead readers 10

1 abandon approaches to poelry that were merely systematic, given to impulses of self-gratification, and 1 to value more highly the "endunng powers of love" for which poets had long been revered. "Genume admiration," which he Implied is the most Important and desirable effect of reading, was defined in 1 contrast to "wonder," a diehotomy that Owen ea/led mere "hair-splitting" (EW, iii, 66; 73).21 At first glanee, Wordsworth's argument in the middle of the "Essay" that "we must distinguish

1 between wonder and legltlmate admiration" does seem mggllng. In ItS overt application ln the t "Essay," It is undeniably absurdo The distinction was made to relnforce the argument that a new work recelved wlth popular applause is worthless. Wordsworth tned hard to prove this argument by clting 1 histoncal examples of unworthy but popular wor1

1 examples was nol always helpful 10 thls argument, and the comments on vanous poels were not 1 always lalr-mlnded Wordsworth antlcipated that the "Essay" would be thought of as "ungraclous" and "unbecommg" (fW, Il i, 66,77) But this did nct prevent him from scoffing at popular wnters such as 1 Thompson and Macpherson (.E.W, IIIt 77-78) 22 A recent indication 01 the percelved embarrassment caused to Wordsworth by the "Essay" is the omission of ItS nlneleen paragraphs deahng wlth the 1 works of other poets from Jack Stillinger's Selected Poems and Prefaces (1965) However, these paragraphs contain references ta admiration and wonder Ihal are crucial la understandlOg the

1 "Essay's" vlews on audience response A number of laler elghteenth-century cnlles and 1 philosophers had dlfferentlated admiration from wonder Wordsworth explOited thls tradition 10 arder 10 legltimlze his vlews on reader-response as much ta ratlonalize the unpopularity of great poets, or 01 1 his own poems. The "Essay" displays more th an a trace of Wordsworth's hostility towards Ihase readers and

1 crilics who had failed ta appreciate hls poetry. The combinallon of anger unleashed and anger 1 controlled glves the "Essay" much of its power Admiration had proven to be a hckle mlstress. and thls 10 some extent accounts for the "Essay's" deslre ta shed light on the nature of "legltlmate admiration" 1 But in practlcal terms, the purpose of tl'Je "Essay' was ta continue the task, begun in the 1798 "Advertisement," of effecting changes in reading habtts and prejudices. In theoretlcal terms, the

1 purpose was to bypass unstable questions of indivldual taste and seek a prion grounds on whlch the 1 moral relations between poets and reader could be more clearly explalned At the centre of these practical and theoreticallnterests was a batlle between Wordsworth and the analytical spmt of readmg, 1 openly identified, not wlth Jeffrey as one mlght expect, but with Adam Smith and David Hume The "Essay" argued that "50 strange indeed are the obliquities of admiration, that they whose 1 opinions are much influenced by authonty will often be tempted ta think that there are no flxed 1 pnnciples in human nature for this art to rest upon." ln a footnote to this passage, certamly more revealing of the "Essay" than it was intended to be, Adam Smith, author of the ~ of Moral 1 Sentiments (1759) and The WeaUh of Nations (1776) was cited as the pnme example of a cntlc who had held such a belief: "This opinion seems actually ta have been entertained by Adam Smith, the 1 1 1 62

1 worst enfle, David Hume not excepted, that $cotland, a soil to whleh this sort of weed seems natural, j has produced" (fW, j l', 71) The opposite of Wordsworth's Ideal reader is imphcitly one who submits to the "authonty" of Smith and Hume's aesthetics ~ Thal Wordsworth had arrrved at Ihls dlsparagrng view of Hume, who suggested that poetry can be reduced by readers to chalns of propositions and reasonings, "however disguised by the

J eolourrng of the Imagination," seems understandable The reference to Hume suggests what the ] "Essay" finally bears out. Wordsworth was ln the process of exhaustmg his need 10 equale poetry wllh the morality of logle and "common sense" at the expense of equating It wlth a morality of faith. He i had felt the presence of a "flxed" moral power in poetry that transcends the immediate and the circumstantial, and in this Itght Hume was one of his most powertul enemles. Hume had written of J refinement ln art that "In general it means great refinement in the gratification of the senses; and any degree of It may be innocent or blamable, according to the age or country or condition of the persan.

1 The bounds between the Vlrtue and the vice cannat here be exactly fixed, more than in other moral 1 subjects. ,,23 Wordsworth had always disagreed with sense-gratlficatlon as the exclusive basls for a refined tasle, and the "Essay" clearly take offense at 'iume's argument there are no flxed laws by 1 whlch the moral response to art can be determined. (Notice, however, that Wordsworth's argument on the fickleness of the audience seems to be in agreement wlth the circumstantial relativity of refrned

1 response plctured in Hume's statement.) 50 much for Hume. The insult to Smith is much more 1 diffieult to understand. There seems to be little in Smith's comments on art and on literature. ·nat would have , provoked Wordsworth's scornful note. A modem editor of Smith's, Je. Brice. wrote that "the premlse

of this remark IS 50 mistaken, and the quantity of Smith's literary criticism in the prinled works .. .is 50 1 fragmentary and 5canty, that the violence of Wordsworth's language is difficult to explain" - difflcult but ) not impossible, especially if Smith's moral and economic theories are kept in Vlew.24 The 1805 Prelude (XIII, Il 76-78) suggests that Wordsworth intensely disliked The WeaHb of Nations. The

1 ) principle al the heart of this texl is that the businessman who is truly self-interested Will, unless

restricted by trade barriers, naturally benefit the whole of society. This theory disturbed Wordsworth, 1 1 1 63

1 who mterpreted (or m.s.nterpreted) .t as a sanction of greed and self-love Vet Wordsworth's d.shke for 1 Smith was based on more than h.s econom.c theory, or on h.s mfrequent hterary cnllclsm The "Essay" suggests that the footnote was also a reachon to Smith's Theory of Moral SentIments 1 ln the unpubhshed "Essay On Morais," an Indictment of the abstract and ulthtanan ratlonallsm of Godwtn and Paley wntten dunng hls VISII to Germany Wlth Colendge, Wordsworth stated that "1 know

1 of no book or system of moral phllosophy wntten wlth sufflclent power to melt !nto our affectIon [? s), 10 1 incorporate Itselt wlth the blood & vital JUlces of our mmds, & thence to have any Influence worth our notIce ln lorming those habIts of wh.ch 1am speaking" (fW, i, 101-102) It IS, of course, ln the abortive 1 light of thls fragment, unclea. whlch habits he was referring to, but hls central argument would havo been based on the Humean prinClple that "ail our actIons are the resu~ of our habIts" Meta-ethlcal 1 discussions, he implied, Mve no normative power, no abllity to effect concretely the "conduct and actIons which is the result of our habits," the power he elsewhere clalmed for poetry Thal Hume,

1 however unteelingly or unpoetlcally, had aiready covered the subject of habIt as the only venflable 1 source of moral and immoral behavlor, and Wordsworth's own doubts that th.s argument IS true, may account for his abandor,ment of this project. The Important point 15 that the "Essay on Morais" 1 mirrored Wordsworth's competit.veness wllh moral philosophers ln general Hartman sald Ihat "When Wordsworth attacks bclok-philosophy he is nearly always a!tack.ng 'moral philosophy' those who

1 emphas.ze the role of self-interest or seek to counter th.s emphasls by process 01 reasonlng .. 25 1 Hartman was refernn9 pnmanly to Wordsworth's Mreply" to the book.sh Hazlitt ln "Expostulallon and Reply," but h.s observation also ho Ids true for Wordsworth's insult to Adam Smtlh Wordsworth mel 1 Smith's moral views with reasontng, but reasontng that ultlmately and dehberately transgressed the borders of common sense 1 The main body of the "Essay" reflects much more of Sm.th than the curt !ootnote would lead us to believe, an unacknowledged indebtedness to Smith's v.ew of aesthetlc perception and to h.s

1 moral ph.losophy. Smith's hterary criticism is "scant,M but h.s posthumously published Essays on 1 PhilosQphjcal Sub;ects (1795) included a discussion of the difference between "wonder' and "admiration," that appears to have shaped Wordswol1h's arguments on audience response ln the 1 1 1 64

1 "Essay, Supplementary" As 1 have already Indlcated, "admiration" took on theoretical slgnllicance ln 1 the wntlngs of some later elghteenth-century cntles The poet-entlc Edward Young gave the ward a greal deal of welght m hls Comeclures on the Nature of Onginal Composition (1759) Wordsworth's 1 argument on admiration IS simllar ta that of Young, who suggests that "If an OflgmaJ, by being as excellent, as new, adds admlrallon 10 surpnse, then are we at the Wnter's mercy, on the strong wing of

j hls Imagination, we are snatched Irom Bntam to Italy, from Climate 10 Climate, from Pleasure to 1 Pleasure, we have no Home, no Thought, 01 our own " At later pomts, Young sald of poetry that "there are Mystenes ln Il not to be explalned but admlred" and that compared to the illuminations of 1 "lnformmg readers .we must much more admire the radiant Stars pointed out by them."26 Young's poSition was unequlvocal' the reader, like the Longinlan audltor of sublime poetry, IS Ideally m a

1 dreamlike st ate , his mmd entlTely at the "Wnter's mercy,"like the reader ln the "Essay, Supplemenlary" who must accompany the poet who is "quick upon the wing." Wordsworth differed Irom Young in

1 equatlng the dreamhke state of reading with Immatunty, with "escape" and mere "enchantment," and 1 made allowances for the "active" involvement of the reader, who must exert a "co-operatlng power" with the poet and yet remain "passive" to the influence 01 the poers onginating gemus He objected 1 to those who read ln the Longlnian mode, as though "constrained by a spell" (PW, Iii. 83). Knrght's vlews on admiration reflect some of Wordsworth's reser 'atlons, expressed mamly ln

1 the negative comments on ''wonder,'' on the sort of unqualified admiration promoted by Young. 1 Knlght's Pnnciples advised readers to resist the "blind and indiscnninate admiration, whlch pedantry always shows for every thlng, which bears the stamp of hlgh authonty" and argued that "blind

j admiration, wlth whlch the mass of mankind read works of esta~lished reputatlon, preeludes ail

dlSCnmlnatlon, whether of judgment or feeling. Not to be delighted with what they have a/ways heard,

1 ln general terms, IS fme, mighl argue a want 01 capacity la comprehend, or a want of taste ta rellsh rts J ments; to avold the Imputation of whieh, they applaud wlthout reserve; and conclude that every pecuharity, whlch Ihey me et wllh, is a peculianty of excellence, whether they understand It or not" US, t 401) 27 The "Essay, Supplementary" made a similar argument, and Wordsworth perhaps had an eye on Knight's thoughts as weI! as on Young's as he was writing il. like Young, Wordsworth invited the 1 1 1 65

1 reader to admire the sublime poet, hke Knlght, he argued that admiration, reasoned approbation. can 1 descend to "bhnd wonderment " ln the Elements of Moral SCience (1790), James Seattle wrote that "What IS e1ther uncommon 1 m Itself, or endowed wlth uncommon quahtles, raises admiration or wonder," but later makes the pOint that "Admiration and wonder may be dls!lngulshed The former 15 generally a pleasurable paSSion, tts 1 obJect berng for the most part good, or great, or bath, the latter may be agreeable, or otherwlse, accordrng to clrcumstances." He further suggested that "We may also dlstlngUish between admiration

1 and surprise. The sudden appearance of a person in a place where we dld not expect hlm may 1 surpnse us Wlthout bemg matter of admiration We speak of dlsagreeable as weil as agreeable surpnses but of dlsagreeable or pamful admiratIon 1thlnk we seldom or never speak" ln Beattle's

1 mind, what keeps hls defmltlon from mere 50phistry 15 that admiration 15 a distinct sentiment that "implies moral approbation," whlle wonder and surpnse may be awakened by unworthy obJects as weil

1 as worthy 28 ln the "Essay," "Iegitlmate admiration" also has clear connotations as moral approbation 1 That Wordsworth dld not acknowledge the sources of his distinction between wonder and admiration, an mdebtedness that would perhaps have been obvlous to many mformed readers, 15 1 disturbing mainly because of the Insult to Smith, who had argued that "Wonder, Surprise, and Admiration, are words WhlCh, though often confounded, denote, ln our language, sentiments that are

1 mdeed alhed, but that are in sorne respects dlfferent al50, and distinct from one another What IS new 1 and srngular, excites that sentiment WhlCh, m strict propnety, is called Wonder, what 15 unexpected, Surpnse: and what IS great or beautlful, Admiration." Smlth's added that "whether thls cnticism upon 1 the preCIse meaning of these words be just, IS of Jittle Importance .. AII that 1contend for, that the sentiments exclted by what is new, by what 15 unexpected, and by what IS great and beautlful, are 1 really different, however the words made use of to express them may sometlmes be confounded

Even the admiratIon whlch is exclted by beauty, IS qUlte dlfferent .from that whlch IS msplred by

1 greatness, though we have but one word to denote them.',29 Nowhere dld Smith contend, or even 1 imply, that there are no "fixed principles" in the human mmd for admiration, and Wordsworth's barb 1 1 1 66

1 becomes more puzzhng slnce he echoed Smith in argumg Ihat "we must dlslmgUlsh belween wonder J and leglhmate admiration," and that "wonder 15 the natural produce of Ignorance" Smith dwelt on the "wonder of Ignorance" as It related to the aesthetlc response He had 1 "seen tha! wonder nse almast ta rapture and ecstasy" ln one of hls pubhshed lectures, Smith taught !hat "The flrst Histonans as weil as the IIrst Poets chose the marvellous for theli' SubJect as that whlch

'! was mes! hkely ta please a Rude and Ignorant People. Wonder IS the passion whlch ln such a people

will be mosl easlly exclted, Therr Ignoranc6 ~nders them Credulous and easlly imposed on, and thls

1 Creduhty makes them dellghted wlth Fables th al wou Id nol be relished by people of more 1 knowledge For what has nothinr to recommend it but Its wonderfulness can no longer please than It 15 belleved ,,30 This descnpllon of a credulous audience attracted to novelty IS simllar to Wordsworth's 1 when he wntes of "bhnd wonderment" as agamst "genuine admiration," For Smith, admiration not only signtfied an emotlOnal dlfference trom wonder, but a much more reflOed and informed degree of bellef

1 and approbation. Wordsworth extended Smith's argument on wonder 10 Inelude ail contemporary 1 audiences, rapturous, enchanted readers who read merely for recreation, "dazzled" w.thout benefit of "common sense" HIS hterary·historical Iheory Itselt ottends common sense. Wordsworth mdlcated 1 flrst-hand knowledge of Smlth's cntlcism by calhng hlm the "worst eritlc," and yet engaged ln a considerable amount of sympathetlc and unacknowledged borrowmg of Smith's ideas. HIs main

1 objection to Smith was that he had found no naturallaws underlying the admiring response. 1 Wordsworth indlcated that the laws of admiratIon would be eventually apparent 10 Ihe reader who 15 not overty "\Ofluenced by authonty." "Authority" has a more speCifie meaOlng than the sa me 1 lerm in the 1804 fragment. Il pnmarily means cri fIcs and anthologlsts who had tradiflonally glven undue attention to unworthy poets whlle Ignonng those most deserving. Irnpassloned "juvenlle

1 readers" tnfluenced by such author)' would remain in the tirst phase of the reading expenence, which 1 IS wonderment, or merely "extravagant admiration" Both the "Essay" and "We lIve by admiration" make il clear that young imagination must be tutored by the conttnuous study of poems, by practlce 1 rather than by cntlcal "theones" If not, Il is "s'opped," or, what amounts to sa me Ihing, it eventually dlsmtegrates into the lazlness of "occasional ~I;> (eation," that escapes adult reality rather than seeks 1 1 1 67

1 its wisdom The second phase of readmg pomted to by the "Essay" and by the 1804 fragment are 1 baslcally the same It IS reading accordmg 10 precepts of "reason" and "common sense" ln the fragment, thls IS the most dlfflcult phase for the reader to Iranscend, for It feeds hls ambitions 10 be 1 aulhonlatlve, autonomous, and Judgmenlal The "Essay" sees the allurements 01 analytlcal readmg under the "sway of reason" as analogous to the spell of dlsinterested speculation cast over the mmd

1 by "science" 1 The thlrd stage of reading ln the "Essay," onll indirectly consldered sn the fragment, IS an Intermedlate one between reason and admiration, a s~ate of msnd more reverentlal th an analytlcal, as 1 1 rellglous medltatlon, but still prone to systematlc or dogmatlc approaches to poetry This stage IS transcended by self-effacement, slgnalling entry mto the ultimate readmg expenence, thal leads 10 a 1 profound respect for the paet's ongtnahty and sublime "genlus," and al5O, myslenously, to self­ fulfillment Llke the Image of the admmng response ln Peter Bel! dlscussed earller, only wlthaut COmtc

1 aspirations, the Images of admiration ln the "Essay" limn a zone of expenence that Iles between the 1 poet and both credulous readers and common sense readers. It becomes eVldent that the "Essay" vlewed readmg as a process, with more m mmd th an narrowly classltymg readers m order to pornt out 1 the shortcomlngs of each class. Vet the process was not Itselt clearly descnbed, and ItS gUide, poetlc "Gemus," was uncertainly detmed, as elther the "introduction of a new element lOto the mtellectual

1 universe or, If that be not allowed, it IS the application of powers to abjects on whlch Ihey had not 1 before been exercised, or the employment of them 10 such a manner as to produce effects hltherto unknown" (EW, Iii, 82). The ahernation 15 between Young's view of genlus as an absolute Onglnal, 1 and Smith's more down-to-earth vlew ot genius as the ability to make the famillar strange .. 31 Belore It frnally boUs over at the end of reason in the concludmg paragraphs of the "Essay," 1 the concept ot admiration simmers somewhere between Young's (poetry should be admlred rather than analyzecl) and Smith's (admiration is a concept to be analytically dlsflnguished from wonder)

1 There was a fundamental difference between the aesthetlcs of Young and the analytlcal school of 1 cnticism represented by Smith that awakened in Wordsworth an awareness of a profound contradiction in his understanding of the ideal reader. Young's ideal reader IS utlerly sympathetlc wlth W 1 ) 68

J and subordinate to the poet The reader exists to admire the poet's gemus Smith encouraged

readers to be dismterested, to resist the creduhty that Young values 50 highly. It is between these \WO J vlews 1hat Wordsworth's essay reverberates, and It escapes the dllemma not by loglc but by sheer 1 rhelorlcal power The readers tha11he "Essay" sought most to Instruct were those who were passlonate but too

1 easlly enraptured, and those who were studious but too doctnnaire Wordsworth Imphed that the 1 seeds of admiration plan1ed in the minds of these readers by Nature may still be alive The authonlanan reader needs to made more vlrtUOUS, humble or passive, the credulous reader more 1 mtellectuallyactlve. Unfortunately, these two dlfferent purposes are not clearly executed, and Wordsworth gives the Impression of wanling an impossible reader, "active," exerting an equahzing or 1 "co-operating power," and "passive," submitting to the poet's genlus. The words active and passive occur ln conflicting contexts, which threaten to make them nearly as emptyof speciflc meaning as the

1 distinction between the "People" and the "Public" towards the end of the "Essay." Active 'Iret J appears ln the negative context of the "active and persevenng Adversaries," cntlcs hostile to Wordsworth's poetry, whose responses were despised as "Ignorance." These readers were imphcltly 1 included ln the clamorous voice of the "Public," representing the vulgar "admiration of the muttltude." Active also appears in a positive context, éie; the "active faculties" of the ideal reader, "capable of

J answenng the demands whieh an Author of originai Imagination shall make upon them," assoclated 1 with a "judgment that cannot be duped into admiration by aught that is unworthy of It.. Such a reader, ln effect, would be an agent of the "Deity" and the "embodied Spirit" of the "People." Passive 'Irst ) appears as a positive quality in the descnption of "eritics too petulant to be passive to a genuine Poet" and reappears as a negative quahty in the description of "taste," a word which was only appropriate to 1 descnbe a "passIVe sense of the body" and distorted by eighteenth-century eritles to me an 1 "intellectual aets and operations" (ew, i jj 10 84; 66; 81). The "Essay's" unsettled reaction to its eighteenth-century heritage is apparent ln the t deployment of terms such as "genius," "active" and "passive," the ridicule of Smith as a eritic, and the appropriatIon o. hls dIstinction between "admiration" and "wonder." 30th authors fett that wonder 1 1 1 69

1 must be transcended by analytical judgement, and Wordsworth added that analytical tendencles must 1 be echpsed by a more VlrtuouS power But what did Wordsworth me an by "judgmenP" Was he argulng that readers, at least ln the analytlcal phase of thelr development, ought to feel free to 1 reconstruct a text é'ccordlng to thelr own rules and requlrements, or that the reader ought always to be constrarned by the moral-aesthetlc messages of the poem? He echoed Young's clalm tor the poet's

1 self-sufflclent, dlvrnely charged onglnahty, and perhaps based hls hterary-hlstoncal argument agarnst 1 populanty as a test for poetlc ment partly on Young's suggestion that "Gentus otten th en Jeserves most to be pralsed, wh en It 15 most sure to be condemned: that IS, when ItS Excellence, from 1 mountrng hlgh, to weak eyes IS qUite out of sight."32 But what he was saylng rn terms ot the ablhty or the need of readers to make "dlspasslonAte" ludgments IS unclear He dehned the moral laws of

1 admiration underpinnrng ludgment almost entrrely ln terms of the poet's ablhty to summon up the 1 reader's "Iegltlmate" or "genUine admiration" When he spoke of the enloyment of actual audiences, however, It was ln terms of the flckle "admiration of the multitude," "zealous admlratron," and merely 1 "present admiration," phrases mounted Inslstently as the "Essay" neared ItS conclUSion œw, III, 83) Many of the "obliqultles" that Înhere ln '''e "Essay's" divided wish for an Impartial reader .. whose

1 understanding IS as severe as that of dispasslonate government" and for a partisan reader "invigorated and insplrited by hls Leader," although they testlfy to Wordswortn's eloquence, are no

1 clearer by the essay's end He "takes leave" not only of hls present "Readers." but also, as hls 1 subsequent silence mdlcates, of the problems raised by hls concepts of the relatlonshlp between the poet and his audience. 1 Smlth's Theo!)' of Moral Sentiments. the quintessentlallater elghteenth-century exposltton and defeflse of the "impartial spectator" wlthin every normal human berng, can be used to Illummate

1 Wordsworth's concept of a dispasslonate reader The IInpartlai spectator provlded the Indivldual wlth 1 the basic cnteria for ma king disrnterested moral Judgments Smith's arguments for the presence of this internai power rehed on hls belief in the imperatlves of conscience and dut Y Wordsworth 1 defended hls "Essay," not a "prudent undertaking," on the grounds of "dut y," and also sald tha! poetlc undertakings are a "priviJege and a duty .. (ew, iii, 79; 63) It IS clear that. for Wordsworth, dut y 1 1 1 70

J reflected and conceptually embodled the flxed laws underlying the art of admiration. The "Ode to ) Dut y" (1807) was his clearest poetlc expression of hls falth ln thls moralllT'perallve But there were earher Ir,; . -iuons ln hls crrticism of the Importance he anached to dut Y ln the 1800 "Preface," for 1 example, Wordsworth's expressed the wish to "be proteeted from one of the mos! dlshonourable accusations that can be brought agarnst an Author, namely that of an indolence which prevents hlm

1 trom endeavounng to ascertaln what IS hls dut y, or, when his dut Y 15 ascertarned, prevents hlm from J performing Il" (EW, l, 122). Smlth's theory, always tled to the practlcal and circumstantial in its exposition, argued that j there are several kmds of moral approbation, ail of whlch are arnved at by an indlvidual's IInaginatlve act of sympathy or "correspondence" with the thoughts or actions of another human belng Moments ot

J approval, affirmations of man's love for his fellow belngs, were seen as relative to Indlvldual

clrcumstances but tied to the universal tlrst pnnciple figured by the Impartial Spf'ctator According to J the set of circumstances, to perspective and pornt of view, a percelver may expenence elther approval 1 or disapproval of a given event, opmion, or action, but hls consclous decisions WIll be pre-empted and controlled by an objective and consclentlous mternal voice, that must be willrngly consulted and

" obeyed 33

ln splte of his falth in the "flxed principles" of admiration, Wordsworth's view of the unstable

1 and unpredictable audience in his essay implicitly assented to the crrcumstantlal or relative character of 1 approbation, and to Smith's oft-repeated maxim that admiration from an unworthy source has no value for the prudent man of Judgment. Because Wordsworth's poems had so far met with only hmlted

success, hls faith rn the prudent man of judgment, ln common sense as a universal pr.nciple, and ln

the Impartial powers wlthin the minds of his audience, had been shaken. A tone of disappointment is

1 apparent everywt'Jere ln the e~say, but a burst of optimistic energy in the last four paragraphs Invlted

the "discerning Reader" of the period to aspire to a concept, not of "dispassionate government," but

ot impassloned duty based on respect for the poet. Within the "Essay," Wordsworth's image of an

ideal reader had ahered trom that of a kmdly but dlspassionate judge bound by rtJles of reading to that

of an obedient follower bound by love and admiration. The latter Image of course reflects the hlgh 1 1 1

1 status of the poet more favourably than the former one Rather than show bad leadership to the 1 chosen "few" by admlttm9, contrary to his self-confidence, that hls poems had been Incapable ot awakenmg ln a general audience the spirit of approbation that signifies the presence of vlI'fue, he 1 looked forward to the future receptlon of hls poems By the end of the "Essay", he had rehnqUished hls falth ln cntlcal prose to further hls poellc ends, and the burden of "creatm9 the tasle" of hls

1 audience wou Id trom thls pomt on rest entlrely on hls poems 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 72

1 Chapter 3. 1 The Language of Necesslty

1 Dugald Stewart wrote that "Sy confinlng our ambition to pursue the truth with modesty and candour, and learnlng to value our acquIsitions only Insolar as they contnbute to make us wiser and happier, we

1 may perhaps be obllged to sacnflce the temporary admiration of the common dlspensers of hterary 1 lame, but It IS ln thls way only that we can hope to make real progress m knowledge ... " (S, 449) My discussion has polnted out that resemb!ances between statements such as this one and 1 Wordsworth's eomments on admiration, the constitution of fame, and the "progress" of readers who learn to be mode st ln thelr interpretlve ambitions, are deceptive. Wordsworth was assertlng the 1 creative autonomy of poets, and thelr "dominion" over readers, whlle cntics such as Stewart and Knlght were assertlng the Impartiahly of analytlcal readers, and the "dommion of abstract reason" over

1 poetlc genlus (K, 451) According to Stewart, the "happiest effects of poetical genius may be 1 perused wlth perleet indlfference by a man of sound judgment," slnce the reader's code of taste is Indivldual and potentlally self-governed (S, 487). Wordsworth required analytical readers to admit that 1 readlng IS not an autonomous process, enacting pre-established codes of taste over which the poet has no control. In this sense, his critlcism did not represent a general indictment of the contemporary

1 reading public It posed a speciflc challenge to the 'raditional nght5 and re5ponsibllities of readers" 1 and crities who believed that poet le interpretation was ultlmately a functlon of thelr "sound ludgment," not of the poet's instructive intentions. Purveyors of this belle', from Hume ta Jeffrey, were perceived 1 by Wordsworth as hls "Adversanes," and this accounts for much of the polerneal and confrontational energy in the essays and prefaces.

1 But did Wordsworth also number among his enemies those who had "pre-established codes

of declsion" (my Italles) predicated on a belief in free will? Did he try to recreate or redefine sueh 1 1 codes 10 the hght of hls faith in poetry's moral and social influence? The references to necessity ln the 1 "Essay,· and ln his ear1ier cnticism, lead one to ask to what extent his vlews on the moral relations 1 between poets and readers were grounded in necessitarian beliefs. The views on liberty and 1 .... ------1

1 necesslty ln Godwin's Politlcal Justice cntlcal discussions of Wordsworth's Indebtedness 10 Ihls book. 1 and IInes on "neeesslty" ln the early mss of !he RUined Cottage (1798-99) and ln Book IV of lM ExcurSion (1814) can be used to IlIumlnale the philosophlcal underplnnmg of Wordsworth's concept 1 of a "free" and "active" reader

1 ,. Godwln's Two Volces 1 As a literary entle, in splte of his tlreless convlvlality, Godwin was clearfy no friend of poets suct! as 1 Wordsworth, who believed they were moral teachers Godwln's pohtjcal Justice (1793) pald almast no heed to poets.1 Vet The Prelude (1805, X, Il 805-848: XI, Il. 121-136) suggests that Pohtlcal Justice

1 had a profoundly negative Impact on Wordsworth dunng the early stages of hls career.2 What 'saved' 1 Wordsworth from Godwlnlan ratlonalism, interpreted ln Book XI (II 123-126) as a phllosophy of "Ioglc and minute analysls" as opposed to one of "grandi And simple Reason," was hls domestlc affections, 1 pnmanly hls love for Mary Hutchtnson and for his sister, Dorothy. Thel' "unquestlOnmg responslveness" to the young poet moved hlm to "take part/In ought but admiration 1dld nolludge,! 1 1 never thought of Judglng" (XI, 234-238) 3 As ln the "Essay," the genuinely admmng response IS implicltly contrasted wlth rational Judgment, in order to suggest that loglcal analysls, "no Inglonous

1 work" wlth "obvrous benehts" for the Man of Science, IS a "danger" to the pursUit of moral and 1 aesthetlc "truth" (II 125-136 passim l, for it discounts human emotions and sentiments Godwin's doctnne of necessrty, whlch Arthur Beatty sald "makes the progress of the race an 1 ineVitable one, taking place by reason of the nature of thmgs and Independent of the whlm of individuals," was an Important component of politlcal Justice Was It among those Ideas of GOdwlO'S

1 that might have depressed, or at least disturbed, Wordsworth? Beatty did not thlnk 50 He argued 1 that 'Wordsworth never deserted the thought of Godwin at ItS best, and the spmt of Godwm at hls best remained wlth hlm." ThiS poSItive Influence was seen to emanate trom Godwm's humanttananlsm, 1 rational benevolence, paclfism, and hls necessitanan beliefs. Accordlng to Beatty, necessltanan beliefs can be found in "a poem é.:: !,:lte as 1798_ .. 'Tintern Abbey ,"4 1 1 1 74

1 Godwin was not a fatallst, and hls bellef ln hlstoncal mevl!ability was grounded in his vlew that 1 ail men are polentrally pohllcal actlvlsls, shapmg the course of hlstory HIs necessltananlsm, stnctly delmed, demed Iree Will, but It mcludec pragmatic qualifications Reason was seen a3 the flrst and 1 final embodlment of truth, the dlrector of the perpetuaI progress 01 manklnd, and the search for Reason as an end m Itselt. But Godwin also presented the act of reasonmg as a "mlted pathway to the

1 expenence of truth He quahfred hls necesSltanan beliel in mar,'s ~ erpetual progress by observmg 1 that "the support the syst€'1l of optlmism derives from the doctnne of necesslty, 15 of a very eqUivocal nature The doctrine of necesSity teaches, that each eve',lt IS the only thmg, under the 1 circumstances, that cou Id happen; It wou Id, of consequence, be as proper, upon thls system, to say thar everythmg that happen, IS the worst, as that it is the best, that could possibly happen" Donmng

1 the cap of the empinclst, he argued that the human mind is by the theory of necessity a "system of mechanism .. wlthout any uncertainty of event," ail thoughts logicallV connectmg. Vet from the point of

1 vlew of the prudent, benevolent man, he said that "We should remove ourselves to the furthest 1 distance from the state 01 mere Inanimate machines" ŒJ, 46) 5 QualifIcations such as these are not unusual occurrences ln Pohtlcal Justice, and seemg them 1 as Inconslstencies IS perhaps to miSS the point that GodwJn's arguments are mtnguing for thelr malleabihty. Freedom and elasticity, the open-endedness of conversation, was the style of social

1 communication that Godwin almed at ln both The Eogujrer and Pohtjcal Justice The latter oiten 1 re5embles a dIalogue Godwin played devll's advocate to his arguments, anticipated and often enclosed within quotatlon marks questIons and disagreements arising out of his theones, which he 1 then tned to resolve. There are, ln effect, two voices in Politlcal Justice There IS the man of common , sense who said that "it is obvious to remark, that the perfection of the human character COIlSIStS in approachrng as nearly as possible to the perfectly voluntary state," and there IS the stnct necessitarian 1 who argued that "no action of a man arrived at years of maturity is .. perfectly voluntary" When he later re-evaluated his doctrine of necesslty in I.hoyghts on Man (1831), he confirmed what had already 1 been Imphed in Poht/cal Justice: " ... every man, the necessarian as weil as hls opponent, acts on the assumptlon of human liberty, and can never for a moment, when he enters into the scenes of reallife, 1 1 1 75

1 divest hlmself of thls persuasion"

(Bl, 337) 6 1 1 Godwm's enthuslastlc tatth ln Reason would have been allunng to a mlnd that was at once 1 passlonately Ideahstlc, dlsappointed, ln need of a reassunng moral and practtcal outlook, and of an objective ground that would settle these confhctmg deslres and emotions - the troubled trame of mmd

1 that Wordsworth seems to have been m when he met Godwin 7 It seems doubtful that Godwln's 1 negative views on "domestlc affections" such as "gratitude," that escape rational explanatlon, ever had mu ch appeal for Wordsworth (EJ, 71) Yet he could have been drawn to Godwin's optimlstic, tlme 1 and self-transcendmg abstractions of reason and necessity, and stlillemained remalned aloof trom Godwin's attempts to make ratlonalist princlples the local gUide for socIal and domestlc behavlor 1 The "Essay on Morais" suggested that books such as Pohljcal Justice were "Impotent," and

looked for ways to humanlze reason and necessity "In a [?strict] sense ail our actIons are the resul! of

1 our habits" This reflected a basIc tenet of Godwin's doctnne of necesslty, adapted from Hume "habit 1 15 founded in actIons ongmally involuntary" and, once ln place, controls our actions ur.less Judgment and persuasion intercede (fJ, 44 ).8 The "Essay on Morais" argued that books such as Godwm's 1 cannot persuade us to change our habIts, "melt our affectton(?s], to incorporate Itself wlth the blood & vital juices of our minds, & thence to have any influence worth our notice m formmg those habits of

1 which 1 am speakmg." That Wordsworth wanted to respond to Godwm somewhat deflates the 1 argument he wanted to make against hls Influence. The main point was that the shortcomrngs of philosophies such as GodwIO's were the "consequence of an undue value set upon that faculty whlch 1 we cali reason. They [books on moral phîlosophy] in no respect enable us to be practlcally usetuJ by intormmg us how men placed m such or such situations Will necessarily act, & thence enabhng us to

1 apply ourselves to the means of turning them into a more beneflcial course, ,f necessary, or of glving 1 them a new ardour [one of Godwin's favonte words] & new knowledge when they are proceedmg as they ought." Wordsworth's language ("necessanly .. necessary") reflects hls attraction to 1 necessltarian beliefs, and his effort to rethmk "reason" shows hls faith ln ils potential"value." He 1 sensed the presence of a gulf between GOdwlO'S theory and human "situatIOns," and he called into 1 1 ------..... 1 76

1 question the practlcal worth of Godwln's (and Paley's) phllosophical ethlcs One can speculate wlth 1 sorne confidence where he would have gone If he had contlnued hls tralllng lasl sentence, " followmg up thls process [of spllttmg Godwm's theory, or simllar ones, from human practlcel, we 1 shall fmd Ihat 1have erred when 1sald that [Godwln's text, or others hke hls. are 'Impotent' They have a power of 'mfluence,' but It IS a negatlve or wastlng one]" œw, l, 101-102)

Melvin Rader found GodWm ln the 1 ROO "Preface" Rader's synopsIs of the doctrme of , necesslty was even bnefer than Beatty's. It simply "denies tree will to man," and Rader tied thls to

Wordsworth's assoclatlonlst sketch of composition and response ln Ihe "Preface": "By obeymg

, bhndly and mechanically the Impulses of those habits [of medltation]," the poet will "descnbe objects,

and utter sentiments, of such a nature, and in such connection wlth each other, that the

t understandlOg of the reader must necessarily be ln sorne degree enhghtened .. " (J:.W, l, 126)

Accordmg 10 Rader Ihls mechanlstlc necessltananrsm was abandoned soon after the "Preface" was

i written 9 But Alan Grob's argument for Godwin's lasting influence on Wordsworth is more convmcing 1 than Rader's, mainly because he pa Id closer attention to the unstable, deceptively Simple ground of Godwin's phllosophy. Grob Implied that Godwin's philosophlcal position was not fixed, and t Wordsworth's reactlon to this position may have been much more than a harned and depressed fhght to freedom The Prelude suggested that Wordsworth broke trom analytical Reason's cool chrysalls

t and emerged to poetlc and phllosophical maturity. The more unattractive truth, because less 1 dramatlcally satisfymg, was that Wordsworth could no more stop worrying an mtnguing philosophical problem than he could quit revlsing a poem such as The Prelude that he felt was still perfer.tlble 1 Grob detected a marked strain of PlatOn/sm in Godwm's concept of reason. He pointed out , that Godwin always meant more by Reason than discursive thinking or logical analysis: Wordsworth distlnguished between reason as the dissective "001 of analysis," the "form of ratlonalism habitually

attnbuted to Godwm by CritlCS of Wordsworth," and, ITlCJre idealistically, "intuItive reason" that enables

the "mlnd to apprehend spiritual and moral truths· through a pathway other than through the pnmary

senses. 1 0 Wordsworth's poet ry , particularly The prelude, inVites one to see the growth of his mind as

a progress, occurnng in distmct phases, and both Beatty and Rader presented Wordsworth's thought

• 1 1 as an evolutiorl towards greater phllosophlcal ce rt alnt y and conviction after 1800 There IS a 1 convement dramatlc and rhetoncal structure bUilt mta thls vlew of Wordsworth as movlng through vanous "stages" of mtellectual growth, ln a senes of more or less neatly achleved abandonments 1 Grob, however, suggested that Wordsworth's embrace of the "necessary response" to nature ln the years of hls development before 1800 reflected "the Wordsworthlan phllosophy" Godwlman

1 necess.ty, therefore, was seen 10 have provlded Wordsworth wlth a basIc Iramework for the 1 phllosophlcal reassessmeilt of hfe and art Ihat went on ln h.s poetry after 1800. That the 'effects of nature, acting upon man through the associative memory, must necessanly be productive of human 1 happlness" was a gcneralldea that Wordsworth Incorporated, nol only mto hls vlew of the poetlc mmd respondmg to nature, but also, as hls cnticism sometlmes suggests, mto hls moral vlew of readmg 11

1 Grob's argument that reductlve reasomng rather th an intUitive Reason became morally

re}Jugnant ta Wordsworth retnforces what 1have already sald abcut the opposmg vlews of Godwin and

1 Wordsworth on the nature and effects of readlng Wordsworth greatly resented the Godwlntan Ideal 1 reader, the dlssect.ve reader whose autonomy threatened the poet's Identlty as a moral teacher Vet, as Beatty, Rader, and Grob have suggested, there are slgns that Wordsworth used necessltanan

1 beliefs, such as Godwln's, ln hls hterary theory and," his poetry ta Infuse the analytICai reader wlth the possiblhty of a more comprehensive emotlonal and spiritual expenence of the poetic text "Lmes

1 written m Early Spnng" (1798) Illustrales the point. The muted rhetoncal qualltles 01 thls poem 1 suggest that Wordsworth found ln the Idea of necessity a means of graftmg amotlon onto analytlcal reason with sublime results, and of persuading the reader to come round to the poet-narrator's 1 pleasurably melanchohc pomt of view The poet's "lament" 15 what "man r1s made of man" Godwin devoted the Introductory

1 chapter of PaliMal Justice ta proving hlstoncally that "man IS of ail other belngs the most formidable 1 enemy to man," and Wordsworth's poem carnes the same general seed of pohtlcal and social disilluslonment. Godwin ended the chapter by saying that "If this be the unalterable allotment of our 1 nature, the emlnence of our rational faculties must be considered as rather an abortlon than a substantial benefit; and we shan nOI fail to lament that, while in sorne lespects we are elevated abcve 1 1 1 78

1 the brutes, we are ln so many Important ones destmed for ever to remain thelr mtenors" Followmg hls 1 pralse of the "hnk" between organlC Nature and hls "human soul" ln the 11rsl tlve stanzas, Wordsworth concluded "If Ithese thoughts may not prevent,/If such be of my creed the plan,! Have 1not reason to

lament! What man has made of man?" The Ime, "If 1these thoughts may not prevenl" suggests bellef

m necesslty, Implymg both the tnabihty of the the mlnd to dIssuade Itselt of that of whlch It IS utterly

convmced, and the Inablhty of the assoclatlng mlnd 10 "prevent" sensory Impressions, such as the 1 ones Wordsworth records earher ln the poem This Ime retnforces and Illuminates the more enlgmatlc ones m the prevlous slanza, "And 1must thlnk, do ail 1can [to ":Jrevent" believlng m nature's "blended" 1 harmony]/ "That there was pleasure Ihere " The following tocus on "reason," as weil as the structure (resembllng tlle shell of a sylloglsm - major and minor premlses leading to a tentatIve deduction) of the 1 concluding stanza as a whole, suggesi that Wordsworth meant close analyllcal reasonmg as much as subhmely IntU/led Reason.

1 The ''If'' that begms the C(')ncludlng stanza and the ''if'' that begins the senlence ending 1 Godwm's IntroductIon reflect dlfferent purposes. In the main body of Polit/cal Justice, Godwin often argued that the human eVlls he descnbed in his misanthroplc introduction can be eradlcated by 1 benevolent men 01 Reason He was not, then, suggestmg that what man has made of man was the

InevItable pathway 10 Il,e future Wordsworth's "If," endmg ln a questIon that he has ~Iready

1 answered, begms a virtual deductlon implying that If the "creed" and "plan" of his particular response 1 to nature IS inevItable, then by a subhme but se"-evldent leap of reason, inl'J/tive and analytical, neither can the vaguely eV11 "plan" of human nature in general be prevented And out of this idea 1 lises hls Iyncal "lament." , Wordsworth can seem more latalistic in his notion of necessity than Godwin ever thought of belng. The poem may be mfluenced by the doctnne of necessity, though not necessanly by the , particular language and contexts Godwin used 10 Iry and make the doctnne his own. It is just as arguable that patently optlmistlc versions of the doctrine such as Godwin's run counter not only to the • , poem bul to Godwm's dark polemlc on history and human nature, influenced by the evils of the , French RevolutIon, that seriously undermines the position he most wants to lake up and defend. by f

ft 1 1 laws of social and moral necesslty, manklnd IS progresslvely becommg more reasonable A tentative 1 IInk can be made between Godwm's hlstoncal "great cham of events" or "great chain of bemg" and Wordsworth's "blended" stnng of thoughts and Images, and hls possible allUSion ta the fallen Ideahsm

1 of the French Revolution ("what man has made of man"), but we may hear the sound of beads 1 bouncrng on the floor should we do so wlth too heavy a hand Mary Jacobus found Wordsworth's Colendge-rnfluenced aspirations for the "One Llfe" ln thls 1 poem, and outflnes ItS phllosophlcal problem rn an rnterestlng way "To bnng the Or:e Llfe lOto dally expenence 15 to be forcea 10 quahfy Il 'Unes wntten rn early spnng' becomes a poem not 50 much 01

1 bellet as of the wlsh 10 belleve, hence ItS polgnancy ,,12 Key phrases ln Ihls telling descnptlon of the poem's slrenglh of uncertamty are "ta be forced" and "wish la beheve" It mlght not have been only

1 Wordsworth's hlstoncal and "dally" sense of a pamful reailly thal te ,ced hlm 10 wnte thls "wish 10 1 beheve." It could also have been the mlellectual pleasure and pain tha! came from anemptmg ta reconclle hls wllllngness 10 believe rn the Umtanan "One Life," as taught by Pnestley and Colendge, 1 wllh the dar1

1 between a part of Godwin's text, hls Chapter Two, and Wordsworth's poem (Jacobus glves us other

possible sources for "what man has made ot man" 1 e Edward Young's "man hard of Heart ta Man" ln

1 "Nlght Thoughts ") More Important than the question of the poem's allegiances to Godwrn's Pohtlcal 1 Justice, however, IS ItS Imphed request for readers ta declde for themselves whether or not the poers melancholy 15 Justlfied What readers will make of the the rx>em must not be what man has made of

1 man. One's judgments of the poem, in other words, sllould be constralned by sympathy for mankrnd, 1 and, inevltably, for the poet who speakc. the poem. 1 Il, "Dupes of a Word"

1 Hazlitt said that mast phllosophers who had based their arguments on "necessity" hac. been the 1 "dupes of a word."13 On the other hand, Godwin argued that "It would be of infinite Importance to 1 1 80 1 Ihe cause 01 sCience and w1ue, 10 express ourselves upon ail occasions ln the language of 1 necesslty" tE,J, 175) 14 Beatty, Rader, and Grob suggested that Wordsworth was attracted to the Ideal mode 01 dlscourse descnbed by Godwm, language condltioned "upon ail occasions" by

j necessllanall behels A IrUltful question ta ask, ln arder ta clanly Wordsworth's concept 01 a "Iree"

reader, IS whether or not hls cntlClsm shows an awareness, slmllar to Hazhtt's, of a "double meanlng

j lurkmg under the word necesslty," an ordmary or common sense meanmg and a phllosophlcal 1 meanlng If hls "language of necesslty" dnes reflect such an awareness, then ItS raie ln hls cnticism can be better understood t By the "language of necesslty" Godwin dld not mean a comprehensive grammar of phllosophlcal terms Smce the reader was not shawn how necesslty can be separated from IlbE'rty,

1 with whlch It 15 "inextncably conlused," the phrase can seern empty. Godwin's views on necesslty

were mdebted ta Jonathan Edwards, who had sald ln Freedom of the Will (1754) that necesslty,

1 unless stnctly delmed, IS an unrellable term m phlfosophlcal arguments Llke Godwin, Hazlitt turned 1 respectlully to Edwards ln order ta show what he means by necesslty Edwards thought that ordinary connotations of necesslty, suggestmg somethinQ "Impossible," "irresistible," "unavoldable,"

1 "inVincIble" etc., ought to have no place ln these arguments His point was that stnct necesslty, meanmg only the "connection of cause and effer:t, or the constant dependence of one thmg on

1 another, ln the human mind as weil as ln matter," did not preclude or oppose common sense notions 1 of hberty and cholce On the other hal'd, if by liberty is meant anythlng opposite to the connexion of cause and effect, Edwards Insisted that "there 15 no such thing as hberty in the mind any more than in 1 matter. ,,15 ln this Iight. Godwin's "language of necesslty" extends no further than to forms of the word , "necesslty" Itse" Godwin would doubtless have Vlewed Wordsworth's essays and prefaces as occasions on ~I whlch the language of necesSlty ought to be used. WordswC'rth did use thls nucleus of words falrly often, partlcularly in the 1800-1802 "Preface." As Rader imphes, the descnplion of reader-response

,1 in the 1800 "Preface" (n. the understandmg of the being to whom we address ourselves, if he be in a

healthful state of aSSociation, must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, and his affections J 1 1 81

1 amehorated") IS an Indication that necessitarianlsm had a substantlal rôle to play ln Wordsworth's 1 hterary theory This IS borne out only later, however, ln revlslon The 1802 additions to Ihe "Preface" used the language of necesslty frequently and emphatlcally. 1 ln 1800, Wordsworth had asked "where shall we hnd bonds of connectlOn sufflclently stnct to typlfy the afflnlty betwlxt metncal and prose composition?" The problem ln dlscusslng these "bonds" il was not due to percelved dlfferences between poetry and prose It was due to the fact that they are 1 "almost Identlcal not necessanly dlffenng even ln degree," therefore the "bonds" between them lJIiere hard to locate, harder 10 discuss. Wordsworth's language suggests that, however obscured by 1 sameness, there IS a dlscermble law of "stnct" necesslty that bmds together poetry and prose ln a foot note to hls use of the word "Poetry," he argued that thflre IS no 13w that would show a "stncl

1 ani;thesls" between poetry and prose, Implylllg that there IS one that shows thelr essentlal simllanty (PW, " 134) ThiS confuslng argument was meant to be IlIumtnated by the paragraphs added to the

1 "Preface" m 1802 1 ln the expanded "Preface," Wordsworth tndlcated that practlcal dlstmctlons between poelry and prose eXlst, and he tned to reconcile this wlth hls argument that there IS no essentlal dlfference 1 that can be notlced No distinction can be made between poetry and prose "where the poet speaks through the tT)()uths of hls characters: It cannol be necessary here," slnce poetlc language "If selected

1 truly and )udlclously, must necessanly be dignifled" to the point where makmg dlfferences between 1 poetry and ordtnary prose becomes superfluous or artlfiClal, as "unnecessary" to the "mtelhgent Reader" as ornate poetlc diction IS to the poet The poet has more "enthuslasm" than ordmary men, 1 and is freer than most ln "expressmg what he thlnks and 1eels, and especlally those thoughts and feelings which, by his own cholce, or from the structure of hls own mlnd, anse ln hlm wlthoul

1 immedlate external excltement." Notions of Necesslty and Cholce clearly have thematlc Importance,

but this dld not lead Wordsworth to make a deCISlon on wh ether or not the poel expresses ~,mself "by

1 his own choice, or, from the structure of hls cwn mrnd," bUlH up by forces of expenence and 1 association that were beyond his control He was, however, contemplatmg thls problem The poet elther "produces, or feels to be produced, m hlmseH" platonic shadows of "real hIe," actual "passions" 1 1 • 1 82 1 ln shadowmg forth reallty, the poet IS "slavlsh, and mechamcal, compared wlth the freedom and power 1 of real and substantlal action and sutfenng" But even ln thls the poet may allow himself to "slip mto an entlre deluston" of such actual freedom (P.Y:J., l, 137-138) Does he mean by thls that the poet's real 1 freedom, and therefore any man's (bl' extension of hls argument for an essentlal simllanty between the poet and ordmary men), IS a "deluslon of liberty," the argument GodWin makes flrst ln Poli1lca!

1. ~, and later qualifies ln Thoughts on M,;;" Ali that tS clear IS that hls wish to escape the conlines J of stnct "reasonmg" ln the "Preface" bnngs hlm near ta concepts of liberty and necesslty as reasonlng devlces 1 When Wordswol1h used the words "chotee" and "neeesslty," he dtd not establish a clear polanty between them, even though thls may have helped hlm to speak wlth even greater authonty on

1 the nature, source, and effects 0f poetlc language He appears to have accepted that Ireedom and

necessity are not antlthetlcallerms. In the 1802 "Preface," Wordsworth argued that the "Poet writes

1 under one restnction only, namely, that of the necesslty of givlng immediate pleasure ta a human 1 Seing possessed of that infonnatlon which may be expeeted of hlm ... " This does not signify a lack of lalth m the poet's Ireedom On the contrary, thls IS a statement of IIberation. Wordsworth saw himself

J as "at liberty to supply myse" wlth endless combinations and forms of Imagery" However, the

structure of thls statement 01 "restnctlon" could have baan tlgt.tened, with no loss of grammatical

1 sense, by the omiSSion of the phrase "of the necessity." Its presence suggests the Importance 1 attached by Wordsworth to the ide a of necesslty. It was glven an even higher profile m the first sentence of the lollowmg paragraph. "Nor let thls necessity of producing immediate pleasure be 1 considered as a degradation 01 the poet's art" (EW, i, 139 140). Who would think that it was not "far otherwlse" than "degradatlon," a statement of power and liberation, unless It was the philosophically

1 Informed reader who had identlfied, wrongly as Wordsworth implies, belief in necessity as the enemy 1 Of human freedom? This 15 not to argue that Wordsworth's use of the language of necessity was not intended to t make distinctions, or to establish dichotomies He considered the ordinary "man," the human Seing," as "findmg every where obJects that Immediately excite in him sympathies whieh, from the necessitles 1 1 1 ôJ

1 of hls nature, are accompamed by an overbalance of en)oyment" The poet was separated from 1 ordmary men by "a greater promptness to thmk and leel wlthout Immediate external eXCItement, and Cl greater power ln expresslng such thoughts and feelings as are produced m hlm ln Ihat manner" (,EW.

1 l, 140,142) The necessary responses of the men who would read Wordsworth's poems were plctured as quahtatlvely dillerent, as more ammal and less controlled than the composmg Po el

1 respondlng 10 "real hfe" This was allowed 10 be so m splle of Wordsworth's argument that there 15 no 1 essentlal dlHerence belween poels and readers. It IS not my purpose to argue for a loglcal or philosophlcal coherence underlymg Wordsworth's 1 emphatlc uses of "neeesslty" and Its cognates (1 do nOI pretend to coyer ail 01 hls uses of thls word ln hls criticism ) 16 Whal has been notlced so far, however, IS not excluslvely a feature of style HIS

1 language does sometlmes point to an underlymg phllosophlcal position on the question of Iree will

and necesslty as It applies to the "moral relations" b~tween readmg and poetry If such a position IS to

1 be Inferred, Il may be al or near a middle (conclhalory or perhaps merely neutrahzmg) ground AI the 1 end of the 1800-1802 "Preface," after remmdlng the reader of hls hmlts, he returns hlm to freedom The reader will now be able to "determme," arnve al a "decislon" as to whelher or not Wordsworth's 1 poelry and poetlc theones ment "approbation," 1 Sy 1815, Wordsworth may not have moved sI9mficanlly away from th,s supposed mlddle ground m the philosophical debate on neces::.,lty. But he had become more spanng ln hls use of ItS 1 language, perhaps more aware of Ils duphcltous nature, ln the 1815 "Preface," he used It only once (The poet employs dlspassionate description "only in submisslon to necesslty ") A pnmary reason for 1 his more hmited use of the language 01 neeesslly IS reflected ln hls remark that an "Author's mlnd 15 enthralled by Etymology, he takes up Ihe original word as hls gUide, hl5 eonductor, hls escort, and 100

1 often does not perceive how soon he becomes Its pnsoner, wlthout liberty to tread ln any path but 1 that to whlch It confines him" (,EW, ill,30) ln the "Essay, Supplementary," he used necessllY four times, twiee in his comments on the Ideal reader The true entie "must necessanly" possess a certam 1 "union of qualifications" before his "decisions" can be of "absolute value" To be "free and kindly" ln

his crillcal judgment, he must tirst be 'tutored into correctness ft To be a true cntle, the reader must be 1 1 1 84 j ln possession of certain qualifications, but for most readers "a necesslty soon anses of breakmg the 1 pleaslng bondage" because o'''domestlc cares" or "business" (pW, 111,66,62). They are the pnsoners 01 animai and practlcal necessltles, and have no renl opportunlty to get the qualifications that

) would make them "free and klndly" ln the commonwealth of art ln thls context, "free" means no more

th an what Hobbes meant when he deflned liberty as the "absence of externallmpedlments ,,17 Yet

J the select few, who read as a "'etlme study, were made to seem as faled 10 remaln ln the gnp of thls J "pleasmg bondage" as others are to break 11. The "Essay" as a whole encourages the reader to ask how, or to what extenl, he is "active" ln the "government" of hls responses to a poe m, and whether or J nol the pro cesses by whlch he percelves the meanmg and worth of a poem are self-determined, based on bellefs and opinions Ihat are freely chosen. Thal "declslons" reflecting Ihe reader's 1 Ireedom are to some extent "determtned" exclusively b}' the reader was taken for granted by Wordsworth at Ihe end of the 1800-1802 "Pref;;lce." But the "Essay, Supplementary" casts doubt on

1 thls matter 1 Perhaps ln part because he dld not want to be too "ungraclous," and sought a more "klndly" receptlon for hls poetry, Wordsworth dld not overtly undermme the reader's mterpretive and Judiclal J freedom. It would be wrong, however, to assume that hls position on the marits of "pre-estabhshed ) codes of decision" was conClhatory or neutral, as one ITlIght be led to believe by hls amblguous depiction of the "actlVe"-"passive" reader. Even at the most sophisticated and mature stage of hls ) experience wlth poetry, the true cntie was seen as "answenng" the poet by submisslvely aecompanymg hlm on hls Imaginative flights. Although Wordsworth did not openly discuss a rule of J necesslty as It mlght apply to aesthetlc response. the point of the "Essay" is that excellent readers are bound to the ineluctable progress, moral and historical, of the poet's power. l It is obvlous that in word-stepping across Wordsworth's critlcism, Wjth the arguments on 1 necesslty of sorne phllosophers in tow. that 1 wanted to do somethlOg mor'3 than trace a stylistic pattern. 1 wanted to know what part, If any, the doctrine of necessity played 10 the expression of 1 Wordsworth's concepts of readlng in his criticism. If it did. as his language sometimes suggests. play a slgnificant part, th en 1 wanted to know where Wordsworth stood on the question of the reader's 1 1 1

1 freedom to make decisions, to Inltlate and control hls bellets about the poetlc text ln splte of hls 1 reslstance to polanzmg cholce and necesslty, Wordsworth can be ~een to stand on thls question Wltt1 the phllosophers of necesslty, and agams' ''''ose anarytlcal entles who belleved that the reader's 1 declSlons and bellets about a poem are mamly self-determmed and autonomous 1115 a tnck of human (and therefore textual) Inconsistency, of hlstory and 01 the study 01 hlstOry, glven to measunng the

1 mfluence of one mdlvldual upon another, Ihat among those necessltanans wlth whom Wordsworth 1 seems to be allgned as he conslders the art of readmg was Godwm, who canonlzed the autonomous reader ln The EnQUIrer. 1 Apart trom words such as "necesslty" and "admiration," that were welghted agalnst the Idea of the reader's self-sufflclency, wlthout tlppmg the scales too far that way, there IS no pattern 01 thoughl 1 m Wordsworth's cntlClsm that suggests that he dld not beheve ln Iree Will ln lact. he strove Impresslvely ta show that the sublime Poet IS the embodlment of sprntual freedom, and that the reader

1 partakes of Ihls freedom Although he qUi te often uses the word (and lorms of the ward) "necesslty" 1 ln more th an ordmary and unobtruslve ways, and with repeated emphasis ln the 1802 addilions to the "Prelace," there IS no satisfymg proof of an awareness of a "double meanlng, lurklng underneath the 1 word necesslty," that would allow hlm to be drawn flrmly Into the later elghteenth-eentury debate on free Will and necesslty. In terms of thls debate, Wordsworth's strength was that of resistance and

1 avoidance. As mdlcated earlier, however, this suggests that Wordsworth dld not see Ireedom and 1 necesslty as opposites, but as essentlally the same. The strength of resistance may have been. deeply, the strength of synthesls. 1 There was not, even in his emphatic uses of "necesslty," the open and seH-consclous splitling Into oppostng Ideas (such as liberty, free Will, cholce) that we fmd ln hls uses of the words

1 "active" and "passive" (or other btnary opposltes. such as the "People," and the "Public") whlch are 1 unreliable keys to his bellefs and arguments in the 1815 "Essay" "Admiration" po lanzed wlth "wonder" IS only slightly more reliable than these other terms. HIS language of necesslty. partlcularly 1 tn the 1802 "Preface," is a good mdlcator of the depth of his beltef tn the direct moral mfluence of poetry on the lives on its readers. Even if it does not encourage readers to do as Hazlitt and Beatty 1 1 1 86

1 dld, and read a poem such as "Tmtern Abbey" as a "statement" on phllosophlcal necesslty, thls 1 language do es shed considerable IIght on Wordsworth's vlew of an Ideal readmg performance 18 Il contlrms what was Imphed ln the prev/ous chapter Wordsworth meant somethmg essent/ally non-

competitive and non-disruptive by callmg the relatlonshlp between reader and poet a "struggle" or a

"grapphng," and by hls descnptlon ot the reader as "tree" and "active." When he asked for readers

whose mmds are "sound and vlgourous," he was nol encouragmg the habit Dt reducing a poem to Its

log/cal propositions, and rebUlldmg It ln a self-mterested IIght, as ln Stewart's or Godwln's readmg 1 method 19 1 iv. The Reader in The Rujned çQtta~e 1 1 ln the ms hlstory of The Bu;ned Cottage, a long poem about a woman's descent into des pair after her husband abandons her, there IS evidence that Wordsworth, weil before the wntmg ot the 1815 1 "Essay, Supplementary," learned to be cautlous about the term "necesslty," ThIS was one of the early poe ms that Beatty, wlthout further expia nation , suggested were mformed by necessltanan bellets 20

1 Composed mamly ln 1798 (Ms B) and 1799 (Ms. Dl. The Bujned Cottage was eventually pubhshed

as Book 1 of The Excursion (1814) "Stnct necessity" anchors the passage ending Book IV 21 It 15

1 the Wanderer who speaks: 1 For, the Man­ Who, in this Spirit, communes wlth the Forms Of nature, who with understanding heart 1 Both knows and loves such obJects as excite No morbid passions, no disquietude, No vengeance, and no hatred - needs must feel 1 The joy of that pure pnnclple of love So deeply, that, unsatisfled wlth ought Less pure and exqUisite, he cannot choose But seek for obJects of a kindred love ln fellow-natures and a kindred joy ..and, if he hear, From other mouths, the language whlch they speak, He IS compassionate, and has no thought, No feeling, which can overC

J 1 ... ,------1

Trusl me, Ihat for Ihe mstrucled, tlme will come, 1 When they shalJ me et no oblect but may leach Some acceptable lesson to thelr mmds Of human suffenng, or of human IOy j So shalllhey leam, whtle alllhings speak of man, Thelr dulies from ail forms, and generallaws, And local accidents, shall tend al\ke To rouse, to urge, and, wlth the WIll, confer 1 The abliity to spread the blesslngs wlde Of true phllanthropy for them shall be conflrmed , The glonous habit by whlch sense IS made Subservlent still to moral purposes, Auxlhar to divine SCience Ihen Shall be a preclous VIsitant, and then, ~ And only then, be worthy of her name For then her heart shall klOdle, her dull eye, Dull and manlmate, no more shall hang , Chamed 10 Ils obiecl ln brute slavery. a support Not treacherous. 10 the mmd's excurSfve power So butld we up the Belng that we are, 1 Thus deeply dnnklng-In the soul of thlngs. We shall be wise perforee, and. whlle Insplred By cholce. and consclous that the Will is free, Shall move unswervlng, even as If Impelled 1 By stnct necesslty, along the path Of order and of good 1 The "Author," here as much a hstener or a reader as a poet, reflects admmngly on the Wanderer's

1 words, whlch

1 .. sank inlo me, the bounteous glft Of one whom tlme and nature had made wise Graclng his doctrine wlth authority Which hostile spmts stienUy allow, 1 .. Of one in whom persuasion and :-;ehef Had ripened into falth, and faith become A passionate intuition: whence the Soul, 1 Though bound to earth by ties of pit Y and love, From ail inJunous seMtude was Iree. 1 (II 1207, 1298) These passages contain revlsions of some poetic texts that Wordsworth had wntten as alternative

1 endings for Ms B, The lines begmning "80 build we up the being that we are" and ending "Of arder 1 and of good" are part of the rejected addenda to Ms. B, which were recorded by Dorothy ln Ms 0 Wordsworth presumably wrote these addenda because he was unhappy wlth the pessimlstlc endmg 1

, 1 t 1 88

1 of Ms B, the bleak Image of Margaret as the "las! human tenant of these ruined walls" The Imes ln the

addenda correspondrng to "Sc bUild we up of good" m The ExcurSion were not wntten ln one 1 sequence, but these can nevertheless be reorgamzed and sphced together ln the way that t Wordsworth may have done belore revlsrng them So bUild we up The berng that we are (68v) Thus deeply dnnklng ln the soul of thmgs We shall be wise perforee, and we shall move From stnct neeesslty along the path Of arder and 01 good (69r)

Wordsworth stnpped Irnes lrom /wo separate passages in the addenda, and used them m Book IV wlth

1 the lollowlng changes He mserted after "perforee" the new phrase and IIne "and, whlle msplred/ By 1 cholce, and consclous that the Will 15 Iree," He then added the word "unswervlng" after "move," and "Irom stnet necesslty" became "even as If Impelledl By stnet necessity" Except for the hyphenatlon 1 of the earher "dnnkmg m," there are no other changes to the onglnal lines ln the addenda The onglnal live Unes (Includlng Iwo haH-hnes) became six and one half Imes, and thls reflects Wordsworth's

1 general habit 01 reVISlon, whlf'h was to expand what had been ongrnally wntten 1 Llnes 1207-17 of Book IV are virtually identlcal to li nes 3-11 01 the addendum beglnnrng "Not useless do 1deem" (67v) Key phrases m both places are "needs must teel" and "he cannot choose 1 but seek," whlch qUletly deny the posslblllty of free will But ln Book IV, potentlally subt/e resonances wlth the phllo50phlcal debate on liberty and nece5sIty disappear IOta Wordsworth's hearty embrace of

1 Iree will, "rnsptred by cholce" Lmes 226-229 are almost exactly identlcal to the onglnals (67v," 20-

23, the "s" 15 dropped from "hears" and added on to the "mouth" of the ongrnallmes) The rest of the

1 Imes quoted Irom Book IV, leadmg to "So bUl/d we up ... " are a mi/d/y inflated re-worklng of!wo t lhemes, that of the moral "Iesson" and of "Science," whlch are basic to the addendum begmmng the "spmtual absences ot thmgs" (68r, Il. 1-29), which speaks of the "habrt by whlch sense 15 made/

Subservlent still to moral purposes/ A Vital essence and a savrng power/ Nor shall we meet an obJect

but may readl Some sweet and tender lesson to our mindsl Of human suffenng and of human joy/ Ali

thlngs shall speak of man and we shall readl Our duties in ail forms, and generallawsi And local 1

J 1 1 accidents shall tend ahkel To qUicken and 10 rouze, and glve tile will. " Here the segment breaks oft. , the thought on "Will" unfrnlshed, and the addendum resumes with the segment on SClence's "dull eye," whlch IS almost Identlcal to the Imes on the same subJect ln Book IV (II 1251-1263) The onglnal 1 Imes on "habit," heading tentatlvely towards the Ide a of "glve the Will," but lapsmg mto Silence, were later lamely resolved wlth the Irnes on "true phllanthropy "

1 The changes ln Book IV from the onglnal addenda seem small, but they are radical m Ihe,r 1 effect For example, the earher einphasis on readrng ("read. read") became an emphasls on teachrng ("read" was converted ta "teach") The moral "Iesson," therefore, based on the cause and effect of 1 habit and benevolent behavlor, on a rule of "stnet neces5Ity," 15 not 50 much shared Wllh readers, as overwhelmrngly glven or taught to them. In Book IV, Wordsworth undercut the Ide a of "stnct

1 necesslty" (1 e. "as If lmpelled" rnstead of "Impelled"). And he was uneoncerned wilh the Implications 1 of buttonrng necesslty to free Will and eholce 22 ln other words, he dld what he reslsted dorng ln hls cnticlsm, sphttrng the Idea of necesslty along the toe-hne of the phllosophlcal debate The effect on 1 the rhetoncal power of the origrnallrnes wa5 almest rumous One wants to know why the concept of strict necesslty no longer seemed to bother him, slnce he could find no place for It ln Mss 8 and 0 1 proper. These early texls suggest that Wordsworth wanted to bUlld a theme based on concepts of

necesslty, but not on the "stnet" concept he expenmented wlth in the addenda, and laler

1 incorporated lOto The Excurslor;. 1 The Iwo speakers ln The Ruined Cottage are an old Pedlar and a qUIet man of uncertarn age, but recognizably yi ung, who relates the tale of Margaret as told ta hlm by the Pedlar, but also mlldly 1 embelhshes It by descnblng his emotional and bodily responses. For example, Just afler the break between parts one and IWo of the poem, he says thal "attention now relaxed,/ There was heartfelt

1 chllhness ln my veins" The early mss. not only evolved lOto "a story about Ihe relation of teller to tale," 1 as Hartman observed.23 It also bacame overtly eoncerned wlth the moral and aeslhetlc diSpositions of the reader. Jonathan Wordsworth sald of the youthful narratar, "Nommally [as tlrst persan speaker] 1 he may be Wordsworth himself, but ln practlce he IS a dramatlzation of the reader .. 24 Wordsworth's 1 uses of the langUage of necessity ln composing and revlsmg hls poem suggests Ihat Ihrs "reader" • 1 90

1 resembles the ideal reader postulated by Wordsworth's cntlclsm, who knows that an admmng or 1 approvmg response is necessary to expenencmg the moral truths of a poem It was early m Ms B, while developmg the hlstory of the Pedlar, that Wordsworth tirst 1 introduced the Idea of necesslty The Pedlar pursued hls avocatlon "From habit and necesslty" (1 70) This is a gtimpse of Wordsworth Irymg to humanize the Ide a of necesslty, as ln the "Essay on Morais,"

1 working towards a more "heartfelt" view of the "nk between daily haJlts and the doctnne that he round 1 in Politjcal Justice. Just pnor to "habit and necesslty" are lines that reflect the orgamc theory of poetlc language that would appear in the 1800 "Preface." The Pedlar had hved arnong men, whose 1 "passion" and "feelings," "chiefly thosel Essentlal and eternal in the heart,l Whlch 'mid the simpler forms of rurallife/ Exist more SImple ln the" elements/ And speak a plamer language" (B,II 61-65) 1 Immediately atter the fine on "habit and necesslty," the Pedlar was pamted as a Poet. "HIS 1 eyelflashing poetlc lire." and what ensued was VIbrant pralse for the creatIve pnnclple m the poet, a theme taken up in the 1800-1802 "Preface," in parts of The Prelude and ln other of Wordsworth's 1 poems. The poet-Pedlar not only received his given world, he gave to Il, "To every natural !orm, rock, fruit, and flower," to "Even the loose stones that cover the hlghway 1 He gave a moral hfe" (B, \1 80-82) 1 Ms. B linked habit and necesslty, and at the same tlme reflected the poet's creative autonomy and inaugural power. The Pedlar's character had been formed by natural and human "elements" that he

1 could not possibly control, and to which, ln the pursuit of hls avocation, he remained susceptIble Yet 1 the "world about him -'twas his own,/ He made it." (8, " 87-88). A slmllar mlx of self-possession and self-surrender can be found JO the essays and prefaces, to some extent in the descnptlons of the 1 benevolent poet who is "pleased wlth his own passions and volitions," and mamly ln the portrayal of the reader, who must be active and passive, think for hlmself and yet defer to the paet's authonty

1 Wordsworlh's mixed sIgnais on the subject of reading reflect his suspicions of men who would rely on 1 the "motions of theirown mmd merely" (fW, 1,137-138). SeH-sufficiency was seen as desirable and, trom a moral perspective, dangerous. 1 Wordsworth toyej with the ide a of including "strict necesslty" in the conclUSion of The BUlOed ~ because necessitarian attitudes were already a visible current of the poem, and these 1 1 1 91

1 attitudes demanded a clearer resolutlon It was out of "mi Id" necesslty, "Impelled/ By a mild force of 'i cunous pensiveness," that the young man asked the Pedlar to reSUrT'e his tale tollowmg the pause lletween parts one and two (B, Il. 270-271) The poem's ending could potentlally have shown as one J of ItS Important lessons that the "torce" bindmg the two friends was more than "mlld," an all-powerful force, movlng life and art along he paths of "stnet necess;.l' to moral and Intellectuallmprovement. ~ Wordsworth may have rejeeted thls idea beeause the doctrine of neeessity, as Interpreted in POlitjcal

J.WUl~, posed a threat to his belief in the poet's Inaugural power Godwin promoted an "Idea of the 1 unrverse, as of a body of events ln systematic arrangement, nothing ln the boundless progress of 1 thrngs Interrupting thls system, or breaking ln upon the expenenced su,:cession of antecedents and consequents ln the life of every human being there is a chalO of events, generated in the lapse of 1 ages whlch preceded his birth, and gOlng on in regular procession through the whole period of hls

eXistence, ln consequence of which It was Impossible to act in any instance otherwise th an he has

1 acted .... (fJ Ch. VII).25 The bones that Godwin tossed to Free Will, "preference and d~sire ... neglect 1 and aversion," were stnpped bare by his doubts concerning the ability ot human beings to be genulnely original in thair thoughts and actions. 1 The dilemma for Wordsworth was that a full embrace ot necessitarian princip les could damage his faith in hls poetic onginality, and yet posslbly reinforee the alluring idea of readers responding

1 Irresistlb:{ to the instructive power of his poems. That Wordsworth writes, wlthholds, and frnally 1 resurrects and revlses poetic texts dealing rJirectly with "stnct necessity" is turther evidence that necessltarian beliefs were important to him, pctentially confirming that creating and receiving, 1 composrng and reading, unfold according to a universal rule of cause and effect. The exclusion of these addenda trom Mss. B and D, and thelr contradictory appearance ln The Excursion suggest that

1 this venfication was wlthheld from Wordsworth. f The ending to Ms B. really was a problem. The moral resolution was simplistie - "Yet, still she loved thls w,~tched spot" etc. (II. 522-528) - and it needed to be fixed. Wordsworth worked hard to J find a more persuasive ending. Compelled but finally unpersuaded by the alternative text on "strict necesslty," he used lines from the addenda that are less philosophically definitive for the reworked 1 1 1 9..2

1 endtng of Ms. D Thus, the Pedlar now advised hls fnend to "Be wise and cheertul. and no longer 1 readl The Forms of thmgs wlth an urMorthy eye" (D, Il.510-511) ln addition ta the fnend's status as a respondent to the talp., these new Iir.èS conf/rm Jonathan Wordsworth's suggestion that the frlend 15 1 emblematlc of a poetlc reader. But what was 50 wrong wlth hls Inner "eye" Ihal It needed correctloq? Perhaps Wordsworth felt Ihat Il was 100 lonfe&hng or obJective, scrutlntzmg the tale for Its "Forms" -

1 aesthetlc or narrative Ideas perhaps, or moral and phllosophicalldeals - wlthout respondmg deeply 1 enough to ifs emotlons. "Wise and cheertul" mdlcafes that he felt that the fnend's silence was unduly morbld or mournful Either way, Wordsworth did very little, vlrtually nothmg, ln Ms 0 ta glve thls 1 "reader" of poetic tales a more inqUisitive and thoughtful presence than he had in Ms 8 Wordsworth exploited the break ln mld-story to descnbe the effects of Margaret's story on the fnend's physlcal and 1 emotlonal feelings, rather than ItS effects on his thinking.

The Pedlar suspends hls tale to ask two questions "Wh Yshoulc1 a tear be ln an old man's

1 eye?" ln other words, why should our response to Margaret's suffenng be gnef, rather than a sense of 1 tranqulhty and acceptance And then, "Why should we thus Wlt! an untoward mmd/ And ln the weakness of humanttyl From natural wisdom turn ou,' hearts away,/ to natural comtort shut our eyes 1 and ears,! And feeding on disquiet thus disturbl [The calm] of Nature wlth our restless thoughts" (B, Il 250-256). The second question is more complexly and densely worded th an the tlrst, and holds the

1 germ of an answer to both questions. "We" need to more closely Imltate the tranqUility of Na' 're. Yet 1 Nature i~ not an undisturbed and untjisturbing presence ln the poem. In lact, her e1croachments on Margaret's neglected cottage and garden inspire a restive rnood of "heartfelt chllhness" ln the fnend 1 So one wonders why he was nol allowed to ponder the Pedlar's questions openly, engage ln a real dialogue, a potentially fertile dldactlC strategy to foliow when reading the forms of things /5 the subJect

1 Such a dialogue would have taken away trom the poem's lesson on aesthetic response, 1 which in one Important re:pect is to teach the value of rapt listening as a form of deep reading That the friend never addressed the issues raised by the old man's questions reflects Importantly on the 1 kind of "reader" he represents, uninquiring and submissive. The only clear manifesta:lon of his rTI'nd's restlessness is that he felt compelled du ring the interlude to move out 01 the shade ta "drink" in the 1 1 1 93 ) heal of Ihe sun. This oxymoron recalls the presence of the weil, whlch had slaked hls !l'mst before he 1 sat down wlth the Pedlar The Pedlar had already drunk from the weil before his compamon arrived. He had been in Ihe habit 0' stoppmg al the weil dunng /',') routme travels, whereupon Margaret gave

1 hlm cups of "cool retreshment" The we/l IS emblematlc of both Margaret's generoslty and of her eventual diSSolution, Sinee the Pedlar had notlced that It 15 presently inhabited by a "spider," and IS

J "shmy" wlth vegetation. Margaret's cup of kindness had become "the useles~ fragment of a wooden 1 bowl" (B, /1 140-157) The young man's 'dnnking' of Nature's warmth would have been emotionally as weil as physlcally refreshmg, smce It would have recalled Margaret's generosity, hel happler hfe more 1 than her sorrow But it 15 clear that hls exit from "shade," hke hls earllar refreshment at the weil, was primanly a response to animal or pracllcal nect:ssities. In the commentary on readers ln the "Essay, 1 Supplementary ," such necessities were presented as interfering with moral-aesthetlc pleasure Here they are implicltly presented as deepenmg this pleasure.

1 There are three basic lessons that the young man could have learned from the Pedlar. FJrst, 1 ft at he should not unduly grieve for Margaret, whose presence is implicitly as real to him as her abandoned cottage. The second lesson, moral-aesthetic, is that he should not take "unworthy" or 1 mcrbid pleasure in a trag.c tale, but seek out the "cheerfulness" inherent in .t, the communicative bond established between teller and audience for example.26 Tha third lesson, closely related to the

J other two, issued from the pcem's notions of necessity. The addenda ln Dorothy's notebook ail take ] necesslty as their theme in one way or another, directly and indirectly, and, as has been pointed out, this was already a theme of Ms. B. One can speculate that Wordsworth SiNI necessitarian behefs as l potentially Illummating both the problem of actual human sorrow that borders on self-indulgence, and

the problem posed by a pleasumble aesthetic response to a poem or ~ale of human suffenng.

J If every indivldual actIon and thought is preceded by a motivating action or thought, as Godwin 1 proposed, grief and sorrow may be grounded in the moumer's earliest associations and memones, and conceivably far beyond this, in the earliest evolutions and revolutions of society, and perhaps in 1 the birth of creation Itself. A prolonged melancholic reaction to death or separation, what the Pedlar calls the "foolishness of grief," could be assuaged, or even ended, If the event causing sorrow could ) ) 1 1 be shown to be but one hnk ln "a chain of events, generated ln the lapse of ages" Tho;) gUllt and 1 frustration that helps to prolong gnef could be reheved If the mou mer eould be made to reallze thal "II was Impossible to aet ln any Instance oiherwlse t~'an he has acted "A slmlar relief eould also be 1 expenenced by poets and readers who realtze that pleasurable responses to a laie of human suffenng are necessary and inevltable, and need only to be better understood to become more reflned and

1 humamzed 1 That the "power of any au is hmlted" was an unalterable fact to Wordsworth, who yet, whlle slill patchmg and msulatmg the walls of The Bumed CoUa!}e, will declare hls bellef that "Poetry 15 the 1 braath and fmer Spirit of ail knowledge the countenance of ail SCience the Poet blnds logelher by passion and by knowledge the vast empire of human society . Poetry IS the flrst and lasl of ail

1 knowledge." ln the same context, Wordsworth al 50 sald that the poet, while he "desenbes and Imltates passions, hls situation is ahogether slavlsh and mechanlcal" (EW, 141,138) The concept of

1 "strict necesslty," walting in the wlngs of the early mss. of The Burned Cottage and uncertalnly 1 impinging upon the essays and prefaces, would have pianted doubts ln Wordsworth concernmg the "mitiatory" power of the "Poet." If 50, necessity was one of the seminalldeas that led Wordsworth 10 1 seek consolations for the limits of human controllmposed by the force that, ln the words of "Tintern 1 Abbey," "impels ail thinkmg thlngs" To sorne extent, the belief that the powers of necessity are sociaUy and morally progressive can provlde sueh consolation. Y~i, an unbendmg belief ln If would 1 seem to lead to a debilitated vlew of one's freedom and ongmahty A pan of Wordsworth's mmd, perhaps the most aggressive part of It, claimed (or re-claimed) moral authonty for the poet, and then

1 delegated that authority to properly informed readers. Il was th,s empowenng energ~' In Wordsworth, together with his dnve to be recognized as an original poet, who teaches as weil as embodies the

1 creative process, that was always at war with hls sense that reading and wntmg poetry are subject to 1 necessary laws Ib.ülumed Cottage reflected the poet's ascendancy over his reader, not by bringlng m the 1 doctrine of "strict necessity," that could possibly undermine the reader's perception of the poet's initiatory power, but by staging the responses of the Pedlar and his fnend to animal and practical 1 1 1 95

t necessltles Such necesslties bear direct!)' on the relatlonshlp of the Pedlar, who has the aspect of a J poet, and hls fnend, who must learn ta be a betisr ~eader of human and aeslhetic conditions A basIc law of animai reahty IS that il IS atways the strongest who dnnks flrst ft 15 the Pedlar who dnnks before

1 hls frlend Llke the poet composmg a poem, the Pedlar IS on the scene before the one who 'reads'

hlm The fr/end's auxlhary status 15 confirmed by hls dnnking trom the weil after the Pedlar Since It ,1 was Margaret who tlrst oHered the water to the Padlar, animai and practlcal necessilles wer-a dlgnltled 1 by human sympathy and kmdness, whlch were retumed to Margaret by the Pedlar's subsequent concern tor her domestlc plight But the Pedlar resembles h'5 fnend in that he also arrived late on the 1 scene of Margaret's suffenng. In spite of the Pedlar's kmdhearted VISltS wlth Margaret, he was unable to prevent her suffenng and death The Pedlar's moral power, as preclous ta hlm as it was ta

1 Wordsworth, could not slgmflcantly alter the chain of events that controlled Margaret's destmy The

way in whlch he was able ta assert this power was to teach his friend to reverently contemplate

1 Margaret's story, and the lessons that can be drawn trom il. 1 Better than other versions of The Buined Cottage, Ms D fused together the ideas of pracucal Ilecessity and aesthetlc freedorr.. ft was, in eHect, the fulfillment of the program hmted at by

1 Wordsworth ln his 1798 "Essay on Marals," for it blended the "heartfelt" pulse of habit and necesslty wlth the "v:tal IUlces" of creatlvlty without relying on "ba/d & naked reasonings," which are "powerless

1 ln regulatmg our judgments concerning the the value of men & things" Practical, emotlonal, and 1 aesthetlc needs were presented as deep/y the same. Wordsworth did not differentiate between ordinary and phllosophical necessity in his cnticism, but he dia use the language of necesslty to pomt 1 le> a basic distmCtlon between practical needs and aesthetic needs. In the world of art, he Implied in

the "Essay, Supplementéiry," one needs to admire, if O~'I a "few" times, then it must utterly satlstying,

1 dedicated admiratIOn, of the sort he describes as "/agitimilte" and "genuine." ln the practical world, 1 one obviously needs "domesllc cares" or to beconle "engrossed in business." Practlcal necesslties were ln his mmd the ent!mies of art. But he also inc icated that practical and aesthetic can be thought J of in the same hght. Those who love poetry, and read it daily"as a study," may think of the pressures

J = ~ 96

1 of practlcality as distractions, but they will also have a very real sense of how the habit of poelly has 1 become as essentlal to the cornfort of body and rnrnd as work and "domestlc cares .. How aesthetlc pleasure may be shown to be the same as the appetlte for practlcal needs, th al 1 Wordsworth tells us mevltably dlstract readers trom poetry IS the Idea that glve Ms [} Its aura of frestl and exclMg dlscovery roughly two years after The Buined Cottage had begun to take shape (Ms A,

1 i 797) There IS httle need to prove that Tbe RUined Cottage IS about creaturely necessltles 1 Margaret's story from Ms A onwards IS one of emotlonal and physlcal depnvatlon ln ail but the narrowest legal sùn!:e, she was abandoned by ber husband Part of what drew the young man to the 1 Pedlar, and what kept them together in the the shade near the cottage, was not only a deslre tor communion, but also relief tram physlcal discomfort The Pedlar was hot trom his travelling, and the

1 narralor saw that hls hat had been dlpped rn the nearby weil, ta dnnk from and to cool hls head The 1 narralor made hls way to the pedlar surrounded by an "Insect host whlch gathered round my tacel And Joined thelr murmurs to the tedlous nOlsel Of seed of burstlOg go/se that crackled round" (D, Il 24· 1 26,) Such liVing energy would defy change from even the mos! demandlOg eye, and Wordsworth kept mamly intact the de!:icnptlon of the cottage and the natural senmg that one flOds ln Ms ° Insect 1 and organic energles consplred agarnst Ihe comfort of the narrator, and compelled hlm to seek the shade of "clustenng elms," Only then did he see the old man, and want the shelter and shade for

1 more than physical relief, for the "joy" of companionshlp wlth some one he knew and hked 1 Companronship is a creature comfort of a higher arder th an preservatIon from physlcal discomfort, Yet there was no real resentment stltched into the images of inSistent and "tedlous" 1 interference by insect or animal nature Mohmg sheep scraped thelr sldes on the door frame of the cottage, leaving "du Il red stams discoloured and stuck o'erl With tufts and halrs of wool" (D, l, 132-

1 333), and thin suggests sympathy for the phght of ammals rather than dlsgust for thelr encroachments 1 on human senslbibties, The close descnptions of nature, and the representatlons of the household details that tell of Margaret's slow dissolution, are among the poem's most pleasrng aspects One's 1 emotionaf and aesthetic sensiblhlies cannot flounsh wlthout domestic comforts, and the dark fruit of th,s therne, much dar1

1 shaJowy, Iyncal vlew of "what man has made of man," IS Margaret's agony of depnvatlOn This was due

nol so much to what man has made of man ln wlde social terrns -her unemployed husband lelt her to

become a soldler, one thread ln the poem's rrch fabnc - but to what man falls 10 make of man ln local

and Indllliduai terms Apparently no one but the Pedlar came 10 the aSslstélnce of MarÇJarel. and the

help that he cou Id oHer her wa5 hmlted

i Tho aeslnetlc themes appear to have taken shape from the fantasy of the "dreamlng man" IS t the flrst hnes ot the poem What gave nse to the image of "hlm who on the soft cool grassl Extends hls careless hmbs," who 'wlth sldelong eye tooks out upon the scene" was the narralor's awareness of 1 the burdens of reallty "Other 101 was mine" (D, Il. 14-18) And indeed it was "other," pestered by , In5ects etc The combat wlth nature 15 sm ail and alrnost comlca!. The main ide a of the opening lines was to retleet the narrator's movemenl from antma! reality tl) aesthetic dream, hl') deslre for an "other,"

deeper experrence than reality could aHord. When he encountered the Pedlar, reclinlng on a bench,

1 a IranqUlI dreamworld seems about to unfold. Yet the frneness of the story told by the Pedlar always 1 lies in the close, sometlmes uncomfortable relationships between the poetlc "dream," whlch Immerses taet ln lynclsm, and the press of reallly. 1 The most unappealing feature of the poem, which nevertheless helps to mark It as unrquely Wordsworth';;, IS the manner in which the moral terrain of the poem was divided !nto Iwo unequal

J ,'''ares, the power 01 rnquiry and Instruction allotted excluslvely to the Pedlar, and the "other lot" of 1 emotlonal and physical response given to his fl'lend. In his critlcism Wordsworth used the language of necessity ta suggest that the reader 15 more ammal, less controlled than the contemplatIve Poet, and

1 It was not only ln hls cnticism that Wordsworth tned to humble and humanize the reader. The characters who sweat, dnnk water, teel insect bites, or !ater, near the end of part one, hear the

1 "melody" of "files" . the perception of "insects" changes then. perhaps as the resu~ of the story's 1 luI/mg influence - sometlmes disappear behind staternents meant to condition the relationshlp between the poet and hls readers. A lessl,n such as '''It were a wanlonness ":'ïld would demandl 1 Severe ~epr .Jof, If we were Men whose heartsl Could hold vain daillance wlth the miseryl Even of the dead, contented thence to drawl A mome!'ltary pleasure never marked 1 By reason .. " Even if one 1 1 = i 1

1 th!' .) of these Imes as pomtlng to sublime Reason, rather than to analytlcal reasomng. they remam 1 stndent, pontlflcatmg, and mcongruous wlth the gentle personahly of the Pedlar (D. il 221-226) Such Imes Impllcate some unreasonable belng whose morbld response~ tf'\ death and mlsery seem 1 far removed Irom the qUiescent frlend Yet the Imes suggesl that he. and al' .'eaders of traglc stones.

need la be admonlshed for bemg unreasonable ln thls way The Irlend takes thls "reprool" sllently,

1 presumably havmg taken Into account the ImplicatIOn of the pronoun "we," by whlch the Pedlar 1 magnammously mcludes hlmself as a possible beneflelary 01 hls lesson on "vam dalhance" But there IS much room for doubt that the frrend analyses the Pedlar's speech for clues to hls mollves and 1 meanmgs He' IS active ln recelVlng the Pedlar's teachtngs, and, Imphcltly, ln admlrlng hls wlsdom The relations Detween poets and readers deplcted by thls poem are elearly based on pnnclples 01 power 1 and authonty, rather than on an equahtanan pnnclple Llke the Pedlar, the poet had "made" a self­ 1 contalned world of Imagination from the humblest matenals of eXistence, a cottage and a garden And, perhaps ln part because of the problems posed by Ihe theme of necesslly, Il was a world that he 1 was unwllhng to share wlth readers until1814,Iong after the poem was concelved and substantlally wnlten, 1 Wordsworth was nght!o keep "stnet necesslty," the debate on free Will and necesslty, ouI of The Bumed Cottage, and nght ln a less certain way to use hls addenda on necesslty ln the patently

1 instructive Book IV of The Excursion, rather then in Book 1. The response of the "Author" can now be 1 profltably recalled, the words Ihat "sank lOto me, Ihe bounteous glft! Of one whom tlme and nature had made wise/ Graclng hls doctnne wrth authontyl Which hostile spmts sllently allow/ Of one ln whom 1 persuasion and bellet! Had npened into falth , " The "doctnne" Wordsworth was refernng to here was probably the doctnne of necesslty, whlch he had wanted to make less "hostile" to the passion of the

1 poet, and to the creative pnnclple, But It dld not seem to matter to Wordsworth at th's pomt whether Il

is freedom or necesslty that rules the poetlc "lot· Because Ihere 15 not a stlmulatmg tension of

1 Images and ideas in these eoncluding lines does not me an that what they say was not proloundly

1 1 believed by Wordsworth. Like the "J\uthor's" response, the "Essay, Supplementary" would soon also 1 1 ------1 99 1 suggest that readmg IS ôll "auxl!',Jr" actlvlty, subject to the persuasions and bellets of the poet, whlch J ln the nght reader wou/d be "npened rnto talth." J

J ,1 ) ) ) J )

.1 ,)

) J J J J 1 1

Chapter 4 Ghost-Readers ln the 1798 Lvrlcal Ballads and Peter Bell 1

Wordsworth's cnllelsm helps one to see Ihat The BUlDed Cottage IS tacltly opposed to any mode of

1 poetlc readlng that would honour analytlcallnvestlgatlOn and ludgment wlthout acknowledgmg that a 1 pnmary leglslator of moral and aesthetlc laws 15 the poet The Pedlar's campa' lion embodled the reader who can reap the rewards of admiratIon However, Wordsworth's search for flxed pnnclples, 1 such as the law of necesslty, that would explam why the reader must "pertorce" Immerse hls purposes ID those of the poet, was as tentative ln the The Rumed Conage as It was ln the essays and prefaces

1 ln both settlngs, cntical and poetlc, Wordsworth's concepts of reader-response were presented ln 1 terms that reslst stnct definltlon The 1798 Lyncal Ballads, mamly composed dunng the tlme that Ms B of T!".e Rumed Cottag.e, was takmg shape, al 50 Ideahzed ~ reader who IS qUleseent, contemplative, and 1 amenable to the poet's gUidance. However, unhke The RUJOed Cottage, the Ballads presented actual readers, mterpreters of "L:nes wntten," m the proeess of learnmg the moral advantages of the

1 admmng response, and the undeslrablhty of Indulglng thelr inclinations ta "dlssect Ihe Ideas" of a

poet, ta "deteet hls errors, new model hls systems" ln the hope of arnvmg at an autonomous,

1 authontallve )udgment CE, 364) 1 1 Geoffrey Hartman noted the lack of vIsible hterary-hlstoncal allusions ln Wordsworth's poetry, and consldered the consequences of thls for the knowledgeable reader "Now the one kmd of echo 1 missing from Wordsworth's poetry, or very earefully used when used at ail, IS the echo we cali a Ilterary

allUSion. The IIterary echo, ln Wordsworth, 15 'reduced' ta expenence ThIS groundmg of allUSion ln

1 expenence -In the personal and mortal expenence of tlme - has an unexpected result Take away the 1 play of allUSIon, the eomfarting ground of hterary-hlstarical texture, and you place the burden of responslveness dtt'eetly on the reader. ,,2 Lyncal 8allads strove ta break wlth tradlllon, but It 15 hlghly 1 allUSIve in the sense of belng woven fram tradttlonal poetlc forms, as weil as Irom prevalhng Ideas on morality and aesthetics Robert Mayo has established Its aesthettc "contemporaneity," and others,

1 such as Jacobus and Glen, have placed It in the context of current moral, SOCIal, and phllosophleal 1 1 , '0'

norms 3 However, except for the bnef "Advertlsement," the Ballads dld not partlclpate 10 the

contemporary debate on readrng taste and habits by overtly alludrng to "entics," or to partlcular rules

and theones of rcadlng The alm was to challenge the moral-aesthellc precepts of the audience by

provldrng them wlth InnOvatlve, rnstructlve "models of composition" The later elghteenth-century

texts on readlng that formed the "ground" for the diSCUSSion of the essays and prefaces were not

chosen because they are "comfortmg," ln the sense of conformlng wlth Wordsworth's cnticism But

thase texts now become, more patently than before, a background to the diScussion, slnce there IS f , h!tle to be galned from demonstratlng that they are also incompatible with lhe concepΠof readrng ln Wordsworth's poems

Paul Sheats has pornted out that "Expostulatlon and Reply" and "The Tables Turned," poems

1 to be conSldered ln thls chapter, cannot be read as "a sober summary of Wordsworth's doctrine of

nature ,,4 They are equally reslstant to interpretation as summanes of necessltanan beltefs, or as the 1 enactment of a theory of readlng However, both readrng and necesslty are slgntficant themes of t these poems, resonallng wlth the same themes ln Wordsworth's cntlclsm, and mvoktng a simllar sense 01 mterpretlve responslblflty This "burden of responslveness" entalls deepenrng the Immediate

1 pleasures of reaa .. lg by examtntng Its most baSIC purposes. What does one hope to gain by readtng

poeti)'? What constltutes a profitable readlng expenence? Such questions have ethlcal as weil as

1 aesthetlc dImensions, and ln beth respects Wordsworth's cntlcal "struggle" wlth hls readers, only Just 1 beginnrng ln the 1798 "Advertlsement," drew on the quiet strength of hls poems

t " Readers of Superlor Judgment

1 The "Advertisement" anticlpated that It would appear ta "Readers of supenor judgment" that the , "author has sometlmes c:lescended too low, and that many of hls expressions are too famlliar, and not of sufflclent dignity " This was an admonrshment, not an apology. Wordsworth implied that such 1 readers may suppose that the purpose of hls poe ms is to flatter thelr sense of superiority wlthout also IlIumrnatrng Its potentlal pltfalls. Who better to shed this Instructive light than the poet who daily 1 1 1 102

1 survives hls sell-lr"merSlons? One of the earhest wntten BaliadG, "Llnes left upon a Seat ln a Yew- 1 Tree" (composed 1797) Invelghed agamst the "man, whose eye/ls ever on hlmsell," who IS Incapable of "Iowllness of heart," and brought mto clearer locus the sophlsllcated reader addressed ln the

1 1 "Advertlsement"

The Yew-Iree poem opens wlth a restrammg gesture that portends a restless reader, and then

1 off ers hlm a vlewon nature

-"Nay, Travellerl rest This lonelv yew-tree stands Far from ail human dwelling. what Il here 1 No sparkhng nvulet spread the verdant herb, What If these bar,en boughs ttJe bee not loves, Yet, If the wlnd breath soft, ttle curling waves, 1 That break agamst the shore, shalliull thy mmd By one soft Impulse saved Irom vacancy 1 Nature can be sensuously femmme, "soft"-breathmg, "curling," and can "Iull thy mlnd" But

1 she IS presently "barren" Her capaclty for breathmg new hfe mto the Traveller's Spirit seems 10

depend entirely, precanously therefore, on hls wllhngness ta rest and to read the "Lmes" As ln

1 Wordsworth's cnllclsm, conditions are Imposed on the poers capaclty 10 dlreC!ly Improve the reader's 1 "mmd" The Yew-Tree poem suggests tha! a discursive mme! can hnd repose only"lf" It 15 capable of admlttmg nature's "soft Impulse" The intention IS to arrest as weil as to appease wlth Images of 1 solitude the Traveller's smgle-mmded sense 01 purpose, whlch the openmg Imes suggest IS hls

search for a "human dwelhng," a savmg destination. The Traveller 15 readmg the "wntten," and one 15

1 led to ask how hls sense of purpose can be conceived of m terms of hls situation as a reader, and how 1 that situation refleets the poem's morallessons on "pnde" and "contempt .. The "vacancy" Irom whlch the Traveller's mmd must be saved IS m the "barren" landscape, 1 distant from humankmd The anonymous "Lmes" bndge thls dl~tance, but they also accentuate It, signitymg the sense of ahenalion that mheres ln the relations between poets and readers The poet

1 had assumed that the Traveller's senses must be depleted, and that, in the absence of actual hUï.lan 1 contact, they can be revltahzed by the beauty that is Vlrtualln the landscape The poet ca Ils upon hls powGrs of concentration, tested and tempered by his journey, to locate thls hldden beauty But ln 1 1 J 103 J order to see It, hls powers of concentration must be softened, transformed from the sing!e­ J mmdedness reflected by the sohtary yew The command to rest and the posslbility of boredom or anxlety converge ln "vacancy" to plompt the Traveller'~ 'r ;1'nct for preservmg what is "human" m the

f landscape, hlmself and the /Ines that he Will perhaps commit to memory The promlsed lu" offers him an opportunlty for a/ertness heightened by relaxation, in which he can yield his need to make

1 progress to the Spirit of spontaneity that Makes reading more than reasonlng and observation, 1 lourneymg more than gruehngly purposlve, The purpose underlyrng Wordsworth's traveller-reader metaphor IS reflected in Co/eridge's 1 diSCUSSion of Wordsworth's poetry ln Bjograohja LlteraDa (Book IV): "Th3 reader should be carrred forward, not merely or chlefly by the mechanical impulse of cunosity, or by a rest/ess desire to arrive at J the final solution, but by the pleasurable activity exclted by the aHractions of the journey Itself."

Wordsworth's "soft ImpL'lse" clearly opposes "mechanical impulse," but this does not me an that the .1 intention was to undermine Godwln's socially onented doctnne of necessity. Jacobus argued that ) "The lesson preached by the Yew-tree /ines is a Godwinian one of altruistic, seH-rewarding involvement in socIety." ln his Lectures on Oratory and CriUcjsm, Joseph Pnestley used the travel­ J reader metaphor to explam his position on the doctrine of necessity: "Whatever motive it was that tirst put our 'aculties in motion, it iS ... the charfTIs of novelty that keep up the vigour of their exertion, And a

J happy provision it is in our constitution, that when great and important motives, form the neeessary '1 nature of things .. .there are a variety of other subsidiary springs of action at hand, which are sufficient to carry on the work with vigour.,. Thus a person undertakes a journey with a view to some advantage J he expects to derive from it, yet he may soon lose sight of this, and, notwithstandmg, continue to travel with pleasure: not propelled by his original impulse, but entertained with a variety of seenes

1 which his change of place continually presents him wlth." It is interesting to ponder the Yew-Tree ') poem's "charms" and "impulse" in the context of Priestlay's comments, but there is IIHle internai evidence to suggest a direct attempt to humanize the doctrine of r.ecessity,5 l The anecdote that follows the opening lines binds text and Travel/er more closely, and shows that the poet wanted to teach a moral·aesthetic lesson rather than apotheosize a spirit of ) 1 1 104

1 Impulslveness. He wanted the Traveller to learn that pnde converts spontanelty into rashness, open­ 1 mrndedness mto self-absorption, and a potentlally beneflclal readrng expenence Into one that 15 barren. Reflectmg the bleak landscape, the biographical and narratIve detalls of the anecdote are 1 minimal. Its subject IS a reclu;:;e who bUilt the seal ln the Yew-Tree, and who was "In youth, by genlus nursed." Since the poem is already 50 firmly rooted ln a partlcular place, thls phrase pOtnts to the

1 gemus locI of the Yew-Tree, the lonely spirit towards whom the recluse had been drawn even as a 1 child.6 Il primarily suggests prodigious intelligence, "no common soul" Gifted by nature, the young man went out into the world "pure ln hls heart, against the talnt! Of dissolute tongues, 'garnst jealousy, 1 and hate,! And scorn, agatnst ail enemies prepared." Yet, he was deeply wounded by an unexpected enemy, "neglect," the Indifference of the world to a mlnd "big with loft y views." Instead of 1 persevenng, "he turned away,! And with the food of pride sustalned his souilln solitude" The poet interrupted the anecdote to again speak dlrectly 10 the Traveller, promplrng hlm Iv

1 identlfy his solitude with that of the recluse. The poet th en pictured the recluse ln the company of a 1 series of natural solitaries, "stragghng sheep," "stone chat," and "sand-pIper." Rather than console the recluse as signs of Nature's sympathy, these "charms" only deepened hls sense of Isolation 1 ("Roned as by a charm, my IIfe became a fJoating island," Wordsworth would later wnte of hls youthful habit of resting alone, tocussing only on himseH: "Reposed in noontide rest, the tnner pulse of

1 contemplation almost fai/ed to beat." [1805 erelude III, Il 337-3400.]) The poem precedtng 1 Wordsworth's "Unes ... ," Coleridge's "The Foster-Mother's Tale," whlch also has readlng as one of ItS themes, portrayed Nature as wrapping an abandoned child ln "mosses," 'thlstle-beards" and "wool."? 1 But the recluse was encircled by "gloomy boughs," "barren rocks, with jumper,! And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er." 1 An important part of the reason why the poet addressed the Traveller wlthln the anecdote was to imply connections between the act of reading and the recluse "Fixing his downward eye" The

1 "morbid pleasure nourished" by this fixity obviously stemmed trom the allurements of pride and self­ 1 pity, trom introspection. "Downward" means something very different from the "inward thought" recommended at the end of the poem. The fallure of the recluse, which foreshadowed hls actual 1 1 1 105

death, was to fully engage the "Sllent hour of inward thought" 50 that he could "suspect" the motives j underlymg hls Isolation The recluse had been "traeing heret An emblem of hls own unfrUltfullife " "Here" is most centrally the words the Traveller bends over to read, an extensive Inscription or, since 1 the recluse IS dead, an epltaph.8 Bearing on the Traveller's situation as a reader, the lesson on pride becomes more speclflc. To read the poem wisely, Ihe Traveller must forgo the "morbid pleasure" of j self-Indulgence ) Looking 1010 the abyss of her disillusionmenl, Margarel's "eyes were downward cast" (D, 377) The recluse 15 also pictured as stanng "downwards," but then lifting hls head and looking out on the

,1 landscape'

And lifting up hls head, he then would gaze '1 On the more distant scene; how lovely 'tis Thou seest, and he would gaze tillit became Far loveller, and his heart could not sustain 1 The beauty still more beauteous.

J The Travelter implicitly imitates this "gaze." What is its nature? Repeated, Il takes on special emphasis, ) The IiftlOg of the head to stare out on the "more distant scene" suggests a contemplative gaze. Vet this could only have resulted in a moral sensation for the Traveller, who learns that the 5elf-lmmersed i mlnd has only a limlted capaCity for pleasures "Far lovlier." The recluse's depressmg interiority permits him only ''tears'' and "moumful jOY," and staves off the ccnsohng power of beauty. Bath see beyond

) Isolated elements of landscape 10 harmony, Nature's soft Impulse flowering into a 'beauty still more

beauteous," ln which shadows of the recluse's rejected pa st can be glimpsed. benevolent beings

1 who found in the world of men trom which the recluse had turned away a beaut)' "kindred" 10 nature, J and also to human kindness. But this encourages the Traveller 10 leave behind the allurements of solitude that Imprisoned the recluse, and to seek out the company of benevolent men, 50 tha! he Will

not have to "think that others felt! What he must never feel." The urge ta stay must be strong, for the

poet's final words to this "Stranger" are stern, and deliberately calculated to send him on his way: "If

J thou be one whose heart the holy formsl Of young Imagination have kept pure,! Stranger! henceforth 1 106

1 be warned ... " The anecdote constructs a situation in which the Traveller, once he has learned the 1 mtended lesson, may leel supenor to others, even to those who have "no common soul" The ensUing warnings agamst pride, contempt, and scorn, contront thls posstbthty

1 The second and final segment of the poem l'~ manlfestly instructive, and thls can seem

unnecessary "If" the Traveller tS the '"vise reader . f :tnted for the "lInes," and wasted If he tS not The

1 "wlsdom .. that true knowleuge 19ads to love" i 3avlly underlines the lesson on benevolence that the 1 anecdote had more deftly taught The resourceful manner m which the anecdote reflected the Traveller's Clrcumstances as a reader IS abruptly displaced by sermonlc "maJesty," suggestlng that the 1 poet may be feeding on the pride that he wants readers to lorgo. The sMt trom gentle Iyncism to pulpit eloquence was a signal to the Traveller that his Joumey must soon be renewed, If he 15 not to fall 1 prey to the delusions of solitude. But If the wamings had not carned wlth them an element of vulnerablhty, the y mlght have left the Trnveller more reheved than regretful that the poet was absent

1 from the setting. He would not feel this way, for he wOI,.jld have seen that the recluse's "enemles" are 1 emblematic of the poet's own enemies, of his instinctive urge to protect hls art from scorn and mdifference. The Traveller would have ieahzed that the poet, ln splte of deeply lelt apprehenslons 1 about how his words would be recelved, had separated himself from hls poem, and left Il behtnd lor others to enJoy

1 ln spite of the lact that the Traveller's gender iD not grammatically identilled, he can be seen as 1 a conventionally male presence mirrored by the proud recluse. The "soft Impulse" and "Ioveliness" that can save him Irom "vacancy" are just as conventlonally female The Yew-Tree poet Idealized a 1 female principle ln nature, Magna mater, and slren of the "curling waves" This remforced his indictment of a negatlve model of manhood, 'The man, whose eyel Is ever on himself," tha! ret/eUs a

1 negative model of the reader. The Traveller, whom the poet supposes to have the moral and 1 intellectual capacitles to understand him 'ully, has been taught by the ·'L1nes" to be self-effacing ln "the silent hour of inward thought." Such readers are reqUired to recaver a vital essence, "young 1 imagination," free trom the vices that can aHend "inward thought," the inwardness and willfulness that. 1 1 1 107

1 as taught by the essays and pwfaces, can le ad the reader to believe that the truths he carries away t trom hls encounters wlth poetry are entirely the product of his taste and judgment Llke the essays and prefaces, the Yew-Tree poem grounded the concept of an active

1 response to poe>try ln a Splnt of Intimacy and affirmation "True knowledge leads to love" Ali other , pathways potentially lead to "contempt." James Beattie had recalled that "Admiration, says Plata, IS the mother of wlsdom," and the opposite of admiratlo is contemptio.9 This points to the superlative 1 power being extolJed ln the Yew-Tree poem, a power that is made to seem less ambivalent th an the appearances of Nature, who, depending on the perceiver, can seem beautlful or barren, and stronger 1 than Wisdom, who makes contempt "unlawful," but, as the poet implies, cannot msure that a "wise man" will not be moved to seorn those who ar~ self-immersed.

1 The Yew-Tree poem is an Indictment c' the proud reader insofar as he takes a greater 1 "pleasure" ln his authonty, autonomy, and "genius" ,han in eommuning with the poet. Perhaps the poet had not entirely conquered his own pride, but it is clear that he speaks 'rom his experience with 1 this struggle Seeing the poem as a projection of this inner contest helps one ta understand why the self-isolatmg poet-narrator of the companion poems, "Expostulation and Reply" and ''The Tables

1 Tumed" felt compelled ta quahfy his claim to be wiser than an inquisltive, booklsh "friend" named

Matthew. These poems do not share the elegiac purpose of the Matthew poems in the 1800 editlon,

t "If nature for a favourite Child," ''Two April Mornings," and "The Fountain." The expostulating Matthew 1 was not descnbed, as in "If nature for a favourite Child" and ''Two April Mornings," as a "schoclmaster." , He has the authontative aura of a schoolrnaster, but his relationship with the poet is primarily one of equals, as in the "pair of Friends" of "The Fountain."

ln "Expostulation and Reply," the first of the companion poems, Matthew discovers William

1 sitting on a stone by a lake, and wants to know

1 "Why William, on that old grey stone, Thus for the length of half a day, Why William, sil Vou thus alone,' 1 And dream your time away? 1 J ft 1 108

Where are your books? that light bequeathed 1 To beings else forlorn and blmdl Upl Up! and dnnk the spint breathed 1 From dead men to thelr kmd You look round on your mother earth, As If she for no purpose bore, 1 As if Vou were here flrst-born blrth, And none had IIved before you. 1 Matthew IS plalnly used to motivating those around him. But there IS nothmg self-nghteous or

1 pontifical about Matthew's speech. Although his voice reflects the perSlstence of one accustomed to 1 provokmg repiies, exammmg motives, his tone IS not patronlzrng or confrontatlonal He advances no moral or mtc"lectual premlse for "debate ,,10 He simply wants William, for hls own good, to read books, 1 preferably ones that have stood the test of time, that oreathe the spirit of classlcal antlqulty Although there are slight hints of exasperatlon ln hls speech, of propnety and efflciency offended, his manner 15

1 that of a concerned friend, not of one who IS makmg a case for hls supenor point of vlew on "books" The vigorous "Up! Upl" only indlcates Matthew's approval of the pervasive ethlc of sound

1 mind, sound body, an indisputable one, except perhaps for students who may feel bulhed by It 1 Matthew's exclamatIons are not an Invitation to a contest of words, but a krndly, dissuaSive exhortation Yet an accomphshed later eighteenth-century student was qUite literally tramed up, taught to stand 1 and deliver in debate and oralion. Wordsworth works thls phrase mto hls portrait of Nature as feacher in Book III of the 1805 prelude. lie nad been "tramed up ln paradlse," "tratned up to stand

1 unproppedl And independent musmgs pleased me sol That spells seemed on me when 1was alone." 1 (II. 377; 230-232.) The setting for these musings is Cambridge, a "field of contest" for manly "combatants," and Wordsworth was polntlng towards an ideal form of education \il which 1 oneupmanship plays no part. In "Expostulation and Reply," William clearly feels tha! he is bemg both challenged and upbralded by MattheN, and he defends his "mdependent musings" on !ha! basis.

"Expostulabon and Reply" and "The Tables Turned" suggest how misleading are our

perceptions of physical appearances. What triggers Matthew's perception that William ought to be

reading a book, is that, like a student in a classroom, he is seated. "That old grey stone." on whlch 1 1 , 109

1 William 15 Sitting 15 ln Matthew's mlnd an emblem of stasis, of both a penlous vacancy of mind and a 1 potent,a' Intellectual vigour Wllham's reply suggests that he IS also gUilty of misperceptlon After the , hearty expostulallon, Wllllétm's vOlee ln stanza four sounds subrnrsslve "One mornlng thus, by Esthwalte lake,l When hfe was sweel 1knew not why,/ To me my good fnend Matthew spake,/And Ihus

1 made reply" The delayed introduction to the Isolated settrng, which IS near the sa me "Lake

1. Eslhwana" polnted to by the long tille of the Yew-Tree poem, IS close to the mlddle of the poem, and t trom th,s pOint onwards, and throughout "The Tables Turned," the speech that William records IS hls own Nevertheless, as the tltle "Expostulation and Reply" makes clear, the campa mon poe ms are ta 1 be conSldered as dialoglcal. The fourth slanza IS the exception. It is there that William has the opportunity ta estabhsh his

1 authorial control over the dialogue by mterpretlng Matthew's remarks befora gomg on to report hls

reply. William was unwilhng ta do this. It IS not that he was incapable of taklng actvantage of this J opportumty The reply shows that he 15 fully capable of seH-assertlon. The "1 knew not why" is not the 1 shrug ot Indifference that It might at tirst appear ta be. It ics an admission that counterpolnts his contentlOUS reply la Matthew. In spite of his seH-justifying reply, perhaps he really did not know why 1 he spent hait a day in idleness Heanng Matthew called "my good fnend" softens one's perception of Matthew as an authonty tlgure, and also paves the way to seelng dlfferences between the poet­

t narrator's wistful tone ln the retrospective stûnza four and the rather cool, shghtly Irritable reply he had 1 glven to Matthew, recorded ln the remainder of the poem. William gave himseH a greater share of the dialogue than he gave to Matthew (16 Il. to 12 Il.), 1 and this can lead one to think that William gets the "upper hand in the argument."11 Paul Sheats argued that because the difference in lining is relatively small and counterbalanced by the fact that

1 Matthew speaks first there is no real winner ln this friendly conflict. 12 The thought content of the reply J obvlously outweighs that of the expostulatlon. William's c/alm to be 'reading' Nature is a just one, and he philosophically 'won' the moment by showing Matthew that appearances mask a deeper reahty. Yet 1 this was not a moral victory because it was based on his misinterpretation of Matthew's benevolent 1 1 , 1 110

1 intentIon Although Matthew's approach was frrendly, Wilham felt the need to defend hlmsetf by 1 pomtrng out that

'The eye it cannot choose but see, 1 We cannat bld the ear be stIll: Our bodIes tee l, where' er they be, Agarnst, or wlth our wIll.

1 Nm less 1deem that there are powers Whlch of themselves the mrnd Impress, That we ,:an teed thls mrnd of ours, 1 ln a wise passlveness 1 The lines are informed by two arguments on necessity: physiologlcal (the body IS always berng acted 1 upon, and reactll1g to physical sensatIons, whlch are not willed but experienced) and quasl-rehglous (this natural cause and effect process 'proves' that our senslbihlies are al ail tlmes belng shaped by 1 mysterious "powers" beyond the reach of wIll power). Blalostosky suggestea that "William uses the first persan singular only once in the core of hls

1 reply 10 claim as his own the beliets that he declares about the mind and the powers that work on It," 1 and that William's use of thlrd person pronouns such "we" and "ours" IS evidence of his effort to mclude Matthew ln his communing.13 This can be also understood as coerClve, a metorrcal devlce 1 meant to bring Matthew onslde. The reply continues' "Think vou, 'mid ait th,s mighty surrJ Of things forever speaking,l That nothing of itself will comel But we must still be speaklng?" Manhew probably

1 feels both surpnsed al this turn of events aoo trapped by Wilham's irrefutable loglc Ta answer contrarily wou Id be to advance the absurd proposition that man has the capacity to be ln complele

1 control of his life by merely invoking his will, and exerting it over the "mighty sum" of nature and 1 humanity, a proposition already set down by the uncertainty of thls one moment. On the other hand,

to agree wou Id be to sanction William's idleness. Wisely, Matthew kept silent. Willtam interpreted h. J 1 silence as acquiescence or agreement, for he went on 10 dismiss the who le questIon of ''wherefore'' 1 he is sitting there. It should be perfectly obvious, he implied, to any one who wishes to !ruly "thmk" why one should occasionally sit and do nothing, since this is the best way to take ln nounshment Irom 1 1 • 1 111

1 nature's powers The conclusion was made to seem inevitable "-Th en ask not wherefore, here, 1 alone,! Converslng as 1may,! 1Slt upon Ihls old grey slone,! And dream my tlme away" The negatlve connotations glven 10 speaking and conversmg m th(~ reply can seem odd ln 1 the context of oral or ballad poetry, and ln terms of Wordsworth's contention lhat hls poems are expenmenls ln the "language of conversation. "Converslng as 1 may" IS a clever way of cutting off the

1 posslbllltyof a real conversation, begglng Matthew's leave to continue communlng ln silence wlth 1 Nature, and also politely but polntedly asklng hlm to leave William seemed to be underminlng the Ideals of both the art of readmg and the art of conversation that form the bnef creed of the 1 "Advertisement" By showlng Imoatlence at Matthew's intrusion wlth such Vlh,~tted phrases as "Thmk you" and "ask not," the overt hmt of "alone" ln the last stanza, William was reJe~lng "conversation wlth 1 a frlend," as weil with books, the "severe thought, and a long, conllnued Intercourse with the best

models of composition" that both Matthew and Wordsworth recommend That IS why William sald ln

1 the Intermediate stanza that life "was sweet" (my italics). It is no longer sweet, and part of the reason 1 must be that, m order to commune with his own thoughts and with Nature, he IS remembering turnmg his back on a "good friend," who embodied both the wisdom of books and a benevolent urge to glve 1 the de ad letter a living VOlce, communicative and persona!. His expostulatlon reminds one that poems

should be fipoken as weil as read silently.14 "Ex postulation and Reply" IS never so sombre as the

1 Yew-Tree poem, but both poems warn of the dangers of silent thought, self-immersion Unlike the 1 Yew-Tree poet, William p!ays openly with the idea of the nec,assary response Matthew's speech and presence necessitated thf:l reply that William could not help but give. And William consclously freed 1 hlmself from the moral shortcoming inherent in his reply by silently pondenng its negatlve effects on his relatlonship with Matthew, and by taking the responsiblhty for softening those effects.

1 The phrase "1 knew not wh y" in stanza four suggests William's present bellef that the cut and 1 thrust of the reply, however Intellectually sound, was morally unsatisfying. "The Tables Tumed" relnforces the thought content of the reply, but it is also an imphclt apology to Matthew for not 1 understanding the benevolent intention of his intrusion: "Up! up! my friend and clear your looks,! J Why ail this t011 and trouble?/ Up! up' my friend and quit your books,! Or surely you'lI grow double." 1 1

1 This echo of Matthew's speech IS both amiable and îeaslng Il suggests that Matthew was nght. the 1 mmd and body must be energetlcally exerclsed to become fit. and that he was wrong to thmk that bC'oks alone can satlsfy the mmd's discursive spmt. Wilham turns the tables on hlmself as weil as on hls 1 studious fnend Accordmg to Johr·:;on's p!ct!onary, "To turn the tables" means ta change the condition or fortune of two contendlng parties" (my Itahcs) The other echo ln th,s stanza, a patently

1 hterary one - a rare occurrence ln the Ballads as Hatlman Imphed - leveals Wllham's affection for books 1 "toil and trouble" and "double" allude to the famous incantation of the wltches m Macbeth (Iater reinforced by the hne "We murder to dlssect"), and perhaps Macbeth IS among the books of "science 1 and of art" that Matthew has spread out before him, that cast a spell over hlm, maklng hlm appear gloomy, doubled over like the Cumberland Beggar William begms stanza three by saying "Books! 'tlS 1 a du" and endless stnte" The pomt IS that books must not alw lyS be thought of as synonymous wllh the reading expenence A book is only one form of readlng, and, as m "Lmes wntten at a small

1 distance. ," a natural expenence analogous to book-readlng, more sUitable to days in whlch the sun !S 1 predominant, is urged. Ali of stanza two IS devoted to the mellowlng power of the sun One notices, however, that the poet IS no longer being pontifical about the moral and philosophlcallmphcallons of 1 thls nalural power He IS not conferring knowledge on Matthew by saymg "1 deem " Books! ~is a du" and endless stnfe" contains a grammatlcal'error' or ehslon The singular '''Ils''

1 does not agree wlth "Books." To be grammatically correct, the line wou Id have to be "Books are ," or 1 If If tl'1e empha51S 15 to be preserved, perhaps "Books' what... .. There are a small number of gerunds Implicltly preceding "Books," of which the most obvlous are "Reading" and "Studymg," that would 1 complete the agreement wlth "tis" However, the most hkely candidate ln the context of the poem IS Dissecting. William, a "double" here of Wordsworth as both critic and poel, IS secretly chldlng the 1 textual analyst idealized by GodwIn, Stewart and others The elislon IS aIse an 'out' for William, smce Il suggests that he is not scoffing at the analytlcal mode of readmg per se The moods of tedlum,

1 contempt, and contentiousness that mlght result from thls mode are hls primary targets The 1 altemative reading mode would be comparable to a fOyful, shared responsiveness to Nature's mUSIcal and visu al languages. (The trace of the past tense of "ta read" IS ln Nature's "world of ready wealth ") 1 1 1 113

1 Once out of the dlalectlcal mould of "Expostulatlon and Reply," Wllham's thlrd person pronouns no 1 longer seem coerclve As m "Tmtern Abbey," "our mmds and hearts" can only be blessed If we "Let Nature" gUide us Knowledge about the mmd and the Mart are shared wlth Matthew, not conferred

1 on hlm Part of what IS accomphshed in 'Expostulatlon ana ;- ''1ly'' and "The Tables Turned," wlth an

ease that makes a simllar purpose ln The Rumed Cottage seem ponderous, IS the humanlzatlon of 1 necessltanan beliefs "Mmds" are seen as Irl~vltably shaped by vast sensory and spmtual "powers," and these can manlfest themselves ln an Instructive "one impulse from a vemal wood" or mu ch more f nearly ln the vOlce of a fnend More Important th an the phllosophical creed shaprng the reply, partlcularly wh en one recalls what the other Wordsworth ballads suggest about the moral diSpositions

1 of the poet and hls Ideal reader, IS the way that the persuasive power of loglc, without at ail berng

denled, IS made secondary to that of friendship, Rather than refer the reader to an emblematic thlrd

1 party, such as the recluse in the Yew-Tree poem, 'Nha reflects the "morbld" tendenCles of "Readers of 1 supenor ludgment," the poet-narrator of the companion poems enacts the defeat of those tendencles m hlmself, He models the moral relations between poels and readers by accountrng for 1 his assumptlon of authority over another, and on two levels: on thaï of reason ("The eye It cannot chuse but see .. ,") and on the more slgniflcan! level of friendshlp ("Truth breathed by cheerfulness"),

1 The companlon poems suggest that the need of readers to "struggle" with authors, ta master 1 books, 15 benetiClal rnsofar as thls done m an affec!ionate spirit of shanng, The ethic invoked by the situation of the poems - the reconsideratlon of an intelle<.üJal r'esponse in the moral Irght of friendship - 1 points ta a potential rule forthe govemment of critlcal rpn; lS to books, a poem can be evaluated in terms of the most basic deslre of authors and readers, their need for communication and fraternity,

J more th an according ta the poem's susceptibility ta Iogical analysis As in the essays and prefaces, 1 one IS made aware that there IS a choice of pnonties to be made or denred, between analysls and admiration, The reader (or the poet at the other end of the continwJm of antiCipation and response) 1 who chooses to do as William does, and accept moral responslbility for his Interpretation of another, seeks a deeper, more human level of communication th an the one on which the dissecting reader 1 1

= 1 11 1

1 periorms The pnmary responslblhty of a reader, accordmg to the arguments and the example of cnllcs 1 such as Knlght, 15 to be accu rate according ta the measures of commen sense and loglc W,lham teaches us that belng nght IS not necessanly berng moral 1 1 Il. Silent Readers 1 The Yew-Tree poem and "The Tables Turned" appeal 10 an affirmative 5prnt ln the reader, hgured as a gentle "impulse." ln The PoeUcs ot Space (1958), Gaston Bachelard rnvoked thls same Spin! ln a way 1 that Illummates this Important theme of the Ballads' • harmany rn readrng 15 rnseparable from admiration We can admire more or less, but a sincere Impulse, a httle Impulse loward admtrallon, 15 1 always neces5ary .. The sllghtest cntlcal c;onslderatlon arrests thls Impulse ln th,s admiration, whlch goes beyond the passlvlty of contemplative attitudes, the 10y of readrng appears 10 be the reffectlon

1 of the JOY of wntmg, as though the reader were the wnter's g,jC Jt .. 15 Surpnsrngly, Ihls ImpresSlonrstlc 1 idealizatlon of the admlnng Impulse reffects Hume's down-to-earth vlew that the reader's "Ieast reflection disslpates the IllUSions of poetry, and places the obJects ln thelr proper Itght ,,16 However, 1 for both Bachelard and Wordsworth "active" admiration, more than cntlcal reffectlon, 15 the power thal places paelry ln Ils "proper lighl "

1 Clearly the Traveller and Matthew are ghost-readers rn the sense rntended by Bachelard , They mlrror the poet's JOY in camposlng his poem However, ln terms of the moral and pedagoglcal purposes they represent, Hume's pornt about cntical retlectlon bears consideration Contemplattng 1 these purpose5 can dlsslpate the agreeable illUSion that Matthew and the Traveller are human. not Just literary devlces convenient for the poet's instructive ai ms The forms that one must read wlth a worthy

1 eye, the apostrophe, the expostulation and reply, make Matthew and the Traveller necessary to the

poe ms by suggesting !helr general dispositions as readers of books, nature, and men But one may

1 be hard-pressed to see these charactenstic5 as belonging to indlVldually "human characters," actlvely 1 responding to the words or Unes of the poet-narratars. Matthew 15 presumably a somewhat voluble man, but this trait, whlch can be plc,ked up from his expostulation, IS subsumed wllhin the 1 1 J , 15 1 preponderant mmd and feelings of the poet-narrator Matthew's excursion trom watchful silence IS J bnet, and the Traveller makes no such excursion at ail They are readers, but It IS difflcult to see them vlvldly as participants m the poetlc scene, even when the dynamic Impulse at the heart of "lnward

1 thought" IS acknowledged Wlth the exception of Matthew, the figures ln the Ballads expllc~tly Identlfled as readers of the wntten are vOlceless presences, that can seem ghosthke tn the sense of

~ bemg dlsembodled, unreal The "reader" ln The RUfOed Cottage IS a passive presence, but his 1 humanlty IS never ln doubt The passlvlty that Wordsworth assigned to the readers ln the Lynca! Ballads can seem to

, undermtne the deslre for shared expenence and communication shaping the poems ln whlch they

appear 's the book-Iovlng "Slster" tn "Lmes wntten at a small distance," who reappears m "nntern

1 Abbey," qUiescent or merely acqUiescent? Blalostosky pomted out that the Iyrical forrns of these two 1 poe ms prevented her trom respondtng to her brother verbally: "Both poems in the Immedlacy of thelr lyric presentation do not allow for the dramatizlng or the reportmg of her response to the roles in whlch 1 she IS cast and leave us wlth the image of a speaker who has articulated hls deslres or hls hopes but not even momentanly fulfil/ed them ,,17 The tradltJonal 'I-thou' form of the Iync, does seem to 'disallow'

1 the presence of a second VOlce, even as It struggles to transcend Its intenonty, so Wordsworth's , choice of form seems to preclude any objections against the slsters sllence.18 Bialostosky's potnt is nevertheless worth pursUing ln the present context, SfOce Wordsworth has been thought of by cntics 1 such as Azepka as pre-f:imptmg the responses of hls impfled and inscnbed readers. 19 The reading images tn the Ballads are tied to a female jJnnc.iple ln nature, or to the domestlc

J affections, and sometlmes hcld up a mlrror to the female-reader per se One of the slgnlficant

changes Wordsworth made to the pass"ges he extracted from Salisbury Plain and entltled "The

1 Female Vagrant" (1798) was to make her an aVld reader. In The Rujned Cottage, Margaret's ''few 1 books," once snugly "plled up agamst the corner-panes/In seemly order," are "scattered here and there, open or shutl As thby .lad chanced to fall," are eVldence of disrupted domestic harmony (D, Il. 1 404-408). The books themselves seem about to become scatterhngs, homeless vagrants This does , little more th an suggest that M ugaret IS flterate. But the woman who narrates ''The Female Vagrant" 1 1 116

1 "read. and loved the books in whlch 1readJ For books ln every nelghbounng house 1 sought.! And 1 nothmg ta my mmd a sweeter pleasure brought .. The repetltlon of "books" and "read" suggests tha! her hunger for the wntten word was an almost desperate search for a "sweeter pleasure" than the

1 mode~;t bookshelves ln nelghbounng houses ~ould provlde The search would have entalled conversations. social contact. yet the books were her pnmary obJect There was of course a pragmatlc

1 reason for Wordsworth to Include tllis Image The situation of a village women speakrng mtelhgently. 1 poetically, needed to be Justitred. Yet, the plcture of a woman as responslve to the IIrst stlrnngs of hterary curroslty as the Pedlar. or Wordsworth hlmself in The Prelude, IS noteworthy. for readrng 1 Images elsewhere in the Ballads also suggest the intellectual vlbrancy of women "Llnes wntten at a small distance .. " IS a verslfied note sent by the poet to hls "Slster."

1 implonng her, "Now thal our mormng mealls donel Make haste. your rnornmg task reslgn,l Come forth

and feel the sun" The poet had gone out after breakfast ta enJoy the "first mlld day of March," leavmg

1 hls sister behmd to her "mornmg task" Whlle he appears ta feels no gUlft at ail about exerclsmg thls 1 gentlemanly pnvilege. he sent the note because he found that the "blessing ln the air" must be shared ta be fully appreclated "And bring no book," he cautions her, "for Ihis one dayl We'lI glve to 1 idleness" The slster's domestic efflciency, and her equally effiCient habit of bnngmg along a book on thelr outmgs, as though no opportunlty for learnmg should be wasted, are obstacles to an Immediate

1 opportumty for shared JOy. Sm ce the poet's argument IS that "One moment now may glve us morel 1 Than fifty years of reason," these books are clearly not feathery novels, but texts appeahng ta ttle reasonmg mmd. These now appeared to the poet as "joyless forms," that "regulate" the mtnd the way 1 the "Calendar" regulates time.20 The situation of a man tryrng to convlnce a woman to abandon her books provokes a questIon 1 that bears dlrectly on the moral fabnc of the Ballads as a whole. Srnce Wordswcrth's treatment of 1 women has been called sexlst, and since even his love of mankind has been consrdered by sorne to ue merely the love of an abstraction, one wants to know to what extent, If at ail, the Slster IS berng 1 cal/ed upon ta deny her rntellect.21 Is the teasing note in the word "resign," whlch suggests that the sister has a post she can quit, paternalistic? Mary Jacobus observed that "Wordsworth's theme IS the 1 1 1 117

1 flouting of domestic routine by an Impulsive response to the season."22 Rather than "flouting" J female authonty, hmting that women ought not to read, the poet wished to free his sister, however temporanly, from domestic work. Nelther was he proposmg that book-readers are blind to the 10ys of 1 nature. With the possible exception of "thls one day," the po,:~ and his sister had habit of readlng together. 23

1 ln the context of a rare "mild day of March," the~e is a distinction to be made between reading 1 and book-readlng. Book-reading was an eighteenth-century term that had the perlorative, "shghtly contemptuous" to use Johnson's phrase, connotations of "book-Iearned." The poet's attitude Oil th,s 1 blissful day cannot be thought as in any way contemptuous. With the note he sends, and its image of nature's "living Calendar," the poet was simply offering to his sister reading experiences more suitable J to this partlcular day than books that would be more fruitfully engaged during the rainy days that dominate March. The moment in which "Our minds shall drink at every porel The Spirit of the season"

1 leads to an image of the 'blessed power that rolls! About, below, above." It was morning, and thelr ) eyes could "drink" in the molsture on the earth and in the "air." The proverbial warning about the dangers to mmd and body of excessive study 15 not among the more significant lessons of the poem.

) Like the tltle of the Yew-Tree poem, this one is long and informative. "Lines written at a small

distance from my House, and sent by my little Boy to the person to whom they are addressed" giv€s

1 us a narrative framework for the lyrics and pinpoints a setting. It also implies that the poet has 1 rediscovered what he had hastily written and sent that day, and now offers, presumably comme tel, to a wider audience. The poem extolls an experience of immediate joy, but the title and opening line 1 lock it into a particular place and time of year. The "Wish" is for both spontaneity and something more certain and lasting, a human dwelling-place in which the hour of feeling can be cherished long after

1 the one moment that seeded it has disappeared. The sister, lover of the wlitten, had obviously stored 1 this ballad-missive for safe·keeping, as Dorothy Wordsworth might have done in the same circumstlulC;es. Lil

1 As in the Yew-Tree poe m, Nature is a gentle, feminlne presence, but the poet points out that 1 she IS now becoming "sweeter than before," her transformation tram wmter not yet qUite complete The pragmatic slster is a re:lection of thls unylelding before as weil as of the sweeter posslbllities 01 the 1 present moment The poet descnbed nature as "earth" and blrth" mother, and played thls agamst her

more sensuous posslbihtles as Diana ln ''wood land dress" He felt "Love, now an universal blrth"

1 coursing back and forth "From earth to man, tram man ta earth" These Images certamly abstract and 1 ideahze femininlty and glve us no direct sense of the sister as an indlvidual presence Yet Il cannot be said that the poem as a whole, or even thls speClflc pattem of images, flts the patnarchal mou Ids of 1 Chnstian and Greek mythology. The "blessed power" of Love is not handed down by a fatherly God, who opens the Images of nature, hke the leaves of a book, to Man. In arder to see the beauty of "bare

1 trees, and /'TlOuntains bare," the idea of nature as the iIIuminated leaves of a book must be left behlnd

The drinking ln of the season's beauty will be done with the minds as weil as with the heart, and there

1 are "sile nt laws" ta "obey." These laws are not those of estabhshed religion, but somethmg that the 1 poet and his sister mlght "make" tt'\emselves dunng their excursion. For the full experience and preservation of the joyful moment the poet was relylOg on hls 1 sister rather than on nature. Her Individuality ,"haras in her implied resistanca ta playing out the scnpt suggested by the missive. Since the sister is a book-reader, the poet's note wlsely appealed to her

1 aesthetic sensibllitles. He attempted to persuade her to come outside by appealing to her mmd's eye, 1 ta her sense of detai! cultivated by both her domestic and aesthetic senSlbiiitles, to her "reason" as weil as to her impulsive ''feeling.'' Vet there was the chance that she wou Id not come outside. The 1 slightly altered repetition of "Put on with speed your woodland dress" ("With speed put on your wood land dress") is an acknowledgement that the sister may not spontaneously come outside. And,

1 as the repeated "bring no book" implies, even if she was persuaded ta leave the hOllse perhaps she 1 wou Id bring a book after ail, in case the moment evaporated into unseemly Idleness, that vacancy which is not a true vacation. If mere idleness threatened the proposed ramble, il would likely be her, 1 rather than the poet, who would temper the mood of disappointment wlth the pleasures of book­ reading. The poem is for the most part free of chauvinistic gestures. But the poet's po~sessive 1 1 1 119

1 pronouns refleet hls authonty over the domestic settmg, and over the reader he is trymg to sway. It IS 1 emphatlcally"My Sisterl" as weil as "My house .. my Iittie boy" (my Italies!) Though the "hour of feeling" becomes the "our" of sharing - "Our door .. our morning meal .. Our living calendar .our 1 minds our hearts our temper . our souls" - this is not enacted by a reply trom the sister ln "Tmtern Abbp.y," at perhaps ItS most dramatie moment, the poet turns away from the

landscape of memory to address hls sister, and a readlng image helps ta bnng their relationshlp mto 1 focus: For thou art with me, here, upon the banks Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend, 1 My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voiee 1catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights 1 Of thy wlld eyes.

1 Although the reading metaphor is complexly developed, its basic connotations wOIJld have been

readily understood by the audience of the period. The idea of 'reading' a face, an expression, or

1 knowing oneself oneseH by 'readmg' others, were Iiterary commonplaces long before the end of the 1 eighteenth century. Reading another person was seen as possible only onee one has read deeply one's own heart and "former pleasures.',24 The whole poem is structured according to this idea. The 1 first four segments are introspective, and the Sister does not appear until the final segment She is not, however, "like a femina ex machina artifiGially Iowered into the poem," or an abstract of the Book

1 of Nature that the poet reads to justify hls view of nature as passive "nurse."25 The poet sees her as a 1 reader of men, and the pains of seH-interpretation and of interpreting others that he anticipates for her are not small. If one thinks of the Sister as a submissive presence, a shell for the poet's thoughts, one 1 not only underestimates the vibrant intelligence that tires her "wild eyes," but the obstacles to "Iotty thoughts" that her mind must overcome, the "solitude, orfear, or pain, or grief" that, in splte of the

1 poet's wish to the eontrary, she will inevltably encounter a& she grows older. 1 The literai basis of the reading image, the idea of interpreting the wnHen, ta some extent works against the sense that the Sister has an individu al presence, and is more th an a 'text' being 1 1 1 120 1 I.)vingly scrutimzed by the poet for moral meaning It is Important to remember ln this respect tha! the 1 speaker has his eye on mortallty as weil as on ImmortaHty When he and hls sister are separated, when he "no more can hear/ Thy voice," what can still unite them 15 her renewed encounters wlth the 1 "language of my former heart," represented by the complex language and Ideas of Ihe poem IIself ln thls hght, she is far more than a sereen onto whlch the poet projects his deslre to Integrate hls present

1 and past selves. She IS a reader of poetry as weil as of men, and her qUies 15 not Ir.tellectual 1 acquiescence. The poet's hope for his sister is that she WIll become a "mansion for alliovely forms,1 Thy 1 memory be as a dwelling-place/ For ail sweet sounds and harmonies," and certamly the ""Lmes written" are meant to hold a privlleged place among those ''forms'' preserved in her memory. For mosl

1 readers of the later elghteenth-century the religious connotations of "man~lon" and "dwelling-place"

wou Id have been immedlately recognlzed. 26 Once the famihar light of Chnstlan pi et y had been

1 ghmpsed by the audIence, perhaps manyof them would not have notlced that the ground on whlch 1 the man~ion Will be erected, the slster's mlnd, and," particular her memory, 15 betng prepared by her brother and by Nature, rather than by the Chnstian God. Though the brother 15 preparrng the ground

1 on which the mans;of, will stand, it 15 the sister who is finally responslble for constructrng and maintainlng It, filling it with the "sweeter sounds and harmonies" of whlch this poem IS an exquislte

1 example. The sister's capacity to read deeply these "Unes wntten" is implicitly acknowledged. One 1 can see the active power of the sister's mind in the poet's identification of her with Nature as bath maternai guardian and moral instructor. Nature is conflated with the "language of the sense," and both 1 together are "The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,! The guide, the guardian of my thoughts, and soul of ail my moral being." Nature can "inform" and "feed wlth loft Y thoughts." This instructive

1 power manifests itseH in the voice cf the sister: "and in 1hy voice 1catch! the language of my former 1 heart." The poet is Iike one trying to grasp the meaning of an elusive lesson betng taught to him. The sister teaches him not only by her silent presence but by her voice. 1 There is the luminous shadow of the word ''wise" in "Wild eyes," a phrase the poet repeals Her "sober" mind, that like Nature wiU"lead" her "trom joy to joy," IS already a force underlying her 1 1 1 121

J ecstatie countenance "Read"-"Lead"-"Feed" (II 118,125; 128) is the most overt Instance of end 1 rhyming in the poem This reflects the close bond between the poet and hls sister, and the thoughts that the rhyme enclose suggest both the poet's need to guide hls sister and her capaelty to control J her own destmy The most frUltful way for her ta do this 15 indicated by the poet's blesslng, a prayer for her to "let the moon/ Shine on thee . ta let the misty mountain winds be free" The "pnviJege" of

] Nature ta lead depends on the slster's prerogative ta "let" thls take place, just as her older brother's J ability ta aet as her mentor depends on her wllllngness to stay longer in his presence. The poet's plea, "Oh! yet a IIHle while/ May 1 behold in thee what 1 was once" is a tenderly insistent gesture -the artist J does not want his 5ubject to mave -as weil as a Wlsh for her ta behold hlm with an intenslty equal to hls But It also transfers the power over the reading moment to her. 1 From a grammatical pomt of view, this moment is dominated by first persan possessive pronoUlis - "my genial spirits ... my dearest Friend ... my former heart" etc .• and the poet's urge is

1 indeed to possess the ecstatie spirit he has found in his sister's eyes. The psychologieal forces 1 shaping this ur~e are uncertain. It seems primarily to be the "catch" at ce rtai nt y of a man whose prolonged staring into his part and present results in a heightened perception of a unlversal "motion

1 1 and a spirit" that overwhelms hls mind with a sense of Iost yO'Jth, and a disturbing, perhaps iIIusory,

sense of an omnipotent mind at work in him and in nature. This is the universal "motion" Identlfied by

1 Beatty and Hazlitt with necessity, philosophically conceived.27 Wordsworth fused con crete and 1 abstract polarities (in a single word. as in physical- mental "motion," pa/rad words, as in time and spaee bounded "motion" - transcendent "spirit,· or by an accumulation of several wOrds, as in physical J "things," percelved "cbjects" - perceptual''thinking things"/ introspective "thought"), ail of which are impelled (set in motion but also controlled through time) by a power the "rolls through ail things." This

1 power is reverently described, hardly atheistically, but in a deliberately non-theological way. If one

listens closely for what might be Godwinian in these Imes. one can construe a faint spiritual

J resemblance between Wordsworth's fusions of mind and object, and Godwin's magnanimous effort to 1 incorporate inherited theories linking complex thought to sensory perception into his own peculiar, quasi-spiritual. but explicitly non-theological, enthusiasm for the power of pure Reason. But it is a 1 1 ,( ! 1 'J ') 1 '- ...

1 companson that seems unfair to both wnters If the poet is expressmg hls behef in the power of 1 necesslty, It IS through personal commumcatlon, rather than through phllosophlcal doctrine The human element ln thls natural power IS not merely :epresented by hls sister, but 15 her, ln

1 body as weil as 10 mlnd. The "shootlOg lights" that stream from her eyes are not those of an emgmatlc God-head, but of a dear fnend Far from pnvllegmg hlmself over the slster, or pre·emphng her "volce".

t the poet grounds the entire poem m her presence. The poem IS wntten "for thy sake," and It Impltcltly 1 extolls her present and potential capaclty to be a profound reader. That the female-readers ln "Lmes written at a small distance .," and ''Tmtern Abbey" are not given speaklng parts does nol mean Ihat 1 they are not given hvely, capaclous minds. Wordsworth's presentations of these readers conflrm Heather Glen's argument that 1he Ballads implicltly "question the unartlculated moral assumptlons of

1 the polite reader: most centrally, that paternahstlc diminution of the other whlch Insldlously structured 1 late eighteenth-century social thinking, even 10 Its most radical manifestations ,,28 One of those assumptlons, that was to some extent undermined by the presentations of the female-reader m the 1 Ballads, would have been that women are less capable than men of mtel\e~tual actlVlty However, by steeping his reading Images in the domestic affections, and in a female pnnciple, woman or nature, 1 Wordsworth mainly suggested that "kmdness," meamng agreement as weil as affection, makes a

reading expenence "superior," not preemptlve "Judgments" - called "rash" ln the Yew-Tree poem,

1 "Tintern Abbey," and the "Advertisement" - or the judgments of a "person accustomed to analyze and 1 combine his conceptions" so that he "may acquire an ide a of beauties superior ta any whlch he has been realized [taught)" (S, 487). 1 Kindness and reading are also themes of "Simon Lee," in which the narralor creates a mood of merriment and then, deceptlvely, tries ta appear more thoughtful. The prelude reveals

1 Wordsworth's affection for such Itvely places as the Hoop at Cambridge, or the Inn, 'a splendid place," 1 on the eastem shore of Windermere. There, or at a dance, "a throng,l A testai company of Maids and Youths,l Old Men, and ~.. "Iatrons staid, promiscuous rout,! A medley of ail tempers," or during sorne 1 other "public revelry" Wordsworth's spirit of gleewas awakened (1805, IV, \1 316-319) ln Books Il, III, and IV the poet's mirth is repeatedly contrasted with the study of "Books." Although Wordsworth

~ 1 ~ Î t' 1 L 1 123

" elearly dehghts ln reea1hng hls youthful revels, these are seen as hedonrsti~, and he regrets not havrng ] spent more lime ln siient readmg. This (ilehotomy between the superfleial pleasures of "Mrnds on the stretch" and the deeper JOY of contemplativ~ is already apparent ln "Simon Lee," ln whlch the merry 1 narralor eonfronls a qUletly attentive "gentle reader." If an Inn IS the settlng one Imagmes for "Simon Lee," the bittersweelness of Ils narrative vOlee

j seems espeeially appropriate. Although "Simon Lee" refleets Wordsworth's characteristie mode of J humour, a "Joyous parody of hfe," approaehing "caricature," only "faintly satlnc," the galet y wlth which the speaker launches hls story descends to slyness and arrogance when he breaks Il off to address

the "reader.',29 That thls direct address is more than Wordsworth's intrusive "ventriloquism" has -1 already been shown by Andrew L. Griffin. However, the address to the reader is not the speaker's

J plea 10 the "reader" for help in the construction and continuance of the story he tells about Simon, as

suggested by Don Blalostosky.30 .1 The poem's ironies are aimed primarily at the speaker, and the address to the reader accords J wlth the speaker's temperament, which is boastful as weil as fun-Ioving. One of the most reveahng features of hls personality is his love for sport and gamesmanship. In The Prelude Wordsworth wrote J of "sports and games (Iess pleasing in themselves,/ Than they were badge glossy and fresh/ Of manliness and freedom.)" Although these games otten seduced him from hls studies, quite easlly as

J he implies, the point is that this "vague heartless chacel Of trivial pleasures was a poor exchangel For 1 Books and Nature" (1805, IV, Il 275-280). In Book III, he remembers that scholastlc competitors, "those who in the field of contest stoodl As combatants" had "passions that seemed to mel Seem low J and mean" (II. 512-514). Speaking of his search for altematives to the study lists at Cambridge, he compared reading to the hunt: " ... in quest of my own food,! 1 chaced not steadi/y the manly deer,! But

1 laid me down to any casual feastl Of wild wood honey ... Hushed meanw;;:!e,l Was the under soul,

locked up ln su ch a calm,! That not a leaf of the great nature stirred" (III, Il.527-541). Simon is a 'J huntsman, and the speaker's own love of the chase is apparent in his tributes to Simon's youthful J vigour. However, the poem's purpose is not primarily to praise manly vigour. In The Prelude, the poet regretted that he "Read lazily in lazy books" while at university, but he also rejoiced in that he found a 1 J 1 124

1 spirit of "genuine admiration" underlymg academic combatlveness and gamesmanshlp, the hsts of 1 both readlng and sport (III, 254; 275) "Simon Lee" reflects the poet's search for a simllar splnt underlymg the values of manlmess and competitIOn, and an att€mpt to assoclale Ihese values wllh the 1 art of readmg 10 a way that would callmto question the worth of readmg a poem wlth a vlew 10 assertmg one's authonty over its meanmgs, thereby 'mastenng' the poet "Simon Le:t" Imphcltly tnvlahzes th,s

1 wayof readmg by suggesting that It masks, and potentially stlfles, the Spirit of kmdness ln the 1 aesthetic expenence ln Bjographla Uterana (Book 1), Colendge sald that "Our genUine admiratIOn of a great Poet is a contlnuous under-current of feeling" The virtuous "under soul" of "Simon Lee" IS 1 represented by the "gentle reader," whose presence the speaker of the poem fmds somewhat disturbing. 1 The opemng stanzas of "Simon Lee" prepare one for the narrator's aSlde to the "reader" The 1 narralor praises the early life of old Simon who was once "A runnlng huntsman merry," "No man IIke hlm the hom could sound,! And no man was 50 full of glee." The speaker su~"ests that traces of 1 Simon's stamlna remain ("His cheek 15 Iike a cherry"), but he mainly calls att.mtlon 10 Slmon's present frailly , and implicltly contrasts this with his own manhne5s. The speaker was glven no opportunity to 1 brag openly about himseH, but his robust seH-confidence is eVldent in phrases such as "No doubt," "you seel At once," 'Ta say the least." The opening stanzas contaln jests that mlght satisfy an

1 audience ready to be amused ln slanza one, the humour turns slyly on the suggestion that Simon, 1 perhaps out of vanity, Iles about his age, "says he is three score and ten,! But others say he's eighty " ln the second stanza Sirnon's sarto rial dlgnity IS played against hls immediately apparent poverty: "A 1 long blue livery-coat has he,! That's fair behind, and fair before;/ Yet, meet him where you will, you seel At once that he is poor." These jests can seem insensltive, slnce they Imply that Simon's IIfe and

1 mmd can be read as easily as his noble coat can be seen; but such quibbhng seems tnappropnate to 1 the lighthearted mood the speaker is trying to set. The tnird stanza praises Slmon's skill with the hunting "hom," and ends in the wlnking statement, "To say the least, four countles round,! had heard 1 of Simon Lee." They eould not help, he implies, but to hear of Sirnon's passIon for the hunt, since Il was widely broadcast by his own horn.31 At this point, the speaker tries to elleit a sympathetic 1 1 1 125

J response, for Simon was the "sole survlvor" of hls company of dogs and men. Lest the mood become 1 sombre, however, Joculanty rel'Jrns. "His hunting teats have him bereft/ Of hls right eye, as vou may seel And then, what limbs those feats have left! To poor old Simon Lee" The lumbled anatomlcal

) references, the playon Simon's blindness wlth the 'seelng' of the audience are somewhat perverse, j and the speaker tnes harder to keep to the high road of pathos. Dunng the next four stanzas, the speaker aims more overtly at the sentimental response. 1 Simon is now "forced to wo~, though weak,l The weakest in the village" He "dearly loves" to listen to the "chlmlng" of the hounds HIs humiliation, inexorably brought about by the infirmitles of old age, 1 becomes apparent wh en one learns that Simon's wife can outperform him in "labour" She is not only as "stout" as a keg of npe ale, but a more able farmer than Simon. "Labour" and the fact that Ruth is

1 still "stout of limb" plays rather meanly on the Idea that the couple had "no son no child." The speaker 1 had earlier mtimated that Simon was not 900d at "husbandry or tillage" in more than the obvious sense. And now "Alas! 'tis very little, all/ Which they can do between them." The sexuallmpotence 1 suggested here would be genuinely pltiful, but it is not easy to look past the speaker to see this. The speaker's attempts to recover humour fall qUlte fiat. Ribald humour is amusing when its context is 1 clear. Here it IS confused with pathos. Simon's evaporated virility is incompletely sad, incompletely amusing The speaker clearly senses that something has gone wrong. His story tapers off, almost

1 stumbles. He repeats an earlier image of Simon's swollen "ancles," and stops his tale altogether to ) address the 'gentle reader":

My gentle reader, 1perceive How patiently you've waited, And l'm afraid that you expect Sorne tale will be related. J o reader! had you in your mind Such stores as sile nt thought can bring, ) o gentle reader! you would find A tale in every thing. What more 1have to say is short, 1hope you'lI ktndly take it; ] It is no tale: but should you think. Perhaps a tale you'lI make it." :1 ) 1 126 1 1 ln the patently 'oral' context of the poem, and ln terms of the convIvial settmgs one mlghllmaglne lor Its telling, Il is mlsleading 10 assume too qUickly that Ihls direct address IS an acknowledgmer.1 01 the 1 poem's slalus as "wntten," and that the reader bemg conlronted IS oneself This teap Irom "reader" to reader has been powertully executed ln recent crltlcal diScusSions cl the poem Wordsworth's own

1 senous-mlOded assessment ot the poem's "worthy purpose" IS to some extenl responslble lor th,s ln 1 the 1802 "Preface" he deflned the purpose of "Simon Lee" as "placmg the reader ln the way 01 recelving Irom ordmary c;ensations another and more salutary impressIon than we are accustomed 10 1 recelVlng from them" (Eli.. 1,127). When he dlscussed the poem trom the pomt of vlew 01 "The Reader," Gnffm meant mamly an Implied reader, the one Wordsworth wanls 10 put ln the way of hls 1 morallesson. Griffin's long essay on the poem is a model of thoughtful, inclusive cntlclsm, but the 1 direction he takes ln the section on "The Reader" undermines his baSIC argument that the real concern in "Simon Lee" is "tale-telling and tale-I1stening." (my italics).32 The "reader" who 15 IIstenmg 1 10 this speaker can be thought of more literally and concretely, less as an Imphed reader than as a potential interlocutor who has the conventJonal aspect of a scholarly person, qUiet and relmed 1 Thinking 01 the gentle reader pnmanly as the interpreter of the poem does hUle to explaln why the address is 50 dauntingly ironiC. (As Griffin pointed out, Wordsworth's later revislons make It seem

1 even more "sneering.") If Wordsworth wanted to make us smile, why would he have us, as Gnffrn sald, 1 "Stung not only by the poem's apparent collapse but also by the insinuations about our stores of thought..." Griffrn cited the aggressive-defenslve attitudes towards readers displayed by 1 Wordsworth's criticism, interpreted the poem carefully and concluded that the rnstructive point IS to make ail readers leel "mentally alert, intellectually and morally alone." The audience IS 'placed' ln an apt

1 mood for identifying with the lonely figure of Simon, and learmng a lesson on kindness. Hartman 1 argued that the address to the reader is "Sterne in spint." But Griffin suggested that the poem is less likely to provoke smiles than "brooding" upon unexpected narrative disappointments. and equally 1 unexpected moral-aesthetic rewards.33 1 1 1 127

J Although he bUilt hls case for "Simon Lee" on Griffin's interpretation, Don Blalostosky Ignored ) the latent hostlhty ln the narrative interruption For Blalostosky, Il was Ihe speaker's "appeal 10 hls reader for help the narrator appea/s to his reader for co-operation" The speaker's purpose IS to J "beg the reader's klOdness hls thoughtfulness" ln helpmg hlm to salvage the aborted story or broken ballad This argument was partly based on Gnffin's premise that the interruption shows "a poet

,1 ln dlfflcu/tles, exposed before an audience that he wou/d "ke to p/ease," and who glves, ln splte of ItS J IrOniC tone, a sort of "furnbhng apology" for the fallure of the story to unfold ln the expected cause­ effect fashlon 34 For both Gnffin and Bia/oslosky (in splte of the latter's interesl ln dlaloglcal form and J the "poetics of speech"), the reader betng speken to is the "invoked" mterpreter of the poem more th an an audltor or potentla/ inter/ocutor whom the speaker actually sees before him.

) The speaker does not "perceive" this reader through the veil of anonymity that settles over a

composlng poet trylng to antlclpale the responses of an Imaginary audience. The "reader" is before

J him, and seems to strike him as a "bookful blockhead," an ashen-faced scholar, or perhaps a refined, ) well-educated woman. The speaker is a comic ln searc'" of a foil, and the caricature of Simon has to th,s point served that purpose. Now "in dlfficuhies" he needs a closer one, real rather th an Imaginary.

] Who better to have play that part than the bookish person whose thoughtful gaze may have made the

speaker uncomfortable, the purpose of his tale seern superficlal, morally polntless. He is a storyteller

1 in trouble, but he is also a sharp-minded entertainer with good instincts, and rather th an apologize he J wants Ihis mere "reader" to focus on his or her own inadequacies. His remarks to the "reader" are Indeed, as Heather Glen said, "taunting asides." (One wants to remove the qualification in Danby's J phrase "almost slyly calculated ,,)35 The word "tale" is the sum and center of words and phrases suggesting that the speaker 15 exaggerating his sympathy for the reader. Repeated later as an

J exclamation, "My gentle reader" is not simply an affable greeting. In context, it contains the same f possibilities for haughtiness as "My good man!" or "My good wornan!" "1 percelve ... how patiently .. .I'm afraid" have the earmarks of inflated concem. The speaker is no longer wont to use the simple word 1 "see" to make hls humour. If 15 now the more ponderous "perceive." The speaker is implying that his story is sophisticated, not rnerely being told and heard, but "related" and "perceived." The "reader's" 1 J 1 128

1 social poise. aesthetic presumptions and expectatlons. are wlthenngly acknowledged wlth the Idea 1 that he or she has been wllltng to walt tolerantly for the story to unfold The very lact of the Interruption calls Ihat forbearance mlo question, and somethmg the speaker has gathered trom the "readE1r's" 1 gaze has suggested ItS hmlts The story has made It plain that the speaker IS more attracted to 1 surfaces, external appearances than to internai quahtles of mmd, and he 15 now readlng a face, and • perhaps more deeply than he IS wllhng or able to acknowledge . 1 The stanza that continues the aSlde focuses on the Ideas of "sile nt thought" and, more overtly th an before, on the Imphed meanmgs of "tale" Accordmg to Johnson, a tale IS not merely "a 1 narrative, a story It IS "Commonly a slight or petty account of sorne tnfling or fabulous incident" The morallesson at the end of the poem suggests that ItS earher concerns were too Inthng The decision 1 to have the speaker break off hls storytelling can be seen as the composlng poet qUletly turmng hls uncertamty to creatIve advantage, makmg VlrtuOUS an apology for the poem's tnvlalîty. Vet the

1 interruption is remarkably consistent wlth the speakers tempera ment If one tnterprets "tale" only on 1 one level, as meaning "a narratIve; a story," and ignores Its condescendtng edge, thls consistency inappropnately dlsappears. The garrulous speaker would then seem to be beggmg readers 10 help 1 him construct the story of "Simon Lee," or, even more out of keeptng wlth hls personahty. askmg readers to flnd a story "in every thing." Wordsworth, and the Pedlar who persontfies Wordsworth's

1 past, wanted thelr audltors to find a morallesson even in stones, but the speaker of "Simon Lee" IS far 1 from being a reliable model for the "reader" The main meaning that the speaker glves to '~ale" IS that of a "petty account of sorne tnfling .. lncident." ("Some" ln the address has the same dlSmlSSIVe energy 1 as Johnson's use of this word in his definitlon.) "Simon Lee" has been thought of by cntics as a cunning puzzle, and It is Gnffm begms hls

1 essay by saying that "'Simon Lee' is a puzzling poe m." But it IS useful to recal! Hartman's remark that 1 Wordsworth's poetic language 15 "a riddle as weil as a puzzle, and we answer it at the nsk of appeanng foolish, of exposing our superficial views on language and Iife."36 No poem of Wordsworth's, except 1 possibly 'The Thom," 50 deliberately makeH one aware of this "risk" as "SImon Lee" The poem is a benchmar1< of Wordsworth's trust in the corresponding power of readers. Yet the power he sought to 1 1 J 129 1 awaken 15 somethlng more than the ablUty to "make" or ta re-make the meanmgs of a poem by seemg j If as a puzzle, pleces of WhlCh, as argued by theonsts such as Stewart, the poet must leave out to mterest hls audience "Simon Lee" covertly questions the worth of seemg the readmg expenence as 1 agame, however fnendly, between the poet and the reader, and promotes as moral the reader's capaclty for allowmg the "siient thought" underlymg the poem to come fully mto hls mmd. "0 reader!

1 had you ln your mmd/ Su,~h stores as siient thought can bnnn" imphes the speaker's hope or belief 1 that the "reader" does not truly possess a capaclty for deep thought The speaker goes on to suggest that such ponderous silence is not m any case suitable for more than findmg out what IS 1 Inconsequentlal (or false, since "tale" aise means a he) "in every thing ln competition wlth hls silent audltor, the voluble speaker win now show that he has not been a tnfler, and demonstrate that he IS 1 capable of a making a moral, creatmg one rather than merely contemplating one as would a mere

reader. This Impendmg moral-making IS what he points to when he argues that what he IS about J 10 "say IS no tale," in the negatlve senses glven to this word by his cagey tone. The speaker IS not ] promotmg the art of reading, ;)S Wordsworth olten does ln his poems and in his criticism. He IS mockmg It, speclfically that spint of qUles that Wordsworth values above textual analysis, and wililater l try to theoretlcally expia," as the art of admiration. ln the concluding three stanzas, ln order to show the "reader" his ethical, verbal, and mental

1 prowess, the speaker works an incident, tangentially "related" to his broken ballad, up ta a moral 1 lesson. One summer-day 1chanced to see This old man doing ail he could l About the root of an old tree, A stump of rotten wood. The mat!ock tottered in his hand; f Sa vam was his endeavour That at the root of the old tree l He mlght have worked forever. 'Vou're overtasked, good Simon Lee,' Give me your tool' to him 1said; ) And at the word right gladly he Received my proftered aid. 1struck and with a single blow J 1 1 130

The tangled root 1severed, 1 At which the poor old man 50 long And valnly had endeavoured

1 The tears lOto hls eyes were brought, And thanks and pralses seemed 10 run So fast out of hls heart, 1Ihought 1 They never would have done/ - l've heard of hearts unkmd, kind deeds Wlth coldness still retummg , 1 Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me moumtng. 1 The jesting has dlsappeared, but It IS not replaced wlth full-hearted sympathy for Simon's frallty The 1 aura of tavern boasting, formerly in keeping with the lively mood of the poem, now contammates hls moral lesson His own vanlty threads his remark that SIITlOn's encleavour 15 "vatn," Simon may have felt

1 a sense of accomphshment ln the labour itself, and was perhaps not as eager for a qUick and final

solution to the 'tangls' as the speaker makes out. The speaker's assistance 15 not "proffered" to

1 Simon, but forced upon him. "Give me your tool" is a command not a request. The gusty sevenng of 1 the root Wlth "a single blow" 15 made to sound heroie, overblown, a fabulous fea! of strength The old man's tears are "brought," vlrtually coerced, out of hlm by this superflclally kind mtruslon mto hls 1 patient, digmfled wOrk, If one is able to thmk of Simon as a real person, as more than a trumpet for the speaker's vanity, then his tears may seem hke those of helpless frustration, hls "thanks and pralses" as

1 a generous transformation of tears into tnbute. 1agree Wlth Heather Glen that "The 'blow' which 1 finishes the old man's task makes ail of Simon's struggles with it irrelevant: It completes the belittlement of him whlch has been imphcltly present ln the tone throughout .. 37 And It is clear that the 1 wOrk of telling about this blow was meant to bath Impress and taunt the "reader" If that reader 15 a man, then the speaker is bemg competitive, an outgrowth of the poem's earlier associations of vrnhty

1 with foot-racing and the hunt. If the reader 15 female, then these gestures are a dlsplay that, even 1 more pointedly than the earher allusions to poor "husbandry," suggests that the speaker, unlike Simon young as weil as Simon old, is in ail respects potent. 1 1 1 . J 131

J The presence of the gentle reader transforms the poem from a stock ballad into a complex 1 poem, but it does not transform the exuberant speaker into a more sympathetlc and thoughtful man. He shudders manfully at the recollectlon of Simon's tears ("1 thought they never would have done"), 1 reflectrng the view populanzed by Godwm that gratitude is a wasted emotlon. This suggests that self­

flattery lies at the heart of hls morallesson. He does engage m '~hought," but hlS parting "Alas" is

1 more like a theatrlcal gesture than a genuine sigh of sympathy. The moral tag IS cleverly expressed, 1 but it coes not show that the speaker is significantly changed. Though they point to more gnevous sins against tolerance and sympathy than displayed in this poem, the speaker's fOlbles can be easily, 1 perhaps too easlly, forglven. The "reade'" he taunts is inevltably onese". It IS Important to realize, however, that transforming this taunting into something completely different, into gentleness and

1 kmdness, without seeing its differenr.e from "silent thought" is to sap the poem's strength.

An important, and often overlooked, element of Wordsworth's humour is ItS seH-rnockery. If

1 the garrulous ballad-maker in "Simon Lee," Iike the one in "Goody Blake and Harry Gill," in spite of hls J moral shortcomings, can make a reader "think," then clearly Wordsworth had deliberately undereut his personal claim to the auspicious title of poet.38 He had also done this in the "Advertisement" by 1 questioning the usefulness of the word "Poetry" as a description of his "experiments," and by publishing the Ballads anonymously. The treatment of the speaker in "Simon Lee," and of the chatt y

1 poet-narrators who curiously, enthusiastically, chase theîr tales in "The Idiot Boy" and "The 'Thorn," 1 suggests a cornie deflation of the idea that poets are on a superior moral and spîrituallevel than that of ordinary men and women. This can seem rather surprising in terms of the 1802 "Preface," which 1 retleets a profound belief in the moral superiority of the poet. Yet the "Preface" also shows restraint, an urge to temper the idea of the poet's superiority by identifylng him "as a man" with readers.

1 Whether or not one is Inclined to attribute the unreliabllity of speakers of "Simon Lee," "The Idiot , Boy," and "The Thom" to Wordsworth's aesthetic uncertainty (as Hartman does), it is clear that they represent the Poet, abstractly conceived.39 J The speaker of "Simon Lee" mocks quies , and therefore inadvertently places the reader on a higher plane. moral and objective, than the one he is on himself. Developing Stewart's view that a 1 ) , 1 132

1 poet must leave much to the imaginalion of the reader, Wolfgang Iser argued Ihat a flctional text must 1 stimulale a supenor perspective," the reader If the work is 10 be fully engaged 40 Sy imphcltly contrastlng the reader's sllenl claims to authonty over the poem wlth the unrehable speaker's 1 questionable ethical code of self-assertion and competition, and by grounding the poem ln an Image of thoughtful silence, Wordsworth made assuming authorily an accountable ael, rather than a merely

1 inevitable fact of strong reading. Other Ihan re-affirmmg the ments of sympathy, love, JOy, and 1 kindness, this IS the most important lesson underlying the repeated Identifications of the readmg mmd with silence in the Lyncal Sallads. Whether the images of silence point 10 "prayer" as in "Tinlern 1 Abbey," fI) careful thought as in "Goody Blake and Harry Gill" and "Simon Lee," to "Iaws" of mind and heart as in "Lines wntten at a small distance. ," orto "unlawful" self-immersion as ln the Yew-Tree 1 poe m, thelr shared purpose IS to make readers aware that they must take responslblhty tor their acts of interpretation. The process of assuming Ihis responslbihty was seen by Wordsworth as unfoldmg trom

1 a "soft impulse," a spint of quies, generated by the poem. 1 III Young Imagination 1 As far as 1am a.. /are, Donald Davie is the only enlie who has discussed the concept of admiration in the

1 Lyrical Ballads. He suggested that "While Bur1

"explained" wonder as "extreme joy" due 10 an appet.le for knowlsdge. The problem wilh th,s

1 argument is that wonder was not synonymous w.th admiration in Wordsworth's mmd, at least Il was not 1 in the 1815 "Essay, Supplementary." Davie paid no attention to the "Essay," and did "01 bnng up the possibility that wonder might have been a negative concept in Wordsworth's imagination as he 1 1 l 1 133

1 composed hls ballads The 1800 "Preface" spoke of "that admiration which subsists upon 1 ignorance," Implylng the same distinction between admiration and the "wonder oi ignorance" that we flnd in the later "Essay" (EW, l, 142). And this was likely to have been among the many subJects 1 discussed by Wordsworth and Colendge dunng the early course of their friendshlp. In a letter to Southey (Oct 16, 1797), Colerrdge spoke of "admlration .. wlthout the least mixture of wonder or 1 incredulity" Coleridge's had wntten that Peter Bel! was "Word5worth'r, most wonderful as weil as 1 admirable Poem," Implying an essentlal distinction between the two qualities.43 ln pondenng the messages on reading conveyed by poe ms such as "The Idiot Boy, "The Thorn," and peter Bell, it 15 1 helpful to recall that for Wordsworth the admiring response had its dari< side in wonder, which is thirst without knowledge. Although the "Essay, Supplementary" IS certain that wonder, pursued as an end 1 in itself, represents only fanciful urges to self-gratification, it also suggested that such urges contain the seed5 of admiration that can be nounshed and brought to fruition. This is al50 the essentrallesson

1 on reading taught by "The Idiot Boy."44 1 After a long twlsting and tuming course of sixty-four ballad quatrains, the speaker of "The Idiot Boy" appears to lose the threads of his tale and he tums to his audience for inspiration: "Oh Reader! 1 now that 1 might telV What Johnny and his horse are doingll W'lat th9y've been doing ail this time,! Oh could 1 put it into rhyme,! A most delightful tale pursuing!" (II. 322-326). The speaker's ability to make

1 delightfully innocent rhymes cannot at this point be in doubt. Neither can his volubility, or his capacrty 1 for whipping up a tale out of the most meagre materials. His basic storyline had so far been simple: An old woman, Susan Gale, is alling. Herfriend, Betty Foy, who lives nearby has come to her assistance. 1 Because Betty's husband is away, she bravely puts her mentally handicapped son on a horse, and sends him to fetch a doctor. The boy does not return, Susan grows worse, and frantic Betty {;~oes off

1 in pursuit of the boy. She goe5 to the doctor's house and in her anxiety over the boy forgets to send 1 the cIoctor to Susan. Sa desperate that she briefly contemplates suicide, she suddenly remembers that the pony is well-trained, and may have carried Johnny into the woods where Betty's husband 1 wot1

1 At thls promislng moment, the speaker breaks off the story ta address hls "reader" The 1 Interlude glves the reader an opportumty to mull over, and reJect, sorne possible routes the story might now take As if antieipatmg the superfielal deslres and expectatlOns of thls reader. the speaker 1 imagines the Idiot Boy roammg an ethereal regiùn of "cliffs and peaks" and starry sky, simllar to the

"romantlc" realm ln whlch the speaker of peter Bell b~gins hls story and whlch he then abandons ln

1 favour of a telhng a tale that IS more dawn-to-earth. The Idiot Boy IS th en plctured as "Ali hke a siient 1 horse-man ghost," "in wonder lost." '_Ike the speaker of "Simon Lee," but without hls sense of wounded pnde and competitive, lrollie purposes, the narrator plays on the meanmg of "tale." lnstead 1 of riding with dignity in this ethereal region, the boy IS seen as ridlng backwards, with "hls face unlo hls horse's tail." Tale becomes merely. in Johnson's words. "that whlch is attached to the animai behmd."

1 and even the most credulous reader would be prompted to think of this as absurd ln the context of a

romantie adventure. The speaker alludes to grand hunting tales and feats such as those prized by the

1 speaker of "Simon Lee." This narrative possibility is made to seem ridlculot.. ,Iy out of focus, an 1 inappropriate path for hls story to take. The image of the boy "hunting sheep,/ A flerce and dreadful , hunter he!" gleefully mixes pastoral Images of "sheep," a "valley, that's so lrim and green," wlth the Gothic idea of a bad omen: the valley will convert to a "desert" if the boy IS seen. Apocalyptlc stories of

sin and redemption are merrily suggested with the Image of the boy "head and heels on

1 fire. gallopmg away" like one of the Four Horsemen, "The bane of ail the dread the devil" (II. 327-346) 1 These are "likely" developments only for the reader who has not pald attention to the earlier description of the boy as "still and mute" and of the pony "m. Id and good,' "meek as a lamb" (II 91.43; 1 109). The reason glven by the speaker for the interruption is the defection of hls "gentle muses" (II

1 347-356). Though these are seen as repelling the poet-narrator's "SUIt" for their fnendship, It 15 clear 1 that their influence is insignificant. He resumes the story as easily and as cheerily as he abandoned It, and brings the tale to a happy close thal, in the address to the reader, he had suggested is of the sort 1 "we in romances read" (1. 365). Bût he had also planted the notion that the "strange adventures" of romance ought not to end predictably. And the tailend of this poem must indeed be unllke any other 1 1 1 135

1 th,s "reader" has expenenced. Susan, who has come after Betty, has been cured by the "magic" of J worrymg about someone other than herself. This is a moral message, but the idea a tale must end ln a clear ethlcal sentence IS subverted by the confusing report of the boy's burnng that closes the J poem' "The cocks dld crow, to-whoo, to-whoo,l And the sun did shi ne so cold." Susan Melsenhelder pointed out that thls addled ending "demands that we withhold our adult, rational preconceptlons ,j about the boy's mental capabilities and examme the perceptu 1 processes mvolved in the slatement 1 itselt" She sees these lines as activating the reader's active, analytical powers, resulMg ln the "observation of affinltlesl ln objects where no brotherhood eXlstsl To passive minds" (1850 Prelude, 1 " 084-86).45 When one examines the assumptlons underlying the speaker's vlew of the reader, th,s uncertain lesson on readmg becomes a IIttle more stable. J The speaker clearly assumes that the reader, because he or she is a lover of fabulous

adventure stones, will at first find the potential narrative directions he proposes as probable ones to

J follow, and then do as he does, set them asïde as improbable, as an amusing "perhaps." This "reader" 1 must wOrk, like the one in the Yew-Tree poem, to recover "young imagination," a childlike trust ln poetry. The most important thmg about the narrative possibilities opened up by the speaker is that he 1 closes them off. What he points to instead of nighlmare and adventure stories is narrative and emotional stasis, flgured by Johnny sitting absolutely still on his grazing pony, under the moon, the

J reins slack. The delightful ride of reading has virtually ended, and Johnny becomes the sile nt center 1 of a careening world of action, "roaring" waterfall, Betty bursting onto the seene, burbling her relief and affection, bumptng the pony, dashing up and down from head to tail, Susan hobbling down the 1 road, puffing out the story of her cure. The behavior of the adults borders on lunaey, while the child, whom we might pity as handicapped without seeing his "joy," is pictured as a serene child of nature,

1 an idiot natural or changehng. 1 The narrator points out to his reade:- that Johnny is "no ghost" (1. 379), and this is not a ghost­ tale, or a pat tale of any sort. It is unfettered, joyous poetic mayhem, with only the glimmerings of a 1 senous purpose. Anxious as ever to establish the "Worthy purpose" of his poems, Wordsworth suggested in the 1800 'Preface" that it ''traces the windings of maternai passion" (ew., i, 127). What it 1 1 1 136

1 traces far more visibly is the mmd of the speaker racrng ecstatlcally ln a torrent 01 wonder at the 1 excite ment of story1elhng, and yet dlmly aware of hls obligation to teach hls audience somethmg about the art of reading. The woman's passionate love for her chi/d, to put It mlldly, 15 exceSSive, and her 1 fears for his well-bemg turn out to be unnece5sary. This 15 clearly a the me that would appeal to young readers, and the poem, partlcularly the address to the reader, obvlously explOIts a chlldhke sense of

1 wonder The purpose was to return the sophlstlcated reader to a lost world of rnnocence, and also \0 1 move an unsophlsticated audience a small, slgnllicant distance away from the "wonder of Ignorance," in which applause IS more hkely to be the result 01 mere creduhty than 01 heartlelt appreClatlon, 1 towards a deeper mood in which sllent thought has a chance to unfold. Wordsworth extended the hope of Stern that "ail good people, both male and female .. may

1 be taught to think as weil as read" to Include the young or novice reader Wisdom IS assoclated wlth 1 the speech of children in poem5 such as "Anecdote for Fathers" and "We Are Seven," and, as Meisenhelder suggests, a childlike wisdom is associated wlth the "burring" of the Idiot Boy Yet, ln 1 spite of its vlrtues as a model of composition for children or novice readers, "The Idiot Boy" does make assumptions about such readers in a way that suggests the limitations rather than the capacities of

1 their imaginations. It IS this, more than the IIghthearted treatment of the themes of IdlOCy, neurotlc illness, and SUIcide, that can make Wordsworth's mtention in wntlng "The Idiot Boy" seem

1 "condescendmg" to cntics.46 "We are Seven" shows Wordsworth's 'alth ln the abillty of the young 10 1 transform the fear of death into a feeling "Iight and fair." Although the poet-narralor 0: "The Idiot Boy" also assumes the ability of young Imagination to see the poetic joy underlylng the surface themes 01 1 anxiety, iIIness, despair, and death, whlch a sophisticated reader might want to treat very seriously, one is offered no reliable vantage point from which to see that this is not merely presumptuous The

1 fears and suspicions of children are just as readily awakened zs their joy, and nead delicate handling 1 ln terms of the art of reading, "The Idiot Boy" glves the adllit audience little to hold on 10 but a fleelrng sense of bygone innocence, lost wonder. In :;pite of the speaker's instructive turn to his audIence, 1 the poem is a madcap escape to an underworld of absolute credullty, that make& ideas such as the "moral relations" between poets and readers seem pompous. 1 1 1 137

1 The recovery or preservatron of innocence is what Bachelard Imaglned as "a little impulse 1 toward admiration" arrested by the "slightest critical consideration" ln CrjUclsm and TMh, Barthes reters to this same expenence ot credulousness in making his essentlal distinction between readln9 ) and cntiClsm: "To read is to desire the wor1<, to want to be the work, to refuse to echo the work using any dlscourse other th an that of the work .. To go from reading to entiClsm is to change deslres, it is no

J longer to deslre the wor1< but to deslre one's own language."47 Such formulations are a mlnor theme ) of literary critieism extendlng from later elghteenth-century erities such as Kames and Alison to present day ones. What the entlc expresses wlth this theme is regret over his neeessary aseendencies trom 1 the immediate pleasures of reading to the expl,_,ssion of an expenenced, rational, and authoritatlve point of view. The "reader" and the poet-narrator "pursuing" a tale with ehildlike cunosity ln "The Idiot 1 Boy" enaet a lighthearted version of the urge to reseue and restore the eredulous response. "The Thorn" enacts a slmilar pursUlt, but presents a darker Splnt of wonderment. The 1800

1 "Note to 'The Thorn'" desenbed its narrator's mind as "ereduJous," and the interfocutor's questions 1 about the "why" and the "wherefore" of the narrator's tale seem Juvenile in their persistence and repetitiveness. The naive reader i~ not, however, the primary audience postulated by this poem. It is

) the reader who prizes common sense and logic to the exclusion of feeling. There IS by now a

substantial body of criticism on "The Thom," that has deatt Wlth its symbolic, dramatie, and dlalogical

J structures, its moral and psychological energies. Yet the ironies carried by its messages on reading J have received litt/e attention. Pialostosky, Jerome Christensen and Susan J Wolfson saw the poem as coneerned wlth readi'lg, specifically with the problems that inhere ln eritical judgmeJ,t. 48 However, J they overlooked the way that the phrase "no thorny points" in the opemng stanza, and further references to "plain" meaning in the rest of the poem, mock the reader's ability to reduce the poem to

J logle or final meaning - something Wordsworth trted to do himself in the 1800 "Note to 'The Thorn,'" 1 and sueceeded only in adding to the interpretive uncertainties of others. The poem challenges readers to display, in the words of W. J. B. Owen, the "mastery of the mind over a stunted thorn, a /ittle ] muddy pond," but tilting at these with the lance of Iogic, one is intended at some point to see, is eventuallyabsurd. The reader who wants to do this should recognize that he "courts futility."49 The ] 1 ...... ------1 138

1 inabllity of critics ta agree on even the most basic features and purposes of 'The Thorn" suggest that 1 ItS strange humour will always flnd wllhng fOlls. Llka "Simon Lee," 'The Thorn" has been vlewed as a calculated and cunning puzzle. 50 And yet the purpose of bath ballads was to have readers become 1 aware of the hmltatlons of approachlng poetry as though It IS a problem to be solved Wordsworth's ironic "pomts" about the seareh for "plain" meaning are perhaps easlly brushed aSlde by cntlcs on the

1 way to self-assertlveness, but they carry the seed of the warnmg on "pnde" ln the Yew-Tree poem 1 Bath poe ms awaken an Impulse ta preserve what is mast vulnerable and human m the moments of reading. 1 "The Thorn's" two speakers have one main problem to solve The herolne of the story, the elusive Martha Ray, is rumoured ta have given blrth ta a ehlld. In pondering what mlght have 1 happened to thls chi/d, the narrator and the interlocutor enaet the erudest sort of village eunoslty and

rumaur-mongering. However, they also reveal their Instinctive urge to protect what 15 chlldlike wlthm

1 themselves. If there is a center for the shlftmg meanings of this poems, It is Imes 225-231, ln whlch 1 the narrator invites his fnend to go to a nearby "pond. And fix on It a steady view," for hearsay has it that there ''The shadow of a babe you trace,l A baby and a baby's face,! And that It looks at you!

1 Whene'er you look on It, ~is plain! The baby looks at you again." Has the chi Id been murdered? Was a child even barn? Is Martha Ray real or a figment of the narrator's Imagination? erities have tned ta

1 solve these problems The interloeutor also poses elementary, praetical-minded questions. For 1 example, he asks the narrator, "But what's the thom, and what's the pond?" (1. 210) The narrator elaborates on these questions in interesting, enigmatie ways, but his best answer IS "1 cannat tell," 1 repeated three times in the poem, along with similar phrases. He 15 as resistant ta common sense as the children in "We are Seven" and "Anecdote for Fathers." His love of mystery, apparent everywhere

1 in his speech, impllcitly prevents hi m, and the intertocutor who depends on his answers for rellable 1 information, trom analyzing the story of Martha from Iogical perspectives. When a reader, ln the analytic mode described in "We live by admiration," picks ~p his "optic tube of thought" to probe the 1 poem, his most basic questions may be unanswerable. like the narrator unable to see anythlng wlth his "telescope" in the midst of sturm und drang (11.181-191), one is meant to see the limitatIons of 1 1 1 139 1 analytical inquiry ln the poetic fIeld Nevertheless, part of the pleasure of reading this poem lies ln 1 formulating more sophist/cated questions than the interlocutor was able to ask. For example, Chnstensen mused "Are we to understand that the baby's face is the retlection of hlm who fixes his 1 gaze on the pond ln an infantile desire to flx the meaning of the spot? Or are we to understand that the shadow is the mmd's wlshful projection of that which It deslres to find? Or are we to understand

1 thls superstitlous hearsay IIterally?" While he takes obvious pleasure in ralsing such Interestlng 1 questions, as other critlcs have done, Christensen wlsely refused to knot them mto a masterful solution, for "the narrator dramatizes a recognitIOn scene that will always fall short ot sufficient 1 knowledge. ,,51 A possible consequence of contemplating thls pond image, as Bialostosky pointed out, is

1 that it stimulates "active seH-critieal awareness": "To see your face reflected in the water requires no

particular thought, but to see your mind ret/ected in the uncanny transformation of your image into a

1 baby's face requires active seH-critical awareness" Yet for the imagination to shape and then hold this 1 image, however briet/y, reqUires the suspension orthe near-suspension of "seH-critlcal awareness." Do more than marvel a~ it, begin to ask what Il logically rneans, or to even to ask what It means to you , 1 and the baby's face has already dlsappeared. And then, as Owen suggests, "how you interpret that ret/ection is your affair."S2 If Wordsworth often sends his readers into the isolation of "silent thought,"

1 his ultimate intention is never to have reading become a purely private, auto no mous affair. The most 1 signlficant element of the search for sense of the narrator and the interlocutor is that they are seeking it together. 1 Except for Peter Bell, Wordsworth's experiments with the recovery of innocence in reading will never again be repeated along the madcap lines of 'The Idiot Boy" and ''The Thorn." Ms. 1 (1798)

1 ot Peter Bell was written contemporaneously with "The Idiot Boy" and "The Thorn," and its romping 1 ballad quatrains suggest that it may have been originally intended for publication with them. The theme of reading played no substantial role in Ms. 1, but revisions in Ms. 2 (1799) included an 1 anecdote on reading that reflects the experimental energies of "The Thom" and "The Idiot Boy."53 The "Prologue" informs us that the speaker is a "poet." who curtails a "romantie" flight of his 1 1 1 HO

1 imagination in order to tell a "promised tale" to an audience in hls garden. The main storyhne - a brutlsh 1 potter beats a helpless animal, discovers a corpse, experiences terrible fear, and IS hnally redeemed by his pit Yfor the dead man's famlly - is suspended by the anecdote on a "wondrous" readlng 1 experience, begmnlng "Part Thlrd." Jordan observed that the "jorm and treatment" of Peter Bell "are comie," burlesquing the performatory aspects of poetry, and E'Àplonng the more perverse edges of

1 slapstick humour, as in Pete(s notonous beatlng of the "Ass,"54 The tlrst two parts of the Tale of 1 Peter had already gone gleefully far Into dark comedy, and the anecdote IS meant as relief from thls gloom. Vet It IS also ambltious to do more th an mollify or dlstract It beglns ''l've heard of one, a gentle 1 soul,! Though giv'n to sadness and to gloom, And, for the fact 1'1\ vouch, one nlght Il chanced that by a taper's lightl This man was reading ln his room (II. 876-880). Since neither "Prologue" or "Tale of 1 Peter" are about anyone "reading ln hls room," thls typical narrative beginning (''l've heard ..one nlghtl it chanced") announces a radical departure from both the oral setting of the poem, and ItS main story.

1 The situation, reading by candlelight in a "chamber," awakens the Gothie Imagination But the 1 minimally sketched settlng also suggests caricature, the bookful blockhead who wOlild rather bhnd himself reading than be refreshed by sleep. The man was "Reading as Vou or 1m1ght reacIJ At nlght ln 1 any pious book,! When sudden blackness overspread/ The snow-white page ln whlch he read/ And made the good rran round him look" (II. 881-885). "Reading as vou or 1rnght read" seems casual, yet

1 the caesura after "Reading," followed by "or" and "might," suggests uncertamty The reader's 1 "chamber ail was dark ail round,! And to his book he turn'd again;/ And light had left the good man's taper/ And form'd itself upon the paper/lnto large letters bright and plain" (II 885-890). ThiS hght, 1 forming itself into a likeness of intentionallanguage, is presented as "dark" magic. Bachelard's metaphor of a ghost-reader is actuali;zed by the anecdote. The doubled "ail," the tripled "and," acting 1 with the rhyme "again" -"plain," imply that this reading experience, however strange, may not be uncommon. In On Moral Fiction, John Gardener wrote of such experiences: "We have the queer

1 experience of falling through the print on the page into something IIke a dream, an Imaglnary world so 1 real and convincing that when we happen to be jerked out of It..we stare for an Instant in

befuddlement at the familiar room, where we sat down, half an hour a9O, wlth our book Il This is 1 1 1 141

1 offered by Gardner as evidence that "metaphor becomes reality as we read. ,,55 Although the 1 anecdote enacls a slmilar Idea, Wordsworth does not seem 10 have laken seriously the potential of hls own metaphors 10 mesmerlze hls audience ln the way that the gentle reader was mesmenzed The 1 idea of literalness underlinmg the "ghostly letters" forms a jes! on the efficiency of plain meaning The letters, "black as coal," are wnt "large," yet "ghostly" suggests that they were unreadable, out of focus

The godly book was in his hand, And on the page as black as coal, Those ghostly letlers form'd a word Which 1111 ms dying day, J've heard, Perplex'd the good man's gentJe soul.

The wondrous word which thus he saw Did never from his lips depart; But he has said, poor gentle wight! 1 It brought full many a sin to light Out of the bottom of his heart. 1 (11.891-900) 1 "A word," wryly indefinlte, was ingested trom the "godly book" and interpreted by the reader as The Word of God. Though Ihis made him "perplex'd," as Ihough he was unable to respond 10 sorne 1 catechetical question, he testified to an experience of spiritual redemption There are notes of pathos. The "good man" is now dead, and "poor gentle wightl" suggests that he may have been

1 deluded about his redemption. The "lips" and the "coal" reter to Isaiah 6, the "man of unclean Iips," 1 whose sins are purged by a "live coal," and who preaches the message "Hear ye indeed, but underSland not; and see ye indeed but perceive not." This reflects the gentle reader's lifelong

1 befuddlement as the resu~ of this ''wondrous'' moment. His announced salvation was perhaps flred up from the coal of disappointment, his inability to understand what happened to him that night.

1 The anecdote is basad on hearsay, and yet the speaker promises that what he is about to tell ) is fact, "And for the fact l'II vouch." ln this ambiguous position, he tries to establish himself as as a firsthand witness, someone who was virtually there in the room with the reader, but it is clear tha! the l only ''tact" that he can confirm is that he is about to repeat a tale he has not authored. The "giv'n" of i 1

1 the tirst stanza retlects the non-authonal status ot ,he speaker, who IS glVen the tale by another Mnr' 1 directly il suggesls Ihe speaker's mild dlsapproval of the reader because he IS prone to, and glves ln to, "sadness and gloom" ThiS IS the only qualification of hls esteem for the "good man," untll the

1 slow, wise wag of the head Implled by the key phrase "poor gent le wlght l" He echoe~ the genlle reader's religlous affirmation of the hallucination, and slmultaneously expresses pit Y for hlm If the

1 viSion IS redemptlve, why does he pit Y the reader? It becomes eVldent, as the anecdote tapers off Into 1 an invocation of "Dread Spmts," that the speaker thmks very darkly about book-readtng Ilself, as both senseless "play," and as "fearful work for fearful ends" (II 908-909) He scolds thec;e Spirits for 1 dlsrupting his narrative, blaming them as the speaker of "The Idiot Boy" blames hls flck/e Muses, and also implies that book-Iearnlng IS an ungodly activlty, a foolish, even dangerous solitude, that stlrs up

1 the spirits of fear al.d anxiety. The echo of the past tense of lOto read" ln the word "Dread," contmUing

thE. precedent set in the second stanza by the rhyme "read"-"overspread," suggests one who IS both

1 in awe of the man who reads, and superstitlous about the nature and effects of readlng The speaker 1 is not conventionally reverent, as he apparently believes he IS. His invocation IS the "wonder of ignorance" 1 By attempting to draw an ethlcal sentence for the anecdote, the speaker wants ta become a "pensive" interpreter, mediating wonder with moral insight The moral he draws, "Let good men feel

1 the soul of Naturel And see things as they are" points iromcally ta his inabllity to see mto hlmself (II 1 894-895). It impiies that the reader's expenence was eV11 because it dlstorted hls sense of the normal, his common sense. This is why the speaker wags hls head over the tale of the "poor gentle wight" 1 "From men of pensive virtue go,/ Dread beings! and your empire showl To he arts hke that of Peter Bell" indicates that the gentie soul had been possessed by the word in a way that reqUired an

1 exorcism, although thls possibihty is amusmgly flattened out to the mere glvmg of "advice" (11.911- 1 915). (The words "read" and "reading" recover traces of the obsolete meamngs recorded in Johnson's Dictionary under both "Re ad" and "Rede." Used as nouns, these words once meant 1 "counsel" or "advice.") The exorClsm is an absurdly belated one, and more "ke self-mortification. The speaker, in effect, is casting out the morbid ide a of "reading ln his room" from hls own mmd, asking the 1 1 ~.... ------.-----

1 143

1 "patent Spirits" that later (1 923) become "Spirits of the Mmd" to turn their powers loose on smners 1 like Peter, rather than on "good men," such as hlmself and the gentle reader. Yet it is thls reader, and the baftling outcome of hls encounter wlth a book, that makes the speaker sa restless and unhappy' 1 "Oh me, It cannot easy Slt,! 1teel that 1am ail untit,! For such hlgh argument" (II 929-930). The "hlgh argument" IS the tale of Peter, whlch he is now at pams to resume, and hls effort to wrest a moral from

1 the anecdote on readrng has been a troublsome prelimmary to the larger task of bnngrng Peter's story 1 to a satisfyrng conclusion He manages to make a moral tram the anecdote, but underlyrng hls tretting and selt-deprecatlon IS an apprehension that telling tales is Inferior to the sober busrness of book- 1 readlng, an apprehenslon shared by the speaker of "Simon Lee." The "'earful work" and"play" of reading the anecdote rncludes giving full value to the pathos

1 as weil as to the humour of the speakers situation. It becomes clear that the speaker wants the

anecdote to serve as proof of the "fact" that he is a learned man, a r~ader of superior judgment.

1 "Dread Spirits" are wastmg thelr time wlth him, he implies, srnce Irke the gentle reader he is 1 enlrghtened, morally good and deeply pensive. He had tossed off the li ne "Reading, as you or 1 mlght read" and one can now see the litt le spark of anxiety still rislOg from "1 mlght mad" The anecdote IS 1 meant to be understood as more powerful than its speaker, reveahng him as superstltious and somewhat harebrained This makes him an even more pathetlc poet-narrator than the one in "Simon

1 Lee," who IS able to caver up his shortcomings and anxiety with cunning The speaker of fater Bell 1 "mlght" not have been able ta read the "ghostly letters" of the anecdote if they had been written on "paper," though as his "reverence" for the "Dread Spirits" suggests, he is in awe of those who cano 1 His own dark-mindedness, as he seems to be marginally aware, has become the point of the story. The speaker's audience, a "sqUire," "His pretty little daughter Bess," "Harry the church-

1 warden," "Parson Swan," hls wlfe, and the speaker's "good friend Stephen Otter," presumably 1 emotionally drained by parts ona and two of Peter's story, does not respond openly ta the anecdote. Since the aduhs are an active component of the earlier tale, interrupting the speaker to set him straight 1 - "begin at the beginning" (1. 170) demands the Squire after the tale starts in medias res - and to comment on Peter (II. 251-252), one has little choice but to think that they approve of the anecdote. If 1 i' 1 1 1 1 50, thelr sIlence 15 as strange as the anecdote, SInce, wlth the possIble exceptIon of "Peter Otter," 1 who shares the ClmstIan name of the brutlsh potter, they represent segments of society that one would ordmanly think of as protectmg and encouragmg the Ideal of "pIOUS" readmg The Parson and 1 hls wlfe perhaps ought to object to the speaker's suggestion that study IS dangerous, haunted by "Dread SplfltS," but they do nol They apparently value politesse, the appearance of plety, more than

1 Its creed. Parson Swan may have reahzed that hls own readmg habits are overindulgent Mlstress 1 Swan has probably seen her husband readmg hls BIble or "any plOUS book" by candieilght As a woman whose nght to intellectuat pursUits may not have been vmdlcated by her husband, she mlght 1 percelve excessive readîng proverblally, as a threat to heaHh and domestlc harmony The speaker's Implied advice to her IS to sateguard her husband trom excessIve study. Perhaps the sqUIre should

1 object as weil, slnce as a father of a chIld who must be teaming the art of readlng as weil as the art of

conversatIon, he would presumably not want Bess to have the idea that readmg plOUS books 15 a

1 fnghtenmg expenence, His SIlence suggests that he îs either extremely credulous, or more 1 concerned wlth keeping his daughter away from books that he IS with enllghtenlng her The sqUlre's practlcat-mmded interruptIon of the poet suggests that the hometier ImplIcatIons of the anecdote's

1 "advice" would 5atlsfy hls taste for common sense: reading by candlehght IS bad, too rnuch study IS a weanneS5 of the flesh

1 The speaker's apprehensions about reading can be consldered as reflectlons of the shallow 1 minds of the adults in the inscnbed audience. In thls context. the ethlcallessons are tnte, and the anecdote may represent Wordsworth's "audience anxlety," for whlch the essays and prefaces would 1 provlde more direct outlets, as much as hls attempt to shed Iight on hls speaker 56 ln the "Prologue," the fllghty "canoe" of romance had sald coyly to the poet '" want a comrade and for youl There's

1 nathing that 1would not do." The poet relects thls sn favaur of communicatmg wlth a flesh and blood 1 audience. Yet. as the anecdote reveals, his desire to inform as weil as to entertam hls audIence makes him uneasy, and in this he is not different fram any young poet ln search of a sympathetic audIence 1 The most credulous Iistener wou Id presumably be Bess. Il IS uncleaT, however, if thls speaker is trying to protect or to improperly penetrate her "young imagination." The only /Ines prior to the 1 1 1 145

1 anecdote Ihal overtly allude to reading had been calculated 10 satisfy Bess's need for "enchanted" 1 storres Towards the end of "Part Flrst," Peter is Just about to discover "a dead man's body" in a "stream'" "And Peter looks, and looks agaln,! Just like a man whose brain is haunted./ He looks, he

) cannot chuse but look,! Llke one that's reading in a book,! A book that is enchanted" (II. 540-550).

The Drowned Man episode in Book V of the 1805 Prelude suggests the importance that Wordsworth

:J attached to falry tales and books of romance as protecting a chi/d's imagination trom the intrUSIons of , gross reallty. But the intention here seems more to expose the chlld to such reallty, and at the same t,me to cancature the necessary response ("he cannot chuse but look") of the one who reads as 1 though "constrained by a spell" These "enchanted" lm es survive ail of Wordsworth's revislons, and yet he must not have

J consldered very deeply the implications of painting Peter as a book-reader. The anecdote suggests

the speakel's secret fear and awe of book-readers, and the image of Peter as book-reader expresses

1 these 5ame emotions. Seeing this is nevertheless poor compensation for the taet that Peter is 1 probably not a book-reader.57 The image, therefore, seems meaner th an even Peter deserves It counterpoints Peter's depravity w,th childli~e fascination, in order ta refleet a shallow side of the ~ speaker's character, wondennent wlthout knowledge, the response that apes accurately ("Peter looks, and looks again," echoed in the anecdote by the rhyme "Book-"Look) but is not genuinely

1 sympathetic, and also to refleet Bess's innocence. Obvious:y these intentions are to a great extent 1 incompatible, and one is at a loss to know whether the wonder being expressed here, and also in the anecdote, IS that of mere ignorance, leading to antisocial attitudes and behavior, or that desirable 1 wonderment of "young imp',Jination." Even more ambiguously than "The Thorn" and "The Idiot Boy," Peler Bel! plumbs the murkier depths of wonder, in which the pursuit of joy threatens to become

1 perverse. The clear. compelling messages on the moral relations between poets and readers ] conveyed by several of the 1798 Ballads cannot be found among the thorns and burrs of these ones. 1 1 1 1

1 Chapter 5 1 Reading and Dlsllluslonment

1 Wordsworth's "work" and "play" wlth the credulous response represents an Important aspect of the overall instructive purpose of the theme of reading in his early poems. Reforming readers 01 supenor

1 judgemlmt entaiJed awakenmg their capaclty to suspend dlsbellef, sendlng them back to Ihal trustful 1 state of mlnd in whlch admiration lies concealed. HIs early expenments wlth the the me of readlng anticipaI ed the 1815 "Essay, Supplementary's" efforts to make credulous readers actlvely aware of 1 their intellectual and spiritual obligations 10 the poet, and analytical readers resclnd any clalms they may have made to be autonomous authoritles on the products of poellc genlUs

1 Sorne of the poe ms wntlen between 1800 and 1815 carned forward Wordsworth's

preoccupation wlth the credulous response, widening its experimental contours and, more Intensely

1 th an before, seeking Its resolutlon with the ideal of reading "as a study." Poems such as "A narrow 1 girdle of rl)ugh stones and crags (1800), "Resolution and Independence" (1802), and the "Dream 01 the Arab" episode 10 The Prelude (1805, V) conta," overt reading Images, and dlsplay,~ flrrner sense 1 th an the ballad experiments of how "meddling intellect" can be reeonciled wlth the Spirit of klndness and appre'bation that Wordsworth felt was the most necessary condition 01 benelicial readlng ln the

1 poems to ,be considered in this chapter, the potential for such reconciliation IS carned by the theme of 1 "faney," as weil as by the themf: of reading. Like the ballads, Ihese poe ms should not be seen through the "optic tube of thought" as enactments of a theory 01 reader-response Nevertheless, as 1 the 1815 "Preface" makes elear, fancy had theoretieal signlficance for Wordsworth, as It had for many other poets and crities of his time. Tracing relationshlps between the 1815 "Preface" and the "Essay,

1 Supplemel1tary" opens up a pathway to a fuller understandmg of the beliefs and attitudes 1 underpinning Wordsworth's poetic images of reading.

1 1. The Play of Fant 1.' 1 1 1 147

1 Dugald Stewart's theory of imagrnatlon and faney drew a distinction between revislonary and vislonary 1 modes of the creatIVe temperament The random associations of fancy are shaped into poetry by the modilylng powers of Imagination Fancy "presents ta our choice ail the different matenals whlch are t subservlent to the efforts of imagination, and whlch may therefore be eonsidered as formmg the ~round·work 01 poetlcal genlus" Rapld, discursive thinking is "subservient" to reasoned reflection.

,) Poetic gemus, essentially instinctive, IS controlled by judgment and taste, facullies made synonymous 1 with both imagination and analytieal reading The "ground-work" of fancy ylelds a rough text of pnmary materials that the objective, common sense reader ln the poet edits into final form (S, 282· 1 285,304-310,475-529) Later commentanes on imagination and faney did not share Stewart's view that the revislonary mind IS supenor to that of intuitive gemus. Ruskin, for example, who was heavily 1 Influenced by Wordsworth, argued tha! judgment is not the primary source of imaginative power. Building on Stewart's notion that fancy caUs up thoughts and images "quickly and in multitudes," he

! claimed that imagination does mol a than Identify and selectively combine these pnmary matenals. It 1 eontemplates them, penetrating them ta their essence in a way that can be admired but not "disseeted or analyzed." Ruskin divlded Imagination into three "forms" or functions. The elementary 1 form is "Combining or Associative," in which imagination joins in the play of fancy. The second form is "Analytie or Penetratlve," the process of reduclng associations to their moral-aesthetle essence, that

1 Ideally leads to the form encompassing and yet surpassing these others, "Regardant or 1 Contemplative. ,,1 Ruskin's forms were meant to represent aspects 01 poetic genius, rather than of reader­ 1 response, but they correspond roughly wlth the three main phases of reading described in "We live , by Admiration" and the 1815 "Essay, Supplementary": Naive or credulous ("juvenile"), analytical, and genUlnely admiring. Ruskin's commer Ils on Imagination and fancy are indebted to the 1815 ) "Preface," ln whlch lancy is a "sportive" faSCination with external appearances, whlle imagination "broods· upon these appearances to reveal thelr "eterna'" qualities. The "Preface" helped to pave

" the way for RuskJn's theory by suggesting that imagination should be discussed in metaphysical

terms, such as appearance and realiry, Fancy is attracted to surface things, appearances. Imagination 1 J 1 148

1 meditates on the eternally present, the subhmely 'real.' ln sClentiflc terms, Imagination and fancy are 1 "each nothing more than a mode of memory ," and wlthout hard eVldence that they are dlfferent, the dIScussion must end in skeptlclsm, or, as the "Preface" does, enter lOto matters of heart and soul 1 (EW, Iii, 30-39 passim) ln Spi te of thlS, the emptncal underpinnmg of the "Preface" should not be discounted Locke's "who le gang" theory of assocIation provlded hterary theonsts wlth a framework

1 for vlewing fancy as rapld, discursive, and mfenor to imagmatlon's powers of reason and 1 contemplation. This accounts for the general consensus of opimon as to fancy's baSIC nature and function. Fal"cy was the 'glVen' that allowed speculations about sublime Imagination to unfold m an 1 aura of empincal authority. More Importantly, Locke's deslre for Reason to understand and to morally control the free play of association, in order to purge the mlnd of bad habits, can be glimpsed ln both 1 Stewart's pragmatlc vlew of imaginatIOn and Wordsworth's spiritual view of thls faculty 2 Whatever the differences ln definitlon, Stewart, Wordsworth, and Ruskin ail presented Imagination as a controlling

1 power, and the play of fancy as that whlch must be controlled. 1 An Impllea question of the "Preface" ie, if fancy 15 as "capncious as the accidents of thmgs, and the effects are surpnsing, playtul, ludlcrous, amusing, tender, as the obJects happen to be 1 apposltely produced or fOl1ur,ately combmed," why does the poet not retine these "transltory" effects from his work altogether, preserving only that which reflects the "IndestructIble dominion" of

1 imagination? The answer is that fancy, however whimsical, is an "actIve" and a "creative faculty" tha! 1 rivais Imagination. She occasionally rises to touch Imagination's helghts, reflects chlldhke freedom and innocence, and 15 a balm to the Promethean efforts of imagination to "support the eternal." "Fancy 1 depends upon the rapldity and profUSion with whlch she scatters her thoughts and Images, trustmg that the" number, and the felicity with whlch they are linked together, Will make amends for the want of

1 individual value." Like a blissful child who brings bright flowers to "make amends" for her Impulsive 1 wandenngs, her purpose is to "quicken and beguile" the heart Her brightness Will nevertheless Incite in the contemplative mlnd bath an "extreme activity ot intellect, and a correspondent hurry of 1 delightful feeling" necessary to sustain and to revitalize the soul in her inevitable falls trom Imaginative inslght. Though merely "slight, limited, and evanescent," fancy has a restoratlve function similar to the 1 1 1 149 1 dreams and memories of childhood ln Wordsworth's poems.3 Her brlef ascendencles are ghmmenngs 1 of the growth of the chlld from Innocence ta the hardshlps and earned rewards of maturlty To make thls connectlon wlth ehlldhood more eonerete, the "Address ta my Infant Daughter, Dora" (eomp 1 1804), whlch was put at the end of the section on Fancy ln the poems as a "preparation" for the followlng section on Imagination, IS clted as an example of a poem showing the "communion and

1 interchange" of the two facultles 4 1 The "Preface" resembles other commentaries on imagination and fancy by staying wlthin the genei al subJect of poetic genius Although a tentative link between reading and fancy is made when 1 Wordsworth descnbes his Irreslstlbly "happy" reaction to Cotton's "Ode upon Winter," imphcltly contrasted wilh his "awe-strieken" (Imaginative or sublime?) reaction la a passage from Paradjse Lost,

1 reader-response is not the issue. Links between the passages on faney in the "Preface" and the

characterizatlons of the youthful reader in the "Essay, Supplementary" (fW, iii, 62-63) are 1 nevertheless easy 10 make, and they help 10 explain why Wordsworth so often expresses 1 disillusionment with the play of fancy in his poems. Both the reader and the poet who indulge in "fancy without thoughl" are condemned in the "Essay." The "transient shocks of conflicting feeling

1 ~nd successive assemblages of contradictory thought" that delude the young lOto unthinking wonder

are slmUar to the "Iransitory" excitements of fancy in the "Preface." The "Preface" suggests that for

1 the poet the mood of innocent wandering and wondering creatively rivais the demands of the 1 imagination. When this same mood is characterized in terms of the moral relations between poets and readers, it is seen as subversive of the "minci as a process," of the imagination "correspondent" to that 1 of the poet. The mixed attitude towards audience response in the "Essay Supplementary" sheds light on

the manner ln which Wordsworth's poetic concepts of fancy, and the related themes of the waking

dream and the joys of childhood, postulate a moral view of reading. It was regrettable to Wordsworth

that "With the young of both sexes, Poetry is, like love, a passion; buLa necessity soon anses of 1 breakmg the pleasing bondage" due to the press of realistic or adult concerns. But he was even more disturbed by the possibility that most a:Jun readers, for whom poetry is only an "occasional reereatlon," 1 1 . 1 150

1 have not "advanced in true dlscernment beyond the age of youth." Merely "dazzled" readers, who 1 take up a book as an "escape from the burthen of business, and with a wish to forget the world, and ail Ils vexations and anxletles," "prize and chensh the faults [of the text] for havmg had power to make the 1 present tlme vanlsh before them, and to throw the mlnd back, as by enchantment, Into the happlest

season of IIfe Il Perhaps a reader ought to ask for no more th an these rejuvenatlng vamshmgs, whlch

1 are Idealized ln poems such as the Intimations Ode Yet escapism IS seen ln the "Essay" bath Ideally, 1 as "natural" and deslrable, and also as morally deflcient. A similar double perspective can be found ln a poem su ch as "A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags," the fourth of the poems "On the Nammg of 1 Places" in lIterary Ballads (1800) ln Wordsworth's poetry, as ln his cnticlsm, the terms imagination and fancy reflect allernatmg

1 moods of playtulness arrI.Ï contemplation. It 15 not always advantageous, however, to place faney ln

oPPosition to imagination in order to understand its purpose ln the poem That the poet-narrator and

1 hlS IWO companions are "Feedmg unthlnking fancies" in "A narrow glrdle of rough stones ... is less 1 significant when compared to Imagination, which is not mentirJned ln the poem, than when understood as relnforclng a mood of childhke Innocence, suddenly disslpated by an incident leadlng 1 "To serious musmgs and to self-reproach" (II. 46, 76).5 Whether or not these musmgs should be understood as a functlon of imagination, theoretically concelved, 15 far from the Immediate concerns 01

1 the poem. 1 "A narrow glrdle of rough stones ." suggests progress from the allurements of locodescnptlve writing to a ~~netrating moral insight into the matenals that the poet has been wOrKmg wlth, but 1 reading is more overtly Its theme. As in the Yew-Tree poem, if is partly the dangers of delusion that inhere in reading that give rise to the lesson on "Rash Judgment." ln what sense, then, IS liA narrow

1 girdle of rough stones ." a poem about reading the written, and how does this reflect the idea of 1 "Feeding unthinking fancies?" The poet-narrator and his friends whimsically 'read' the s.gns of Nature, "Feather, or leaf, or weed, or wlthered bough" (1. 14). The latter image prefigures the 'readlng' of the 1 fisherman's face, "gaunt and lean, with sunken cheeks" later in the poem (1. 64-66). But a literai 1 1 l ~ 1 151 1 connectlon with reading IS also tied in wlth the "vacant mood" of the wanderers, who "Played with our 1 tlme," -And often, trit/mg wlth a pnvllege Alike indulged to ail, we paused, one now, 1 And now the other, to point out, perchance To pluC:k, sorne flower or water-weed, too fair Either to be dlvided from the place j On which it grew, or to be left alone To its own beauty. Many such there are, Fair ferns and f/owers, and chiefly tha~ tall plant 50 stately, of the Oueen Osmunda named, 1 Plant lovlier in ItS own retired abode On Grasmere's beach, than Naiad by the side Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere Sole-sitting by the shores of old Romance. 1 (11.28-40)

1 Greek mythology and Arthurian Romance are used to illustrate the play of fancy as it applies to reading, and also to signal that the movement of the friends away from the reality of "rough stones"

1 into a fanciful wOrld, as unsubstantial as dreamy fictions, is virtually complete. 1 ln Home al Grasmere (comp.1800), the quest for a mode of composition that would embody "what is done among the fields,! Done truly there, or feH, of solid goodl And real evil" entails

1 Dismissing therefore all.\rcadlan dreams Ali golden fancies of the goldel" age, The bright array of shadowy thoughts from times 1 Thal were before ail time, or are to be When time is not, the pageantry that ~irs And will be stimng when our eyes are fixed On Iovely objects and we wish to part 1 Wrth ail remembrance of a jarring world. (II. 829-836)6 ) ln the same setting, Grasmere, the narrator of "A girdle of rough stones .. " also wants to "Give entrance

to the sober truth" of poetry by dissipating dreams and fancies. The image of the Lady of the Mere is 1 J alluring because bright and naive, but it is also merely illusion. The poet-narrator places himself ln the 1 ] position of one who is responding to a naturallandscape in the dazzled way of a reader of "old ,., f Romance." As in "Lines wntten as a small Distance" and "The Tables Tumed" the intention was to present hberating, alternative experiences to book-reading. Words describing the topography of the J ) 1 152

1 lake mlght also be used to desenbe the typography of a book. There IS a "Ilne" of flotsam along the 1 shore, (1. 15), a recumbent setting strangely at odds wlth the lean old man's flshmg "lIne" (1 62) The shore is "mdented," a "margln" between water and land. These Images subtly represent "Imes 1 written." Boundaries Imposed by the rational mind between lact and fiction are belng blurred by the play of faney, which is "ke the obscunng mist overhanging the lake nA thm vell of ghttering haze" has

1 ansen in the mlnd as weil on the landscape: and this is "suddenly" penetrated by na point of Jutting 1 land" on which a fisherman stands alone (II. 48-52) Just before this happens, the ramblers hear the "busy mrth/Of Reapers" ln nearby fields, the 1 voices of "Men and Women, Boys and Girls" This sound, imtially a disruptive "noise," IS asslmllated into the Areadlan dream they have been proJectlng onto the nrough" landscape It IS slgOlflcant that

1 the labourers are heard not seen. Fieldwork, the hardshlps that make It necessary, would not be 50

easlly Idealized if confronted Vlsually. Spared Ihis slght, the fnends mlsread as "Idle" the presence of

1 the fisherman the y see on the Juttlng pomt of reality (1 57). There are three possible reasons for thls 1 The buco lie dream lostered by their leisurely ~:roll, by the physlcal and matenal well-belng that allows them not to work on a "September mornlng" (1. 7), has decelved them Into thinkmg that the peasantry 1 is bhsslully happy. They would then be justly admonished by their realization, upon drawmg eloser to

the man, that he is sick, starved-Iooking, and fishes because he is incapable ollabounng ln the field,

1 of doing any other work to leed himself. However, the ability of the friends to see nature Ideally, 10 1 feed their minds on lovely or visually captivating "objects" (1. 13) as would an arMt, can also be thought of as responsible for this deception. In tliis light, the admonishmeilt can seem merely a cruel intruSion 1 into a world of innocence thal needs to be preserved from harsh realilies: the deception can seem necessary, the admonishment only unlortunate.

1 The third possibility resolves the contradiction that arises between the other IWo Unhke the 1 labourer, the man of "privilege" (1. 28) can indulge in any sort of reading experience he chooses, natural and textual. The poem suggests that if he tnes to feed his rnind with fictions that have no 1 bearing on real goOO or real eVII, he will become blind to human suffering. The fnends are not admonished for their idealistic search for innr 'ence per se, or for taking advantage of the leisure that 1 1 1 153

1 comes with their social station, but 10r habltually reading books and nature 10 a "narrow" manner that 1 results in a sohpslstlc view 01 humanlty and of Nature herself.7 Wanting to bask in her lovehness can mean not seelng her dar1

1 poet the illusion 01 complete self-possession, the Spirit of playfulness was not dismissed trom the 1 scene as ïnconsequential. Fancy led the ïdlers to the work of readlng theïr circumstances, natural and human, wlth Judgment, Implying that fanclful book-readmg leads uhimately to a dissatlSfactlon with the 1 allurements of distraction and escape, disparaged as "occasional recreation" in the "Essay, Supplementary ...

1 The narrator's recognition of the lake "Asleep in a dead calm" (1. 22) is both an image of the tranqullity sought by the friends, and an apprehension of the "dead unfeeling lake" that yields only a

1 "pittance" to the fisherman, and that "knew not of his wants" (II. 71-72). This viewof nature's 1 indifference is meant to be understood as a rash judgment. In suggesting earlier that nature's beauty is random, only "hait impe/ledl by sorne mtemal feeling" (II. 19-20), and later that It is completely 1 "unfeehng," the narrator seems unaware that nature led him to self-reproach as surely as animal necessities led the fisherman to lakeside. Just after the negative judgment on nature is passed,

1 however, the narrator implies that It must be set aside for reconsideration. The words, "1 Will not sayl 1 What thoughts immedlately were ours" suggest that the narrator has deliberate postponed his analytical tendenoes, deferred disinterested judgment of immediate thoughts and associations, in 1 order to give precedence to sympathetic feelings (II. 72-73). In spite of the didactic Inclinations of the closing lines, it is left to the reader, without overt prompting, to see nature's capacity to aet as a moral

1 guide for the human spirit. and to modify the poet's view of her as indifferent to humanity. The labour 1 Qf interpretatlon, which might lead to self-immersions and self-deceptions slmilar to those fostered by the unadmonished play of fancy, is entrusted to readers who have learned to "temper ail our thoughts 1 with charity" (1. 85). 1 J . 1 15·\

1 The readmg instruction in "If nature, for a favorite Chlld" (1800), "Read o'er these Imes. and 1 then revlew .Pause wlth no common sympathy,"ls given indirectly ln "A narrow glrdle of rough stones .... Those who would make "ready eomments" on thls poem, who have merely, "ke a 1 "dandelion seed or thlstle's beard skimmed along/ Close to the surface" of the text. Wltnout havmg "paused" long enough to be fully awakened to the depth of feeling masked by the play of fancy,

1 penetrate no further than external appearances (1 54, 19-20, 29) Without sympathy, and the 1 resulting self-diSCipline manlfest in speCifie readlng behaviors such as pauslng, reconsldenng, medltating, the reader 151 ke one "Sole-sitting by the shores of old Romance," contemplated by the 1 poet ln a Splnt of love but not responding in kind. The gentle reader ln"A Poet's Epltaph" (1800), who reaps "The harvest of a quiet eyel That broods and sleeps on his own heart" IS instructed to go further 1 than self-contemplation if he would not be an "idler .. Contented If he might enJoyl The thrngs which others understand," and the reader of "A narrow glrdle of rough stones. " IS encouraged to travel the

1 same moral pathway. The stem vlew of fanciful reading that can seem 50 unreasofhtble in 1 Wordsworth's crrticism 15 Illuminated: escaping ",to fictions can be deludrng or self-indulgent if one believes that the escape itself refreshes the mind. The reJuvenatlon inheres ln the renewed sense of 1 self in relationship to the world that cornes with awakening from the play of fancy, the dream of reading. The "Single self" (1. 67) without the pauses that fetum it tu the moral responsibilities of

1 interpretation cannot have sympathy for the poet and his poem. 1 "A narrow girdle of rough stones .... also suggests that there 15 much besldes pnvate gnef and disappointment motivatlng the dlsillusioned view of reading ln "Distressful glftl this Book receives" 1 (comp.1805), or the frustrated V1ew of aesthetic respt- ".,e in "Eleglac Stanzas" (camp 1806) Both poe ms commemorate John Wordsworth, who drowned dunng a sea voyage in 1805 One of the mast 1 positive lessons that the poet gleans from hls grief is that the aesthetlc expenence ought not ta

encourage escapism for its own sake. "Elegiac Stanzas" recalls a lost time of innocence, in which the

1 speaker could have "fancied" even the most forbidding aspect of nature, the ocean, "Was aven the 1 gentlest of ail gentle Things." ln this "Poet's dream" was a "faith, a trust, that could not be betrayed " But it has been betrayed by the death of a dear "friend," and therefore the Innocent dream "is 10 be 1 1 , 155

1 pltied: for 'tlS surely blind" The poet contemplates his responses to a portraIt of Pee le Castle by J George Beaumont, a storrny vISIon of land and sea, that stlrs not only fond memor/es of the lost friend, but a "fear" and "anger" at "unfeehng" nature Gnef has drastically foreshortened the poet's abllity to 1 expenence a "passionate work" of art with the innocence needed to sense its underlymg qualitles of "Elyslan qUiet" HIs restless response to the painting is due to the tact that he IS both repelled and

1 altracled by ils "unfeeling" qual/ly. He finds hlmself most drawn ta the aspect of the painting that mos! 1 demes human passIon: the "unteelil'g armour" of the casUe walls that gives the illusion of Impenetrabllrty, absolute protection from the unpredictable storms of nature, and that symbolizes for 1 him the "Heart that hves alone,/ Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!" There IS an underlymg relatlonship between the isolation of a fanciful dream and a state of mind ln whlch one IS unfeelingly

1 self-sufflelent. The resuh is guilt, the seH-blame ùf one who would lose himself in a work of art when there is a death to be mourned. Why does the poet say that he does not "blame" the painting exeept

J to brame hlmself for enJoylng it? What is rnost alluring about the painting, its depictlon of self­ 1 sufficlency, he f,"ds il necessary ta resist. 8 He feels that this denies the humanizing grief that he bnngs ta, and ineVitably finds in, the painting, and that he wishes ta keep paramount in his mind. But 1 he is not only responding to a painting. He is also responding to poems he had written earlier on the friend's death.

1 "Eleglac Stanzas" recovers the sense of Ioss expressed "To the Daisy," "Ilooked only for pa," 1 and grief," and Distressful Gift! this Book receives," ail written in the previous year. In "Ilooked only for pam and gnef," the poet regrets that he is no longer able to tell his brother about a "meek flower ... like 1 dew it lies/ With multitude of purple eyes! Spangling a cushion green like moss ... joyful tide!" But he IS stIll able to express this airy thought in a mood that promises the retum of joy. In "Elegiac Stanzas,"

1 this retum is made to seem as unlikely as reading a "chronicle Of heaven" in a dream-house o~ ~'. ,,'an 1 quiet." There are at leasl two reasons for this. Rather than heal the mou mer, the paossage of tim( , 1 which death must occasionally be forgotten only deepens the sense of Ioss when it is suddenly re­ 1 awakened. Faney, a "mode of memory" that tends towards the bliss of forgetfulness, must ultimately fail in her restorative purpose. But "Elegiac Stanzas" also suggests that poetic dreamlness is se"- 1 1 1 156

1 isolating, potentlally unfeeling. Even should It partly succeed, the play of fancy must be actlVely 1 resisted by the poet who wishes to commemorate another. The disilluSlonment wroughl by the dealh of innocence IS both inevitable and deslrable.

1 ln "Ilooked only for pain and gnef," the destruction of hope ln the fulfillment of youth "bold

and Innocent" meant tha! ail ''falth was dust." Yet the poet turns ln this poem, and ln "To the DaiSY," 10

1 the "joyful tide" of fancy for solace "Elegiac Stanzas" suggests that even thls falth has been 1 betrayed. The IOS5 of that faith in whlch the "tranqUlI" response ta nature and to art unfolds sllll ends in hope, a "welcome lortitude, and patient cheer" This is only possible beeause the unwelcome 1 fortitude, the "unfeehng armour" wrapped around the heart by faney, has been removed, and falth newly invested in the truth that cames wlth suffenng, "frequent sighs of what is ta be borne" The

1 "Book" ln the "Distressful giftl thls Book recelVes," may have been "originally meant ta accompany

John on hls voyages," and "commemorates the transcnbing" of "To the DaiSy" and "1 look only for pain

1 and griel:,9 Reading these poe ms over again makes readrng itse" a painful example of the death of 1 innocence. The beauty 01 an Illusory notion such as the one ln "To the Daisy," the flower that "shalt sleep and wakel Upon his senseless grave," is no compensation for the "written words that seem to

1 throngl The dismal page." Gone IS the "boylsh glee and pride" of readmg the ''wntten page" as weil as the delights of the youthful poet eagerly filling up the page that is "white."

1 Yet faney has not vanished unaccountably She has been banlshed by conscience, 50 that 1 5uffering can be more deeply felt and expressed. Although her eXile 15 cause for regret ln "Yarrow Visited" (comp. 1814), a poem written dunng the same penod sugge5ts resentment for her 1 unexpected returns The "transport" in "Surprised by joy .. " had led the poet to commit a breech of faith simllar to the one underlying "Eleglac Stanzas" - ta be temporanly "50 begUiled as ta be blind" to

1 the memory of the death of a loved one. (The chlld being mourned 15 the poet's daughter Cathenne, 1 who died on June 4, 1812 al the age of three.) It is the poet's self-con5cious, gUlI!y retreat trom surprise, whieh is Identified as one of the charactenstics of faney ln the 1815 "Preface," that sustams 1 his creative energy, the pounng of grief into IOy that dissipates "transport." 1 1 i 1 157

1 "Surpnsed by joy. "Impllcltly responds to another poem that was also insplred by the poet's 1 daughter, "Charactenstlcs of a Chlld three Years old," hmshed a few months earlier This IS an idealistlc portrait of the "all-sufflclent" chlld's "partnershlp ln play" wlth nature that neglects the tact ot death 1 The promise of sell-sufflclency that attracts the poet to the plcture of Peel Castle also leads hlm to Ideallze the autonomy of the chlld "Surpnsed by 10y "Imphcltly compensates for the bhthe

~ Ideahzation of Cathenne in ooCharactenstlcs .. " by focussmg bravely on the tact of her death It 1 admomshes the fanciful Spirit that controlled "Charactenstlcs "throughout. Yet personal bereavement cannot be the only motivation for the selt-admonlshment in "$urpnsed by JOY ," for 1 there is a s,m,lar "se~-reproach" JO "A narrow g,rdle of rough stones," composed before the deaths of Catherine and John This poem does not deal with the death of a loved one, and the spirit of play is

1 morally reprimanded there as weil ln the mernorial poems, private grief is expressed wlthin a

conceptual framework that might as readily accommodate patently public themes, such as labour and

1 leisure in "A narrow grrdle of rough stones .. " The moral-aesthetrc concept that sustains the poet 1 grieving ln solitude and that instructs him while rovtng wlth friends, is the same ln both settmgs: writmg and reading poetry can do mu ch more than provide escapes from reality, for poetry's pictures of good 1 and evil are affectlvely "real." There is a necessary prerequisite ta this experience Ali of the poems

discussed 50 far suggest that poets and readers must finally conquer their escapist impulses, manifest

1 in a word such as "fancy," or the natural affinities of poetry with the human condition will be lost. 1 Since Wordsworth's poet-narrators 50 often subdue the spirit of play, prefernng the high road of steady "silent thought," it is not surprising that the speaker of "Yarrow Visited" finds himself unable 1 to summon up at will the rejuvenating power of fancy. The child who 15 the father of the man has an unpredictable slbhng in Fancy, whose trolics on the bndge between art and reality in the earlier poe ms

1 had sent shudders of doubt through the poet~narrators that the bridge can be crossed. It may be 1 morally correct to reprimand the child wlthin, who cavorts ln present reality as weil as in the lost dream of innocence, as though play is the only worthwhile object; but if su ch reprimands happen often, and 1 they do ln Wordsworth's poetry, the child wlthin Will begin to entertain thoughts of a permanent 1 1 • 1 158 1 escape from the voice of moral authonty And this immanent, unwelcome pOSSlblhty 15 the cause of 1 the "mlnd in sorrow" ln "Yarrow Vlsited." The nver mirrorc;; dlsillusionment m whlch fancy has "pen shed" "And is thls -Yarrow? - ThIS 1 the Stream! Of whtch my fancy chenshed,l So falthfully, a waklng dream?/ An Image that hath penshedl" As ln the poems that admomsh fancy, the wlsh IS to afflrm the full emergence of the

1 experienced mlnd from the Innocent dreams of the past to present reahtles, and yet It IS not easy ta 1 find compensations for the inevitable 1055 of falth due to the dissolution of fancy. The river "that dlds! appear 50 falrl To fond ImaginatIOn,! Oost nval in the light of dayl Her dellcate creation" (II 43-44) The 1 river's beauty seen without the help of fancy nvals her creative power, but the pomt that keeps hope alive is that, ln the sunlight that "plays" on the water, "a ray of fancy still survives" (11.75-76) Although

1 the poem juxtaposes imagination and fancy, It does not do sa ln the way of the 1815 "Preface," ln 1 whlch these two powers are "nvals." "Fond imagination" and fancy are virtually Interchangeable terms, and both contend wlth reality to control the poet's perception of nature As ln "Eleglac Stanzas, fond 1 imagination has become a "Fond deluslon." Vet the spirit of play is not merely a deluslon ln whlch lalth cannot agaln be placed. It IS of absolute value in sustaining the "rnlnd ln sorrO'.." The poem reffects 1 the mixed attitudes on fancy and wonderthat will soon appear ln the 1815 "Preface" and in the

"Essay, Supplementary." The question "Yet, why?" in "Yarrow Vislted" 15 a yearning for an allunng

1 idea of poetry as play that the poet IS unwilling to abandon, even though present expenence tells hlm 1 that this has already happened. HIS faith in his moral progress promises compensation, but thls only confirms the gravity of the loss 1 "Yarrow Vislted" enacts a disappointed re·readlng of "Yarrow Unvislted" (camp. 1803), which IS Itselt based on readings of poems dedicated to the same nver by other paets 10 ln the 1803 text,

1 not wanting ta take the lime to see Yarrow, the narrator exercises hls powers of "wonder" to create a 1 scene that would transport hlm and his companion to the river wlthout the bother of actual/y gomg there. "Yarrow Visited" demes the application of these earher "treasured dreams" to real expenence, 1 the encounter with the physical fact of the river, disapporntlng because less perfect than Imaglned. The absence of a creative power corresponding to that of the poet of "Yarrow Unvlslted," "blithe," 1 1 1 159

1 playful, tree tro"'"! human sufferrng, IS regretful to the poet of "Yarrow Vislted" partly because this 1 means that he can no longer fully enJoy the earlier poem. The passing of Innocence from the reading expenence, as weil as the disappearance of fancy from poetlc genlus, is being mourned. 1 Il. Waklng Dreams ~ 1 "Yarrow Visited" IS a good example of how closely related the concepts of the waking dream and fancy are in Wordsworth's poetry This connection was made expllcit in the 1805 Prelude, when the poet 1 spoke of "Those who had fed their childhood upon dreams·/ The playfellows of fancy ... " (X, Il.709· 710). However, the waklng dream has a distinct theoretical heniage that sets it apart from the concept

1 of faney, and It casts ItS own hght on the theme of reading ln poems such as "Resolution and Independence" and the "Dream of the Arab" episode in Book V of the 1805 prelude.

1 A prototype of Wordsworth's Images of the waking dream, and those of cntics sueh as Kames 1 and Alison, is in Anstotle's De Anjma. Aristotle sald that "there are two ways ln which actuality ["shape" or "form" as distinct from "matter"] is spoken of, on the one hand as knowledge, on the other as 1 contemplation, and It is accordingly clear that soul is actuaHty in the way that knowledge is. For sleeping and waking are a part of the soul's belng present, and waking is like contemplation, sleepmg

1 like havln9 but not ernployln9 knowledge."11 The analogy is between sleep, inert or passive 1 knowledge, and soul as the "forrn" (first actuallty) of a body in which actions (second actuality), motor and perceptual, eXlst as potential. A waking man is an "ensouled" body in wh/cn the seeds of 1 contemplation, the "eternal" facuhy that distinguishes man from other organisms, other types of soul, begin again to germinate. No one would argue that sleeping and wakefulness are not both

l continuous and distinct states of mind, and have much difficulty thinking of the me ans or object of 1 knowledge and the contemplator, book and reader for a pertinent example, as joined but separable entities. 50 Aristotle's analogy selVes his overall purpose of suggesting that soul is distinct but l inseparable trom the physical being· "not a body, but belongs to the body." Yet the metaphorical dynarnlsm of the analogy makes il suspect as Iogic. If sleeping and waking are both manifesta~ions of 'J 1

...... -- .. ---~------1 1GO 1 the soul's presence, as are knowledge and contemplation, how 15 It "accordmgly clear that soulls 1 actuahty ln tlle way that knowledge 15" and not, as Imphed, m the way that contemplation is? The analogy st ifS the loglcallntentlon of the passage to an unsettled state ln whlch the allurements of

1 metaphor arE' as much ln eVldence as the exercise of rea50n Wort1sworth's dream Images also attempt ta dlchotomlze contemplation and spiritual or

1 mtellectual mmM For example, the active "thought" of the poet or the reader of "A 51umber dld my 1 spint seal" is imphcltly contrasted wlth the motionless, lorceless soul 01 sleep But thls only "seemed" hke Inertia to the dreamer Wordsworth's dream Images are 50 compelhng because they suggest a 1 profound element of threat , that, ln a philosophlcallight at least, IS based on apprehenslons that the under-soul or under-presence of the consclous mlnd is not only an an active, contemplative power,

1 but an all-controlltng one as weil, manlpulatmg human consclousness. Though the 1815 "Preface" 1 argues otherwme, the poems consldered so lar Intlmate that the mood of capnce has a smlster aspect that, mstead of l'esolvmg itself into an oPPOsite power of contemplation, exults ln ItS own power and 1 denies human fE'eling. In a poem such as the Intimations Ode, "Sou," can seem separate trom the body, ominously "broodmg" over the mortal shell il must eventually discard, active Independent of the 1 conscious contemplator, and controlling not only individual human destlny but the fate 01 even the "meanest f10wer that blows." It can also seem unconscionably capnclous. The Ilower Itsell, and the

1 dehcate play of tancy il 50 olten embodies in a Wordsworth poem, can radlate that same omtnous 1 qua lit y of "Soul," and in such a compressed way that the slightest encroachments 01 touch or sight can make ~ burst vlu1ently Into a star. In the Lucy poems, as in the Intimations Ode, "Resolution and 1 Independence," and "Tintern Abbey," this under-presence IS so powerful that It Ihreatens 10 overwhelm the poetlc dreamer, who survives hls self-immersion by separattng dream trom realtty, and

1 by affirming the stre~lth and sanity of the fully consclous mtnd. 1 The Idea that reading and revene, "Dreams, books, are each a wOrld, and books, we know,/ Are a substantial world, both pure and good" ("Personal Talk" [camp 1802)) does not make the IWo 1 worlds synonymous, but separates a dreamlike readlng experience trom one that IS concrete, self­ conscious and therefore' morally "good." The poellc dmamer must become the moral reader Vet Ihe 1 1 1 161 1 resolutlons of Wordsworth's early poems, expressions of falth ln "sllent thought," affirmations of j nature's nurtunng and heahng powers, or humanizmg turns to the 'other: even as they redeem and to sorne extent explam the self-Immersions of the poetlc dreamer, do not fully solve or absolve the

] "blank mlsglVlngs" that made the resolutions necessary ln the tirst place Simon Schama recently

observed that for the Romantlc and RevolutlOnary generatlon that swept through the 17905, "liberty

j was a natural and hence ulhmately irresistible force,,12 But It must have been much easler for poets 1 such as Wordsworth, or phllosophers such as Godwin, to beheve ln the necessary progress of hlstOry, of liberty over pohtlcal tyranny, th an ln the progressive force of freedom ln the unconsclous mlnd of 1 the mdlvldual Each day's death ho Ids the posslblhty of morbid terror. And the physlcal death preflgured by sleep is even more certam than the Vicissitudes of "solitude, or fear, or pain, or gnef." ln 1 Chapter Three, 1argued that Wordsworth was among those who felt that liberty and necessity were Iwo sides of the same COin, rather than antlthetlcal terms. Yet a phiiosophical creed based on falth in

1 the ultimate tnumph of an and social progress can be poor compensation for private VIsitations trom 1 the king of terrors What makes Wordsworth's poetlc dreamers powerful is the truths they express as gnef, fear, )oy, or love, but alsa the truths they are unable to affirm, whlch sometimes ghuer ommously 1 ln the dreamwork, promlsing physical and moral dissolution. This is the darkest promise of "Resolution and Independence."

1 ln thls poem, the poet-narrator eventually encounters an old man "bent double W1th age" J standing beside a pond "At length, hlmself unsettling, he the Pond! Stirred with his Staff, and flxedly did look! Upon the muddy water, which he conned, 1 As If he had been readmg ln a book" (II. 84-87) l This pond-readirrg image IS not as grotesque as the one in peter Bell. or as sensational as the one "The Thom" But il is just as improbable as these others. Seemg the Impoverished leech-gatherer as

J a book-reader cannot be Justified except as a fantasy of the poet-narrator that needs admonishment. l Since the waters are now muddied by his "connlng," the pond cannat reflect a face. If the old man is 'reading' hlmself, his thoughts are perhaps confused. The nearing presence of the narfator seems to 1 have Interrupted a perfect stillness in the old man's mind, a pondering sa clear and fragile that the shghtest intruSion of sound, or motion of selt-conscious thought, would dlspel il. The clrcular motion 1 ) 1 1 ti: 1 Imphed by the stlrnng suggests motions 01 the contemplalive mlnd, but It does not relnforce the Idea 1 of turmng the pages of a book (The poem also tells us that the old man does most 01 thls water- connlng wlth hls le et ) The search for hteral meanmg seems almost futIle, for the man IS more 1 appantion than physlcal body ta the poet The poem recounts a dreamhke encounter that delles obstmate questlonmgs about a

1 common sense or hteral underlinmg lor the pond-book Image The old man's vOlee ''was "ke a stream! 1 Scarce heard, nor word Irom word could 1 divlde / And the whole Body of the man dld seemt lIke one whom 1 had met wlth m a dream" (II 114-117) 13 The readmg Image IS nevertheless an Important key 1 to understandlng the poem's moral-aesthetlc messages The narrator hlmself seems uneertaln about the meamng 01 the dreamhke expenence, whlch does not return hlm ta chlldlike 10y but ta the "!ear

1 that kills" (1. 120) Seekmg that rneaOlng, he tnes to settle hls dlsturbmg Impression that the 1 encounter is hallucmatory wlth the nollon that the man 15 an emls5ary, real ln both "shape, and speech," sent Irom "sorne lar reglon" to strengthen and admonlsh hlm (II 135,118-119) Upon 1 reflection, thls concretlzation of dlsonentatlon mto mstructlve purpose sepms even more unreal, and eener, than the posslblhty of hallucination. The manlpulatlVe power that wou Id send the old man and 1 the poet on thelr ways ta thls troubling encounter would mdeed be a Masler broodmg over slaves 1 The pond becomes a book ln the enlgmatlc, protean way that the shell and the stone becornes books ln the "Drearn of the Arab" episcde ln Bool< V of The Prelude, but thls does not mean 1 that the episode and "Resolution and Independence" are mdeclpherable as allegones of readlng Karnes proVides a framework of Ideas that IlIumlOates the structure 01 "Resolution and Independence" 1 and whal il teaches aboul a mode of reading that reqUires admonlshment Kames used the metaphor of the waking drearn to illuminats three aspects of the reading expenence revene, leadlng to a

1 heightened, direct pmceptlon of the real, and retlectlOn or afterthought He presented these phases 1 as mterfused or overlapping, but momentarily distlnguishable from one another' "As many nules of criticisrn depend on idea! presence, the reader, it is hoped, will take sorne palOs to form an exact 1 notion of it, as distinguished on the one hand from real presence, and on the other trom superfldal or reflective remembrance. In contradisttnction to real presence, Ideal presence may be properly lermed 1 ; 1 ~ 1 163

1 a waklng dream Real presence, on the contrary, vouched by eyeslght, commands our belret, not 1 only durrng the direct perception but ln retlectrng afterward on the obJect Though Ideal presence 15 thus dlstrngUished from real presence on the one slde, and from reflectlve remembrance on the 1 other, Il'5 however varrable, wlthout any preCise Irmlts, rrslng sometlmes toward the former, and often srnkrng loward the latter "

1 Real presence does not mean slmply the experience of realrty as opposed to fictIon, for the 1 "reader's passions are never sensibl} -noved tlil he be thrown ln a kind of revene, ln whlch state, forgettlng that he 15 readlng, he conceives every inCIdent as passlng rn his presence, preclsely as If he 1 were an eye-wltness our judgement revolts agalnst an Improbable incident, and If we once agatn begin to doubt of Its realtty, farewell relrsh and concem - an unhappy effect, tor It will requtre more th an 1 ordtnary effort to restore the waklng dream, to make the reader concelve even the more probable

InCIdents as passlng ln hls presence ,,14 Reading revene IS the ideal pathway to a heightened

1 perception of real presence. Once that perception becomes questlonable as reality, however, as 1 500n as It 15 recognized as an Improbable IllUSion by the reader's unconscious "judgement," he is dnven back from hls Imaginations to fiat reality, in which the successes and dlsapporntments of the 1 text can be contemplated. Kames suggested that thls ideal experience IS rare for a cntical reader, and Ihat how deeply and long It can be sustalned depends on both the reader's "effort" to suspend his

1 dlsbelief (though as Stewart had argued, and as Kames implies, he can never suspend his ,1 1 unconSCIou5 Judgment), and the author's ability to create the illusion of the real. :1 Kames's three rnterfused aspects of reading iIIuminate "Resolution and Independence" in 1 whlch ordlnary actuahty becomes a revene, resuhing in a prescient experience Implicitly questioned as real, and a return to f1esh and blood reality in whlch the work ot reflection on the dreamlike expenence

1 begins to take place The first s~ven stanzas of the poem detall a naturallandscape, ground the poem 1 rn animai realrty by descnbing wind, rain, birds, and, magnificently, a single hare. Theyalso reveal the threat to paets in human reality by recalling the untimely deaths of "Chatterton, the marvellous Boy" 1 and Bums 15 The implied contrast between animal JOY and the fears that attend "life's business"

opens the way for an insight into a zons t')' dxperience that lies between joy and tear, Illusion and 1 1 1 , 6·l 1 reahty The encounter wlth the leech-gatherer 15 descnbed ln exact, physlcal and temporal terms He 1 stands alone, "contlnumg motionless" for "a mlnute's space" on the far slde or "margln" of the pond, and (hke the QUlxotlC figure in the Dream of the Arab) "full ln vlew" (II 60-63). Bul the old man's 1 stillness stnkes the narralor sa completely tha! he IS unable to eslabhsh the relevance of thls VISion to "lîfe's business"

1 The comparison of the I~ech-galherer ta a "huge Stone" seems to make hls physlcal reahty 1 certain and absolute, bul the slone is then corrpared ta a sunnmg "Sea-beast," mdlstmctly descnbed ln the commentary on Imagmation ln 1815 "Pre'ace," Wordsworth quoted these images as an 1 example of the "confernng, the abstractmg, alld the modifymg powers of the Imagmatlon The Stone IS endowed wlth somethmg of the power of IIfe ta approximate It to the Sea-beast, and the Sea-beast

1 stnpped of sorne of its Vital quahties to assimllate It ta the stone; whlch Intermedlate Image [the 1 resulting metaphor] IS thus treated for the purpose of bnngmg the ongmallmage, that of the stone, to a nearer resemblance to the figure and condition of the aged Man, who IS dlVested of 50 much of the 1 indications of life and motion as to bnng hlm 10 the pomt where the two obJects unite and coalesce m just comparison" Yet fancy rather than imagination IS spoken of m thls poem, tWlce (II 27, 53) And

1 the poem moves ln a way resembling "A narrow girdle of rough stones ," from a mood of playfulness to a mood of self-conSClous contemplation that one may or may not be wllhng ta thmk of as

1 imagination, theoretlcally concelved. The reader is certainly prompted by the comments on thls poem 1 in the "Preface" ta thmk of it in terms of Wordsworth's theory of Imagination; but the reader who would do this has ta deal Wlth the tact that the theory belng enacted may be as much Stewart's as 1 Wordsworth's: the obJective, therelore moral, exercise 01 judgment on the "spintual" penetrations of the poetic dreamer.

1 Lightheartedness does not satisfactonly characterize the mood of playtulness ln the poem, 1 and its "glitter.ng" (1. 13) cannat be explained away as secondary or infenorto the mood of contemplation at the end of the poem. It is capnce as mueh as solemn contemplation that blends the 1 animate and Inanimate qualities of stone and sea-beast, that divests the man of ordtnary "indications of life" and invests hirn wlth the qualities of otherworldliness enjoyed by readers of mythologlcal stones 1 1 1 165

1 or quest-romances. The IIttle pond IS like a winedark sea, the staff emblematlc of botn healing and the 1 threat of pumshment, tndent or blbhcal rod 16 The anthropomorphlc energy of dreaming has already begun to move the poem out of the realm of the aetual, and ln stanza ten the old man is "not ail allve 1 nor dead,/ Nor ail asleep" Almost foetal in his rnfirmlty, "te et and headl Coming together in thelr pllgrrmage," the leech-gatherer begrns, ln stanza twelve, to stlr waters that breed uncertarnty

1 The helghtened perceptIon of the old man as stone and sea-beast, wrought by the poet's 1 sustalned gazlng at hls motlonless figure, make him want to break the silence, close the distance between them He approaches the man, and asks him a question that is childlike ln its dlrectness, and 1 that impllcitly attempts to conflrm the vision as physical encounter, as fact rather than illusion' "What klnd of work IS that whlch Vou pursue?" (1. 95.) The old man responds in solemn VOlce, explarnrng the 1 nature of hls trade as a leech-gatherer. The generallmport of the words, their "grave" tone, reglsters but precise meanrng IS lost to the mesmenzed narrator The encounter becomes even more

1 expressly dreamlrke, and the dlsoriented poet repeats the question more urgently' "How is it that you 1 live, and what IS It you do?" (1.126.) The old man smiles tolerantly and repeats what he has apparently already said, that he gathers leeches "far and wide" The words finally become dlscrete to the narrator, 1 and he IS now able to report them verbatim The old man once could find leeches '''on every side;! But they have dwindled long by slow decayj Yet still 1persevere, and flnd them where 1may'" (130-

1 1 132) 1 The fact of comprehensible speech wClulO seem to be enough to confirm the old man's presence as real. However, the "speech" as weil as the "shape" of the old man trouble the narrator,

1 who envlslons the old man wandenng "continually· on the moors, sUent and alone, ln persevenng but inevltably defeated pursuit of hls dwindling trade. What, after ail, could be causing the "deeay" of the

1 leeches, and why does the old man persist in his st range independence, rather than rely, as does the 1 Old Cumberland 8eggar, on the benevolence of others to survive? The poem gives no answers to such questions, and the unreality of the situation suddenly becomes ludicrous to the narrator, as the 1 old man, perhaps recogmzrng the poet's dreamy "rrind's eye" (1. 136) feels compelled to renew the 1 1 1 loS

1 "same discourse" (1 140), repeating hlmself, in effect, three times, as wou Id a patient father to an 1 inquisitlve but dlstracted chlld. The narrator's "scorn" ln the fmal stanza 15 aimed cntirely at hlmseH For the old man's 1 cheerfulness and conver&atlon on "other matter" had suddenly awakened the narrator to hls "demeanor ktnd," hls humantty Based on what has gone before m the poem, one can speculate that

1 he also now sees the Improbability of enVlsloning the old man as a stone or sea-beast, a figure from a 1 dream, or an envoy from some ethereal reglon who has amved al thls spol of tlme r ,Iy to ,"struct hlm The narrator has awakened 10 fiat reahty, in which "1 cou Id have laughed myself to scorn,l To flnd ln thal 1 decreplt man 50 hrm a mind," and he contracts wlth himself to contemplate thls expenence whenever he ftnds hlmself in a Slmllar mood of despondency or, pemaps Just as accurately, dlsrupled JOY ''l'II

1 thlnk of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor" (II 144-147) Rzepka argued that the main lesson th e 1 narrator leams is not ta treat "others," the fellow men mentloned in stanza SIX, as the "dreamhke, depersonalized figure of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor."17 The "(trm" reallty of the old man 1 has been conflfmed, and the poet's earlter troubled imaginings, his "Dim sadness, and blind thoughts" (1 28) are Imphcitly dlsmissed a'" IlIu50ry, and yet valued because they led the poet to a 1 lesson on self-indulgence. Thal the IllUSion, the ''vlsionary solipslsm," of the narrator does yleld a

lesson makes the idea of returning 10 il seem attractive, and thls posslbihly, seen as penlous ln the

1 Yew-Tree Poem, is not only allowed but encouraged in "Resolution and Independence." 1 The adult who can still read books and nature tn the self-referentlal way of the child, but who 15 able ta recogmze the moral limitations of reading as an escape from "Me's busmess," 15 the Ideal 1 reader postulated by the poem. The concludmg stanza has been sean as the narrator's deferment of hls reductlve tendencles, a "refusai to comment further," rather than ta neally resolve the poem's

1 ambiguities Into a synoptic mora! lesson. According to A W. Thomson, ''The dehberate abruptness of 1 the conclusion 15 a reflection of our final inability to understand" the poem's dichotomies on a rational basis.18 Bialostosky goes further: "Readers who seek a satistying resolution ln thls poem must be 1 ultimately disappointed, for the narrator's interest in the poem as of future use to hi ms eH takes precedence over the motive to produce a clear and satistying vlsion.,,19 ThiS mlght be an accuraW 1 1 J 167

1 prediction for the reader who craves loglcal solutions, the competitive puzzler cautloned by earher ,) poems su ch as "The Thorn" and 'Simon Lee," or for the reader who believes that the poet's search for

,esolutlon and Independence is not "ultlmately" bound up with his own. Sut ln terms of other readers,

1 Bialostosk~'s point 15 unduly pesslmlstlc, partlcularly in vlew of Rzepka's argument that the poem

enacts the poet's defeat of his tendencles towards glVlng precedence to himself above others. It 15

1 not dlfflcult to belleve that a poet stnving flercely for imaginative autonomy, who has the courage to 1 say "Sy our own Spirits are we deifled" (1. 47) can also laugh at this stnving as a deluSlon of pride 20 As ln "A narrow girdle of rough stones .. " analysis and judgment are preempted or postponed 1 in "Resolution and Independence" by self-reproach and felJow-feellng, and thls in itself can be a satisfylng VISion. The transmogriflcatlon of autonomy ("Sy our own spirits are we delfied") into a spint

1 of "Wonder" (1. 66) leadlng to admiration for the old man's "demeanor kind" (1. 142) unfolds as though 1 the poet hlmself "had been readmg ln a book," and suddenly awakened from the dream of reading to laugh at the susceptlblhty of his "mtnd's eye" to IllUSion. The poem moves from dizzying "fears, and 1 fancies," to stillness, a pattern that can be fourld in many of the 1798 BalJads, even in the most conslstently mlrthful one, "The Idiot Boy." But poems such as "Resolution and Independence" and 1 "A narrow girdle of rough stones .. " extend this pattern in order to model more clearly for the reader a

mind progressIOg from impassioned joy and "blind thoughts" through a process of pondenng and

1 Isolating truth, a focal point for contemplation, posing questions, scrutinizing one's external 1 relationshlps, and learning lessons on pride arld self-immersion that result ln a feeling of kindness for others. As in "We live by admration; a wilHul, potentlally seH-destructive spirit of autonomy is aroused 1 by credulity, a mood in which it is possible to believa that "The sky rejoiœs in the mornings birth" (1. 9), but falls prey to morbidlty. resultlng ln attempts to analyze "harsh contrasts" between appearance and

1 reality ("what is it you do?"), and ending in a reverence for comrrtJnality that resists the demands of 1 logie arld comman sense Il is a process meant to be urlderstood as emblematic of the Inevitable maturing of a poetic mind confronted with the mighty forms and individual beauties 01 Nature and, as J in the "Essay, Supplementary," an expression of faith in the progress of readers willing to follow the 1 poet across moors of thought both dari< and light, by pools muddy as weil as clear. 1 1 168

1 Kames's three phases of readmg can also be used to illummate the form and instructive 1 purpose of the "Ore am of the Arab" The dream IS made analogous to readtng ln a concrele way - Ihe dreamer IS also a book-reader - but one of the dlHlculties 01 seemg It as a model 01 readmg 15 that the 1 "fnend" who recounts Il (who becomes Wordsworth himself ln the 1850 version) closes the book ln whlch he IS readmg (Don Qujxotel belore expenencmg the dream To suggest that thls signifies the

1 continuance of readtng rather th an Its dlsruptlon, one can turn 10 the pnor tradition of IIterary Iheory 1 that presented reading as a transport or revene, begmnmg wlth Longinus and contlOued byentlcs such as Kames and Alison But the meaning of the closed book IS already suggested by the openmg 1 paragraph of Book V, which prepares the way for the dream sequence that follows Il by locusslng on the mutabllity of publlshed texts As in some of the 1798 LyCea! Ballads, there IS a search for natural

1 expenences tha! expand the pleasures of book-readlng Books are "shrines 50 frall" that they belle 1 the etemal spi nt they embody: Oh, why hath flot the mind Sorne element to stamp her Image on ln nature somewhat nearer to her own? 1 Why, gifted wlth such powers to send abroad Her spirit. must it IOOge in shnnes 50 frall? 1 (1805, V, " 44-48)

1 There is a similar wish for a more permanent form than lhe book for the preservation of poetry 1 underlying ail of Wordsworth's Inscription poems, and It is an overt theme of 'The Two Thleves,"m which the poet envies the "genius of Bewick," the wood engraver. If more permanent forms of 1 publication cou Id be found for poets and sages, "Book-!earning and books should be baOlshed the land" Nevertheless, as is made (;Iear towards the end of Book V, the "shnnes 50 frall" are still shnnes,

1 commemorating the spints of great authors such as Milton and Shakespeare, and therefore worthy of 1 respect, even worship. In the opening lines, the mutablhty of books is contrasted with the "deathless spirit" or the "soul divlOe" of "Sovereign Intellect" they hold. CloslOg a book would be aklO to 1 entombing a body whose spirit lives on in elements of the reade(s mlOd that reslst the artlficial 1 1 1 169

boundaries 01 loglc, 01 numbered tlme, margined and mdented space. When the friend closes .llQn 1 QUlxote (1 62), he contmues to read Its essence in the "sea," whlch can seem like the most unbounded 01 nature's plctures to the "hstless" eye Book-readmg expands mto readmg a natural

) settmg, and lurther, mto the vast "desart" of a dream.

The frlend was looklng out on the sea while sitting in a cave, enclosed hke the spint of an

J author m a book "Ylelding to the sultry air" the friend 15 as subject to the closrng of consclousness by J sleep as the Splnt of the author 15 to the closing of of hls book by a reader. "Sleep selzed him and he passed Into a dream" (1 70). The sleep that comes upon hlm qUletly, and yet selzes him hke a 1 paralyzmg drug, will be not the mert or passive sleep of Aristotle's analogy. It will be the play of association, fltfuilV at rest on the "open groundl Of Fancy" (II. 236-237), and threatened by a strange

1 fixation. The dreamer "saw before him an Arabian waste,1 A desart, and he fancied that hlmsel1l Was

sitting there in the wide wlldemess/ Alone upon the sands" (II 71-74). His distress at findmg himself

1 alone is relieved by the sudden appearance of a man at his side,

J Upon a dromedary mounted high He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes; A lance he bore, and undemeath one arm A stone, and ln the opposite hand a shell 1 Of a surpassing bnghtness. (II. 77-81) 1 The Arab tells the dreamer that the stone 15 a book of geometry, "Euclid's Elements ," and that the

J shell IS also a book, but of "more worth" th an the other. The dreamer puts his ear to the shell and hears an "ode in passion uttered," a poem "prophetie" that foretells "Destruction to the ehildren of the

J earth/ By de luge now at hand" (II 88-99). The symbolic posslbllities of shell and stone have recelved 1 considerable cntlcal attention. Their main importance lies in the tact that the dreamer unquestloningly accepts that they 3re books. Like Kames's reader, the dreamer experiences hls dream as "real 1 presence" He tells the poet that 'Strange as it may seem 1wondered not, although 1plainly saw The one to be a stone, th' other to be a shen, 1 Not doubted once but that they both were books, Having a perfect faith in ail ~hat passed: 1 1 ~------1 170 1 (II 110-114)

1 Upon tlrst seerng the Arab, the dreamer does questIon hlmself as to "what th,s strange frelght. could 1 mean" (1. 84), and the Arab's explanatlon of what It means suggests that he has read the dreamer's mrnd. "Frelght" contams, shell-hke, the whlspers of both fright and falth, the confhctrng elements Ihat 1 most dlsturb the dream. In recollectlng and recounting the dream, the friend Imphcltly wonders why he had so deeply accepted that stone and shell were books. He seems unaware that his sense of the

1 dream's Improbablhty troubled hlm even as he was dreamlng it "Perfect falth" in th~ Arab gave nse la

a "wlsh .. engendered ln my fearl To, cleave unlo thls man, and 1begged leave/ To share his errand

1 wlth him" (II 115-117). Fear reasserts Itselt wlth a renewed threat of sohtude, and the dreamer senses 1 that the Arab IS hlmself fearful, possessrng a "wlld look," and "grasprng" hls frelght (II. 119-120) Seeing the Arab's apprehenslon, the dreamer's falth dissolves into uncertarnty "1 f~ncied that he was 1 the very knightl Whose tale Cervantes tells, yet not the knlght,/ But was an Arab of the desart too,/ Of these was neither, and was both at once" (II. 123-126).

1 As wlth the "stone"-"Sea-Beast" coalescence in "ResolutIon and Independence," the play of 1 association - freed by the dream and explrcitly descnbed from the onset of the dream-narratlve as fanclful (1 72) - results ln an anxlous state of mrnd that probes the borders between IllUSIOn and reahty 1 The dreamer's uncertarnty, like the Arab's face, "grew more disturbed" as the dream neared its end

And looking backwards when he looked 1saw 1 A gliHering Irght, and asked hlm whence It came. "It IS," said he, "the waters of the deep Gathering upon us. Qurckenang then his pace He left me; 1called after hlm aloud, 1 He heeded not, but wlth his twofold charge Beneath his arm - before me full in vlew - 1saw him riding over the desart sands With the fleet waters of the drownlng world 1 ln chace of hlm; whereat 1waked in terror, And saw the sea before me, and the book ln which 1had been reading at my side. 1 (II. 128-139) 1 1 1 1 171

J What awakens the dreamer to fiat reality is not the "glittering IIght" :n Itself, no matter how ominously 1 thls Image can be Interpreted, as death (J. Hlllis Miller) for example, or apocalyptlc imagination (Hartman) 21 Betore this image occurs, the "terror" that dlsslpates the dream had already been i seeded by the eroslon of "pertect falth" When the Arab finally struck the dreamer as undeflnable, Iherefore unreal, he looked backwards /nto the dream and gathered that what he had ylelded to ln

1 falth was an unfathomable distortion of reality Alth0ugh he ,tlll wanted to "cleave" to the Arab as a 1 "real presence," the gult between them became absolute when the Arab failed to understand the dreamer's question, "1 saw / A glittering light, and asked him whence It came" (1. 129). Instead of 1 saylng "from whence" the light came, the Arab says what it IS, "the water of the deepl Gathering upon us" (II 130-131) The dreamer already knows what It is. Il is '1ear" and he wants to know its source. 1 As ln "Resolution and Independence," the dreamworld IS questioned in terms of common sense reailty. Asking what is this "strange freight" or "from whence" do the waters come has the same

J practical thrust as the "what is It Vou do" ln "Resolution and Independence." And when the answer ,1 seems Improbable or Incomprehensible, the dreamworld starts to break apart. As ln Kames's theory of reading, reality is restored when reverie becomes Improbable. But this dreamlng reader returns ln 1 "terror," and abruptly, as one who has recognlzed that he is having a nightmare and fights to wake up. The sleep was not "ideal" or restorative in the sense of a refreshing escape from reality.

1 ln retelling the dream endlng, the friend uses the words "twofold charge" to descnbe the 1 "freight" of stone and shell. "Two'old" alerts one to look for the layered meanmgs of "charge.,,22 The primary meanmg is commanded task, or duty, which in context is the burying of the books. The word 1 also points to the physlcal charge of man and dromedary across the desert More interesting than both of these is the suggestion of accusation and guilt, laying on blame, charging someone of

1 wrongdorng. The two most obVlous accusations (which must of course be self-accusations even , though the "charge" IS the Arab's) that the dreamer wants buried are, tirst, that he is deeply afrald (whether of death, imagination, the unfeeling glitter of fancy, or ail of these powers), and second, that 1 he does not possess the "perlect faith" that wou Id defeat fear. The stone is an image of both the resoluteness of faith and, carried in the sling of arm and chest, of potential aggression. The shel/ "of 1 1 1 _") 1 1.

1 surpassing bnghtness" reflects the "ghttering !lght," the hollowness of fear Hence, the Arab's 1 burymg of stone and shellis a double dut Y It preserves fear and falth, but also unshoulders thelf burden. 1 As books, stone and shell are knowledge preserved and knowledge entombed. Beanng on the act of reading books, the double dut Y slgmfles fear of a permanent escape mlo the realm of fiction.

1 a QUlxote-hke msanlty, falth ln the restoral/ve power of such escapes, and a confhctlng need to both 1 possess and dlsown that power Escape IS the most pressing 'hterary' Issue of the dream, that ralses the questIon of whether or not escapist readmg, due to the wandenngs of fancy (referred 10 tWlce m 1 the dream, and Immediately following It in the poet's speculations on the dream), is morafly redeemable as "perlect falth.,,23 It IS not, slnce disilluSlonment and terror are the oulcome of thls

1 allegory of reading The "glittenng" revene, that ln "Resolution and Independence" settled hghtly on a 1 stone of "Wonder" m a way that converted wonder into a sea-beast. IS acutely unsettled ln the Arab Dream. 1 Perhaps the dream'5 most dlsturblng suggestion 15 that pnmordlal terror can fla even the most trustful mind. The poet attempts to make sense of this terror, whlch IS faith betrayed, perhaps by a

1 premonit:on of "unfeeling" death (The sequence was composed ln the year belore John Wordsworth's death, and phrases such as "fleet waters of the drownrng world" and "waters of the

1 deep" resound eerily with the "mighty Deep" of "Eleglac Stanzas," whlch is also concerned wlth "a 1 taith, a trust... betrayed.,,)24 But the main source of his fnend's anxlety IS hls apprehenslOn that elemental reallty IS distorted to such an extent that this could not be expressed ln the "language of the 1 Dream" (1 87) except in apocalyptic terms. a deluge, a drownmg world The reader's responses to thls baffling "language" are mediated by the poet's. One IS meant to do as the poet does, add moral and

1 practical"substance" (1. 143) to the shadows. The poet was Wllhng to enter the "bhnd and awfullalr" of 1 the dream far enough to have '1ancied him [the "semi-Quixote'1 a hvmg man. crazed by love and feeling" (II. 151, 143). He can see the worth of dream-"madness," embodled by books such as.QQn 1 Qujxote, for It preserves knowledge and experiences not available to ordrnary men, women, and children: "Enow there are on earth to take in charge/ Their wives, thelf chlldren, and theïr wgm loves" 1 1 , 173

1 ln the struggle to survive (II 153-154) Part of the "charge" that one is glven by such books IS to

examine thelr possible relatlonshlps wlth reahty

The seml-OUlxote IS an Arab, and thls impllcilly makes hlm a represenlallve of both authors

and reader5 The Imaglnary 'author' of the Don Quixote tales 15 an Arab.25 And Quixote IS the

consummate escapist reader, who cannot tell fiction from fact, and who enacts hls life as a flctic-~I

J adventure Author and reader, therefore, are conflated ln the Arab-Ouixote of the dream The

"errand" that he IS on represents an mward journey, the burymg of "perteet falth" ln naive elements of J hls mlnd ln preparation for a time when hls 'ears and suspiCions will be permanently overthrown Of 1 course, the Arab-QUlxote enacls the needs and deslres of the poet's friend ThIs IS hls dream, hls shadow (By becommg the dreamer ln the 1850 version, the poet wanted to add to the Spirit of t mtlmacy between hlmself and the reader, but Instead a signlfieant dimension of thls Splnt was 1051 )

But It IS hls shanng of the dream wlth the poet, and Ihrough hlm, wlth the "Fnend" who IS the reader,

1 that lorms Ils moral substance As ln "Expostulallon and Reply" and "The Tables Turned," Il IS a 1 heartfelt bondmg between friends that shapes the poetic impulse. This helps to explasn why the poet's attitude towards the dream, and the readsng expenence It represents, was cautlous. HIS 1 companion had gone far into the lalr of Don Qujxote, and returned with a warnmg. The poet hlmself "hath such entrancements half-possessedl When 1 have held a volume in my hand-I Poor earthly

1 casket of Immortal verse-! Shakespeare or Milton, labourers diVine," and his friend's encounter wlth 1 the books buried ln his consclousness has confirmed the need for "sober contemplallon" in the reading experience (II 162-165,157). 1 ln his youth, Wordsworth had enjoyed reading pon QUlxote, which was enormously popular ln the later eighteenth-century, and the Arab Dream suggests that this lighthearted book should give

J nse 10 serious thought as weil as to laughter,26 The lines near the end of the musmg on the dream, "1 1 methinksl Could share that maniac's anxiousness, could gol Upon hke errand" (II 159-161) stop short of self-deluslon, but they also suggest that senous thought has been given to the idea that life is a 1 dream, begmning and ending with the dreamer.27 Descartes, the literary source of the dream, had glven considerable attention to this posslbility. That the dream was worked up from a literary source, 1 1 1 1 rather th an from persona! expenence, makes It no less layered and complex The dream sprang lrom 1 the restless mmd of Descartes, and was descnbed m Baillet's Lite of Descartes (1691) 28 ln hls Flrst Meditation, Descanes dlscussed Ihe wakmg dream Unable 10 make an emplrlcal dlsllnctlon between 1 the fully consclous mmd and the dreamworld, whlch appears ","sane" to rational mqUlry, he wrote 1 amusmgly "1 can see 50 cle3rly that there are no conclusive slgns by means of whlch one can distmgUlsh clearly between berng awake and berng asleep, that 1 am qUite astonlShed by It, and my 1 astonlshment 15 such that It 15 almost capable of persuadlng me that 1 am asleep now" Yet the problem dlsturbed as weil as amused hlm, and whlle setthng back on the cushlon 01 common sense m Ihe Slxth 1 Meditation he look It up agarn: "And, ln truth, If someone, when 1am awake, appeared to me ail of a sudden and as suddenly disappeared as do the Images 1see when 1 am asleep, 50 that 1could see

1 nelther where he came from not where he went, It would not be wlthout reason thal 1deemed hlm 10 1 be a spectre or phantorn lormej m my bram, and simllar 10 Ihose whlch are formed there wh en 1am asleep." 1 A simllar doubt can eas1ly be cast as the psychological premlse upon whlch poems such as "Resolution and Independence," and the Arab Dream were wntten. And the affirmation of reallly ln 1 the Meditations resembles the msolution sought, and partly found, by these poems, the re­ integration of the disoriented or unconscious self wlth famliar surroundmgs "But when 1 percelve

1 things of which 1clearly know bot t, the place they corne from and that ln whlch they are, and the lime al 1 whlch they appear to me, and when, W1thout any Interruption, 1 can IInk the perception 1have of them with the whole of the rest of my life, 1am fully assured that it IS not in sleep that 1 am percelvrng them but 1 whlle 1am awake. And 1 must not ln any way doubt the truth of these things. For as God IS no

deceiver, it follows necessanly that 1 am not decelved ln thls. ,,29 Wordsworth's dream-poems doubt

1 the "truth of these things," even as tlley reflect the hope that they are true Il IS easy ta see thal one's 1 1houghls on a lonely moorcome tram "me," that Don Qujxote cornes trom an author named Cervantes, but saytng what their deepest sources might be, as Descartes' movement trom common 1 sense 10 religious doctrine suggests, depends on faith. And there, as the poet's "blank mlsgivlngs" 1 1 1 175

1 so 01len reveal, IS preclsely where doubt becomes the most stlrnng and dangerous God may be, ] alter ail, for reasons unsought by Descartes and sensed by the poet, a decelver. The Arab Dream ends m a "sober" mood that signifies speclflc attitudes towards analytlcal 1 modes of readlng It IS not the "sobnety of skeptlcism" As ln "Resolution and Independence" and "A narrow glrdle of rough stones ," the temptatlon to closely analyze the lessons that Inhere ln the

1 dreamwork 15 reslsted by the poet, Just as he resists saymg more about hls intimations of an Impending 1 Apocalypse, "made mamfestl By certam eVldence" (II 158-159). It IS enough for hlm to aftlrm that "reason dld lie cOfJched" ln the dream, and ta emphaslze hls "reverence" for the seemlngly opposite 1 worlds of "madness, reason," rather than the aclot . ~asoning ItseH (II. 150-151). "Sober contemplation" means somethmg more than readlng "as a study" governed by dlspaSSlonate 1 ludgment. For Wordsworth, unhke Kames or Hume, contemplation does not destroy the wakmg

dream of hctlon, but preserves If ta be "h~Jf-possessec1" in a way that Imperils nelther innocent

1 wonderment or sophistlcated reason This ideal posslbility accounts for the rather incongruous 1 luxtaposltlon of the segment on the speculative "dwarf Man" (II. 291-349) and the one on the simple­ hearted "Boy of Winander" (II. 389-449) J The child "prodlgy" or "dwarf Man" can "read lectures upon innocence" without understandmg Its beauty, "can readl The inside of the Earth" and still not be able to receive "her love

1 designed for him" (II. 313, 332, 347) ~e cannot do these things because, like the reader who takes ) up the "optic tube of thought" in"We live by admiration," he "Takes nothing upon trust" (1.338). The value of the fables and legends describoo ln later segments (II 350-369; 450-481; 481-500; 516- 1 557) lies ln thelr capacity ta make Juvenile readers trust thelr perceptions, without having to sift and weigh them accoraing to abstract "propositions" (1. 323). Even though escapist !iterature may lead the

1 credulous reader to an expenence of ,error," such as the one descnbed in the "Dream of the Arab,"

this prepares the Imagination to survive frightening experiences in reallife, such the one described in

the "Drowned Man" episode. However, in Book V absolute trust, "perfeet faith," is made to seern as 1 potentially inhuman as the "moral part" that is "perfect" in the "dwarf Man" (II. 319-320). Though the Boy of Wmander, unlike the poet and his friend in the Arab Dream episode, comptetely "trusts in an 1 J 1 1 mtrrnslc responslveness 'And continuai renewal of exchangE \'VIth natural vOlce," It 15 a credence that 1 ends ln death, rather th an ln a retum ta human expenence.30 Llke the chlld ln "Three years she grew ln sun and shower," the boy was "taken" from hfe, presumably by the protectlve power 01 Nature (1 1 414) 31 It is slgmflcant that the lines commemoratmg and Ideahzmg thls death commends the power 01

1 both "books and nature" (1 447) The "dwarf Man" IS a prodlgy "m books," and the descnplton of hlm 1 clearly points to negatlve aspects of analy1lcal and speculative readtng habits 32 The Boy had a gemu5 for communlcatlng wlth nature. 15 hlS interaction wlth nature emblematlc 01 a mode of readtng? 1 Books and lakes or ponds are closely and complexly assoclated ln the poems dl5cussed earher, and Ihis one takes place "by the glimmenng Lake" Yet the Idea that the mutual 'responslveness' of nature

1 and the boy enacts a "concourse" between the poet and tll'3 reader must be approached wlth 1 caution It can be mlsleading ta thlnk that the poet 15 pres/mttng the "Boy of Winander" as havmg the capaclty ta completely asslmllate the reader's consciousness, the way that the boy's spmtls 1 asslmilated lOto Nature ThiS wou Id reflect a power and a process that the poet, elsewhere ln Book V, and ln poems such as "Resolution and Independence" and Ihe Rwned Cottage, "nds both attractive

1 and dangerous, portending both an Ideally selfless state of mind and one that 15 potanltally unfeellng, autonomous, and Inhuman. Perhaps i'1 different arcumstances. those of the "Essay,

1 Supplementary" for example, given to "divestmg the Reader" of egotism, "estabhshmg that dominion" 1 over him sa he can be "humbled and humanized ...punfied and exalted," Wordsworth would not have abjected ta the idea that deep reading tends towards complete self-abnegation, a •. md of death The 1 desirabllity of utter seHlessness is al50 one of the main messages on readlng conveyed by the Yew­ 1 Tree poem. But in the circumstances of Book V, the "f:30yof Winander" enacts the uncertalnty ln which the human reach for the transcendent power of selflessness IS rooted It 15 only when 1 "hanging" doubt stnkes its silent chord, "when pauses of deep Silence rnocked his ski Il,'' that the Boy is carried like the child in "A slumber did my spirit seal" into an integrated world of mmd and natUi J, a 1 once "uncertain Heaven" implicitly becoming as famihar and soothing to the Boy as the "bosom of the 1 1 1 177

J steady Lake," The mutual responslveness of poets and readers 15 grounded not so much in self­ 1 abnegatlon as ln a shaled uncertamty The "Drowned Man" eplsode that follows the "Boy of Wmander" presents the poet as a "Child 1 not nlne years old," "entrusted" to Nature's care, and wandenng by "Esthwalte's Lake" (II 474,451, 458), the settmg that figures so importantly m Wordsworth's treatments of the tt~eme of readlng The

1 sway of the "dream of novelty," woven by Nature, over the "half-infant thoughts" of the Child depends 1 on his Indetennmacy, lack of sure purpose "Seeking 1 knew not what. 1 chanced to crossl One of those open fields "(II 456-457) This echoes the earlier "open groundl Of Fancy, happy pastures 1 ranged at will!" (II, 236-237) But the wonder "halt-mfant" 15 IIke the wonder "half-possessed" by the poet pondenng the Arab Dream What preempts the poSSI bl lit Y of a total possession of wonder ln

1 both settmgs IS the presence of uncertamty, that leads to an expenence of "terror" What "possessed" thls Chlld's mmd was "fea," as weil as wonder (II. 473,475) As in the Arab Dream, the

1 Child's "dream of novelty" gives rise a "spectre shape," this time inescapably real, a bloated body 1 brought "boit upnght" to the surface of the lake by "grappling Irons, and long poles" (II. 469-473). Once again the presence of death makes it dlfficult to see what this eplsode mlght have to do 1 wlth a mode of readmg, The "grapphng" of readers for poetic meanings pales lOto Insl9mflcance compared wlth the fact of a premature death by drowning. The saving power of escapist IIterature is

1 clearly affirmed, but this cannot be seen as an unqualified recommendation of reading for the 1 pleasures of "novelty" This would be painfully inappropriate to the setting. But the "Drowned Man" episode is not an apotheosls of the credulous or childlike response, for It Instructively sinks the "ideal 1 grace" that inheres in perfect faith in the vicissitudes of the real (1. 479). The purpose behind this becomes clearer once one sees that the poet has been steei ,(1g a course betweell the allurements of

1 autonomy, represented by a solipsistic dreamworld and by the seH-suffiang "dwarf Man," and the 1 allurements of credulity, present in the Arab Dream but mainly represented by the "Boy of Winander" episode, and the various passages on books of fable and romance, including the one in the 1 "Drowned Man" epiRode (II. 475-481). NUlther the wandering Child or the Boy were intended to be seen as irreconcilable opposites of the "dwarf Man," who se imitations of moral behavior, however 1 1 ------1 178

1 shallow, mlrror the "ski Il'' that glves nse to the Boy's "rmmic hootmgs" (II 4Q::ï, 398) The wandenng 1 Chlld is hke the "dwarf Man" m that he too would not expenence lear, "Natural or Supernatural ahke,/ Unless It leap upon hlm ln a dream," ln his case a waking "dream 01 novelty" (II 316-317)

1 The prodlgy 15 not "goodness merely," as he has seemed 10 those who have met hlm He enacts the letter rather than the spmt of morallaws Nevertheless, hls appearances have a salutary

1 effect on hls audiences "With gifts he bubbles o'er/ As generous as a fountam, selflshness/ May not 1 come near hlm, gluttony or pndeJ The wandenng beggars propagate hls name,l Dumb creatures hnd hlm tender as a nun" (II. 306. 300-304) HIs bubbhng show of generoslty and the "doubled and 1 redoubled" calls 01 the Winander Boy form an unexpected "concourse," emblemallc of a reader's deslre to echo the poet's "volce" and hls deslre to form hls own "dlscourse," that perhaps Inevltably

1 would be "embossed wlth terms 01 art" (II 320,322) ln the mldst 01 thls crafted uncertamty, It 1 becomes clear th a! the overall purpose of Book V was not to scorn a model 01 the autonomous reader and to recommend submlsslve models that deny the uselulness of analytlcal skllls It was to reveal that 1 the moments of reading, whether unfolding ln the mystfJrJOUS "language of the Dream" or ln "sober contemplation," ln breathless "pauses of deep silence" or ln wakelul apprehenslons, cannot be 1 managed excluslvaly by the reader's needs and expectatlons. Book V glones in the poetic mind "gifted wlth su ch powers to send abroadJ Her Spirit" (II 47-

1 48), and impllcitly contrasts the reader who is fortunate enough to recelve instruction Irom these ~ powers with the one whose native "glfts" have been systematlcally perverted by hls socIal and educatlonal enVlfonment. It is, of course, Nature who has bestowed these powers on ihe poeî, who 1 can only regret that he must send hls thoughts and feelings to the reaaer ln the "frai l," mutable form of lines written 33 Book V has a distinctly presentational aspect to II, and this can potentlaily make the

1 reader uncomfortable No other book in The prelude is 50 overtly designed as a gift to be gratefully 1 received. Therelore, It is especlally Important to see that the gift is not handed down by a s'Jper­ human poet empowering his followers Wlth secondary authonty. It is sent by a "living man," who would 1 not have his "love and feeling and internai thought,/ Protracted among endless solitudes" (II. 145- 146). 1 1 t 179 1

Ill. Gentl. ShockS

1 The poe ms dlscussed so far sensillze the mmd to the presence of shadows in Wordsworth's hghthearted poetry of drearns and fanCles ln "To the Small Celandlne," the poet accuses hlmself of

~ vamly "Poels, vain men m th!:"" ·,':od!" Fancy unexpectedly closes her pelais or. the bug of pride 34 1 This poern and Its companlon, "To the Same Flower," were composed dunng the same month as "Resolution and Independence" (May,1802.), and brielly share ItS mterest ln the themes of reading 1 and sohpslsm. In "To tlle Same Flower," the poet compares the experience of celandine-spymg to 1 book-readmg' Often have 1sighed to measure By myself a Ionely pleasure, 1sighed to think, 1read a book 1 Only read perhaps by me; Vet 1long could overlook Thy bnght coron et and Thee, 1 And thy arch and WIIy ways, And thy store of other pralse. (11.25-32) 1 1 The poet tempers the self-indulgence that inhert!s in his "Ionely pleasure" by signalling his awareness of the reader's presence. He leaves it to the readerto decide whether "wily" means coy or deceitful, 1 and also, since the readmg metaphor makes it clear that the poet IS projecting patently 'literary' qualities onto the flower, to decide whether such words were planted in a mood of self-mockery. In

1 Book V, Wordsworth used the archaic modifier "arch," meaning sly or saucy, to de scribe the "dwarf

Man's" precocious way of Iooking at the world. The "arch" in "To the Same Flower" carnes the same

1 meaning, but there its purpose is to be an agent of the poet's gentle self-mockery. In "Small 1 Celandine," the poet de scribes the flower as "Bold and lavish of thyself," a "careless Prodigal," that the poet can exploit to make himseH as "great" as a "great astronomer." This again recalls the Book V 1 "prodigy," hls telescoptc mirld, his showy overflowing abundance of intellect. The "dwarf Man," 1 1 = 1 180

1 whose knowledge IS strung "tlght as beads of dewl Upon a gossamer thread" is hke a child of fancy 1 gone wrong And the poems on the cel andine reveal the poet checkmg his mlellectual and analytlcal lendencles by fine, self-directed Irony, preservlng the Innocence of the chlld wlthm, and at the same 1 lime complicalmg the poetlc themes Wordsworth sald that the celandlne IS mterestmg for Its "habit 01 shuttmg Ilself up and

1 openm9 out accordmg to the degree of hght and tempe rature of the air ,,35 This IS why Ihe celandme 1 is plctured in "To the Same Flower" as playmg "hlde-and-seek" The concelt 15 that the celandlne, by closmg ItS petais, hoodwlnks the poet's attempt to pralse Its beauty, and also that the poet mlght be 1 decelving hlmself ln 'overlookmg' thls darker, hldden beauty ln practlcal terms, overfook means to 'look down' on the flower, and both word and phrase can be taken Iwo ways. "Overlook" mdlcates that 1 the poet may be bhnd ta concealed aspects of the flower's beauty, though not as bhnd as poets who

had ahogether ignored il. The celandme hé'ld yet to be honoured ln Enghsh poetry, and 50 was "ke an

1 unopened book. Its closed petais, that cause spnngtlme poets to Ignore It, are Ilke the closed book of 1 the Arab Dream, an inVItation to read natural as weil as literary forms There IS, of course, no "ghltenng light" signalhng the posSlblhty of terror ln these lighthearted poems Yet the wry touches, that

1 complieate "fancy" and bnng out the "ghttering countenance" of the celandine 10 potentlally

redundant Imes on the "Same Flower," can convey an element of threat. The celandine 15 bluntly

1 contrasted wlth the primrose, "A Beggar in the Colet" This is a remlnder that no poe m, not even one 1 of the faney, should be predictable and wlthout its shadows It 15 also a reminder that ln other poems the play of fancy dazzles the poets eyes to the point of pain, and sets hls mlOd adnft ln revenes that 1 part frighteningly from the famlliar.36 ln the "Essay, Supplementary," ln keeptng wlth ItS eautlonary purposes, Wordsworth condemned the "translent shocks of conflictlng feeling and successive

1 assemblages of contradictory thought" that feed the Immature reader's appetite for sensation. But IIIS 1 clear the transitions in manyof his poems are not ail based on the hope of creating "gentle shocks of mild surprise." Wordsworth sometimes used abrupt and pointed transitions to penetrate the reader's 1 potentially lax response to the mood of tranqUility being developed in the poem 1 1 1 181 1 The dlsturbances that mhere in the drift away from reality into reverie can be found ln 1 mlcrocosm ln dream poems such as "A slumber did my Spirit se al" (1800). The potentlal tra nqUi lit y of "slumber" carnes wlth it a darker promise, of apathy and merba "Slumber" seems to have an active 1 force of ItS own, apart from that of the spirit It seals Il has almost the presence of a verb, as ln Johnson's "to slumber," which meant "to stupefy, to stun" It IS dlfflcult to know whether thls poem

~ laments or celebrates the 1055 of "motion," "human fears," "earthly years," physlcal, emotlonal, and 1 temporal forces that normally defme the relatlonshlp of the self ta the surrounding world When such tles are severed and the Spirit is sealed, "fears" no longer seem human but pnmordial, ln this Instance 1 blended wlth the anlmae of "rocks and stones and trees." There IS no Winander-like "gentle shock of mild surpnze" ln the reahzation that '" had no 1 human fears" denies mdlvidual tears and presents the posslbility of a vast, eternal, and inhuman fear One of the poem's positive implications, typical of Wordsworth's poetry, is that security trom human

1 anxiety, wrought by Integrating one's mind with Nature, necessarily entruls a loss of self. It is always a 1 "gentle shock" to expenence the fulness and fitness of thls concept in a Wordcworth poem. But the notion thal thls integration may mask a transcendent. all-encompasslng fear cannot ever be gently 1 recelved. Nelther can the reslstance ta and expression of ''fears'' in "A slumber did my Splnt seal," laient in the succession of negatives in the poem, particularly the tripled "no" that sounds so darkly

1 human. What IS sealed in this "Poor earthly casket of immortal Verse" is mental One prefers the 1 primrose of "slumber" to the celancline of 'sleep,' but it seems irJ1)Ossible to say clearly why.37 Other poems in the 'Lucy cycle' enact a fear of falling into dreamworlds such as the one m "A 1 Slumber did my spint seal," and awakenings by which the human relationships of the single self are restored. In "She dwelt among th' untrodden ways," Lucy is associated with water ("springs") like the

1 Naiad in HA girdle of rough stones .. " And Iike the Naiad, she is compared to a flower,

A Violet by a mossy stone 1 Half-hidden from the Eyel -Fair, as a star when only one , Is shining in the skyl 1 1 182

1 The capriclousness of the flrst companson results ln a second flash of surpnse, the leap from violet 10 1 star 38 The movement is from the realm of human emotion, pralse and love, 10 a mmule, organlc world that is made to seem halt-human, half-cultivated by the aesthellc eye, to a cosmos almost completely 1 mhuman The thlrd and final stanza enacts the premature death of the poem of the fancy betng born ln stanzas one and two. The poet bunes that poem ln a "Grave" and then gneves for Ils death

1 The diSSipation of fancy was due to the sudden onset of gnef over Lucy's death, dlscreetly 1 prefigured by the use of past tense m the poem's openlng IIne It can also be explamed as the poet's awakenmg from a mood of "perfect falth," ln which an Invlolale Mald has seemed precisely hke a Violet 1 What seems to start the mood sWing from JOY to gnef IS the compound, "half-hldden," whlch carnes somethlng of the suspendmg force and coneeptual meaning of "half-possessed" ln the Arab Dream, 1 or "halt-mfant" m the "Drowned Man" eplsode ThiS, and the slash beginnmg the followlng Itne signaI ln miniature a Winander-hke, contemplative pause m the poers mmd, followed by a bnef effort to

1 sustain the mood of fancy, that collapses into sorrow wlth the full recognitIOn that "She IIved "and 1 lives no more. Hume wrote that the seH-immersions of the fanClful mmd can be forglven in poets and 1 children, but not in philosophers.39 As the 1800 "Preface" mdicates, the poet must also be a philosopher. "She dwelt among th' untrodden ways" suggests that Wordsworth refused to forglve

1 the play of faney if this would mean that the necessary relationshlps of the poem to realtty would be 1 thematically forgone. Of course, su ch relationships otten did nol preoccupy Wordsworth as he constructed a poatic revane or flight of faney. "Glen-Almain" (1805) makes it clear that, wh en It was 1 called for by the poatic situation, Wordsworth was capable of actlvely resistmg hls preoccupation wlth the relevanee of poetry 10 re3! life, manifest throughoul his cntlClsm and in manyof his poems "Glen­

1 Almain" commemorates the supposed bunal-place of Ossian while at the sa me time doubtmg whether 1 the body is really there under the "rocks rudely heaped." The poet's decision Cin wh ether thls problem should be pursued is represented by the line "1 blame them not! Whose Fancy ln this lonely 1 spot was thus moved." This implies that the 'burial' is more a product of fiction than fact, but also that Il 1 1 1 183

1 wou/d be futile to pursue thls fine of thinkmg, for "There cannot bel A more entire tranqUlflty" than the 1 poet .5 already feelmg on thls scene of instruction And there cannot be a more pOignant Instance of the dlfference between the Spi nt of 1 affection and tolerance that relgns over Wordsworth's poems and the Spirit of confrontation that relgns over h.s cntlClsm Macpherson's 'translations' of Ossian were proven fraudu/ent ln 1805, and the

1 delight that Wordsworth still took ln this exposure ten years after the fact was made apparent in the 1 mockery of Macpherson and OssIan ln the "Essay, Supplementary." Yet ln the poem that was composed so near ln tlme to the peak of the controversy, Wordsworth found an occasion to admire 1 the readers whose "Fancy" had been moved by Osslan's poems, though the battle over thelr legitlmacy was still, as the poem hints, "unreconClled." The taste of these same readers would be 1 scorned as the "wonder of Ignorance" ln the "Essay, Supplementary." What mattered most to the poet dunng his VISlt to the glen was that OSSIan, and perhaps more importantly his aVld readers, were

1 there in spmt.40 1 "Glen Almain" suggests that the fancy has a so/emn aspect But for the poet to contemplate too 50lemnly whether or not the popular belief that the site is a bunal ground is "groundless" would be

, 1 tantamount to Insulting the power of fancy. Out of respect for this power, and for the sake of his own

"tranqUility," he chooses to overlook his doubts. However, the Lucy poems suggest that dreams and

1 tanCles are not 50 blameless that they must not be occasionally disciplined by a firm sense of reality. 1 Lucy, too, is more spirit than body, and wh.le t~e poet's images of her are idealistic, the need to ground them ln reality is apparent. In the fifth stanza of "Strange flts of passion ..... the narrator finds 1 h/mself slipping into a dream whose power he finally resists. Riding his horse towards "lucy's cot,"

ln one of those sweet dreams 1slept, 1 Kind Nature's gentlest boonl And, ail the while, my eyes 1kept , On the descending moon.

The rider's mind, rocked by the steady motions of the horse, is almost unconscious, but it is still able to

apprehend the danger of Iosing the way to the cot, for the moon he has been gazing at suddenly 1 1 1 184 1 seems ta "plunge" behind the cottage roof, and this alerts him to the posslblhty of accident and death 1 HIs passlonate love for Lucy converts fear for hlmself Inlo fear for her "a mercyl' 10 myself 1cned,/ 'If Lucy should be dead'''' The cry of mercy 's also a mercI for Ille return of full consclousness "Kmd 1 Nature's gentlest boon" may seem to be the dream, but the real glft IS the abrupt awakenlng Lulled Into behevlng that the poem promises "one of those "sweet dreams" of refreshmenl and escape from

1 reallty, the reader IS implicitly shocked into a recognition of the moral-aesthetlc hmlts of thls languld 1 expectatlon.41 "Lucy Gray" also leads the reader to examine hls initiai expectations of the poem, one of whlch 1 is impllcltly the deslre for a clear solution to the mystery of lucy's disappearance. Averill argued that the reader IS meant to identlfy himself closely with Lucy's parents, who read the "pnnt" and "mar1

1 Lucy's steps in the snow to the "Bridge" upon whlch they dlsappear.42 The poem begms wlth 1 Images appeahng to the power of fancy. Lucy is Iike a flower, "The sweetest Thlng that ever grew/ Beside a human door!" The reader sples the "Fawn at play/ The Hare upon the green" As ln 1 "Resolution and Independence," the Image of a hare, in conjunctlon wlth other Images of natural innocence, triggers despondency "The sweet face of Lucy Grayl Will never more be seen." The poet 1 does not develop the vlsionary or iIIuslonary posslbihties latent in the flrst stanza, hls memory of once

glimpsing Lucy, who, Iike the Leech-gatherer, was alone in the "Wild" of a "Moor" He uses the play of

1 fancy only to suggest the poem's resistance to reveries not grounded in human concerns 1 It is Lucy's parents who embody these concerns. The father's love for hls child IS not greater th an his love for his wife, for on a day in which a storm threatens, he had sent Lucy Into town to guide 1 his wife back to their home. In hls mind, the bond between mother and chlld was stronger than the forces of chance and accIdent. The shocked parents "ail that nightl went shoutmg far and wide." lIke

1 Michael, who also loses an only chlld, they eventually resist the despalr that leads to death, a:1d renew 1 thelr faith in Heaven. The narrator, however, invest5 hls hope ln the survlval of the human Spirit ln myths and legends, rather than in heaven, for he reports that "sorne mamtam" that Lucy 15 still "lIvmg" 1 in the "Wild," tripping along "O'er rough and smooth," singing"a sohtary song." Whlle at1emptmg to 1 1 , J 185 1 afflrm the tact of death latent ln the collective or communal dream of which his tale partakes, he rs ] unable to openly clarm for hrmself the hope of etemallrfe that IS also manifest ln that dream. "Three years she grew ln sun and shower" IS marnly c;poken by Nature, who expresses her 1 Intention to take Lucy, now a chlld rather than a malden, "to myself" and to shape her mto a "Lady." The chlld IS a flower that Nature nourrshed and now wants to harvest As in "A narrow glrdle of rough

i stones," ln whlch the frrends idly uproot flowers, or the transformation of the violet ln "She dwelt J among th' untrodden ways," there H) an underlyrng asse nt to the Idea that Nature's love and love of Nature masks an urge to possess and control beauty and innocence The most overtly physlcal 1 enactment of this "suppressed" urge IS the draggtng to earth of a tree-bough in "Nuttmg," which was wntten only a couple of months pnor to "Three years she grew .... In "Nutting," the poet remembers

1 playmg as a boy among flowers, "perhaps violets," in an Arcadlan dreamworld of "fairy water-breaks,"

of stones Irke a "flock of sheep," and "In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay/ Trrbute to ease,

1 and, of Its JOY secure/ The heart luxuriates with inditferent things" The wasting joy of idleness, first 1 presented tn Ideétlrstic fashion, is dragged to earth with the bough. The contradlctory attitude towards the childlike response in Wordsworth's cnticism, the view of J It in the 1815 "Preface" as salutary for the poet, and in the "Essay, Supplementary" as damaging for

poet-reader relations, had an integrated life in the Lucy poe ms. These poems seek to reconcile two

1 states of mind, discursive playfulness, and a revislonary mood in which play is Implicitly reconsidered 1 trom a moral pornt of view. What IS ~njoyable tor the composing poet is not necessanly morally goOO for the reader ln the poet. Whatever Nature wants to make of Lucy in "Three years she grew .. .," a 1 Lady of the Brake, sportive fawn "Wild wlth glee," Naiad of the springs, companion of the stars, is not ] enough to assuage the poet who responds to Nature in the final stanza. This is, in effect, the poet's dissatlsfled reading of the emotlons and Ide as he had expressed in the gUise of Nature's voice. He 1 had tned to Iightheartedly afflrm the child's death as a transcendence of human sorrow, but the , knowledge that he fully possesses at the poem's end is the same as that with which "She dwelt among t!" untrodden ways" concludes: "She died ... And never more will be." The awareness of death

J 1 1 186

1 expressed early m "Lucy Gray" allowed the poet to glve hls complete attentIon to human sorrow for 1 the rematnder of the poem The mood of caprice, of "sportive" fancy, by which Lucy's chl/dlsh IOy IS recal/ed ln 'Three 1 years she grew .... , and that takes the form of Nature's VOlce, IS both an escape from and a consolation for the fact of death There IS both harmony and a crafted IncongrUity between the dellghted "calm" of

1 Nature and the "calm," CClntemplative poet Nature's vOlee promises a peaeeful release from sUfie'lnQ, 1 whlle the poet promises orlly an enhghtened retum to Il. Yet the dreamworld that Nature descnbes seems less than ideal when measured in human terms, slnce It do es not al/ow for the expression of 1 emotions other th an JOY and mlrth, and slnce ItS promise of liberty IS actually an expression of absolute control, "an overseetng power" that is, IIke Wordsworthlan Necessity, "both law and Impulse" The 1 humanizmg of thls Impulse comes from the poet's emotlons, not from Nature, whose "Silence and the

calmi Of mute insensate thmgs" IS meant to be reassunng, but It IS almost as dlsturblng as the "rocks

1 and stones and trees" of "A slumber did my spi nt sE1al." The poers final words, "and never more Will 1 be," overpower and suppress the Arcadlan IllUSion he had earliar crafted, and "ThiS heath, thls calm and qUiet scene" in tlme, hke "How soon my Lucy's race was run'" signais a reentry Into tlme, as weil as 1 into the open, unadorned space in which the "memory of what has been" Will be pondered by "me" rather than subhmated into the personlfied "Myself" of Nature.

1 Even the Lucy poem that, thematlcally and historically, IS the furthest from the cycle, "1 1 travelled among unknown men" (comp. 1801), a poem that expresses love of country, suggests distrust for the "dream" of escape, which has here become the "melancholy" of separation from 1 England. As ln "A narrow glrdle of rough stones .. ," an excessive spmt of sportive wandenng carned the poet far from the "shore" ot the known to the "unknown," mstilling in hlm an urge ta retum from the

1 self-delusions of solItude wlth a deeper appreciatlon of the farrnhar England held the "Iast green fleldl 1 Whlch Lucy's eyes surveyod!" and, more than the absence of green fields ln forelgn lands, thls intimates the pain of separation that converts escape into eXile. L.ke ail of the poems dlscussed ln thls 1 chapter, "1 travelled .. " suggests that the path to moral anc spJntual knowledge Iles through dlsillusionrnent. Recalling an earlier Traveller, the reader of the Yew-Tree hnes, one can Imagme that 1 1 1 187

1 the poet's 'absence' trom the Unes signified that he had gone on to further trials of the Spirit, rather 1 than to a saving dostination. ln the 1798 Ballads, Wordsworth had 10 sorne exlent relied on a negallve model of the reader 1 to enact the moral relations ot his poems, and thls gave rise to overt warnmgs agatnst rash )udgment, dissolute tongues etc. This warnmg energy IS still apparent ln hls treatments of the theme of readmg

1 after 1798, but the sermomc edge is gone The effort was no longer to dlvlde the poetlc lot into proud 1 and humble, gentle and crude. but to bnng out more Intensely the mtlmate "Impulse" that can unite wandering poet, wondenng reader Wordsworth's distrust of readers of supenor judgement, that led 1 him to imagine a "dream-public" In the "Essay. Supplementary," did not prevent his poe ms from expressing profound faith in the ability of flesh and b/ood readers to master the art of admiration. HIs 1 treatments of the themes of reading, fancy. and the wakmg dream in poe ms wntten belore the "Essay. Supplementary" suggest that Wordsworth would have been deeply aware that a poet's projections of

1 the ideal reader are potentially self·deluding. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 188 J Epilogue .1 The Faith of A Novice, and Beyond

1 1.

1 The interplay of reverie and afterthought in the poems discussed ln the prevlous chapter suggests J that the implied conflrcts between the lessons on "silent thought" in the 1798 Ballads, and the gleeful appeals to childhke wonder ln poe ms such as ''The Idiot Boy" and Peter Bell had been resolved rn .1 Wordsworth's mmd into a balanced vlew of reading as study and reading as inno,:ent pleasure. The emphasls on "sile nt thought," shorn of competitive and minutely analytical tendencies, remains. And 1 the themes of faney and the waking dream, which had no announced rôles to play in the 1798 Ballads, J marked an ongoing fascination with the notion of a naive or unquestioning response to poetry. Even the querulous "Essay, Supplementary," whlch attacked bath sophisticated and nalve readers, was f based on the hope that such readers were capable of interactmg with the poet in "pertect falth" "Faith was given to man that his affections, detached from the treasures of time, mlght be Inclined to setUe

J on those of eternity" (PW, iii, 65). The word "might" planted a seed of doubt that can be seen

blooming everywhere in the "Essay," most obviously in the discussion on audience "wonder." Vet.

1 faney and the waking dream had been the counterparts of wonder in poe ms wriHen prior to the 1 "Essay," and, more lucidly than Wordsworth's crttieislfl, these themes suggest that poetry's moral power cannot be experienced without the reader quest:oning the ideal of perteet faith.

J Wordsworth's poetry teaches expenenced readers that to touch the Grail of the innocent

response they must keep undergoing the tests of Mwexperience. They must keep returning ta the

1 fertile grounds of "young imagrnation," where they can become aware that there is a choice of , prtorities to be made between analysis and admiration. But the choice is between priorities , and not, as Wordsworth's eriticism often i1l1>lies, between mutually exeluding opposites. This is amcng the 1 rnost important lessons that Wordsworth as eritie had leamed trom Wordsworth as poet, and that the essays and prefaces had wanted to Jogically explain. The essays and prefaces tailed Wordsworth's 1 1 1 189 1 poetry in th,s respect mainly because they advanced opinions on readmg ln the context 01 a 1 ceaseless battle between sublime poets and adverse crilles The term "Ideal reader'" is one of the most useful cntlcal fictions, and my diScussion of

1 Wordsworth's concepts of readmg has kept in view thair Ideahsm, as weil as ~ome of thoir hlstoncal underplOnings. The contemporary readers who lT,ost leflected Wordsworth's Ideal leader have been

1 thought to be members of hls family, particularly Dorothy, and a close clrcle of fnends led by Colendge 1 It is clear that Wordsworth deeply resented his cntlcal adversanes, and one suspects that he was relieved to bring hls own critical practlce to a close in 1E,15. It wou Id be mlsleading, however, to 1 assume that Wordsworth's ideal reader IS an uncritlcal one, a mere prop to the poet's affections 1 have suggested that Wordsworth's concepts of readmg, whlle somewhat unoendmg and never far trom

1 resentful ln the essays and prefaces, reflect a sustained effort to rehabllltat6 the analytlcal reader,

rather than to deny the usefulness of analytical skills. The essays and prefaces strongly suggest that

1 poetic analysis, tt' yleld moral insights, must tend towards a spirit of sympathy for the poet Yet 1 Wordsworth mainly left it to his poems to reveal that the poet must accour· for hls claims to authonty over the reader ln the same spirit. 1 Though the readers represented ln sorne of Wordsworth's poems can stnke one as having no analytical propensltles at ail, assummg that they are readers of "perfect faith" can distort the intended

1 lessons on reading. In Book IV of The Excursion, the Wanderer, by his use of the pronour "we," 1 included himself among cnties and ohilosophers whose analytlcal bent can blind them to hfe's mysteries. He regrets that ''We should pore, and dwindle as we pore,! Vlewing ail obJects 1 umemittingly/ln disconnection dead and sJJiritless;! And still dividing and dividing still,! Break down ail grandeur, still unsatisfiedl With the perverse attempt, while IIltlenessl May yet become more litlle ....

1 Life's "superior mystery .. examined, pondered, searched,/ Probed, vexed, and cntlcised" leads to 1 "Self-love" unless the "sheU" of the uni verse is held to the "ear of Faith" (II. 960-994, 1141-1142). These Unes, especially those built around the image of the "shell," which recalls the Arab Oream, 1 reflect Wordsworth's earlier poetic efforts to place analytical actlvity in a context that would help :Ile feader of superior judgment to recognize that the rewards of textual dissection do not signal an end to 1 1 1 190

1 the readmg expenence If thls happ&nS, the expenence can be "perverse." "Accuse me not of 1 arrogance," protests the Wanderer (to no real accuser but himself) This "eloquent harangue" (1 1275) IS as vulnerable to the charge of egotlsm as W"'fdsworth's cnticIsm, and the Wanderer was as

1 wllhng as Wordsworth ta nSK this accu'3ation for the sake of truth. As a cntical phenomenon, Wordsworth's "egotlsm" was largely the invention of Hazlitt

! Recalhng Hazhtt's remarks on hls flrst encounter wlth the 1798 Ballads, whlch he was :,rivileged to read J pnor to thelr publication, one can learn something of how distorted the plcture of Wordsworth's Instructive purposes can get in the mmd of the reader who unquestioningly seeks perfeet falth ln "My 1 First Acquamtance with Poets," Hazlitt wrote that "In the outset of lite ... our imagination has a body to It We are ln astate between sleeping and waking, and hdve mdistinct but ç:lorious glimpses of st range

J shapes . As ln our dreams the fu/ness of the blood gives warmth and reahty ta the coinage of the 1 brain, so ln youth :lur ideas are clothed, and fed, and pampered with good SpiritS." The opportumty of readm9 the manuscnpt of the Ballads had put Hazlitt in this dreamhke "state" He read Wlth the "falth of 1 a novice" lnd "was not cntlcally or skeptically inclined."1 Hazlitt's moment of perfect falth, which he experienced before the thorny problem 01 J lNordsworth's egotism had presented itself fully to his imagination, may reflect the idaal response postulated by an experiment such as "The Idiot Boy." However, many of the Ballads, as weil as the

1 later poetry of wonderment, often impiy that the idea of reading without "sober contemplation," 1 inevltably entalling analysis, can be mere/y an escape from truth. The Immortality Ode, whose though1 and imagery are apparent in Hazlitt's commentary on the dream, yields images of burgeoning 1 consciousness, in which the child, the "best Philosopher," is possessed by a Soul that "read'st the eternal deep." This suggests a link in Wc.rdsworth's thoughts between childlike innocence and

1 reading the written. Unlike the Arab Dream, the Ode did not develop this suggestion. However, it is 1 not difficult to see that the lu minous dream of childhood, which is also, deeply, the dream of readmg, has dark and uneasy moments in this poem. The "innocent brig:ltness" I)f childhood is comp/icated J by a sense that the mortal mind, from the first moment of consciousness, is "Haunted forever by the 1 etemal mmd" (1. 113) Overseeing the child, Immortality "broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave" (1. l1 1 191

1 118) The poem was not wlltten out of escapism or nostalgia for chlldhood, but to afflrm "cbstmate 1 questlonmgsl Of sense and outward thmgs,l Fallings trom us, vamshrngs.l Blank mlsglvlngs 01 a Creature! Movmg about in worlds not realtzed" (Il 144-143) These, too, are a part of the wakmg 1 dream, whlch IS not ail "new-born hope" (1. 141). l he Images of chlldhood are "shadowy recollectlons," the ultimate source of WhlCh, whether It should be called "Sc JI," "Immortahty," or

1 "eternal Silence" is forever uncertam and forboding ln ItS omniscience, "A Presence whlch 15 not 10 be 1 put by" Whatever they finally are, "B~ they what they may," these memones radlate !rom the "master light of ail our seeing," though what is revealed r.an be no more than ephemeral vanrshrngs (II 152- 1 155,58; 158; 119). ln Wordsworth's poems, remembering childhood can mean to recall suffenng as weil as )oy 1 Godwin recognlzed the vulnerabllity of chlldhood when he wrote that "Pain is always more vlvldly 1 remembered than pleasure, and constitutes something more substantial in my recollectlons, when 1 come to cast up the sum of mj life" (f, 68). The "Boy of Winander" episode Implled that whether It IS 1 the child readmg books, or the poet attemptlng to recover innocent )oy by writrng about lost childhood, the prospective passage trom innocence to knowledge or the retrospectlve one from 1 knowledge to innocence is burdened by "lIfe's mystenous weightl Of pain and fear" (II 442-443) Childhood IS fraught with "suffering" as weil as glory. Hazhtt's "falth of a novice," which he nostalglcally

1 looks back on, can seem "ke a misreading of the themes of human suffer,ng and of chlldhood ln the 1 Ballads. Perplexitles and unsatisfied inner yeamlllgs, physlcal and emot/onal, are assoC/ated wlth children as weil as with adults in poems from "We are Seven" to "Alice Feil" to the 1805 Prelude and 1 beyond ln "Resolution and Independence," the poet-narrator identlfied hlmself as a "happy Chlld of Earth," rediscovering the animal joys of youth (1. 31) But this process awakened nameless ''fears, and

1 fancies ... dim sadness, and blind thoughts." ln "On the Feeling of Immortallty ln Youth," Hazlitt sald 1 that children are ''too much dazzled by the gorgeousl1ess and novelty of the bnght waking dream .:ibout us to dlscern th;, dim shaclow [of death] lingenng for us ln the distance "2 Wordsworth's Images 1 of Chlldhood, the "earnest palOs" of the chi Id ln the Ode, for example, often suggest the opposite ln the wor1< and play of children are intimations of mortalty as weil as Immortality Fancy and lM Waklng 1 1 1 192

1 dream are metaphors of chlldhke Innocence, but they are also metaphors of a reading experience that l reqUires careful thought as weil as a Splnt of mnocence. Wordsworth's cntlcal and poetlc concepts of readlng shared the Intention of reforming 1 analytlcal readers, and mducmg Inexperienced readers to abandon the IllUSion that a bond of nalve wonderment wlth poelry 15 Ideal. HIs poel-narralors have the burden ot passing moral Judgment on

j expenences of JOY, fear, and gnef, thelf own and those of others ln terms of the lear and uncertalnty 1 arlsmg trom the poetic dream, thls judgement conslsts ln "throwing stumbling-blocks in the way ot the imagination," and "disslpatlng the scenes of its enchantment," especlally ln its chlldhke manifestations 1 as fancy 3 Revene IS not coolly analyzed by the narrators, but they are always concerned to show that, Hfanclful, it is not merely delightful escapism, or, if nightmansh, if is not simply lerrifying evidence of 1 human Ifratlonality The reader must alternately suspend and pursue "obstlnale questlonings," a rational basls for understanding the meamngs and the moral applications of poetry. No matter whlch

J mood, playful or contemplative, reigns in a Wordsworth poem, its wish is to please and to inform the ! expenenced reader, who spends reason only to recover a "soft impulse" that returns him to reason Improved The paths taken by Wordsworth's criticism and poetry ta the expression of his attitudes on f reader-response were radically diUerent, the critlcis;n performing ~OfliiOntational and coercive

functions that the poetry only rarely dlsplays. ':'et the a~versarial thrust of his criticism served the

) useful purpose of making his poetic presentations of the reac.f':!1 C\eem that much more gentle and 1 appealing Hazlitt's comlMnts on his "first a~aintance" with the Utera[Y Ballads ;~flects an Important 1 areii of Wordsworth's interest in the theme of readmg, his experiments with the naive response. And hls studies of Wordsworth reflect Iwo other main areas of this interest, the ide a that the "eader's 1 analy1ical tendencies must be grot;nded in admiration, and that poet/)' has a direct moral i"fluence on its readers. Hazlitt greatly respected Wordsworth as a moralist, and he was much more inclil\

1 analytical CritlC such as Knight to find a sense of "practical govd and evil" in poetry. Hazlitt 1 apprehended more in Wordsworth's poetry than the ernotional energy that Knight and Alison tied to the Immediate psychological effects of poetry. For Hazlitt, to read analy1ically was to make the poet 1 J 1 193

1 "the second figure ln the piece ,,4 like Wordsworth, Hazlitt sensed that the poet cou Id not assume 1 his nghtful place at the center of aesthetic diSCUSSions, or lullIII hls role as a moral teacher, wlth an aggresslve army of analytlcal readers standing ln the way 1 Ruskin defmed Wordsworth's cntlclsm as self-confidence hardened mto dellance, and yet c: understooa that the deflance was due to deeply held pnnclples::> As 1 tndlcated at the beglnnmg 01 1 Chapter I=lve, Ruskin Idealized the readerwho uHimately values admratlon above analysis What 1 Wordsworth want 3d most from crittcs wa5 an acknowledgment that poetlc Imagmatlon 15 among those supenor mystenes of life that cannot fmally be dlssected or analyzed And Ruskm acknowledged thls 1 wlthout denying that analytical processes are supremely important On the ot"'er hand, Hazlitt spoke of analytlcal readmg as "dissecttng the skeletons of wor1

1 pnnciples ... ,,6 Time é.nd again he lambasted entlcs who grounded thelr interpretatlons 01 poetry ln

thelr own sOQal, moral, and aesthetic points of view, whlch for Stewart, and others ln the ratlonaltst

1 mould, was the whole point of readmg. Vet Hazlitt forgave and pralsed the necessary vanlly of the 1 "philosophical poet," meanlng pnmarily Wordsworth, who "owes sorne of hls love of nature to the opportUnlty it affords him of analyzmg hls own feehngs and contemplatmg hls own powers ,,7 1 Ironically, Wordsworth's own cntlclsm dld not forgive the one who analyzed hlmsell to the exclUSion of contemplating others, and the poems discussed in the preVious chapters also suggest that self-

1 immersion is offensive to poets and readers, a threat to the,r moral communion 1 ln 1843, perhaps feeling that his attitudes towards the analytical reader had been misrepresented by cntlcs such as Hazlitt, Wordsworth sald that

1 Sorne are of the opmion that the habit of analysing, decomposing, and anatomising, is lOevitably unfavorable to the perception of beauty. People are lad tnto this mlstakn by overlooking the tact that such processes 1 belng to a certain extent within the reach of a hmlted intellect, we are apt to ascnbe to them that insenslbllity of which they are in truth the affect and not the cause. 1 Admiration and love, to which ail knowledge truly vital must tend, are felt by men of real genius in proportion as thelr discoveries in natural Science are enlarged: and the beauty in form of a plant or an aOlmalls not made 1 less but more apparent as a whole by a more accurate insight into its constituent properties and powers A 1 1 1 194

:lavant, who IS not also a poet in soul and a rellglonlst 1 ln heart, IS a feeble and unhappy creature 8

1 This argumenl reflects the Splnt of compromise that shaped Wordsworth's basic attitude towards

analytical readmg, a deslre 10 reform rather than a need to scom It is a further Emcouragement for one

to construct a model of reading from Wordsworth's cnticlSm and poetry that Ineludes the t(~xtual

J analyst Such a model would depend on Wordsworth's most fundamental bellefs about readmg' 1) Analysis IS an mtermediate phase, rather than the ultimate one, in the growth of the reader's mmd, and

1 ought 10 be consldered, especlally by entics, as secondary to the pursUit of spiritual tranqurhty ln each 1 readmg experience 2) The most desirable readrng expenence 15 genuine admiration, which relies on a pnnelple of approbation, constituted in practice by the fostenng of a sympathetlc or affectlonale 1 "Impulse" towards the text, and by developing analytieal powers for the purposa or àcqumng moral knowledge from the text 3) The art of admiration can best be learned from the poetlc text, slnce

1 poetry not only embodies those virtuous ideas and Impulses towards whlch ail worthwhlle knowledge 1 necessanly tends, but also affords opportunities for the complex exerc,se of analyt,cal skllls 4) The contmued v,tality of the expenenced reader depends on his periodic returns to ttle "faith of a novice ," 1 just as the growth of the mexpenenced reader depends on his willingness to question this faith WhiJe th,s model approaches a princlple of equality between poets and readers. it clearly presents the

1 Ideal reading expenance. in ail of its phases, as pnmarily a function of the poem and an extension of 1 the poet's instructive power. 1 Il.

1 My discussion has repeatedly suggested that the practical value of Wordsworth's concepts of reading ) lies in their capacity to challenge readers, especially those who practice criticism or want to formulate aesthetlc theories, to examine their basic motives ln reading poetry. Matthew Arnold did not want to

,1 be seen '\vasting lime over the exaggeration which Wordsworth's [negative) jud~ment on criticism clearty contains. or over an attempt to trace the causes, -not difficult. 1think, to be traced."g The 1 ) 1 195 1 causes that Arnold alludes to, Wordsworth's need to create controversy ln the essays and prefaces. \0 1 promote hls poetry by attacklng cntlcs and so on, had been obseurE"v "traeed" by Hazhtt 10 egollsm. even though Hazlitt had also seen ln Wordsworth's poelry a demoeratll ethos, a "pnnelple of equahty" 1 "If Mr. Wordsworth had been a more hberal and candid entlC," argued Hazlitt, "he would have been a mueh more sterling wnter ,,10 Whether or not thls IS true, Hazhtt's hterary theones and OpiniOnS, "ke

1 those of Ruskm, Arnold, and other nmeteenlh-century eommentalors on the functlOn of enllelsm. 1 were formulated wlth Wordsworth's entlclsm in mmd Arnold reahzed that Wordsworth's "Judgment on cntlclsm," however It ean be mterpreted, and 1 whether or nc· !t was seH-servtng, gave the enflc "an occasion for trymg hls own conSCience, and for àskmg hlmseH of what real service, at any given moment, the practlce of cntlcism elther IS, or may be

1 made, ta hls own mmd and Spin!, and to the mmds and spmts of others" Arnold's answers to hls own 1 conscience resulted ln an Ideahstlc pie a for "pure" cntlClsm, tree trom polemlcs, and dlvorced from "practlcal" or worldly matters, polltlcal, ethical, rehglous etc Although Amold 10 a great extent 1 subverted Wordsworth's many expressions of falth ln the practlcal applications of poetlc readmg, hls arguments were also mounted on the Wordsworthlan premlse Ihat "The cntlcal power IS of lower rank 1 than the creative ,,11 Amold's cntlcal creed did not find favour with reader-onented theonsts such as 1 A Richards

1 The anxlety created by the forays of poets such as Wordsworth and Arnold mto hterary theory 15 1 reflected in Rlchard's Pnndples of Lrterary Cntjclsm. In his commentary on "Art and Marals," Richards resembled Wordsworth ln argUing that "Bad taste and crude responses are not mere flaws ln an 1 otherwise admirable person. They are actually a root eVlI from whlCh other defects follow No hfe can be excellent in whlch the elementary responses are dlsorganlzed and confused" In part because 1 Wordsworth and Arnold had seen poetry, rather than cntlClsm, as the pnmary means to moral

Improvement, Richards felt compelled to argue that Nit IS not true that cnticism IS a luxury trade," ,"fenor

1 to poetlc genius.12 1 As Geoffrey Hartrnan pointed out, "Richards' Defense of Poetry became mtertwmed with a Defense of Reading,',13 Like hls analytical ancestors in the later elghteenth-century, Richards 1 1 1 196

1 assigned the responslblllty for the correction of that fundamental "ev"" that mheres 10 bad tasle, nol 10 J the creallve artls!, but to the exemplary crltie, who "is as much concerned wlth the health of the mmd as any doctor wllh the health of the body ,,14 John Dewey's Art as Expenence revealed the split 1 between cntles such as hlmself, who accept the nature of mterpretatlon as subordmate to art and those sueh as Richards, who reslst th,s V1ew, even whlle seelng poetry as the mas! fertile source for

J. stlmulatlng a reader's perception and appralsa! of "value." For Dewey, as for Arnold, the busmess of J cntlClsm IS not "to appralse, to Judge ln the legal and moral sense," for the "moral funetlOn of art Itself is 10 remove prejudice tear away the vells due to wont and custom, perleet the power to percelve." For 1 Dewey, the reader's "pnvllege," as Wordsworth had otten implied, 15 to "share ln the promotion of thls active process" "The moral office of the critic 15," therefore, "performed indirectly." ThiS IS not far at ail J from Amold's vlew of cntielsm as separate fyom practical IIfe, as "obscure" and "rndirect." It seems that any argument concerOing art, marais, and cntlcism will bestow the "power to peiceive" unequally on

J the arllst and the cntie, and Dewey often conferred power on the artist al the expense of the eritie, J whom he found to be not a healer of the mmd and spmt but, like Wordsworth, "an auxiliary 10 the proeess. of learning to see and hear.',15 J Dewey's text slgnalled that debate on the expressly moral function of criticism was dlsappearing into formalist discussions of "aesthetie values," meaning the paradoxes, ironies etc.

1 encoded rn the work of art, the "internai" characteristies of which refleet an organie integras of 1 language, imagery, and controlling themes or ideas. Wellek and Warren, ln their Theory of Llterature, tested the limits of this formallst cntielsm when they asked "Where"is the locus of aesthetie values? Is 1 It the poem, or the reader of the poem, or the relation between the two?"16 Posed ID th,s way, the question practlcally answers itself. But exactly how this dynamic between poem and reader actually 1 unfolds has been, for the last twenty-five years or so, a central concern of many erities, who also want 1 to know If the reader is primarily or essentlally the source of a text's meanings. 'Tt'le substance and tone of eontemporary inquiries into the act of reading have by and large reflected a scientific, as 1 opPos8d to an ethical, spirit of inquiry, whether its references are philosophical, linguistie. or psychological But recently, during the last decade or 50, reader-oriented theorists have been more t 1 1 197

1 wllhng to engage in the sort of adventltlOUs shlfting between art, SCience, and ethlcs charactenstlc 01 1 later elghteenth-century crrllcs Such questions as who or what IS the source of moral authoTlty over the general audience, whether ,"eadrng IS or IS not a morall)' responslble aetlvlty, whether the errtle 1 ereate5 or merely re-drn::cts the ethle.ll energles of art are tlelng asked wlth fresh rntenslty Apologlsts for cnticism now seem morL' wHlmg ln recognlze the extent to whlch they ale wrirng moral apologues

1 ln Tbe Fate of BeadlDO, H:}rtman wrote that the eontemporary entle "dnves belore hl m, "ke a

specked drove, epistemology, ontorogy, phenomenology, semlotlcs - everythrng to avert ralsrng the

1 Issue of the authonty of art, or of hl5 own authonty as wnter or cntlC ,,17 Hartman reeogmzed that the 1 modes of readtng that RIchardS wanted to dIssolve were those that expressed subservlence 10 the work of art ln CntlClsm ID the WHdemes5, Hartman took up the same task, fully aware of rts maddenrnq 1 dlfflculty He puzzled "15 It the book, 15 It the obJect (in the world) revealed by the book, IS It ourse Ives? 1 Or sorne transcendental X" that we try to understand ID readlng?"18 Such troubled questions do nol SO much ask 'where IS the source of poetlc meanrng or aeslhetlc values?' but 'does cnticism have any 1 Vf~nfiably dlstrnct Identlty at ail?' Hartman took hls "wllderness" tl1le from the passage endlng Matthew Amold's e5say, ''The Functlon of Critlclsm," and It IS the Arnoldlan (and Wordsworthlan) concordat 01 1 the "cntlcal power" as "of lower rank th an the creative" that Hartman Imphed had blocked modern cntlcism trom reahzrng ItS own strength and Identlty as a unique tonn of social dlscourse

1 Llke Hartman, many contemporary cntles are afrald that thelr practlce, rn the words 01 Terry 1 Eagleton, "Iacks ail substantive social functlon" In The EunetrQo of Cnllelsm, Eagleton looked back to the strong polemlcallnterplay of poetry and cnticism ln the elghteenth-century, and to the Romanltc 1 split between audience and author, m order to understand the 1055 of cnhClsm's rnfluence over the public sphere. 19 Hartman, eyerng the uncertaID future of readrng, see r '- • also 10 be looklng wlstfully

1 over his shoulder at the past confidence of c:1tics 10 the moral and sOCIal value of thelT enterpnse He

echoed Richards when he sala that "Art, ln conJunction wlth cntlclsm, IS not a luxury but IS essenllal 10

1 communicatmg ln a humane way." But he alsc observed that present day cnticism has not been very 1 effective at communicating with itself, wlth its own communal factions, and therefore not wllh society as a whole. Against the narrowing of criticism to theones of art, language, and aesthetlc response Ihal 1 1 ...... ------..

1 198

1 have Ined la rivai SCience, Iherefore la some extent agamst Richards, Hartman looked for "an 1 unservlle, an enlarged and mature, cntlclsm, nelther afrald of theory nor overestlmatrng It," and for readers ln general to reahze the extent of thelr own creative powers 20 1 Wlthout subscnbtng openly ta Harold Bloom's notion that "ail cnticism becomes prose­ poetry," or that It ought perhaps 10 wnte a poetry of ItS own IIke Pope dld rn hls "Essay On Cntlcism," 1 Hartman argued that a "reversai" needs to be effected by cntlcs ln order ta overtum the "master­

servant relation between cnt:clsm and creation ln favour of what Wordswort~I, descnbrng the

1 interaction of nature and mtnd, called 'mutual dommation' or 'Interchangeable supremacy ... 21 Il IS 1 clear, however, that Wordsworth's poetlc descnptlons of the mteractlon of reader and poem often reflect doubt that the reader's "supremacy" carnes the same authonty as the poet's And the "Essay, 1 Supplementary" leaves no doubt whatsoever that the poet's "dominion" over the reader IS both necessary and desrrable

1 Hartman's text, at cruCIal points, IS symblotlcally jOtned ta Wordsworth's poetic ide as, 1 dependrng on them for deepenmg the urgency of hls remarks HIS cnes from the wllderness agatnst the enslavement of c 'ticism 10 "pnmary" works of the imagination arase tram his regret over cntlclsm's 1 loss of public mfluence But they must also have ansen from a struggle to understand why his own cnticism had rehed 50 heaVlly on Wordsworth's creative genius CntlClsm, he argued, should

1 recognlze ItS own II1tenor and soaal power, not merely as a camer, translator, or theoretlcal crystahzer 1 of other forms of hterature, but as the creator of its own moral, tntellectual, and aesthetic messages. But Wordsworth's lI1f1uence 15 much ln eVldence as Hartman concedes that cntlClsm, as It 15 meant to 1 Inform the general reader, "should a/ways remain, on one level, an exemplary grapphng of mmd wllh teXl for the sake of Immediate mtel/ectual and moral benefrts, su ch as the 'seemg' of an Ide a ,,22 1 AruClous to set the poet up as a moral and sptntual "leader," Wordsworth wrote angnly of "Cntlcs too patulant to be passive to a genUlne Poet, and tao feeble ta grapple wlth him" He did not appear 10

1 doubt, however, that It IS the poet who IS the master in the rnind-to-mind search for poetlc meanmg , The reader who Imagmes hlmself as controlling a poetic scene of mstruction IS merely arrogant, "ke "an Indian Prince or General- stretched on his PalaqUln, and borne by his Slaves," the poets whose 1 1 1 199

1 worl

1 Accordlng to Hartman's polemlc, elther the mlormtng reaJer, hke Dewey's cntl~, will see

himself more as .ln auxiliary star, exemphfying lor others the process of reflned 'seelng and hearmg: or

1 see hlmsell as more IIke Godwm's centnpetal "sun," the center of a unique aesthehc system, m 1 concert wlth, but distinct Irom other systems wlth patently sClentlflc, phllosophlcal, or flctlonal concerns These two self-Images appeal to confhctmg aspects in any personallty, and any self­

1 conscious reader 15 IIkely ta see himself ln uncertam shades 01 bath But 10 Imagine the read(:1

holdmg these Iwo self-Images ln perleet balance may be ta Imagme a reader 50 dlvlded agarnst hlmself

1 that \;e eould not praetlce cntlClsm The dlehotomy estabhshed by Hartman between the Interpretatton 1 of pnmary flctional texts and the creation of an rndependent eritlcal text 15 not 50 mueh between weak praetice and strong theory, but between two dlflerent types 01 cntlC - one who modestly Illummate5 , the work of art, and one who tries bravely ta eodlly the "work 01 readlng."

Stanley Fish IS a good examp/e of the latter type of eritlc ln Is There A Text ln ThIS Class?,

1 mueh like a later elght~enth-eentury ana/ytieal cntle, Fish was undlsguisedly "teachmg people 10 read 1 differently," though he clalmed to have outgrown his earher preoccupatton with "the one true way of readmg." His central (antl-formahst) argument IS that "/nterpreters do not decode poems, they make 1 them." His Intention was not ta glve an ethlcal prescnption for readrng, but hls argument that textual indeterminaey "reheves me of the obligation ta be nght (a standard that simply drops out) and

1 demands only that 1 be interestlng," depends on the torcefu/ness wlth whlch he 15 able to state the 1 moral position to be adopted by general readers "The morall~ clear the cholce 15 never between objeetivity and interpretation but between interpretation that 15 unacknowledged as such and an 1 rnterpretation that IS at least aware of ItseH."23 The eonscious choice to be self-eonsClOus m mterpreting a text makes the moral dlfferenee between a "bad" reading that suppresses "what IS really 1 1 1 200

1 happening" ln readlng, Interpretlve indeterminacy building on the indeterminacy of the text, and a j good model that shows that a entieal readlng 15 "just one more interpretation." Ltke Wolfgang 15er, Fish sees tndetermln.,cy as a necessary feature of worthwhlle fiction, and the reflection of thls 1 IOdetermlnacy ln cnt'clsm as the most desirable eH",.;t of close readtng Fish also suggested that the "rules of the game" of Interpretatton, though not absolute and unalterable, or operating aecordrng to

1 "transcendelltal norms," are nevertheless mherent, always there ln the mterpretive process Critlcism 1 that succeeds in awakemng the mtere$l of a community of readers is already and always a "structure of constratnts ... complete wlth ItS own internai set of rules and regulation. ,,24 Fish's model of readtng 1 subverts Wordsworth's because it presents informed readmg as having an "internai" worth, Independent of the text. And this mirrors one of the main pre mises upon which the critics discussed 1 1 ln rhapter One mounted therr views of the reading experience, and that allowed them to deny the

pedagoglcal power of poetry.

1 The tappmg on the ethical pipes by erities in seareh of renewed freedom and power has been 1 slimulating, but there are those who doubt that it is useful. For example, Walter Benn Michaels argued that, because our readings of fiction are never the result of free choices made during the interpretive t process, since "we cannot help beheving what it is we are convinced of," "we are not morally

responsible fer our int~rpretations." Michaels acknowleaged that "there is sorne relation between i interpretation and choice. You can, for example, choose to interpret a text as opposed to putting it 1 aside or throwmg it away. Going one step further, you can choose to do a Marxist (or deconstructive or psychoanalytlc or whatever) interpretation of the text you have decided to interpret. .. But can you

choose to believe yOUf Marxist interpretatlon? Here is whe'd It seems your choices run out. For while

it makes sense to say that you choose to interpret a text and that you choose to interpret in a particular

t way, It does not make sense to say that you can choose to believe that the interpretation you come up 1 with 15 truc (or false, or good or bad) Indeed, it does not make sense to say that you choose to believe anything at ail ... we cannot help believing whatever il is we are convinced of, whereas the 1 whole point of freely choosing is that we might fr.sely choose otherwise." Michaels was persuaded , that he was stating a conviction, rather than offering a theory of response. He wanted to reinforce the 1 1 201 1 controverslal point he had made ln an earlier essay, that "practlcally spl'!aking" theûry IS 1 "unnecessarl." However, he proceeded by an argument of necesslty ttl a vlew of mterpretatlon as morally neutral that can easlly be recelved as a literary theory Since we dppear to have no cholce m 1 the matter of what we believe or dlsbelleve in the matter of readmg and aesthetlc Judgment, "we are not morally responsible for our interpretatlons ,,25 1 It is possible, of course, to begm from Michaels premlse (we are not free to choose what we 1 beheve in interpretmg) and come to a more flexible concluSion concernmg the extent to whlch we exercise free choice and moral responslblltty ln reading Terry Eagleton dld thls when he argued 1 against Michaels ''trivially analytic" point that freedom of choice for the reader IS no misleadmg IllUSIOn, however Inevltably constrained the reader is by his cultural milieu, however ineluctably led forward to 1 opinion or belief by the particular text he is readmg. This IS so for Eagleton because moral, ethlcal, and pohtical freedom in our interpretations is the "product of acknowledging th,s necesslty" "Michaels

1 overlooks the sense in which 1can still ho Id my beliefs freely even when 1 fino them magmflcently 1 convmcing. Indeed, the more convincing 1find them. the more treely 1hold them" On points such as this one, the debate becomes hopelessly circular and insoluble. According to Eagleton, mterpretlve 1 freedom is grounded in a conscious commitment to the benefs and opInions (whether these are right or wrong, accu rate or misguided) of which we become persuaded dunng readmg. For Michaels

1 freedom in reading means, absurdly, the ability to disbelieve that which we are already convmeed IS 1 true. This struggle to define interpretive freedom nearly obscures the tact that the arguments of both crities operate on a shared prerntse. 80th are persuaded that ln and outside of reading "bellets are not 1 things we choose." At the core of their discussions on interpretation, where they do agree, Michaels and Eagleton sound much like William Godwin when he wrote in Polltjcal Justice that " no man ever 1 imagined, that we were tree to .. believe or not to believe a proposition demonstrated to our 1 understanding" œ.J., 170-171). In reading, the problem becomes whether or not the process of acquiring beliefs can be accurately described as one that involves the reader ln making decisions, 1 moral, aesthetic, political, and so on. 15 freedom in reading a tact worth theonzi'1g about, or a delusion that ought to be detlated? Michaels and Eagleton answer this differently. 26 1 1 1 202

1 The essence of the debate between Michaels and Eagleton can be found ln Wordsworth's 1 cntlcism. In hls charactenzation of the reader, hke Eagleton, Wordsworth equated freedom in rea;:'mg with a self-consclous Spirit of commitment to the text, a deepening of falth that has practical

1 consequences ln cnticIsm, and ethical consequences in lite 27 ln fact, the metaphors he used to charactenze the bond between reader and poem - "dispassionate government," "dut y," and

"dominion" for ex ample - suggest that there are concrete political as weil as ethical consequences 1 stemmlng from poetlc reading. Freedom corruptly exercised by the blind "masses" of contemporary audiences leads to "revoit." Freedom )udiciously exercised by the "few" informed readers leads to a 1 share in benevolent "power." But in discussing the vicissitudes of audience response, Wordsworth also suggests, as Michaels cogently argues, that reading (however informed or "blind") and believing 1 are not under the decision-making control of the reader. In Chapter Three, 1suggested that the enigmatic circles that Wordsworth drew around the concept of the "necessary" response should not t prevent one from seeing the depth of his confidence in the idea that hls poetry direetly and essentially 1 shapes and contrait> the reader's responses. Whether or not it can be theoretically explained, it is Important whether one accepts or resists the notion that there IS no freedom of choice in reader­ 1 rt3'sponse. For it seems obvious that a belief in interpretive freedom is likely to lead to the wnting of criticism, white the opposite belief is apt to discourage il.

J The issues rSlsed by Wordsworth's criticism - faith, freedom, authority - lie at the heart of the 1 modern debate over the nature and effects of reading. It is clear that Wordsworth's concepts of readlng, whether or not one assents ta them, can be as useful to eritics now as they were to Hazlitt, 1 Ruskin, and Arnold. When J. Hillis Miller asked in The Ethjcs of Readi~ whether reading is inherently and always a moral ac'livity, he was inviting comparisons between his views on this subject and

1 Wordsworth's. For example, Wordsworth stressed the importance of review. Miller infused the idea of 1 reviewing wlth spiritual qualities: "Re-reading is an aet, an aet of re-appropriation ... not only part of the conduct of life ... lt is also an aet which is enlivening and momentous. It has impart, and it is life-giving. 1 Re-reading brings about an influx of spiritual power." The emphasis on "influx," indicating the flow 1 1 1 203

1 from text to readmg mind, and "spiritual power," meaning a power of alfectmg poslttvely the mental 1 conduits and the practical "conduet of life," have much of Wordsworth in them 28 Miller argued that reading, exemplary or otherwise, "by a strange and bmary reversai whlch 1 disqualifies the bmary opposition between true apj false .is the referential turn whlch draws ethlcal conclusions, makes ethical judgments and cor ,iJsions" Miller believed that the nature 01 thls always 1 necessary reversai, a turning of the reader . vay trom the text towards himself and society. 15 beyond our power to understand clear1y. Though he wanted to, he was not able to palnt a clear plcture of the

1 critic as hls own master, empowered b~ a distinct set of values or a moral code The autonomous reader was to him, as it was to Wordsworth, a potentially harmful illusion. In concludlng hls E1lll.cs. 1 Miller sald that, though he could not absolutely prove its existence, "1 still stand belore the law of the ethics of reading, subject to it, compel/ed by it, persuaded 01 its existence and soverelgnty by what

1 happens to me when 1read." And "what happens IS the experience of an '1 must,' meanmg '1 must say

this about a text because the text compels me to say It ... 29 Havmg cllmbed the beanstalk of the moral

1 imperative of reading to a pOint where logie and common sense began to wlther, Miller retumed to the 1 "faith of a novice," and rediseovered his deep respect for the moral power of Unes wntten, Wordsworth's enticism and poetry are a formidable part of the inherited literature on the 1 relatlonship between readers and poets He challenged the valldity of latllr eighteenth-century visions of critical independence, and in 50 domg anticipated the attempts of modern cnties to 1 separately define the arts of reading and poetry. Wordsworth's vlew of what future ent.cism might ideally become, "ke that of Hartman, was based mainly on his perception of what cnties of h.s era had 1 not accomplished. From Wordsworth's perspective, crities had falled to admire the moral power of the poet. From Hartman's vantage point, crities were serving the poet too meekly Hartman srod that "the 1 only eritie .. whom we must take seriously is one who may not yet exist who overextends his art, having deeided that his role is creative as weil as judiCious.',30 Wordsworth also beheved that the only

1 eritic who deserved to be taken seriously belonged to the future. Yet the reader whom he Imaglned

as travelling through his critieism and his poems, the presence that could disturb him to JOY, was always

1 nearby. 1 1 1 1 204

1 Note.

Introduction 1 1 W J B. Owen, Wordswor:h as Cnlje (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1969) 3-5 Many nineteenth­ century entics, ineludlng Coleriûge (Bjographja Ulerana, Books XVII, XXII), had argued that ) Wordsworth's language theones mlsrepresent his poetic practice. Frances Ferguson's influentlal Wordsworth, Language as Couoter-$pjrit (New Haven: Yale, 1977) objected to thls tradltional view, argwng that the eoncern wlth language ln the essays and prefaces under1ies many of the poems. ] 2. Paul M Zan, preface, Uterary Critieism of Wj!ljam Wordsworth (Lincoln, Neb .. Umverslty of Nebraska, 1966) ix Stephen Parnsh suggested that Wordsworth's concem with reader-response is the most slgmficant aspect of hls cntlcism The Art of the L,yrical Ballads (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard, 1973) 8. A 1 simllar argument l.mderlies Gene W. Ruoff's "Wordsworth on Language: Toward a Radical Poetlcs for English Aomantlclsm," Wordsworth Cirele 3 (1972): 204-11.

1 3. Resentment of Wordsworth's arrogance perrneates early nineteenth-century reviews of his poetic theones. For example, Franees Jeffrey repeatedly suggr.sted that Wordsworth boasted too rnuch about the origlnality of his theoretical system. Wordsworth and his school "seem te> value themselves 1 very hlghly, for having broken Ioose from the bandage of élncient authority, and reasserted the independence of genius." Edinburgh Beview (October,1802): 63. Arguments agalnst Wordsworth's theories often complained about his pompous prose, and his irnmoderate attaeks on enlies. See W. 1 R. Lyall's review of the 1815 poems, Quartedy Aeyjew 14 (Oct. 1815): 201-205; and the anon revlew of the Poems, Monthly Bevjew 78 (Nov. 1815): 225-34). In "Living Authors, A Dream," Edjnburgh MagaZine and Literary Mjscellany 7 (Aug., 1820)' 133-140, John Hamilton Reynolds wryly observed 1 Ihat Wordsworth "wou Id be greater if he did not think himseH the greatest," and it was the essays and prefaces, more than the poems, that prompted sueh opinions

1 4. William Hazlitt, The Spjrit of the Age (1825; Garden City: Doubleday, 1960) 120.

5. Patrick Cruttwell, 'Wordsworth, the Public and the People," Sewanee ReYlew LXIV (1956): 71-80. J Apt. in COties on Wordsworth, ad. Raymond Cowell (London' George Allen and Unwin, 1973) 40-46.

6. CrjtJcs on Wordsworth, 44. 1 1 7. Don Bialostosky, Making Tales' The Poetjcs of Wordswortb's Narratjve Experiments (Chicago: ) University of Chicago, 1984) 7. For his definition of a "poetics of speech," see pp. 11-36. 8. Makjng Tales, 42,44.

J 9. Spirit of the Age, 111.

10. Geoffrey Hartman, Wordsworth's poetry 1787-1814 (1964; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard l University,1987) 18. Hartman bnefly explained why he bypassed the essays and prefaces: "It is the evidence of the poems which is decisive, and the prose, in fact, depends for its sense on the poetry." 1 11. Wordsworth's poetry, 153. l ) 1 205

12 James Avenll, Wordsworth and the Poetry of Human Suffenng (Ithaca Cornell. 1980) Chapter 1 Two, "The Pleasurds of Tragedy," summarizes elghteenth-eentury theones of tragle response Of particular relevanee to my study IS Avenll's observation that "htUe effort was made [by elghteenth­ century eritlcs] ta explore preelsely how" tragedy evokes a moral response. Those who dlsagreed 1 with thls "safe trulsm," such as Mrs. Barbaud, offered no elear explanatlon of why It was wrong Wordsworth poetry "attempts a senous exploration of the moral Improvement Induced by traglc pleasure" in The RUIDed Cottage and ln other poems. My study suggests that Wordsworth concepts 1 of reader-response countered both the indlfferenee and the obJecttons of cnllcs 10 the Idea that poetry IS morally instructIve.

1 13. David Perkin:), Wordsworth and the Poetry of Sjncenty (Cambndge, Mass Harvard Universlty,1964) 146. Chapter 6, "Wordsworth and His AudIence" is based on the argument that Wordsworth's poetics moved away from the "neoclassleal vlew that art mirrors and appeals to a 1 universal human nature, and toward a more romantic and modem vlew. The reader must be able to Identlfy himself with the poet, who speaks mainly out of his personallife and feehng " However, Simpson also points out that IS IS not easy for readers ta develop th,s intimate bond wlth Wordsworth's 1 more pubhr,-mtnded poetry, partlcularly in vlew of his "deeidedly Immodest" instruction:; to readers ln the essays and prefaces. 1 14. Ali quotatlOns of The Prelude are from The Prelude. 1799, 1805, 1850, ed Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, Stephen Gill (New York: Norton, 1979). 1 15. Arthur Beatty, WjlJjam Wordsworth: His Doctrine and Art in Their Histoncai RelatIons (1922: Madison. University of Wisconsin, 1960); Alan Grob, The Philosophie Mind: A Study of Wordsworth's poetry and Thought (Columbus: Ohio State, 1973); Melvin Rader, preslding Ideas ID Wordsworth's 1 ~ (1931; New York: Garden,1968)

16. Quotatlons of The Buined Co~ (Mss. Band D) are from The RUined Cottage and The Pedlar, 1 ed. James Butler (Ithaca: Cornell UniverSIty, 1979;. Quotations of The Excursjon are from Wordsworth: POetjcal Wodss, ed. Thomtls Hutchinson, 1904; rev.1936, Ernest de S~hncourt (Oxford 1 Oxford UOIverslty Press,1981). 17. Lydcal Ballads quotations are trom Lk.';"'" Ballads, Wordsworth and Coleodge, The Text of the 1798 Edition with the Additional1800 poems and Prefaces, ed. R.l. Brett and A R Jones (London 1 Methuen, 1971). Quotations of peter Bell, and of the poems discussed ln Chapter Five are trom Stephen GIII'S chronological edihon of Wordsworth's poems, Wil/jam Wordsworth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). Unless otherwise indicated, the composition dates of Wordsworth's poe ms 1 are taken from GiII's "Notes" (682~740). 18. Makjng raies, 86.

1 19. Laurence Sterne, Tds1ram Shandy (London: Hutchinson, 1906) 62. Hartman sald that poems su ch as "Simon Lee" are "Sterne in spirit." Wordsworth's Poetry, 149 The "reader" 10 Sterne's novels has been the subject of several studies that form an interesting background to my diSCUSSIon 1 Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader; patterns of Communication in prose Fiction 'rom Bunyan 10 Beckett (Baltimore: Johns HopklOS, 1974); John Preston, The Created Self. Tbe Beader's Role!O 1 Eighteentb-Century Fiction (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970); Robert W. Uphauf" Ihe ImpoSSible Observer Reasan and the Beader in 18th~Centyry prose (LexlOgton, Kentucky. UntverSlty Press of 1 1 1 206

Kentucky, 1!}79): John A Dussmger, The Dlscourse orthe Mind in Eighteenth-Century FiclÎ.Qll (The 1 Hague Mouton, 1974). Eric Rothsteln, Systems of Order and InQuir:y in Later Eighteenth-Century ~ (Berkeley' UnIVersIty of California. 1975).

J ln additIon to 8ialostosky's study, Heather Glen's Vision and pisenchantment. Blake's Songs and Iordsworth's Lydcal Ballads (London. Cambndge University, 1983), Susan Meisenhelder's Wordsworth's Informed Beader (Nashvllle' Vanderbilt UniversIty, 1988), and Andrew Gnffin's 1 "Wordsworth and the Problem of Imaginative Story. The Case of "Simon Lee," .EM.L.A 92 (1977)' 392- 409, have drawn attention to the theme of reading in the 1798 Lydcal Ballads

21. M. H. Abrams. The Mlrror and the Lamp. Bomant;c Theory and the Cdtical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford UnIVerSity, 1953) 135.

22 Matthew Arnold, "The Functlon of Critlcism," Essays \0 Critlcjsm, ed. Harold 8100m (New York: Chelsea House, 1983) 14.

23 The negative effects of poor book sales on Wordsworth's attitude towards his audience are di!:cussed in Ch. 2. of Nell S. Bauer's unpublished dissertatIon, "Wordsworth's Audience," Cornell, 1 1971. 24. Mirror and the lamp, 22,103,108.

1 25. Mmor and the Lamp, 29.

26. Charles Azepka, Self as Mind: Vision and Identit,v in WordswortjJ. Coleridge. and Keats 1 (Cambridge, Mass .. Harvard University, 19136) 71.

27 Geoffrey Hartman, The Fate of Reading and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1985) 1 115. 1 28. Informed BeaQe[, 9-11. 29. Informed Beader, 12,57-58.

1 30. Edna Aston Shearer pointed out that the ~andwriting in Coleridge's copy of Knight's Pdncjples 15 Wordsworth's Wordsworth read the princjple.s closely. and scribbled objections against several of its arguments rn the margins. In "Wordsworth and Coleridge Marginalia in a copy of Richard Payne 1 Knight's Analyt;callngu;ey ... " (Hunt;ngtQn Ubrary Quarterly 1 [1937]: &3-99), Shearer called the pànciples "typical" of later eighteenth-century "hedonistic" theories of taste. This misrepresents the pedagogical, social and moral values underpinning Knight's arguments, which otten vlgourously 1 undermined the notIon that pleasure is the primary object of reading. 1 ChBpter 1 1. Belief in a universally right way to read was a characteristic of later eighteenth-century critics, reflecting the uniformitarian spirit of the age. Since ail men were seen as essentially alike, and governed by the same naturallaws, then ail would benefi! in the same way from the ideal method of t reading. However, the results of this belief were far from unifonn. For example, Herder said that the "sole mode of readiog" was the "diVInation" of the author's "soul," which Abrams interpreted as 1 J 1 207

meaning the author's personahty (Mlcror and the Lamp. 227-235) Crillcs such as Godwin wanted to 1 dlspel the mystique surroundlng authors of genlUs. "Dlssect a man of genius. and you cannot point out those dlfferences ln hls structure whlch cC'nstllute hlm such. stlilless can you point out original and immutable 'ilfferences" (f.,13).

1 2 A relatlonship between overpopulation and popular readlng habits underhes Wordsworth's argument ln the 1800 "Preface" that the "encreasmg [SIC] accumulation of men ln clfles"ls one 01 the causes of the current appetlte for "trantic novels" œw, j, 128) Although England's fICst populat:on 1 census was not taken unt111800, Terry Belanger used book sales and other Indlcators 10 argue that "The population ot EnglaCld approxlmalely doub!ed in the elghteenth century, and Ihe number of readers more than doubled" See hls "Pubhshers and Wnters ln Eighteenth-Century England," Books and Thelr Readers ln Ejghteenth-Century England, ed Isabel Rivers (New York SI Martm's 1 Press, 1982) 18

3. Benedetto Croce, Aesthellç as the SCIence of Expression and General L!OgUlstlC 1902 (Boston 1 Nonpareil Books, 1983) 261. 4. Gordon McKenzle, COtieal Responsjveness: A Study of the Psychologlcal Current m laler 1 Ejghteenth-Centwy Cn1;c;sm (Ber1

1 6. AHhough Bur1

"for the confrrmatlon of dlsputed readrngs" by paying close attention to 'Jerbal eontext. Underlying 1 this was a vlew of poetlc genlus as fundamenfally Instinctive and rrrational, simllar ta Gerard's ID hls Essay on Genrus (1774), and a belief rn an Infalhble reading method. A poet sueh as Wordsworth would have found extremely offensive Whlter's notion that the poet IS "totally unconscious" of hls 1 "indirect and taclt references" (589)

10 Alison goes on to say that "We are consclous of a vanety of Images ID our mlnds very dlfferent 1 from those whlch the obJects themselves can present to the eye." The abjects referred to here are prrmarily natural obJects, but the usually vague connections between AI/son's descnptlons of response to natural forms or landscapes and reader-response become a Irttle clearer when he says 1 that "There dre tlmes ... when we read ... wlth perfect indifference .. while in other moments, the fir~Î hnes we meet wlth take possession of the Imagination, and awaken ln It such innumerable trams ( Imagery, as alrnost leave behind the fancy of the poet" (20). Phases such as "very different" and "Ieave behlnd" ref/ect Stewart's theory ot reading as the creation of a second text, dlHerent trom the 1 author's.

11. Lord Kames (Henry Home), Elements of Cntjcjsm, 2 vol. (1762; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1 1970) 1 112. Kames's view of readlOg as a "reverie" was not, of course, the only precursor to Alison's, and thls tradition can be traced back to Longinus. Even the skeptical Hume characterized 1 the immedlate pleasure of the aesthetlc experience as "magic." Engwdes, 221-222. Hume's point, simllar to Kames's, is that it is the task of the poet to create the rnost perfect illusion of reality, 10 order to affect auditors or readers the most deeply, not that poets ougN to be mystical. Richard Hurd meant something qUlte dlfferent from Hume and Kames when he said that the reader "is best pleased when 1 he is made to concelve (he minds not by what magic) the existence of such things as hls reason tells him did not, and were never hkely to, exist." Lettees on ChjValry and Romance (1762; New York: Garland, 1971) 89 HIS view of ideal reading resembles Edward Young's. For Young, questions of 1 probability or actua/ity play no part in the marvellous moments before the "Magiclan drops his Pen And then taI/mg down to ourselves, we awake to fiat Realities, lamenting the change, IIke the Beggar who dreamt himself a Prince." Conjectures on Origjnal Composition (1759: Leeds, Eng.· The Scholar J Press, 1966) 13. There were differences of opinion among erities as to the desirabllity or necesslty of realism in poetry, but it IS clear that the way had been well-paved for Alison to conceive of an 1 immediate or initiai stage of reading as a "romantlc dream." 12. Alison irnposed limits on th~ power of poetry to "excite" the reader. Reading "can have but a very distant rel

1 15. Jeffrey's comparisons of Stewart, Knight, and Alison were part of an historical overview of theodes of beauly. After its first publication in the Edjnburgh Bevjew, the essay was revised and appeared under the heading of "Beauty" in the 1824 Supplement to the Enciyclopedja Bdtannjca. The same 1 essay, now en!ltled "Alison on Taste," in the Contributjons is not a reprint from the Reyjew, but from the 1841 edition of the Encyclopedja Britannjca. 1 f 1 1 209

16 Jeffrey's remarks appeared m hls revlew of Southey's IhaI.ab.a, (Oct. 1802). rpt ln ~ 1 Southey. The Crttjcal Hentage, ed. LIonel Madden (London Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972) 68- 90 Madden pomted out Ihat thls revlew. a "locus classlcus for the student of the early attitudes towards English Romantlc poetry, IS dlrected much more forclbly agamst the practlce5 of Wordsworth 1 and Co!endge than those of Southey" (6)

17. In hls November 1814 revlew vf The ExcurSion Jeffrey's resentment 01 poet5 who wnte cntle/sm /5 1 plain Wordsworth's '~Irst essays were looked upon [by Jeffrey] m ~ good degree as poetlcal paradoxes - mamtamed expenmental/y, ln order to dlsplay talent, and court notonety, - and so mamtamed, wlth no more senous bellef in thelr truth, than IS usually generated by an mgenlous and 1 aOlmated defense of other paradoxes But when we ftnd that he has been for twenty years exclusively employed upon articles of thls very fabnc, and that he has still enough of raw matenal on hand ta keep him so employed for twenty years 10 come, we cannat refuse hlm the Just/ce of behevlng 1 Ihat he 15 a slncere convert to hls own system, and must ascnbe the pecuhantles of hls composition, not to any translent affectation, or accidentaI capnce of ImagmatlOn, but to a settled perverslty of taste or understandmg, which has been fostered, If not altogelher created, by the Clrcumstances to whlch 1 we have alluded" (J, 459) The reference to cntical matenal that Wordsworth has on hand, ready lor publication, suggests that Jeffrey knewof Wordsworth's plans ta wnte cntlcal prose for the 1815 1 Poems. 18. In a lettei to William Matthews (1796), Wordsworth sald of Godwin's Polltlcal Justice "Such a p/ece of barbarous writing 1 have not often seen. It contains scarce one sentence decently wntten 1 am 1 surpnsed to find such gross faults ln a wnler, who has had so much practice ln composItIon" wme.rs of Wjlllam and porothy Wordsworth. Tbe Early Years. 1787-1805, ed Chester L Shaver (London 1 Oxford, 1967) 170 19. In Imagination and Eancy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1966), James Scoggtns observed that the "dismtegration of most elgbteenth-century poetry lOto scene and moral, can be ascnbed ta the progressive tendency towards isolating the elements of pleasure and instruction," poetry More and 1 more, Ihe 'or' of Horace's dlctum, aut prodesse aut de/ectare, came to mean that each part of a poem does not ,"struct at the sa me tlme tbat It pleases, as Renaissance cntics had malOtatned, even less that It instructs necessarlly . Wordsworth "refused to glve theoretlcal sanction to a poetry tn whlch 1 aesthetic and moral effects are disunited" (147). Knight clearly encouraged tbls 'dlsumty' by denytng that poetry ean model good conduct. Godwin did the same by dividmg poetry lOto affective pleasure and ineffective "ethical sentence" But they were only maktng more obVious the Jack of confidence ln 1 poetry's instructive power dlsp/ayed by earlier theorists, such as Hume and Stewart 1 Chapter 2 1. A. S. Collins wrote two books deseribing the effects of literary patronage, and Its dlsappearance, on later eighteenth-century 3uthors, Authorship in the Pays of JOhnson",1726-1780 (London Robert 1 Ho/den, 1927); The Profession of LeUers",1780-1832 (London George Routledge, 1928)

2. The main objections to Wordsworth's tirst two publtcations were that thelr language was too 1 "obscure" and "harsh." See anone review 0; pescrtpUye Sketches, Analyt;cal BeYlew, 15 (Mareh). 294- 96; anone review of An Eyeniog Walk, Cntiea! ReYiew 8 (August): 472-74). 1 1 1 1 210

3 EnQUloes, 82-83. SlOce external reahty is dlscoverable only through the subjective "canals" of the 1 memory and the senses, Hume argued that the "supposition that one obJect or event has followed another," whlch can lead to the further sUPPOsition that the "same motives always produce the same actions," 15 no proof of a cause and effect or "necessary" connectlon ln practlce however, the hterary 1 CritlC, hke ail other IOqulrers IOta motives and causes, always assumes that such connections really eXlst, for ''wlth what pretence could we employ our cnttctsm upon any poet or polrte author, If we could not pronounce the conduct and sentiments of hls actors either natural or unnatural to such charac.ters, j and ln such clfcumstances?" (90) Hume encouraged cntlcs to Judge a poem accoroing to ItS partlcular "crrcumstances," and yet ta have no illUSion that cntical deterTTllnatlons, such as those made upon analyzrng a character's "conduct and sentiments," have the absolute veraclty of a mathematlcal J equatlon An extenSion of Hume's argument IS that a p@cessary connection between art and moral conduct can be assumed, but not loglcally demonstrated. The way was cleared by Hume for cnties 1 such as Knight to test thls assumptlon by 'common sense' observation, and to deny its vahdlty 4. Mmor and the Lamp, 14-21 The reJationship of CritlCS sueh as Knlght and Alison to Abrams's definitlon is eqUivocal The traditional vlew of poetry as a means to an Instructive end Implied that 1 poetry could serve as a model for moral conduct or dlrectly teach readers how to think and behave. In the arguments of Knrght and Alison, tnls pedagoglcal capacity was reduced to the vague status of the suggestive Poetry can stlr the reader's unaginatlon, but not effectively answer the demands of the 1 analytlcal mrnd for Iogle and common sense, or, stillless, serve as a modej for conduct. Thelr vlew of Ideal readlng as autonomous, elther wandenng far 10 Imagination from the poetlc object, or exerclsing dispassionate Judgment, IS tied to the belief that "canons of cntical appralsal" arose not from the 1 "nonns of the poetlc art," but from the modes and habits of art interpretation. They saw the poem as, ln Abrams's words, "an instrument for getting somethlOg done" (15) only If It had been morally reeonstituted by the reader of sound judgment.

1 5. Human Suffenng. 149 AveriU was referring to Wordsworth's poems, but hls comment is even more applicable to the essays and prefaces.

1 6. David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays, ed. John W. Lentz (Indianapolis: Bobbs­ Mernll, 1965) 16.

1 7 Literacy CnliCJsm of William Wordsworth, 76.

8. DaVid Parkins pointed out that in his early yeaTS, "Wordsworth blames his troubles almost entirely 1 on the fauHs of hls readers, and partlcularly on their pride ~nd selfishness." The poetry of Sincent)', 151. W J. B Owen argued that Wordsworth had aball.1oned this attitude by 1815. He no longer entirely "blamed hls failure to communicate on the shorfcomings of his audience," but, in the 1815 J "Essay," aeknowledged that hls poems are "difficult" to understand "Wordsworth, the Problem of Communication, and John Dennis," WOrd$Worth's Mind and Art, ed. A. W. Thompson (New York' 1 Barnes and Noble. 1970) 146. 9 Engulne5, 50. 1 10. W. K. Thomas and Warren Ober, "In Wakeful Vision Wrapt," A Mlcd Eorever Voyagjog: Wordsworth Portraying Newton and Science (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1989) 164-167 The disappearance of this "comman language of visual forros and means of expression" ioto a Romantic spirit of individualism and expenmentation is noted in Hugh Honour's Romant;c;50l (1979; London: Penguin, 1981) 15.

J 1 1 211

11 Admiration was seen as havlng physlologlcal as weil as mental mamfestatlons It "elevates the 1 eye-brows, opens the mouth and eyes, frxes the attention upon the admlred obJect, ralses the hands and spreads the fingers." James Beattle, .I.!le Elements of Moral SCle~...e (1790, New York Garland, 1977) 369. See also Beattle's "The Theory of Language," Dissertations Moral and Cntlcal (1783. New 1 York. Garland, 1971) 242 12 EnQUlnes,55

1 13 Mortimer J Adler, SIX Great ldeas (New York Macmillan, 1981) 112

14. Mary Jacobus, Tradition and Expedment rn Wordsworth's Lyncal Ba"-.t;!s (1798) (Oxford 1 Clarendon, 1976) 263. 15 1 quote "We live by admiration" from the appendlx, "MS Dratts and Fragments,"m The Prelude, 1 1 799. 180S. 1850, 500-505. 16 For diSCUSSions of Wordsworth's reading of travelogues, see Charles Coe, Wordsworth and the Uterature of Travel (Ney. York. Bookman Associates, 1953); Ronald B Heam, The RQad to Rydal 1 MQ.u.n.t (Salzburg Salzburg UniverSity, 1973) 33·34. 17. Engwies, 289 1 18 David Hume, A TreaMe on Human Nature. (1739, f)xford Clarendon, 1985) 166 19. Thomas R Preston polOted out that these pamphlets have been neglected ln elghteenth­ century studles of reading habits and vogues. "Bibhcal Cnticlsm, LiterahJr9, and the Eighteenth· 1 Century Reader," 6Qoks and Thelr Beader ln EI'Jhteeoth Century England, 98·99 Accordrng to Preston, the most rnfluentlal pamphlets were Wilham Lowth's Djrectlons for the profitable Readrng of the Holy Scnptures (London, 1708), whlch went through many edltlons and "was still ln use ln the mld· 1 mneteenth·century, and Samuel BlackweU's Severa! Methods of ReadlOg the Holy Scoptures ln POyate (London, 1718), tour edltlons to 1736. It can be added that the anonymous Elam directions for readlOg the Holy Scnptures, 8th. ed (London, 1771), J F Osterwold's The oecesslly and usefulness of reading the HOly Scnptures: and the dispoSitions wlth whlch they ought to be read 1 (London,17S0), and William Jesse's On the Scriptures (London, 1799) were also popular The pamphlets make an rnterestlOg background to the comments on devohonal readmg by KOIght and WOrd&'Worth, for they also presented studlous reading habits as capable of neutraltzmg the dlgresslve, 1 dreamy Impulses of the youthtul reader, or those who read merely tor pleasure and escape, such as readers of magazines and romantic novels. The generai alm was to correct the anstocratlc and "popish" tendency of the Roman Cathollc Church to make scripturalmterpretatlon the exclUSive nght of theological experts, rather than a privllege of the ordlOary falthful The pamphlets dlsplayeo 1 confidence in the most unsophlstlcated of readers ta grasp basic mterpretlve methods, and indlcate that a morally informed but "unllterary" audience for Wordsworth's criticism and poems was poSSible, and not simply, as Cruttwell and others have suggested, a deluslon of Wordsworth's pnde due to 1 negative reviews 20. MaklOg Tales, 7 1 21. Wordsworth as COtje, 189 22. Wordsworth neglected to say that Macpherson's 1792 "Preface" to The poe ms of OSSian, "ke the "Essay, Supplementary," dented that the populanty of a work is a sign of Its ment Wordsworth alludes 1 to the exposure of Macpherson's 'translation' as fraudulent by a commlttee headed by Henry MacKenzie (180S) Macpherson's works continued ta be extremely popular, hence Wordsworth's wrath. The 1792 edition was drawn from Fragments of Anc!ent Poetry 1760), flnga! (1762) and 1 Temora (1763), and IOcluded Hugh Blair's lauoatory Critjeal Dissertation on the Poems of OssIan (1763). In his marginaha in Knight's princip/es, Wordsworth called Blalrthat "stupld Scotch Doctoe" 1 1 1 212

(Shearer, 76), and It IS probable that the Dissertation was also the obJect of Wordsworth's scorn, 1 desplte the tact that It antlclpated the pnmltivist theory of language ln the 1800 "Preface" The Dissertation argued that "It IS not enough to admire Admiration IS a cold feeling, ln companson of that deep Interest, whlch the he art takes ln tender and pathetlc scenes" (Qs.s1an, 128) The "Essay, 1 Supplementary" vlewed "admiration" and the "pathetIC" 10 a dlfferent IIght "Genulne admiratIOn" was an expression of both the Intellect and the heart, and the pathetlc response was an unrellable barometer of a poem's worthmess, for "there are emotlons of the pathetlc that are simple and direct," by whlch sorne readers are "rnstantaneously affecled," and other pathettc emotlons that are "complex J and revolullonary agalnst whlch [the heart] struggles wlth pnde" (ffi, 111,82). Owen dlscussed the "Essay's" mdebtedness to John DenniS for Its arguments on complex and simple emotlons ln M!..o.Q and Art, 140-156

23 Standard ot Taste and Other Essays, 16, 48. Hume spoke condescendlngly of "Ioose reverles of the fancy," "mere fictions of the Imagination," reflecting a negatlve attitude towards the instructive capaclty of poets (Eogumes, 48-50) He complamed that "There IS somethmg weak and Imperfect J amldst ail that seemlny vehemence of thought and sentiment, whlch attends the fictions of poetry " The ImpasslOned or poetlc ImagmallOn "has no means of distlOgUlshlOg betwlxt truth and falsehood" (Treatlse, 631)

1 24 Adam Smith, Lectures on Rhetooc and Belles-LeUres, ed. J.C Bnce (Oxford Clarendon, 1983) 31-32 ln hls Introduction, Bnce points to a "clue" that mlght explaln Wordsworth's "mlstaken"lemark He cItes Wordsworth's letter 10 John Wilson (1802), whlch rer.1arks on the offense glVen to "many fine 1 ladies" by expreSSions ln the Lyncal Ballads, and wryly compares these ladies wlth "Adam SmIth, who, we are told, could not endure the bal/ad of Clym of the Clough [In Percy's ReliQues), because the author had not woUen hke a gentleman" Accordmg to Brice, thls IS a "clear reference to the mtervlew by Amlcus of Smith .reponted ln the European Magazine xx (August, 1791): 133-6, ln The Whltehall 1 Eyenlng post and. Occaslonal Essays On vanolj;; Sublects. chjefly Politlcal and Histoocai (1809) " Bnce put the "lOterVIew" 10 an Appendix to the Lectures, and there IS more ln Il that wou Id have pleased Wordsworth than offended him For example, Smith says that 'You Will le am more as 10 1 poetry by reading one good poem, Ihan by a 1housand volumes of cntlcism " 25 Wordsworth's Poetry, 155

1 26 Conjectures, 13, 28,30.

27. KOIght had ObVlOU<:I~' 'p.ad Young's Conjectures, and made It clear that he, too, preferred "an 1 onginal to a copy," an Inoovative poet or patnter as opposed to one who leaned heavl/y on tradition (103) 1 28. Elements of Moral Science, 256-259. 29. The Early Wnliogs of Adam Smith, ed. J. Ralph lindgren (New York: Augustus M Kelly, 1967) 30-31

1 30 Lectures, 111 1 31. Early Writlngs, 43. 32. Conjectures, 28-29

33. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed 0.0. Raphael and A.L Macfie (1759; Oxford. 1 Clarendon, 1976) The edltors point out that philosoptiers such as Hutcheson and Hume "gave preeminence, in thelf ethical theories, to the approval of a spectator," whose malD charactenstic is that

he is "Impartial H However, the "onginality of Adam Smith's Impartial spectator lies in his development of the Ide a 50 as 10 explaJO Ihl source and nature of conscience, Le. of a man's capaclty to judge his own actions, and especially of hls sense of duty" (15). 1 1 1 213

1 Chapter 3 1 What Poljtlcal Justice does say about poetry, that It is the "busmess of a lew" for example. would not lead us to beheve that the poet has no place at ail m Godwm's Ideal society, but It can be mlerred 1 that thls place IS a mlnor one (fJ, 150).

2. Jonathan Wordsworth sald "There seams to be httle doubt that the Prelude IInes evoke a tlme of 1 palnful reassessment, perhaps of nervous breakdown, occasloned by Wordsworth's readmg 01 the second edltlon 01 Pohtlcal Justice [1796]. It could weil be that he had not read the book [lirst ed 1793J properly before. and had not experienced the full force of ItS dlsmlssal of emotlonal values "~ Borders of VIsion (Oxford Clarendon, 1982) 269 See also pp 264-268. a diSCUSSion of Godwm's 1 influence on Wordsworth phllosophy and poems It cannot be falrly sald that GodwlO entlrely dismlssed "emotional values" ln "Thoughts Occasloned by the Perusal of D Parr's Spltal Sermon. Preached at Chnst Church, Apn115, 1800" (1801), Godwin made clear what had only been Imphed by 1 the fervent Ideahsm of Polltlcal Justice. "The motives of human actions are feelings, or paSSions, or habits Wlthout feellOg we cannot act at ail; and wlthout passion we cannot act greatly" (BI, 322)

3 The Prelude, 1799,1805.1850,426, n 5 The edltors polOt out that Mary IS an "emblem of 1 innocence" and "unquestloning responslveness" in Book V, and the same point could be made about Dorothy's presence m the poem ln Ch S, 1dlscuss the relahonshlp of Wordsworth's poems and cnticism to the nalVe or "unquestloning" response.

1 4 Dectnne and Art, 29-32

5. The spiritual basis for Godwin's arguments, a bellef that pure Reason benevolently and necessanly 1 gUides the reasomng processes of every mlOd engaged ln the analysis of moral or pohtical problems was, as Beatty suggests, allunngly "simple" Godwm's notion that ail truth IS the produet of reason, and ''truth IS omnipotent" in human affalrs is undenlably facile But one must also take lOto account the Godwin who wrote that "Reason /s not an independent pnne/ple. and has no tendency to excite us \0 1 action; ln a practical v/ew, If is merely a cOfTIpanson and balancing of dlfferent feelings" (E.J., 191)

6 GodwlO seemed unaware of how pofenhally devastatlOg thls practlcal argument was to the theory of necesslty in Pohtical Jusllce Wherever.t is that the dub/ously concelved "seenes of real hfe" eXit trom 1 thought and enter Into action, "human liberty" was seen as a "deluslon," the practlcal effects of whlch were nevertheless "real." This argument, carried back to Polit/cal Justice, leads to the conclus/on that the doctnne of necess/ty has IIttle or no concrete bearing on how we act and react ln our dally lives 1 On the one hand, Godwln's phllosophy was charismatic /deallsm, a radical embraee of Reason, and on the other hand It was practlCal and reassuring' Reason cannot reduce hfe to mechaO/cal acts and operations. It essentlally e"1d finally controls us, but never does v/olence 10 us. or robs us of our "deluslon of liberty." Reason remalOs at a safe distance, on the honzon of POSSlblhly. constructlng our 1 utopra.

7. Wordsworth journeyed to Revolutionary France 10 1790 and /n 1792, and "VJllen France turned 1 oppressor, and ail thlOgs consPlred to dlSllluslcn hlm [includlOg an affalr w/th a French woman, Annette Vallon, which resulted 10 the birth of an iIIeg.tlmate ehlld], Wordsworth turned to GodwlOlsm" Dav/d Ferry, The Llmts of Mortahly (Middlelown, Conn' Wesleyan UOIverslty, 1959) 155 Cnt/cs have made Wordsworth's study of GodwlOlsm seem historically faled, as though he had no cholce but to turn 10 1 GOdwlO. Jonathan Wordsworth argued that the "success of PohUcal Justice /n February 1793 was partly due to fortunate timing - LoUIS VI had been e1Cecuted IWo weeks before, and rad/cal opinion was badly in need of encouragement." The relationshlp between Wordsworth and GOdwlO IS usually viewed in these broad h/stoncal terms, rather th an as a personal fnendshlp, even though Wordsworth 1 "seems actually to have met GOdwlO for the tirst time on 27 February, 1795," and "they met ten tlmes more before Wordsworth left London at the end of August" Borders of VISion, 346, 264-265 1 8. For Godwm, confusingly, habit was also "Imperfectly voluntary" (B.t, 45). 1 1 1 214

9 presjding Ideas, 19 Rader found in Sp.noza's concept of a teleological, indwelling determinism a temporary "bndge" that Wordsworth crossed ta get tram Godwin's "mechanistic" necessitarianlsm to a bellet 10 transcendent free will. By crossing this bridge, he argued, Wordsworth could carry the coal of of hls beliet m mechanistlC necessltariaOlsm mto a spmtual realm in whlch that belief could be dlscarded (60-62). Radar relied tao much on the fragile eVldence of a single letter wotten not by Wordsworth, but by Coleridge, ta Thomas Poole (15 January, 1804) ta suggest Wordsworth's "subsequent abandonment of necessltananlsm" sometime between 1800 and 1804

10. Philosophie Mjnd, 162-164 Grob suggested that Godwin's "man of rational benevalence" was more a spiritual than a mechanistlc construct, an "unbodied concept rather than a concrete presence" ln The prelude's charactenzation of "Reason" (165). This rel"f~;.:.ed hls ove rail argument that Wordsworth's view of reason was camplex, and that his baSIC phllosophy remalOed necessitanan. It l appears that diSCUSSions of how lasting was Godwin's Influence on Wordsworth depend on how narrowly Godwin's doctnne of necessity is deflOed as mechanistic. fiader's saw the doctrine as strictly mechanistlc, and concluded that Godwin's influence was relatively short-llved See also Grob's 1 "Wordsworth and Godwin' A Reassessment," Studies in Bomantlcjsm 6 (1967): 98-119. Before Grob, B. D. Havens, ln The Mind of a Poet, 2 vol. (Bahimore: Johns Hopkins, 1941) had pointed out that Wordsworth presentations of reason were of "at least three different kinds"; mtultive, analytical, and , 1 common sense (1' 362-364).

11 Philosophic Mjnd, 191

12. In "Guilt and Alienation: The Godwi0l3n Background," Tradition and Expenment, 15-37, Jacobus 1 traced Colendge's brief but intense flirtation with GodwlOian rationalism, and his rejection of it in terros of his Unitarian beliefs, and compared this with Wordsworth's "partial reaction against Godwin," manifest in the unpubllshed play, The Borderers and in "Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree (1798). J GodwlO remains III the background of her comments on "Lines written in Early Spring," (97-98), and the doctnne of necesslty played no overt part in her overall attempt to link the social attitudes in the ballads to Godwm's SOCIal dicta.

1 13 William Hazlitt, "On liberty and Necessity," Uterary Bemains, ad. Harold Bloom (1836; New York: Chelsea House, 1983) 72. ThiS essay summarizes the views on necessity of Hobbes, Edwards, and Priestley, and yet does not mention Godwin. This is surprising, given Hazlitt's respectful portrait of 1 Godwin in The Spi nt of the Age (22-37). 14. In 1831, Godwin denied that the language of necessity can be the universal "mode" of communication that he idealized in PQlitical Justice. "The mode therefore in which the advocates of 1 the doctrine of necessity have universally talked and written, is one of the most memorable examples of the hallucination of the human intellect. They have at ail times recomrnended that we should translate the phrases in which we usually express ourselves on the hypotheSis of liberty, into the phraseology of ne(;~~~ity ... They did not perceive what a wide devastation and destruction they were J proposing ... " (..P.J., 339). Godwin's use of the pronoun "they" is misleading, making it appear as though he was not one of those who had recommended the language of necessity.

] 15. Jonathan Edwards, "Concerning the Meaning of the Terms Necessity, Impossibility .. ," Ereedom of the Will (1754; New Haven: Yale, 1957) 149-155.

16. "Necessary" is, of course, a jobber in Wordsworth's criticjsm. It crops up to ar.cent the urgency of his arguments, as in the "Note to The Thorn" ("It was necessary that the poem to be natural, should in reaUty move slowly ... ) His emphasis on the word can seem pointless, as in the italicized "necessary" in "1 might perhaps Include ail which it is necessary to say upon this subject by affirmng .. thaLverse will be read a hundred tlmes where the prose is read only 'Jnce." ln the only one of the three "Essays upon Epitaphs" to be publisf1ed (1810, in CoJeridge's The Frjellâ), Wordsworth used the langu.1ge of necessity innocuously in the later part of tht:! essay, but twice in the introductory paragraphs to suggest that "Origin and tendency are notions inseparably co-relative," and that the "conjunction" 1 between the "principle of love" and the "faculty of reason which exists in man alone" is strictly "necessary .• 1 1 1 215

1 17. Thomas Hobbes, "Of the Liberty of Subjects," Leviathan (1651, London' Penguin, 1986) 261- 263. 1 16. poctone and Art 32. Beatty argued that the doctrine was not particularly GodwJnlan, but a common belief of many revolutlonary theorists. If Godwin dld not put hls own stamp on the doctnne of necesslty, one wonders why Beatty suggests that one can hear a Godwiman chord ln Wordsworth's "A motion and a Spirit, that irnpels/ Ali thinking things, ail objects of ail thought,/ And rolls through ail 1 things." Beatty quoted Hazlitt, who sald that "Perhaps the doctrine of what has been ca lied phllosophlcal necesslty was never more hnely expressed than in these \ines," and carned the matter no further.

1 19. Perhaps there was some relatlonship in Godwin's mmd between hls vlew of poetlc effects, a poem's general "tendency" over which the poet has no essential or final control, and hls neeessitanan belief in the benign general tendency of society and history, that finally and essentially controls the individual. But GOdwlO did not make this connection, and trylOg to make it for hlm would only lead us 1 more circuitously to problems and contradictions that ought to be discussed;n the context of the doctrine. In The Enguirer, Godwin gave no indication that there 15 any sueh thmg as a necessary response to a text. meaning a (esponse that the properly trained reader cannot always deteet, and 1 fully resist or control 20. Other poe ms that Beatty polnted to as reflectlOg Goctwmian necessity are "The Female Vagrant" (1798) and "Animal Tranquillty and Decay" (1800, a revised version of "Old Man Travelling," 1798). 1 Grob focussed hls argument for Godwin's influence on "The Old Cumberland Beggar" (1800) These poems are at~ut the poor and the destitute, and so it is worth noung that, in The EngUirer. a text neglected in discussions of Wordsworth's indebtedness to Godwin, beggars are the "opprobnum of 1 human nature, and the earth would feelltself lightened by their removal" (E. 191-193). 21. Marks 'r' and 'v' in my references to the Cornell edition of The Rujned Cottage and The Pedlar refer to front and back pages 10 Dorothy Wordsworth's poeket notebook containing Ms D and unused 1 addenda to Ms. B. Jonathan Word~worth's The Musjc of Humamty (London: Nelson. 1969) iIIuminated a number of important points in the ms. history that might otherwlse not have come clear to me in my readlOg of Butler's intricate and detailed reconstructions.

1 22. Helen Darbishire observed that "The word 'impelled' here accompanles 'st net necessitv: yet the ide a is significantly yoked with free will. Here is another of Wordsworth's paradoxes. Godwm's ide a of necessity is bound up with an inherited CaMnist strain .... With Wordsworth it goes wlth a natural 1 identification of himself with ... Nature." The poet Wordsworth (London: Oxford. 1950) 163. 23. WordsWQrth's poetry, 135.

1 24. Mysjc of Humanjty, 82. Even if one is convinced that the young narratar is Wordsworth, one can still explore his presence as emblematic of the reader. Jeffrey Baker argued that 'Wordsworth IS in the poem himseH partly to represent the reader." Tjme and Miod in Wordsworth's Poetry (Detroit. Wayne 1 State, 1980) 84. 25. In a note to his brief discussion of Wordsworth as necessitarian in Wordsworth's poetry, Hartman referred to these same \ines from polit je al Justice: "Is it possible that Wordsworth was impressed by 1 Godwin's assertion that the spirit of man is liberated by recognizing that 'm the life of every human being there is a chain of causes ... ?'" ln Hartman's view, Godwrn's doctrine of necessity "can be used for many different ends" (380), and "Wordsworth's nature has reasons the reason cannot know of. Human consciousness ... must be bound to nature and man by a stronger chain th an ratiocination, one 1 that has its beginning in the child's ... early association with nature in order to resist the crude interventions and immediate demands of reason - in this respect. as Hazlitt reported, Wordsworth is indeed a necessitarian" ((155). Hartman rightly mistrusted Hazlitt's report in The SPirit of the Age, that 1 Wordsworth advised a Cambridge student to "'Throw aside your books of Chemlstry and read Godwm 1 1 1 216

) on Necesslly'" ("When would il have been made? Why books of cheml~try, and not books on natural or moral phllosophy?")

26 Aven" suggested that the poem's lesson on self-indulgent grief was commonplace ln the later ] elghteenlh-century The more comp/ex aesthetlc lesson reflected a vanety of theories that sought to explaln why a reader or hstener experlences p/easure whlle IIstening ta or reading tragedles. Human Suffenng,116-146 See my Introduction, note 12. Aven" referred to the phrase "stnct necesSlty" ln the addenda 10 order to express hls suspicion that "this 'necesslty' 15 Imposed by the poet's deslre," ] as opposed. one assumes, ta a firm belief in the doctrine of necesslty (140)

Chapter 4

.1 1 These characters are far from than fully drawn, but they are Iflscnbed reader5 in the most literai sense As book-readers and readers of "fines wntten," their presence ln the poems is more specifie than Gibson's "mock reader," Prince's "narratee" or "virtual reader," Iser's "Imp/led reader," and Booth's authorial "second self" Warker Gibson, "Authors, Speakers, Readers, and Mock Readers," J Gerald Prmce, "Introduction ta the Study of the Narratee," Reader-Response Criljclsm From Formahsm 10 Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P Tompkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1980) 1-6; 7-25; Iser defines the implied reader in the Introduction ta The Irnplied Reader, xii, and 10 The Act of 1 Reading. A Theory of Aesthetlc ResDonse (Baltimore. Johns Hopkins, 1978) 34-35; Wayne C. Booth, The Rhettil:c of Fiction, 2nd. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1983) 138. J 2. Eale of Reading, 290-291. 3. Robert Mayo, ''The Contemporaneity of the Lyricar Ballads," fMI.A 69 (1954): 486-522. J 4. Paul Sheats, The Makiog of Wordsworth's PoetCl, 1785-1798, (Cambridge, Mass .. Harvard University, 1973) 208. On the other hand, Rzepka argued that the companion poems are the "enunciation of a central Word5worthian doctrine," that of "wise passiveness." Self as Mind, 39.

1 5, Tradition and Experiment, 33; Lectures on Orato(Y and CÔtjdsm, 148.

6. Wordswortb's Poetry, 13, Hartman goes into greaterdetail on the "Spirit of Place" in the Yew-Tree 1 poem in The Unremadsable Wordsworth (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1987) 31-41. 7. The shared tbemes of "genius," male isolation, reading, verbal echoes such as "lu"" and "unlawful," make "The Foster-Motber's Tale" and the Yew-Tree poem suitable companions. Yet the 1 pedagogical impulses of the poems are different. In Coleridge's poem, the powers that rescue genius are those that seek to control nature, the "savage men" who hunt in wilderness, the "Iusty arm" of Leoni that fells trees, the weahh that ereets casties and convents etc, The powers that save mind trom "contempt" in the Yew-Tree poem are nature and a community of gentle beings. Coleridge's boy 1 genius was taken from nature's cradle, raised and educated by men, one of wbom, a kindly friar, taught him how to read and write. The toster-mother indicates tbat the boy's subsequent inability to conform wlth the community was c1Je to his insatiable intellectual appetite, and to the fact that he was raised by J men. She sighs "But oh! poor wretch! - he read, and read, and read,! 'Til his brain turned. H But non­ conformity is implicitly idealized by Coleridge, white the Yew-Iree poem probes its moral dangers.

8. The rength of the Yew-Tree poem, sixtY lines. perhaps accounts for Wordsworth's uncertainty on 1 exactly how the lines were "reft" behind. Over a decade later. in tbe "Essays upon Epitaphs," Wordsworth would argue that a literary epitaph can be longer than tradition allowsd. 1 9. Elements of Moral Scjence, ?59, 10. Sheats called the two poems a "debate.~ The MakiOQ of Wordsworth's poetry, 188. With Sheats's argument in mind, Bialostosky pointed out tbat an "expostulation, however, is not a debate, J but an eamest attempt to dissuade," Makjng Tales, 131. ] t 1 217 1 11. SL~i..Mioà, 39 12 The Makjng of Wordsworth's P~, 208-209. 1 13 Makjng Tales, 132. 14. The "Advertlsement" sald that "The lines entit/ed Expostulatlon and Reply, and those whlch follow, arose out of a conversation with a friend [perhaps William Hazlitt] who was somewhat 1 unreasonably attached to 'nodern books of moral phllosophy," These "llOes" were clearly IOtended as "expenments" ln the "language of conversation." With respect to the theme of readmg ln the Ballads, "conversation" suggests the art of readlOg aloud, as weil as the Imaglnary dialogue between author and reader. The 1815 "Preface" suggests that Wordsworth wanted the reader's "Impassloned 1 recltation" of the B..allaàs Reputable later elghteenth-century essays on elocutlon had argued that the arts of recltatlon and conversation are vlrtually identlcal John Mason's An Essay on Elocutloo and Pronuncjatjon ([1748, Menslon, Eng . SCholar, 1968] 17-29) antlclpales Wordsworth's Idenllflcatlons 1 of poetry wlth both conversation and prose:" verse reqUires ~"e same IOflexlons as prose let us reduce It to earnest conversation ..It IS the preservation of these prosalc IOflexlons Ihat makes the poetlc pronunciatlon natural," see also John Rice, Introduction to the Art of ReadlOg (1765, Menslon Scholar, 1969) 19-22; John Walker, Elemems of Elocution, 2 vol. (1781, Menston' Scholar, 1969) 2 1 180-181; for a mlldly dlssentlng view see William Cocklln. The Art of pellyenng WC/Uen Language (1775; Menston: Scholar,1969) Wordsworth did not explaln the relatlOnshlp between readlOg and the "language of conversation," prefernng to speak of the poet, poetlc language. or reading habits 1 per se, but It can be argued that he was agam (as wlth hls appropnatlon of analytlcal rules) usmg what others had sald about reading to reflect the consclous intention of the poet - ln th,s case. the mtentlon to give his poems conversatlonal effects that encourage readmg aloud. The essays on elocutlon mirror Wordsworth's reading 'ethlcs,' for the analytlcal spi nt they eVloce by argumg that recltatlon 1 should "reduce" poetry to conversational tones was grounded m the Idea that readlOg a poem, sllenlly or aloud, must be faithful to the poet's original purposes.

15 Gaston Bachelard, ,"troduction. The Poetjcs Pl Space, trans. Maria Jolas (1958, Boston. Beacon 1 Press, 1964) xxii. 1 16. Treatjse, 123 17. MakIDQ Tales, 134.

18. For a discussion, at sorne points involving Wordsworth, of the historical "shift from the I-You 1 pronominal form to the medltative form" of lyric, see W. R. Johnson, The Idea of Lyoc. Lync Modes ID Ancjeot and Modern poetry (Berkeley: University of California, 1982). 1 19. SeU as Mjnd, 71. 20. Hartman CJbserved that the calendar image reters to an "ancient practlee "poems ot lhanksgiving, marking or creating a date, exerpting from the ffow of time a particular moment." WordSWQrth's Poetry, 1 151. It also al/udes to one of the most ancient and alementary forms of reading

21. Patricia Cahill argued that Wordsworth's poems treating women dlrectly, such as "Tintern Abbey" and "Lines written at a smalt distance .. ," as opposed to poems that bring out positively the femmine 1 characteristics of nature, are sexist. "Women dnd Children in The prelude," Massachusetts Studjes ID English 5, iii (1975-78). 39-47. Wordsworth's lines on his wife, "A Creature not too bright or good" etc. in "She was a Phantom of Delight," are arguably condescending; David Aers argued that 1 Wordsworth's "love of man" with a fascination with a mere abstraction. 'Wordsworth's Model of Man in 'The Prelude, '" Romaotjcjsm and Ide%gy: Studies in English Writ!OQ 1765-183Q (London. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981) 64-81.

1 22. Traditjon and Experimeot, 96. 1 1 1 218

1 23. In argum9 agamst the ,dea that Wordsworth, as had been commonly supposed, was"neglectful of bookish lore," Lane Cooper pomted out that "Wordsworth not only composed in the open, but by day did much of his readmg there. " "A Glanee at Wordsworth's Reading." Modern language ~ 22 J (1907). 8~-89, 110-117 The part played by "Lmes written at a small d'stance. "In promotmg the m,staken v,ew that Wordsworth was "disinchned to read" was recently d'scussed by Thomas and Ober in "The Myth of Wordsworth's Reading But lIttle," AMjnd Eoreyer VQyagjng, 184-186. Cooper's essay and Jane Worthington's Wordsworth's Aeadmg of Roman Prose (New Haven: Yale, 1946) had 1 already do ne much to d,spel th,s "M~t1h."

24 For example, Hobbes sa Id that "Wisdom IS acqulfed not by readm9 of books but of men. he that j 15 the govem a whole nation, must read ln hlmself, not this or that particular man; but Man-kind." LeYlathan, 82-83.

25. William James Collins made this argument 10 his unpublished dissertation, "Wordsworth and the 1 Romantic Search for an AUd,ence," University of Callfornla (Riverslde), 1971, 141-145. 26. These Bibllcal terms (i.e. John 14.2) would have appeared frequently 10 the hymns and prayers of Wordsworth's childhood. For example, one of the hymns that Daniel Fisher, Master of the Grammar 1 School at Cockermouth attended by Wordsworth, included in h,s handbook for teachers of reading, The Child's Christian Education (london,1763), invoked the "Bndegroom" Christ in the following manner: "0 make me thy peculiar Carel Some heavenly Mansion me prepare .. Glory ~o Thee, in Light 1 array'd,l Who Light thy Dwelling-Place hast made." 27. See Ch 3. n 18. 1 28 VISion and pjsenchantmeot, 245. 29. John E. Jordan, "Wordsworth's Humour," fMLA 73 (1958): 86.

1 30. Andrew L. Griffin, "Wordsworth and the Problem of Imaginative Story: The Case of 'Simon Lee,'" eMLA 92 (1977): 392-409; Makjng Tales, 74-81.

31. It is not difficuh to imagine the speaker lifting a horo of ale to toast Simon's prowess \Vith the 1 "hom " Such a gesture would be in keeping with the rollicklOg mood of traditional ballads, as weil as wlth the SOCIal settings in which they were spoken or sung. For a man of the later eighteenth-century, competence at reciting ballads could be something ta brag about. John Clare heard his father "make a 1 boast of it over his horn of ale, with his merry companions, that he culd [sic] sing or reeite above a hundred (ballads." The address to the reader implies that this spe~ker is trying to "make" his own bal/ad, even more an occasIon for showing off than merely reciting one See Kenneth Maclean, 1 Agrarjan Age: A Backgroynd for WordSWQrtn. (New Haven: Yale, 1950): 45. 32. "ImaginatIVe Story," 393. 1 33 "Imaginative Story," 392,394-397. 34 Making Tales, 75, 80-81; "Imaginative Story," 399. 1 35. Vision and p,senchanlment, 234; John Danby, The Simple WordSworth (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960) 44. 1 36. Unremarlsable Wordsworth, 152. 37. Vision and Pisenchantrnent, 237. 1 38. Bialostosky callad the closing couplet of "Goody Blake and Harry Gill," "Now think, ye farmers ail, 1 pray,! of Goody Blake and Harry Gill," an "open invitation" to readers to think carefully about the poem. 1 1 1 219

Makjng Tales. 70 But If Wordsworth was suggesting that Harry's brutaltreatment of Goody has 1 somethlOg to do wlth a darkly aggresslve or Ignorant St>lrit of readlOg, the suggestlon 15 too furtive to grasp. Kenneth Maclean polOted out that Thomas Bewlck, a woodcut artlst whose work Wordsworth greatly enJoyed, "thought that as a class the poor labounng men were more .ntelligent than the farmers They read more, thought rrrJre, had a keener ear for news '7 he farmers, 'belng more 1 excluslvely occupled with the management of thelr tarms .read but uttle '" As an address to a moderately wealthy class of people, the request to "thmk" ma~ have been qUite pOlOted, for "The na me of 'tarmer' was scorned in the years around 1800" by the poorer classes Unhke 'Simon Lee," 1 however, "Goody Blake and Harry Gill" does not make direct use of the theme of readlng 39. Wordsworth's Poetry, 148-150

1 40 Implied Beader, 43

41 Donald DaVie, "Dionysus in Lyncal Ballads," M;nd and Art, 134-135. DaVie traces Wordsworth's 1 concept of admiration back to Aristotle, Longinus, and Thomas Aqulnas (133-139) 42 . In his discussion of the relationshlps between Wordsworth's concepts of the Imagination and the Sublime, Scoggins argued that Wordsworth "saw ln man's response to the sublime the meeting 1 ground of poet and reader." Imagination and Eaney, 146. 1agree with this, and my diSCUSSion of "We live by admiration" and the "Essay, Supplementary" suggested that admiration was a term that Wordsworth wanted to use to descnbe thls IOtermediate ground between sublime poet and corresponding reader. Studles such as John Jones's The Egot;stlcal Sublime (London Chatto and 1 Windus,1954), Thomas Welskel's The Bomantic Sublime (Baltimore Johns HopkinS, 1976, Albert 0 Wlecke's Wordsworth and the Sublime (Berkeley. UniverSIty of Californla, 1973) have nCil related thls 1 important area of Wordsworth's poetics and poetry to his vlews on reading. 43. Quoted ln Gill's William Wordsworth, 691

44. My interpretatlons of "The Idiot Boy" and "The Thorn" are indebted to John Danby's diSCUSSion of 1 the underlying complexlties of these "simple" poems in Chapter Two of The Simple Wordsworth

45. Informed Beader, 50.

1 46. "Imaginative Story," 398.

47. Boland Barthes, Cnt;cjsm and Truth, trans. Katrine Keur,eman (1966; Minneapolis. UniverSity of 1 Minnesota, 1987) 93. 48. Making Tales, 81-86; Jerome Christensen, "Wordsworth's Misery, Coleridge's Woe' Reading 'The Thorn,'" Papers in Language and Uterature 16 (1980): 268-286; Susan Wolfson, "The Language of 1 Interpretation in Bomantic Poetry: 'A Strong Working of the Mind,'" Aomaoticjsm and LaoQuage, ed Arden Reed (Ithaca' Cornell, 1984) 22-49, for diSCUSSions of the moral implications of 'The Thorn," see Thomas Ashton, "'The Thorn': Wordsworth's Insensitive Plant," Huntjogton Llbrary Quarterly 35 1 (1772)' 171-187, and Geoffrey Jackson, 'Moral DimenSions of 'The Thorn,'" Wordsworth ~ 10 (1979): 91-96. These essay are ail indebted to Stephen Parnsh's "The Thorn' Wordsworth's Dramatlc Monologue," .EU:!. 24 (1957): 153-163.

1 49. W J. B. Owen, "'The Thorn' and the Poet's Intention," Wordsworth Circle 8 (1977): 15, "Wordsworth's Misery" 281. 1 50. Eor example, Owen beglDs his essayon "The Thorn" in the same fashion as Gnffin begins hls essay on "Simon Lee": '"The Thorn' is a poem which has puzzled entics since it flrst appeared ... " (13), and he goes on to discuss it as a poem deliberately intended to create "problems În interpretation."

1 51. "Wordsworth's Misery," 284. 1 1 1 220 1 52. MakIDg Jales, 86; "Th3 Poet's Intention," 10. 53 Tile text of Peter Bell that 1 am uSlng, ID GllI's ~hronologlcal edltion of Wordsworth's poems, IS drawn from Ihese early mss See GllI's notes to the poem (690-691). My remarks on the reading 'anecdote' obvlously cover only a "mlted area (Jf thls long poem For an Important diSCUSSion of ItS 1 central "redemptron-theme" in the context of \~Ighteenth-century Methodlsm see Jacobus's Tradition and Expenrneot, 262-272 The poem's complex ms hlstory IS reconstructed ln Peter Bell, ed. John Jordon (Ithaca Cornell, 1985).

54 "Worc1sworth's Hllmour," 89-90.

55 John Gardner, On Moral Fiction (New York Basic Books, 1978) 112-113

56 Self as Mmd, 39-40, 51

57. The 1819 dedlcatlon to Southey (William Wordsworth, 690-691), implies that "Poetic probabllity" is the mam cntenon by which WordsNorth wanted the poem to be judged.

Chapter 5.

1 1. John Rusktn, The Uterary Criticism of John RUskin, ed. Harold Sloom (1965; New York: Da Capo, 1987) 3-35. Ruskin takes Stewart's "meagre deflnltion" Into account on pp. 3-6, 8. 1 2 Gerald Wester Chapman observed that the "most Interesting part of Locke's psychology for later [elghteenth-century] criticism is his chapter "Of the Assoclatton of Ideas" [Book 2, ch 33, fsW Concerning Human Understandjng, 1700]... By 'assoCiation' Locke does not mean the whole 'train of ideas,' which for Hobbes constltutes ail mental activity, but only abnormal and irrational 1 linkages .. .'keeplng company,' 'ganging,' 'associating' together outside of rational consciousness," and yet, to a limited extent, eradicable by means of reason. Uterary Cdticism in England, 14-15. See also Basil Wiley, "Postscript: On Wordsworth and the Locke Tradition," The Seyenteenth CentUly 1 Background (London; Chatto and Windus, 1942) 296·309. Later eighteenth-century concepts of fancy, such as Stewart's and Coleridge's, reflect Locke's view in that they present the associative play of fancy ln a negative or disparaging light, as compared with the reasoning and contemplative powers 1 of ImaginatIon. 3. This suggests that Wordsworth positive view of "fancy" was historically unIque. Scoggins argued that one of Wordsworth's main purposes 10 the 1815 "Preface" was to refute Coleridge's Implication that this is a faculty unworthy of true poetic genius." Imagination and Eancy, 191-197. Wordsworth was 1 nevertheless "ambivalent" in his attempt to cast faney in a more significant role than others had assigned her (198).

1 4. Meisenhelder dlscussed Wordsworth's 1815 classification of the collected ~s in order to show "how the complex structure of the edition educates the reader" about the "process of acqumng knowledge." Informed Beader, 160-161. Wordsworth's poems of Fancy have received little attention compared to the poe ms of the Imagination, a fact regretted by bath S<,.oggins and Melsenhelder. A 1 recent exception IS W. J. B. Owen's "The Chann More Superficial," Wordsworth Cirele 13 (1982).8- 16, a study of images of fancy in The PrelUde. This essay was not noted by Meisenhelder, pemaps because it did not clearly anticipate her concems with reader-response. Meisenhelot.:' is the first ClitiC 1 to show the Importance of the poe ms of Eancy as a means of "rea/igning the reader's sensibilities" (113-25, 164-165). See alsa pp. 121-123 for comments on the transitional purpose of "Address to my lOfant Daughter" Most of the poe ms in my chapter, although they exploit concepts of fancy, are 1 not among the poe ms of Fancy in the 1815 edition. 5. Peter J. Manning argued that the therne of "seH-reproach" in bath "Resolution and Independence" and "A narrow girelle of rough stones .. " reflects the speaker's avoidance of moral responsibilities. '''My , former thoughts returned': Wordsworth's 'Resolution and Independence,'" Wordsworth Cire/e 9 (1978): 398-405. 1 1 1 221

1 6. "Home at Grasmere" ends wlth the famous effusion "On Man, on Nature, and on Human Llfe." that sounded Wordsworth's deep need for a "fit audience" for hls poems. The effusion was revised and later publlshed wlth The Excursjon as a "Prospectus" to the pro\ected phllosophlcal opus, Illil 1 Recluse. For a diScussion of the relatlonshlp between "Home at Grasmere" and The Reclyse, see Kenneth R Johnson's "'Home at Grasmere' 10 1800," Wordsworth and The Beclyse (New Haven Yale, 1984), rpt 10 William Wordsworth: Modern Cntlcal VlewS, ed Harold Bloom (New Yon< ChelseCl House, 1985) 173-191. "Home at Grasmere" is Wordsworth's most sustamed trumpetmg of the therne 1 of the poet's "lOltlatory" Imagination, that 1dlscussed m Chapter Two 10 term') of the essays and prefaces and The Rumed Cottage. See Hartman's comments on the poet't "problematlc rehance on thp autonomous Imagination" 10 thls self-consciously exuberant poem

1 7 ln "Idleness and Deliberate Holiday," Ume and Mjod,113-143, Baker made a simllar argument, but without tymg the themes of Idleness and seH-reproach to the theme of readmg The poem demonstrates unequivocally thal "surrender to the Spirit of the season .. led the Idlers dlrectly ta the 1 transforming [moral] expenence" of human suffenng (119). 8 Hartman presents the theme of reslstance in this poem in a paradoxlcal manner The poet reslsts his urge ta be autonomous, therefore Immune from gnef and loss, whlle at the same tlme he 1 "cancenlers himseH against the temptation of hope." Wordsworth's Poetry, 285-286. For Meisenhelder, the poet of "Elegiac Stanzas" "hopes ta develop hls reader's powers of resistance" to the allurements of "Elysian qUiet," since escaplOg to these tranquil fields of thought signais an mablltty to exercise spiritual "power" over "deep distress." However, she does not say what the poem's 1 lessons on "reslstance" might mean in terms of moral and practical approaches to poetlc interprefatlon. Informed Reader, 59-61.

1 9. John Wordsworth,~, ed. Carl H Ketchum (Ithaca: Comell, 1969) f. 03 10 ln a bnet preamble ta the poem (1807), Wordsworth asked hls readers ta "See the varrous Poems the scene of which IS laid on the banks of the Yarrow; in partlcular the exqulslte Ballad of Hamilton " 1 He was referring to William Hamilton's "The Braes of Yarrow" (1724), published ln Allan Ramsay's Iea: Table Mjscellany (1724-1732), a collection of old Scottish and Enghsh sangs, along wlth poems by 1 Ramsay and contemporary poets 11. Anstotle, De Anjma trans. Hugh Lawson-Tancred (London: pengutn, 1988) 157

12. Simon Schama, Cjtjzens; A Chronjcle of the French Reyolytlon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989) 1 46.

13. eritics have see", in these impressionistic lines evidence of the Leech-gatherer's bond wlth bath natural and supernatl.lral powers. Hartman, for example, said that the old man "is so intimately 1 connected with nature and the ve ry landscape of the poem that his voice IS like that of a stream. yet this sa me image ... refers us to the apocalyptic figure of the Ancient of Days and intimates a destruction of Nature." J. Hillis Miller found these lmes point to an elemental bond between the Leech-gatherer 1 and nature, and also to his possibilities as a "supernatural visitant" The UngUlstjc Moment. From Wordsworth 10 Stevens (Princeton: Princeton University, 1985) 45. It is clear, however, that thls image of n;ttural supernaturalism, and whatever philosophlcal, religious, or theoretical structures It 1 suggests, must be vlewed in the context of the narrator's unstable "stream" of subjective ImpreSSions 14. Elements of COtlcjsm, 1: 104-112.

15. A. W. Thomson commented on the thematic importance of the allusions to Chatterton and Burns 1 in "Resolution and Independence," Mjnd and Art, 184-186.

16. For Thomson, the "carefully described staff ... seems almost reassuringly real." Mjnd and Art, 188. 1 This anticipated Rzepka's argument that the poet-narrator is seeking the reassurance of the real, salvation trom his "vis., •• lary solipsism." Self as Mjod, 89-98. 1 1 1 222

1 17 Self as Mjnd, 95

18 Mind and Art, 198 J 19, Mak;ng Tales, 158

20 Creative autonomy IS as Important and problematic a theme 10 this poem as it IS in The Ruined J CoUagQ The hnf: "By our own Sptnts are we delfied" expresses the poet's desire to be self-sufficlent, but not simply Miller found thls IIne "a genuinely shocking affirmation of the autonomy and onglnatlOg power of human conseiousness .. One the other hand, even thls line cou Id be taken to say no more j than that the delty works through the human spint rather than through nature" UngUlstlc Moment, 47. Thomson, reflecting Hartman's view of Wordsworth as apprehenslve of the powers of hls "apocalyptlc" imagination, suggested that the self-affirmation ln this "line, in fact, IS IIke the beglOnrng of a statement whose total meaning Will be so ominous that Wordsworth shles away trom completing It 1 ln the same terms. Mind and Art, 187. 21 UngUlstjc Moment, 97, Wordsworth's Poetl), 229-230

1 22. My interpretation of "charge" is indebted to Timothy Bahti, "Figures of Interpretation, The Interpretation of Figures: A Reading of Wordsworth's 'Dream of the Arab,'" SlB. 18 (1979): 601-627, and Mary Jacobus, "Wordsworth and the Language of the Dream,".E..IJ:t 46 (1979). 618-644. For a J good summary of modern scholarship on Book V, S6e Ungu;stie Moment, 78-79, o. 21. 23. In The Incredylous Beader (Ithaca: Cornell, 1984) 71, Clayton Koelb said that "Our Incredulity allows us to escape the consequences of living in a Iogomimetlc universe [fictional, figurai etc]. It is a 1 wooderful place to visit, but we cao be glad that we do not have to live there. Those who do have to live there are figures of terror," insane or perhaps merely deluded. The Arab Dream teaches that reading to evade r3ahty must end in an escape from fiction baek to reality, or one becomes as deluded 1 as Don QUlxote. 24. The Arab Dream was written by March 1804, though it would ooly be incorporated into Book V in 1 1805. See The Prelyde 1799 1805 1850,516. 25. The oarrator of Don Ouixote says to the reader who requires that tales be reahstlc or "autMntic," "1 must only acquaint the reader, that if Any objection is to be made as to the veracity of this, it is only that the author is an Arablan, and those of that country are not a little addicted to Iying." Miguel De 1 Cervantes, Don Qyjxote De La Mancha, trans. Peter Motteux, iIIus. Salvador Dah (1605; New York: Abbeville, 1946) 75.

26. Wordsworth recalled that as a ehild he had baen allowed to "read whatever books Iliked. For 1 example, t read ail Fielding's works, Don Ouixote ... " Christopher Wordsworth, Mernoies of Wjmam Wordsworth, 2 vol. (London, 1815) 1: 10. Traeing the relationship of Don OUjxote 10 painting, Hugh Honour said Ihat, in the eighteenth century, 1 it was "generally regarded as a collection of comic tales about the haptess knight- whose misfortunes aroused nothing but mirth - interspersed with pastoral epirodes appealing to sentiment .. Deeper ) levels of meaning were first detected by the Romantics ... " Romantiejsm, 267-271. 27. 1 agree with Harold Bloom's argument that the "most important point is how close Wordsworth [or his poetic persona) cornes to identifying himself with the Arab OUixote ... Wordsworth feared for himself, had his sensibility taken too strong control of his reason." Introduction, William WordsWQrth's J The Prelyde (New York: Chelsea House, 1986) 1,.

28. Jane Worthington Smyser was the first to link Book V with Descartes. "Wordsworth's Dream of Poetry and Sciences," f.M1..A 71: 1 (1956) 269-275. This connection is also discussed in Lingujstje 1 Moment, 92-93. 1 1 1 223

1 29. Rene Descartes, Plscourse on Method and the Medjtatlons. trans F E Sutchffe (London pengulO, 1988) 97, 168.

1 30. Cynthia Chase, pecomposlOg Figures: Rhetoncal ReadIDgs ID the RomantiC Tradltioo (Baltimore Johns HopkinS, 1986) 17

31. Hartm:an sald that the "timing of the boy's death and the tone 10 whlch It IS narrated rernrnd us 1 strongly of the Lucy poems Both Lucy and the Boy of WlOander die before COosclousness of self can emerge wholly form consclousness of nature." Wordsworth's Poetcy, 21 1 32 The satincal elements in thls description were aimed at utlhtanan educatlonal s~hemes that were curreot ln the 1790s. For an account of those schemes, and thelr Impact 00 Book V, see DaVid V Erdman, "Colendge, Wordsworth, and the Wedgewood Fund," BNYPL 60 (1956) 425-443,487- 507,493-495 Colendge sald that, in the projected Recluse, Wordsworth tone was sometlmes to 1 ref/eet the Juvenalian spnt. The 14ble Talk and OmDlana of Samuel Taylor Colendge (Oxford, 1917) 189. Cued by this remark, Ford T_ Swetnam, "The Satlnc VOlces of 'The Prelude,'" Blcentenacy Wordsworth Studjes (Ithaca: Cornell, 1970) 92-100, and David Boyd, "Wordsworth as Satlrist Book VII of 'The Prelude,'" Studies 10 English Literature 13 (1973). 617-663 both argued that Wordsworth was 1 an effective satinst 1am inchned to agree wlth Herbert lIndenberger that satire was not among Wordsworth's natural gifts. Qa..Wordsworth's Prelude (Pnnceton Pnnceton University, 1963) 238 It is important to see that Nature "grieved" (1. 346) for the "dwarf Man," that he was a vlch •. of "Sages, 1 who in their prescience would controul! Ali accidents.... ThiS suggests that the essence of thls portrait IS pathos rather th an satire.

33. In "The Art of Managing Books: RomantlC Prose and the wnting of the Past," Mary Jacobus 1 observed that the "whole drift of Book V is toward subsumtng hterature under the headlOg of Nature .. RomaotlClsm and Language, 216 1 34. This strange moment ln the poem suggests that Meisenhe/der was wrong ta mc/ude it among those poems of the fancy ID which the "human unproblematrcally merges with the humble elemeots of Nature." However, Meisenhelder argues that other poems, such as "To a Sky-Lar1<" and "Song for the Wandering Jew," point to "problems wlth the bower inhabited by the fancy," marnly the dllemmas 1 posed by death and "human estrangement" from Nature Informed Beader, 115-118. 35. See GiII's note to the poem. Wjlliam Wordsworth, 705.

1 36. Influenced by Hartmai1's theory of Wordsworth's apocalyptlc imagination, Scoggrns argued that "Wordsworth's delight in the IIghter charms of faney also hldes a fear ot his powerful, ternbly exaetm9 1 imagination." Imagination and Eancy, 204. 37. Perhaps Erances Ferguson has come closer than anyone else to explainlng the mysterious power of the language in the Lucy poems Language as Coynter-SPIOt. 173-194.

, 1 38. See Meisenhelder's histoncally based discussion of the "structure of surpnse' ln "Strange Flts of Passion Have 1known" and ln other poe ms. Informed Beader. 28-55 1 39. Treatjse, 224. 40. See Chapter 2, n. 22. The visit to Glen-Almain took place during the 1803 tour of Scotland, and 1 was composed May-June, 1805. WjWam Wordsworth, 716 41. Meisenhelder's reader-oriented interpretatlon of this poem is based on the compelling argument that the "reader is led ta aoticipate the unfolding of a secret that requires daring to tell and that thls 15 narrated by an avowedly strange narrator -ail of which seems more than enough ta whet CUriOSlty, 1 strain attention, and focus observation on the possibility of a 'gross and violent' stimulant," of the sort 1 1 J 224

Wordsworth decried '" h;s entlclsm This retleets the poem's structure of anticipation and anllclimax. 1 Informed Beader, 38.

J 42 Human SUffenng, 95-98

J Epilogue Llterary Bemarns, 286. f 2. Llterary Bemarns, 245 3 See Ch 1, n 6 1 4 William Hazlitt, The Round Table (Essays on Uterature. Men. and Manners, ed. Harold Sloom (1817, New York. Chelsea House, 1983) 165-166; Hazlitt, Table Talk. or. Qrtgrnal Essays, ed. Harold Bloom (1821, New York: Chelsea House, 1983) 298.

J 5. John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelltjsm (London: Smith, Eider, 1851) 23, 67-68

6. Table Talk, 302; The low esteem in whlch Hazlitt held the analytical lemperamenl appears 10 be an 1 outgrowth of a self-wounding distrust of erilicism in general. For example, he "sometimes thoughl that the most acute and origrnal-mlnded men made bad critics." Table Talk, 311; he sald Ihat "Men of genlus, or those who produce excellence would be the best judges of il - poets of poetry, painlers of paintrng .... Sketches and Essays, ed. Harold Sloom (New York' Chelsea House, 1983) 172 It 15 clear J that Hazlitt patterned his anti-analytical attitudes after 'Nordsworth. In "On PreJudice," for example, Hazlitt scorned "Such dartng analomists of morals and philosophy." who "cut away, without remorse, ail sentiment, faney . in therr own eager, unfeeling pursuit of scientifie truth and elementary pnnelples, 1 they 'murder to dlssect.'" Sketches and Essay, 65. (Hazlitt's quolation from "The Tables Turned" IS eVldenee agalnst the traditional view that the "Matthew" of the companion poe ms was really Hazlitt See Wordsworth's Poetry, 155.)

:1 7. Round Table, 166.

8 William Wordsworth, The Crilical Opinions of WjJ!iam Wordsworth, ed. Markham L. Peacoek, Jr J (Baltimore: John Hopkins,1950) 137. 9. The Function of Cnticism," Essays in Criticjsm, 3. l 10. SpjritoftheAge, 119.

11. fssays in Critlcjsm, 3, 14-16.

1 12. 1. A. Richards, princjples of Literary Criticjsm (1925; New York: Harcourt Braee Jovanovitch, 1985) 60-62. In a discussion of reader-oriented critieism in our century, Elizabeth Freund observed Ihat a poem for Richards His not a meaning but a means of achieving an ordered balance and composure of J impulses," in other words, a healthful mind in the unhealthy postwar and prewar climate in which Richards was reading and writing. The Return of the Reader; Beader-Bespoose Cotjcjsm (London: Metheun, 1987) 28.

1 13. Eate of Reading, 26. 1 14. princlples of Literary Critjdsm, 35. 15. John Dewey, Art as Experience (1034; New York: Perigree, 1980) 324-325. 1 1 1 225

1 16. Rene WelJek and Austin Warren, Theory Qf Llterature (1942. New York' Harcourt Brace Jovanovltch, 1977) 249 1 17 Fate of Beadrng, 258 18. Geoffrey Hartman, Cnticism 10 the Wlldemess (New Haven' Yale, 1980) 271 1 19 Terry Eagleton, The Eunctlon of Cntjclsm. From The SpectatQr to Post-Struclurahsm (London Verso, 1984). 1 20 Critlclsm in the Wllderness, 2-4, 259. 21 HarQld Bloom, :Toe Anxlety of Influence: A Theory Qf Poelry (London. Oxford University Press, 1 1973) 95; Cnticism hl the Wlfderness, 259 22. Cntlclsm 10 the Wllderness, 271 1 23. Is There a Text, 167,180,327 24. Is There a Te.x1, 358, 371, 356. 1 25 Walter Benn Michaels, "Is There a PoUties of Interpretation?" The poilUes of InterPretation (Chicago. University Qf ChicagQ, 1983) 335-345; Steven Knapp and Walter Benn MIchaels, "AgalOst TheQry," Agarnst TheQIY, Literary Studjes and the New pragmatlsm, ed W J T. Mitchell (Chicago University of ChicagQ, 1985) 11-30. Llke Michaels, Fish sald that "One beheves what Qne belreves, 1 and Qne do es SQ wlthout reservallon If J.s There a Text, 361 ln "Bellef, whether VOluntary," Hazlitt had sald that "It IS an axlom in modem phllosophy (among many othee false ones) that bellet IS absolulely Involuntary" Literary Bemains, 28 Michaels WQuld agree wlth Ihls aXlom, whlle Eagleton would argue 1 that, while essentlally leue, the axiom 15 more flexible than if appears. Radford and Mlnogue brought out another dimension of the problem of belief in reading, porntrng Qut that we can be persuaded of a tlUth in a texl, "when normally we would reject It beeause of our moral precQncephcns" Desplte apparent diserepaneies between the ethical nQrms of reading and those of conduct, these enlies 1 argued that "Moral questions are .. as much the domarn of cntles as slyhstlc ones," The Nalure of COttcjsm (Sussex' Harvesler, 1981) 42. 1 26. Terry Eaglelon, "Ineluctable Options," The Polllies of InterpretatIon, 373-380 27. Il IS no corncidenee Ihat EagletQn's poSition reflects Wordsworth's. Anhough Eagletoll clearly resents its arrogant attitude towards the audience, the "Essay, Supplementary" played a slgnlflcant 1 role in the formulation of his arguments for the social Importance of cntieism ln The FunctjQn of COtjcjsm, 41-43, 114 1 28. J. Hillis Miller, The Ethjcs of Reading (New York; Columbia, 1987) 116 29. Ethjcs of Reading, 53, 127. Freedom and necessity is a major theme of this text, and, ln addressing the question of whether or oot reader-response is compe/led by a moral imperatlve, M,11er 1 sides with the power of necessity. 1 30. Cntlcjsm jn the Wilderness, 215. 1 1 1 1 226

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