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Wordsworth's Prelude. Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English Spring 5-16-2014 Wordsworth’s Prelude: The Continuing Relevance of the Epic in Education David Miller Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Miller, David, "Wordsworth’s Prelude: The Continuing Relevance of the Epic in Education." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2014. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/118 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WORDSWORTH’S PRELUDE: THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF THE EPIC IN EDUCATION by DAVID W. MILLER Under the Direction of Dr. Christine Gallant ABSTRACT This study explores “poetic knowledge” as the episteme of the epic. The Romantic epic, as exemplified by Wordsworth's 1805 Prelude, modernized this traditional genre so that the epic continues to be relevant for education today. The initial chapter compares and contrasts the distinctions between poetic and scientific knowledge. Chapter Two explores the didactic possibilities of the epic genre. Chapter Three discusses poetic knowledge as a heterogeneous, variegated, and accommodating episteme that both challenges and accommodates modern conceptions of scientific knowledge. Memory cohesively unifies the narrative of The Prelude. As such, Chapter Four discusses the use of didactic memory in The Prelude. Chapter Five discusses the use of chiasmus in The Prelude, and references the pre-Socratic philosophy of Heraclitus. The first section of Chapter Six explores a postlapsarian “ecology of the mind” as relevant to Book XIII of the 1805 Prelude. This section is followed by a general conclusion to this study that reiterates the interconnectedness between poetic and scientific knowledge. INDEX WORDS: Chiasmus, Coleridge, Descartes, Didactic memory, Didactic poetry, Dorothy Wordsworth, Ecology of the mind, Enlightenment, Epic genre, Epic poet-philosopher, Episteme, Epistemology, French Revolution, John Milton, Modern education, Poetic knowledge, Rationalism, Scientific knowledge, The Prelude, William Wordsworth WORDSWORTH’S PRELUDE: THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF THE EPIC IN EDUCATION by DAVID W. MILLER A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2014 Copyright by David W. Miller 2014 WORDSWORTH’S PRELUDE: THE CONTINUING RELEVANCE OF THE EPIC IN EDUCATION by DAVID W. MILLER Committee Chair: Dr. Christine Gallant Professor Emerita of English Committee: Dr. Michael Galchinsky Dr. George Pullman Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2014 iv DEDICATION The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. - Pierre de Coubertin Give me 26 lead soldiers and I will conquer the world. - Benjamin Franklin Stranger, tell the Spartans that we behaved as they would wish us to, and are buried here. - Epitaph at Thermopylae by Simonides This study is dedicated to the memory of Paul Hayden Duensing (1929- 2006). Among the many things he mastered during his lifetime were calligraphy, type design, typography, matrix engraving, and typecasting. He was a writer, historian, linguist, teacher, musician, printer, and friend. In the preface to Fine Print on Type (1989) Duensing states: One of the distinctive features of the human race is the ability to understand the notion of time and to conceive of past, present, and future (every human language embodies these three basic verb forms, whether it is considered an “advanced” language or one of the supposedly “primitive” speech systems). Bound up in this awareness is the need to record, first as writing, and in a more refined – and mechanical – sense as printing. The purpose of recording out thoughts, discoveries, skills, and experience is to share these with others with whom we can have no immediate contact across space or time. In our modern era of mechanization, Duensing taught through example that true craftsmanship continues to remain a unification of the hand and heart. Incidentally, Paul’s initials “PHD” corresponds with the degree conferred through the completion of the dissertation contained within the following pages; yet, Paul represents a living tradition of poetic knowledge that spans throughout the ages. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Dr. Christine Gallant, Dr. Michael Galchinsky, and Dr. George Pullman, for all their help, advice, and support. I must make a special thanks to my dissertation advisor Dr. Christine Gallant. As I was working towards completing this study, Dr. Gallant became a Professor Emerita of English. Thankfully, Dr. Gallant was always willing and available to offer her advice on the multiple drafts necessary to complete this study. At some point, Dr. Gallant suggested reading the “Ithaca” poem by Cafavy that is included in the appendix to this study. I especially thank Dr. Gallant, and my other committee members, for joining me on the metaphorical voyage which is the following dissertation. My final sentiment is one of great hope: as one journey ends, a new one begins! vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. v CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................... 1 Scientific and Poetic Knowledge ...................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................ 41 Epic Verse as Instructive Art ..................................................................................... 41 Education Today ......................................................................................................... 49 The Continuing Relevance of the Epic and Wordsworth’s Poetry ......................... 56 CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................................ 62 In the Epic, Poetic Knowledge Accommodates Scientific Knowledge.................... 62 CHAPTER FOUR ........................................................................................................... 83 Didactic Memory ......................................................................................................... 83 Memory as Ethical Construct .................................................................................... 84 Intratextual and Intertextual Memory ...................................................................... 92 Interpretive Memory (Memory & Imagination) as Cultural Construct .............. 102 CHAPTER FIVE .......................................................................................................... 113 Chiasmus and Intellectual Transformation ............................................................ 113 Rhetorical Chiasmus: Never the Same River ......................................................... 118 Structural Chiasmus: The Circumference of a Circle ........................................... 129 CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................................. 152 vii Ecology of the Mind: “Joint-Labourers” in the “Mighty Mind” ......................... 152 The Epic Poet-Philosopher ....................................................................................... 171 WORKS CITED............................................................................................................ 191 APPENDICES ............................................................................................................... 214 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................ 214 APPENDIX B............................................................................................................. 215 1 CHAPTER ONE Scientific and Poetic Knowledge All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love And feed his sacred flame. (Coleridge Complete “Love” I:330, 1-4) It is generally accepted in modern criticism that the period of British Romanticism represents a breaking away from established norms, specifically a divergence from the established norms of genre. Rosmarin suggests that “genre is a finite schema capable of potentially infinite suggestion” (44). The epic genre is encyclopedic in its nature, encyclopedic in the sense that the genre represents an all encompassing knowledge. English education during the era of the British Romantics was classical and unspecialized. Both poets and natural philosophers (the name for scientists during the era) received the same general heterogeneous education. Nonetheless, modern education has become more specialized, and distinct pedagogies between science and the humanities have developed. The British Romantic era marks an era in which scientists and poets competed for the same public audience in an attempt to receive the title
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