Dorothy Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge: the Poetics of Relationship
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH AND HARTLEY COLERIDGE: THE POETICS OF RELATIONSHIP Nicola Healey A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2009 Full metadata for this item is available in Research@StAndrews:FullText at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/787 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence i Dorothy Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge: The Poetics of Relationship Nicola Healey PhD, May 2009 ii My thesis studies Hartley Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth to redress the unjust neglect of Hartley’s work, and to reach a more positive understanding of Dorothy’s conflicted literary relationship with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I provide a complete reassessment of the often narrowly read prose and poetry of these two critically marginalized figures, and also investigate the relationships that affected their lives, literary self-constructions, and reception; in this way, I restore a more accurate account of Hartley and Dorothy as independent and original writers, and also highlight both the inhibiting and cathartic affects of writing from within a familial literary context. My analysis of the writings of Hartley and Dorothy and the dialogues in which they engage with the works of STC and William, argues that both Hartley and Dorothy developed a strong relational poetics in their endeavour to demarcate their independent subjectivities. Furthermore, through a survey of the significance of the sibling bond – literal and figurative – in the texts and lives of all these writers, I demonstrate a theory of influence which recognizes lateral, rather than paternal, kinship as the most influential relationship. I thus conclude that authorial identity is not fundamentally predetermined by, and dependent on, gender or literary inheritance, but is more significantly governed by domestic environment, familial readership, and immediate kinship. My thesis challenges the longstanding misconceptions that Hartley was unable to achieve a strong poetic identity in STC’s shadow, and that Dorothy’s independent authorial endeavour was primarily thwarted by gender. To replace these misreadings, I foreground the successful literary independence of both writers: my approach reinstates Hartley Coleridge’s literary standing as a major poet who bridged Romanticism and Victorian literature, and promotes Dorothy Wordsworth as one of the finest descriptive writers of nature and relationship. iii Declarations I, Nicola Healey, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 95,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in October 2005 and as a candidate for the degree of PhD in October 2006; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2006 and 2009. date …………. signature of candidate ……….………. I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of ……… in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. date …………. signature of supervisor ……………… In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews we understand that we are giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. We also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. We have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the electronic publication of this thesis: Embargo on both all or part of printed copy and electronic copy for the same fixed period of ……years (maximum five) on the following ground: publication would be commercially damaging to the researcher, or to the supervisor, or the University. date …………. signature of candidate ……………….. signature of supervisor ……………….. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank the University of St Andrews School of English for funding my general research year, where I began my thesis, and The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for funding my PhD study. I am most indebted to Jane Stabler: I am extremely grateful for, and fortunate to have had, her supervision. Jane’s expertise, guidance, enthusiasm, and support at every stage of my work’s progression enabled its completion, and also made my PhD experience much more enjoyable. I would particularly like to thank Jane for acquiring a copy of every edition of Hartley Coleridge’s verse for me in the first year of my research, which greatly contributed to both the groundwork of my thesis, and my personal appreciation of Hartley. I’m also very grateful to Jane for her continual moral support, patience, and encouragement. I am indebted to Susan Manly for reading and commenting on many drafts of my work and for her guidance, and I’m especially grateful to both Susan and Jane for their faith in me and for inspiring me into postgraduate study. My thanks also go to Nicholas Roe for his encouragement, Peter Anderson for kindly reading my thesis and for his illuminating comments, Kristin Ott and Lexi Drayton for their helpful proofread of the final draft of my thesis, Graham Davidson for his comments on a paper I gave on Hartley Coleridge at the 2008 Coleridge Conference, and David Taylor for his early encouragement and feedback on my work. I would like to thank the St Andrews Library ILL service, on which I was frequently reliant, and Jeff Cowton for allowing me to consult manuscripts concerning Hartley Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth at The Wordsworth Trust Jerwood Centre. I’m also grateful to The Wordsworth Trust for their permission to reproduce the David Wilkie portrait of Hartley Coleridge, Andrew Keanie for kindly alerting me to the unpublished daguerreotype portrait of Hartley, and Priscilla Coleridge Cassam for her permission to reproduce this and a second 1845 portrait of Hartley. Finally, I am most grateful to Lexi Drayton, Rose Pimentel, Nicola Searle, Kristin Ott, and Alicia Healey for their friendship and interest: my thesis is indebted to them for the invaluable support they provided during my PhD. v In memory of my grandparents vi Contents Abbreviations page vii Introduction: Dorothy Wordsworth, Hartley Coleridge, and the Poetics of Relationship 1 I Hartley Coleridge and the Poetics of Relationship 13 II Hartley Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth: Influence, 82 Identity, and Representation III Dorothy Wordsworth and the Poetics of Relationship 145 IV Dorothy Wordsworth, William Wordsworth, and the Construction of Authorship 194 V ‘Why should I inscribe my name, / No poet I’: Poetic Desire and Resistance in the 254 Poetry of Dorothy Wordsworth Conclusion 276 Appendices Appendix I(a) The Reception of Hartley Coleridge’s Poetry, 1833-Present Day 279 Appendix I(b) The Reception of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Writings, 1815-Present Day 325 Appendix II Illustrations 371 Appendix III 376 Bibliography 379 vii Abbreviations Works by Hartley Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth Poems Hartley Coleridge, Poems, Songs and Sonnets (Leeds: F. E. Bingley, 1833). Memoir Poems by Hartley Coleridge with a Memoir of His Life by his Brother, ed. Derwent Coleridge, 2 vols. (London: E. Moxon, 1851). EM Essays and Marginalia, ed. Derwent Coleridge, 2 vols. (London: E. Moxon, 1851). LHC Letters of Hartley Coleridge, ed. Grace Evelyn Griggs and Earl Leslie Griggs (London: Oxford University Press, 1936). CPW The Complete Poetical Works of Hartley Coleridge, ed. Ramsay Colles (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1908). NP New Poems: Including a Selection from his Published Poetry, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs (London: Oxford University Press, 1942). MF The Dramatic Works of Massinger and Ford, intr. Hartley Coleridge (London: Edward Moxon, 1840). AJ GJ The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals, ed. Pamela Woof (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). SJ Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, ed. Carol Kyros Walker (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997). LWDW The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, arranged and edited by the late Ernest de Selincourt, revised by Alan G. Hill, Mary Moorman and Chester L. Shaver, 7 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967-1988). Works by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge EP Early Poems and Fragments, 1785-1797, by William Wordsworth, ed. Carol Landon and Jared Curtis (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997). TV Poems in Two Volumes, and Other Poems, 1800-1807, by William Wordsworth, ed. Jared Curtis (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983). viii LB Lyrical Ballads, and Other Poems, 1797-1800, by William Wordsworth, ed. James Butler and Karen Green (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992). SS Sonnet Series and Itinerary Poems, 1820-1845, by William Wordsworth, ed. Geoffrey Jackson (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004). HG Home at Grasmere: Part First, Book First of 'The Recluse', by William Wordsworth, ed. Beth Darlington (Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1977), MS. B (earliest full version of the poem). Prelude The Thirteen-Book Prelude, by William Wordsworth, ed. Mark L. Reed, vol. II (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985).