Nervous Sympathy in the Familial Collaborations of the Wordsworth
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The Mediated Self: Nervous Sympathy in the Familial Collaborations of the Wordsworth- Lamb-Coleridge Circle, 1799-1852 Katherine Olivia Ingle MA (University of Edinburgh) MScR (University of Edinburgh) English & Creative Writing Lancaster University November 2018 This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature. Katherine Olivia Ingle ii I declare that this thesis was composed by myself, that the work contained herein is my own except where explicitly stated otherwise in the text, and that this work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. November 2018 Katherine Olivia Ingle iii This thesis is dedicated with love to my grandmothers, Cynthia Ingle and Doreen France & in loving memory of my grandfathers, Thomas Ian Ingle, 1925-2014 & Joseph Lees France, 1929-2017 There is a comfort in the strength of love; ‘Twill make a thing endurable, which else Would overset the brain, or break the heart. Wordsworth, “Michael” Katherine Olivia Ingle iv Acknowledgements This thesis could not have taken shape without the attention, patience and encouragement of my supervisor Sally Bushell. I am deeply grateful to her for helping me to clarify ideas and for teaching me that problems are good things. I thank Sally in her numerous capacities as a Wordsworthian scholar, reader, teacher and friend. I am grateful to the Department of English & Creative Writing at Lancaster for a bursary towards an archival visit to the Jerwood Centre at The Wordsworth Trust. I thank the Curator, Jeff Cowton, for his generosity, insights and valuable suggestions. The Assistant Curator, Rebecca Turner, along with Adam Lines, patiently and kindly helped with my many queries. I thank the Trust for permission to reproduce images from the Dove Cottage manuscripts in Chapter Two. Simon Bainbridge, Keith Hanley and Sharon Ruston provided crucial and perceptive feedback at various stages of the project. Their generous advice and ongoing support over the years has been much appreciated. Kamilla Elliott gave valuable advice on Adaptation theory and she carefully annotated early drafts of the Lamb chapters. Christopher Donaldson has kindly shared his compendium of knowledge on a variety of matters. I thank Patricia Murrieta-Flores for introducing me to the hi-tech (and highly tricky) world of The Digital Humanities. I am grateful to Alex Reinfeld for generating the Network Maps in Chapter Six. I thank Joanna Taylor for her thoughtful comments on the Coleridge chapters. I have benefitted enormously from the highly convivial and stimulating research environment at Lancaster and the following members of staff and colleagues have played an integral role: Jo Carruthers, Lynne Pearce, Andy Tate, Liz Oakley-Brown, Frank Pearson, the two Andrews (Raven and Lacey) and Chuckie Patel. I thank also Anne Stewart-Whalley and Leila Atkinson for their assistance throughout. I thank Tim Milnes and Tom Bristow for helping me find the path to doctoral research while I was an UG and PG student at the University of Edinburgh. In their lectures and seminars, I discovered Romantic-era writing, a subject which has fascinated and perplexed me ever since. On a more personal note, I am deeply grateful to my father, Richard, for many things, not least for giving some financial assistance that helped me to pursue further study. Aside from your unreserved support and encouragement, it has been your greatest gift and my greatest privilege. Over the years, my brother, Henry, has proved that sibling influence is a wonderful thing, and I thank him for providing welcome distraction, bad jokes and plenty of biscuits. Last, but by no means least, I thank my best friend and chief tea-maker, James, who gave me love and support when it was most needed. No separate path our lives shall know, But where thou goest I will go. Wordsworth, “Septimi Gades” Katherine Olivia Ingle v Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................. ix List of Figures .............................................................................................................. xi Note on the Text, Style and Naming Conventions .................................................. xii Introduction: The Nervous and Embodied Medium of Sympathy within Familial Collaboration ................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1. “The Gentle Agency of Natural Objects”: Naming and Narrating the Lakeland Landscape in William’s Poetry 1798–1803 ............................................. 34 1. Approaching Place and Identity: Eco-criticism, Essence and Sympathy ............. 39 2. “And to that place a story appertains”: Reading Mediatory Objects in the Narrative Poem ......................................................................................................... 52 3.“we have named from You”: Investing and Naming Objects in the First-Person Lyric .......................................................................................................................... 61 Chapter 2. Place-Naming and Place-Making: Walking and Writing in Dorothy’s Grasmere Journals ..................................................................................................... 75 1. “Finding another place for your cypher”: Mediating Affection through the Landscape ................................................................................................................. 80 2. Practising Place as Home: Adapting Michel de Certeau’s Pedestrian Speech Acts .................................................................................................................................. 93 3. First Walks to Grasmere: Place-making in the “Grasmere Journals” .............. 100 Chapter 3. “Vapourish and Vapouring Schemes”: Charles and Mary Lamb’s Nervous Sympathy ................................................................................................... 112 1. Authors “by fits”: Defining the Vapours and Physiological Accounts of Sympathy ................................................................................................................................ 116 2. “An Unfathered Vapour”: The Sublime Contexts for the Vapours .................... 124 Katherine Olivia Ingle vi 3. “Dull or Giddy”: Harnessing and Mediating the Sublime Power of the Vapours ................................................................................................................................ 132 Chapter 4. The Mediation of Meaning in Tales from Shakespear (1807) and Mrs. Leicester’s School (1809) .......................................................................................... 141 1. The Family Politics of Writing and Reading Children’s Literature ................... 146 2. “Faint and Imperfect Images”: Redirected Mediation in the Preface to Tales from Shakspear ....................................................................................................... 154 3.“Endeavouring to make out their meaning”: Mis-interpretation in Mrs. Leicester’s School ................................................................................................... 164 Chapter 5. Putting “the Esteesian House in order”: Inherited Sympathy and Sara’s Re-arrangement of STC’s Public Reputation 1817-1850 ......................... 174 1. Self-Mediation in Sibylline Leaves (1817): STC’s construction of the Poet-as- Sibyl ........................................................................................................................ 180 2. Nervous Remains: Sara’s Construction of Bodily and Textual Inheritance from STC ......................................................................................................................... 192 Chapter 6. Mediating Esteesian Authority in Poems 1852 and across the Coleridge Family Network 1828–1852 ................................................................... 208 1. A “Prodigal’s Favourite”: Henry, Sara and Derwent’s Presentations of STC . 211 2. “Our judgement versus H.N.C”: Poetic Authority and Editorial Mediation in Poems 1852 ............................................................................................................. 222 3. Textual Remediation and Poetical Works: Problematising Sara and Derwent’s claims for Authority ................................................................................................ 230 4. Mediated Reading and Editorial Process: Mapping the Coleridge Family Network ................................................................................................................... 242 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 259 Works Cited .............................................................................................................. 263 Katherine Olivia Ingle vii Abstract The Mediated Self: Nervous Sympathy in the Familial Collaborations of the Wordsworth-Lamb-Coleridge Circle, 1799-1852 This thesis examines the interrelated roles of Mediation, Embodiment and Sympathy in the development of shared and relational identities by sibling and family writers in the Wordsworth-Lamb-Coleridge Circle. Responding to recent developments within Romantic Media Studies and The Spatial