WILLIAM WORDSWORTH'S REVOLUTIONARY VIEW OF HISTORY: A STUDY OF THE NARRATIVES IN THE LYRICAL BALLADS (1798 & 1800) Sukeshi Kamra M.A., Dalhousie University, 1982, M.A., Central University of Hyderabad, 1981, B.A. (Hons.), Delhi University, 1979 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF @ DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of English @ Sukeshi Kamra 1988 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY 21 Nov 1988 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL NAME : Sukeshi Karnra DEGREE: Doctor of Pliilosophy (English) 1-ITLE Or THE SIS: William Wordsworth's Revolutior~aryView of llistory: A study'of the Narratives in the 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798 R 1000) Exaniini ng Cornn~ittee: Chairperson: Chin Banerjee, Associate Professor of Engl ist1 t7--v----- -- -- rofessor of English Rob Dunt~an~ Associate Pr*ofessor of' Enql isli ' ---L+--. .- .. -- .- - . -- -- Michael Stei g -r- Professor of Engl isti --- - -- --Y June Sturrock Internal txternal Examiner Associate Pen:ber, Dept. of English i > Dated : Plovenlber 21 , 1908 PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENSE I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis, proJect or extended essay (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or I single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of Its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publlcatlon of this work for flnanclal galn shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of Thesis/Project/Extended Essay - in the Lyrical Ballads 11798 G 18001 . Author: ., . ,., . .. , (signature) Sukeshi Kanlra (name 9. 1988 (date) ABSTRACT William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads is a collection of tales such as one might expect to hear told in the village square by the local bard. In common with other collectors of tales, such as the Grimm brothers, Wordsworth considered it necessary to preserve folk-lore. The difference between him and the Grimms is that while the latter merely put down the tales in writing, Wordsworth recreated the ethos of the oral age: he wrote of tales and tellers, both of which express an attitude toward history. My study of the Lyrical Ballads concerns itself with examining the concept of history advanced by the poems in the collection. In Chapter I, I discuss narratives in which the speaker's utterance is disorganized to varying degrees while her ostensible purpose in uttering is to tell a tale. I_also discuss Wordsworth as a teller of tales already told. A comparison of h his version with the original of incidents he had heard of or read, been a witness to or participated in, reveals both what he considered suitable for poetic treatment and his concept of story. Chapter I1 deals with narratives that are essentially dialogues with a bit of narration thrown in. These poems, while insisting on their status as narratives, just as insistently work against the teleological structure of narrative. They end, as do most of the narratives considered in this thesis, inconclusively. Chapter I11 is concerned mainly with narratives in which story-telling and the concept of story is the expressed concern. In these poems the narrators interrupt the tale they relate to address the reader or relate a tale in several different ways. Their method of story-telling makes the audience an integral part of the text. In the Conclusion I discuss the oral tradition as a possible tradition in which the Wordsworthian concept of history is grounded and end by using "The White Doe of Rylstone" (1815), which can be regarded as the last lyrical ballad, as the testing-ground of the concept of history advanced by the first lyrical ballads. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few people who made it possible for me to have faith in myself during the times the project seemed impossible. First and foremost, Prof. Jared Curtis, my senior supervisor, who always had an encouraging word and lent full support to the project. I would particularly like to thank him for his unstinting generosity, both in terms of time and advice. I would also like to thank Prof. Gerald Newman, who made it all possible. Over the years, I have learnt much from him about critical approaches and methodology. Finally, Prof. John Mills, Tom Grieve and Juliet McLaren for many stimulating conversations about Wordsworth, and Allan Beaulieu who showed remarkable patience with one going through the Ph.D thesis syndrome and who had faith in my cgpacity to complete the thesis even when I didn't. DEDICATION To my parents Mulk Raj and Shashi Kamra TABLE OF CONTENTS Approval .................................................... ii Abstract ................................................... iii Acknowledgements .............................................. v Dedication .................................................. vi Introduction ................................................. 1 Lyrical Ballads in History. .......................... 1 History and Story ................................... 17 Story and Teller .................................... 24 - Story vs Anti-Story; Wordsworth vs Tradition ........ 58<- Conclusion ........................................ 37 Notes .................................................. 43 I. Disorganized Utterance: Tales and Tellers .............. 59 Utterance in the Wordsworthian Narrative: A Preview of Chapter I .................................... 59 "Her Story1': A Study of The Complaint of t be Forsaken Indi an Woman, The Mad Mot her, and The 62 Female Vagrant .................................. - . Fact and Invention: A Study of Wordsworth's Adaptation of Material in Goody Blake and Harry Gill, The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman and Lucy Gray ................................... 84 Notes ................................................. 104 11. Dialogic Tales: Oral and Written History .............. 111 Remembrance of Things Past: The Dialogue and Time In The Brothers ................................... 111 History: The Source of Knowledge? A Discussion of the 1798 Matthew poems ......................... 116 The Solipsistic Individual and History: The Two Apri 1 Morni ngs and The Fount ai n: A Conversat i on 131 vii The Wisdom of the Child's View of Time: We Are Seven and Anecdote for Fathers ....................... 144 Notes ................................................. 161 I11 . Story-telling as the Subject of the Ballad ............ 176 Michael: A Poet's Covenant with his Literary Off-Spring ..................................... 176 Image and Event: The Dialogue of Form in Simon Lee and The Idiot Boy .............................. 186 Legend (Time). Natural World (Space) and the Contemporizing of History in The Thorn and Hart-Leap Well ................................. 204 Notes ................................................. 225 IV . Conclusion ........................................ 229 Preservation of the Past in ~ialogue............... 229 Ritual and Play in Story- el ling ................... 238 The White Doe of Rylstone .......................... 253 Postscript ......................................... 268 Notes ................................................. 269 Appendix .................................................. 284 Notes ................................................. 288 . Bibliography ............................................... 289 Primary Sources .................................... 289 Secondary Sources .................................. 290 INTRODUCTION Lyrical Ballads in History In the "Advertisement" to the 1798 Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth wrote in defense of his poetry: "The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments."' Since 1798 Wordsworthian scholars have discussed the Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800) in terms of innovation--of style, subject, poetic treatment, poetic language, characterization and so on. The nineteenth century literary world spoke of the nature of the experiment in terms that appear vague to the twentieth century critic. However, with a few exceptions, it appears to have considered the experiment a success. Hazlitt's remarks in -The Spirit of the Age (1825) and Coleridge's analysis of the Lyrical Ballads in Bioqraphia Literaria (1817) seem to be fairly representative in their judgement of the poems. The former writes that Wordsworth "has described all these obfects in a way & and with an intensity of feeling that no one else had done before him, and has given a new view or aspect of nature. He is in this sense the most original poet now living."* In Chapter IV of the Biographia Literaria Coleridge makes his, by now, famous statement on the originality of the Lyrical Ballads apropos of a discussion of "Guilt and Sorrow" which he had heard Wordsworth recite: It was not ... the freedom from false taste, whether as to common defects or to those more properly his own, which made so unusual an impression on my feelings immediately, and subsequently on my judgement. It was the union of deep feeling with profound thought; the fine balance of truth in observing with the imaginative faculty in modifying the objects observed; and above all the original gift of spreading the tone, the atmosphere and with