Public domain photo of William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

A selective list of online literary criticism for British Romantic poet William Wordsworth, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages. Now with links to full-text first editions.

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Literary Criticism

Ahmed, Soheil. "Figures of Revision in Wordsworth's Critical Arguments" Addresses three arguments in Wordsworth's poetics: the theorization of tautology, the definition of the poet, and the relationship between thoughts and feelings. Romanticism on the Net no 24, 2001

Altieri, Charles. "Strange Affinities: A Partial Return to Wordsworthian Poetics After Modernism." In Romanticism and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics edition, Romantic Circles, June 2003

Anderson, Robert. "'Enjoyments, of a more exquisite nature': Wordsworth and Commodity Culture," Romanticism on the Net, 26, 2002. Anderson investigates Wordsworth's attitudes towards the consumerism, industrialism, and materialism that was emerging in England at the turn of the Nineteenth-century through an examination of "The Ruined Cottage" and the preface to Lyrical Ballads

Chandler, David. "'One Consciousness', Historical Criticism and the Romantic Canon," Award-winning article covers New Historicist views of Wordsworth's centrality in the Romantic tradition. Romanticism on the Net 17 (February 2000)

Chandler, David. "Wordsworth's 'Are There no Groans?': Source, Meaning, Significance." Romanticism On the Net 14 (May 1999) Chandler discusses a previously unpublished Wordsworth fragment in J. Butler and K. Green's recent Cornell edition of Lyrical Ballads

Chandler, David. "Vagrancy Smoked Out: Wordsworth 'betwixt Severn and Wye'" On a possible allusion in "Tintern Abbey." Romanticism On the Net 11 (August 1998)

Conger, Danielle. Conger examines the meaning "female" had for Wordsworth in three poems, "The Idiot Boy," "Her Eyes are Wild," and "The Thorn." "Wordsworth's Women: Female Creative Power in Lyrical Ballads." From Prometheus Unbound at Emory Univ

Faflak, Joel. "Analysis Interminable in the Other Wordsworth." Faflak relates Freud's thoughts about psychoanalysis to Wordsworth's desire for philosophical closure in The Prelude. Romanticism on the Net 16 (November 1999)

Farnell, Gary. "Wordsworth's The Prelude as Autobiography of An Orphan." The Prelude is literally the autobiography of an orphan, the author of this paper says, since the poem records in a disjointed way the death of the poet's mother when he was almost eight and of his father when he was thirteen. But although the poem is about Wordsworth's mental growth, the deaths of his parents are barely mentioned, which has lead many critics to speculate about the emotions that stand behind this. Romanticism on the Net

Fay, Elizabeth. "Wordsworth's Balladry: Real Men Wanted." In Romantic Circles edition Two Hundred Years of Lyrical Ballads, Nov. 1999

Fulford, Tim. "Cowper, Wordsworth, Clare: The Politics of Trees," On tree imagery in John Clare, Wordsworth, and Cowper. From The John Clare Society Journal, no. 14 (July 1995)

Graver, Bruce and Ronald Tetreault. "Editing Lyrical Ballads for the Electronic Environment." Romanticism On the Net 9 (February 1998)

Hale, Robert. "Wordsworth's Mother Tongue: Mourning, Language, and Identity in "The Emigrant Mother.'" Author contends that in "The Emigrant Mother" Wordsworth represents a woman who is a complex and dynamic subject--more than a silent or absent object. From Prometheus Unplugged at Emory Univ

Halmi, Nicholas. "Lucy, Lucia, and Locke" discusses madness in opera and literature. In Romanticism on the Net, special issue on Opera and Nineteenth-Century Literature, Issues 34-35 (May-August 2004)

Haney, David P. "Wordsworth and the Question of 'Romantic Religion.'" Criticism, Summer, 1997

Hanley, Keith. "Wordsworth's Revolution in Poetic Language." Examines Lyrical Ballads in the light of Julia Kristeva's 1974 doctoral thesis, La Révolution du langage poétique. Romanticism on the Net 9 (February 1998),

Herrington-Perry, Mary. The author contends that "Tintern Abbey" does possess a moral conscience contrary to what critics have often said, evidenced in its many religious references. "'Tintern Abbey' and the 'Spiritual Presence of Absent Things.'" In Prometheus Unplugged, at Emory Univ

Hirschfield, Lisa. "Between Memory and History: Wordsworth's Excursion," Author states that The Excursion attempts to stave off time's destructive quality by establishing memorial sites, becoming a book-length elegy for memory itself. In Romanticism on the Net 16 (November 1999)

Jackson, H.J. "Lucy Revived." On the connections between Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems" and Lord Lyttelton's poems about Lucy Fortescue. In Romanticism on the Net 13 (February 1999).

Johnston, Kenneth R. "Romantic Anti-Jacobins or Anti-Jacobin Romantics?" Johnston discusses Wordsworth's and Coleridge's 'anti-Jacobin' and 'Romantic' credentials. Romanticism on the Net 15 (August 1999)(taken offline)

Malachuk, Daniel. "Labor, Leisure, and the Yeoman in Coleridge's and Wordsworth's 1790s Writings" On the yeoman as an ideal: "As a union of ancient opposites, the yeoman was a compelling but politically unstable character in republican theory, as suggested in the work of Jefferson and Rousseau. The same is true of the yeoman in Coleridge's and Wordsworth's early writings." In Romanticism on the Net no 27, 2002.

Malpas, Simon. "'I cried "Come, tell me how you live!" / And thumped him on the head': Wordsworth, Carroll and the 'Aged, Aged Man'." A paper compares Wordsworth's encounter with the old man in "Resolution and Independence" to Lewis Carroll's parody in Through the Looking-Glass. Romanticism On the Net 5 (February 1997)

Miall, David S. Award-winning article about the importance of a relationship with nature for the poet. The author proposes a precise location for the opening scene in "Tintern Abbey" and contends that the location of the poem is central to Wordsworth's view of man's relationship with nature. "Locating Wordsworth: 'Tintern Abbey' and the Community with Nature," Romanticism on the Net 20 (November 2000)

Miall, David S. Professor Miall's syllabus for The Prelude contains a useful summary of some of the critical issues surrounding the poem, including Wordsworth's extensive revision process, questions of the extent of Wordsworth's true interest in history and/or nature in the poem, and Wordsworth's self-presentation in the poem

Miyamoto, Nahoko. "Wordsworth and Romantic Geography" Miyamoto contends that Wordsworth re-centers the heart of England in a remote rural place, de-centering London and Windsor. From Prometheus Unplugged at Emory Univ

O'Neill, Michael. "'The Words He Uttered...': A Reading of Wordsworth." An interpretation of Wordsworth's The Excursion. Romanticism On the Net 3 (August 1996)

Pace, Joel. "Emotion and Cognition in The Prelude." Pace contends Wordsworth shows that the soul arrives at truth through both emotion and thinking. Romanticism On the Net 1 (February 1996)

Pace, Joel. "'Gems of a soft and permanent lustre': The Reception and Influence of the Lyrical Ballads in America," in Romanticism on the Net

Pace, Joel. "Wordsworth, the Lyrical Ballads, and Literary and Social Reform in Nineteenth-Century America." In Romantic Circles edition Two Hundred Years of Lyrical Ballads, Nov. 1999

Page, Judith W. Wordsworth and the Cultivation of Women (Univ. of California Press, 1994) "Focusing on the poems of Wordsworth's 'Great Decade,' feminist critics have tended to see Wordsworth as an exploiter of women and 'feminine' perspectives. In this original and provocative book, Judith Page examines works from throughout Wordsworth's long career to offer a more nuanced feminist account of the poet's values." Courtesy of the California Digital Library, a complete, book-length critical study

Persyn, Mary. "The Sublime Turn Away from Empire: Wordsworth's Encounter with Colonial Slavery, 1802" Persyn argues that the Haitian Revolution, and Toussaint l'Ouverture's role in it, strongly influenced Wordsworth during his early years, and that the 1802 sonnet to Toussaint l'Ouverture epitomizes the development of the Wordsworthian sublime. Romanticism on the Net no 26, 2002.

Roussetzki, Remy. "Aesthetics of Shock in Wordsworth." Examines emotional and psychological forces that may have influenced Wordworth's attitude toward other people, solitude, and nature. Schuylkill (Temple Univ.)

Rzepka, Charles J. "From Relics to Remains: Wordsworth's 'The Thorn' and the Emergence of Secular History." Rzepka notes "In their recurrent focus on the relationship between narrative and experience, 'testimony' and 'relics,' the Lyrical Ballads show Wordsworth to be our first truly archaeological poet, the first to take seriously the notion of 'pre-history' as a mode of encountering the material world in the present." In Romanticism on the Net, Issue 31 (August 2003)

Rzepka, Charles. "Elizabeth Bishop and the Wordsworth of Lyrical Ballads: Sentimentalism, Straw Men, and Misprision." In Romantic Circles edition Two Hundred Years of Lyrical Ballads, Nov. 1999

Setzer, Sharon M. "Precedent and Perversity in Wordsworth's Sonnets Upon the Punishment of Death." In Nineteenth Century Literature, Volume 50, Issue 4, March 1996, from Univ. of Calif. Press (taken offline)

Smith, Christopher. "Robert Southey and the Emergence of Lyrical Ballads." Romanticism On the Net 9 (February 1998)

Sng, Zachary. "The Poetics of Place and Time in Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey,' in Prometheus Unplugged, at Emory Univ. Sng contends that "Tintern Abbey" is, today, a kind of ruin or textual trace whose meaning is constituted by temporal and spatial references that have fallen away

Tanter, Marcy L. "Introduction," to Special Romantic Circles edition "Two Hundred Years of Lyrical Ballads," Nov. 1999

Tetreault, Ronald and Bruce Graver. The Lyrical Ballads Bicenterary Project, 1998, presents texts from the books electronically, supplemented with images of the actual printed pages. The project includes links to articles from Romanticism on the Net

Timmons, Jeffrey W. "No Thomson, No Wordsworth: The Importance of Scottish Literature." An essay on the influence of Scottish literature on English literature contends Wordsworth represented, not innovation, but instead "the culmination of a number of aesthetic trends dating back to the mid-eighteenth century."

Treadwell, J. "Innovation and Strangeness; or, Dialogue and Monologue in the 1798 Lyrical Ballads." Romanticism On the Net 9 (February 1998)

Trott, Nicola and Seamus Perry. "Lyrical Ballads, 1798-1998 - A Special Issue of Romanticism On the Net." Romanticism On the Net 8 (February 1998)

Underwood, Ted. "How to Save "Tintern Abbey" from New-Critical Pedagogy (in Three Minutes Fifty-Six Seconds)" On teaching Wordsworth's lyrics using comparisons with contemporary and rock music, in Romantic Circles Praxis Series/Romanticism and Contemporary Culture, Feb. 2002

Ward, J.P. "An Anxiety of No Influence: Walter Pater on William Wordsworth." From a collection of essays on Pater from the second inter-national Pater conference held at Queen's College, Oxford in 1988

Williams, John R. A substantial introduction to William Wordsworth from the Literary Encyclopedia

Wu, Duncan. "Tautology and Imaginative Vision in Wordsworth." Wu contends that tautology is integral to Wordsworth's "spots of time." Romanticism On the Net 2 (May 1996)

Introduction

Photos of Wordsworth's homes in the Lake District, with interiors and country views. Dove Cottage and Rydal Mount

A biographical introduction to William Wordsworth from the Books and Writers web site, Kuusankoski Public Library, Finland

Biography of Wordsworth from the Dictionary of Literary Biography

A (UK) Guardian profile of Wordsworth, with links to additional, easy-read articles on Wordsworth and his poetry

Extended discussion of four topics of interest in Romanticism: Tintern Abbey, Tourism, and Romantic Landscape; The French Revolution; Literary Gothicism; and Romantic Orientalism. From the Norton Anthology of Literature Topics Online.

Older criticism on Wordsworth's major and minor works and a biography, from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes(1907-21). Topics include The Influence of Rousseau, Wordsworth's Childhood, His Wanderings, The French Revolution, Dorothy Wordsworth, Friendship with Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth's Marriage, Ode to Duty, The Excursion, The White Doe of Rylstone, Laodamia, Sonnets; Later Years, The Ruined Cottage, His poetry of Nature, There was a Boy, Wordsworth and Shelley, Michael, The Lucy poems, His Description of the Moral Emotions

A brief introduction to William Wordsworth from the American Academy of Poets

A biographical introduction to Wordsworth, which notes that "critics have made much of Wordsworth's early maternal loss and his subsequent use of Nature as a 'surrogate mother.'" Includes the text of "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" along with several other familiar poems. By Mary Barnet, from Poetry Magazine

William Wordsworth: A Poetic Life by John Mahoney. "Instead of a conventional depiction of Wordsworth's career as a 'Golden Decade' of creativity in the early 1800s followed by years of decline, Mahoney focuses on what he sees as a continuity in Wordsworth's evolution from a 'passionate, radical poet of nature and imagination' to a 'patriarchal, didactic Tory humanist.'In the Boston College Chronicle

Web sites and bibliography

Romanticism on the Net an international, peer-reviewed electronic journal devoted to British Romantic studies, edited by Michael Eberle-Sinatra. An impressive scholarly enterprise devoted to English literature of the Romantic period, the journal has been making essays freely available since 1996

Romantic Circles, "a refereed scholarly website devoted to the study of Romantic-period literature and culture," is an innovative publication on topics in Romanticism. Edited by Neil Fraistat, Steven E. Jones and Carl Stahmer

Web site for the scholarly journal The Wordworth Circle

Hanley, Keith. A review of An Annotated Critical Bibliography of William Wordsworth London and New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995. Review by Ruth Mead, Romanticism on the Net

Reed, Mark L., ed. "Revisionary Wordsworth." A review of The Thirteen-Book "Prelude" by William Wordsworth. The Cornell Wordsworth. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991. Reviewed in Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship, Vol. 9, by Theresa M. Kelley (taken offline from http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/TEXT/vol9/prelude.html)

Tetreault, Ronald and Bruce Graver. An internet bibliography for Lyrical Ballads

"A Romantic Natural History" focuses on relationships between literary works and natural history in the century before Darwin, with articles on Wordsworth and other Romantics. By Professor Ashton Nichols

The John Clare Page contains links to articles from the John Clare Society Journal and additional resources on poet John Clare, a younger contemporary of Wordsworth. John Clare page by Dr Simon Kövesi, Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature, Department of English Studies, Oxford Brookes University

Primary material for Wordsworth

Wordsworth Editions. Full-text first editions of Wordsworth's poety.

Tetreault, Ronald and Bruce Graver. The Lyrical Ballads Bicenterary Project 1998, by Ronald Tetreault and Bruce Graver, presents texts from the books electronically, which have been transcribed and encoded using sgml, supplemented with images of the actual printed pages of the first edition.

The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth. The complete text of The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, by Dorothy Wordsworth, edited by William Angus Knight, published by Macmillan in 1904. A facsimile online edition from Google Books.

"Lucy Gray of Allendale," by Robert Andersen, 1798. A poem by the "Cumberland Bard," which may have inspired Wordsworth's Lucy Gray. In Andersen's Poems on Various Subjects, 1798. Facsimile of this edition at Google Books.

Reviews of Scholarly Books on Wordsworth

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