Table Of ContentWordsworth and
Coleridge
Lyrical Ballads
John Blades
Wordsworth and Coleridge
ANALYSING TEXTS
General Editor: Nicholas Marsh
Published
Chaucer:The Canterbury Tales Gail Ashton
Aphra Behn: The Comedies Kate Aughterson
Webster: The Tragedies Kate Aughterson
John Keats John Blades
Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads John Blades
Shakespeare: The Comedies R. P. Draper
Charlotte Brontë: The Novels Mike Edwards
E. M. Forster: The Novels Mike Edwards
George Eliot: The Novels Mike Edwards
Shakespeare: The Tragedies Nicholas Marsh
Shakespeare: Three Problem Plays Nicholas Marsh
Jane Austen: The Novels Nicholas Marsh
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights Nicholas Marsh
Virginia Woolf: The Novels Nicholas Marsh
D. H. Lawrence: The Novels Nicholas Marsh
William Blake: The Poems Nicholas Marsh
John Donne: The Poems Joe Nutt
Thomas Hardy: The Novels Norman Page
Marlowe: The Plays Stevie Simkin
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Wordsworth and
Coleridge:
Lyrical Ballads
JOHN BLADES
© John Blades 2004
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blades,John.
Wordsworth and Coleridge :lyrical ballads / John Blades.
p.cm.– (Analysing texts)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–4039–0479–0 – ISBN 1–4039–0480–4 (pbk.)
1.Wordsworth,William,1770–1850.Lyrical ballads.2.Coleridge,
Samuel Taylor,1772–1834 – Criticism and interpretation.3.English
poetry – 19th century – History and criticism.4. Romanticism –
England.I.Title.II.Analysing texts (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))
PR5869.L93B55 2004
821’.708—dc22 2004042103
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04
Printed and bound in China
Contents
General Editor’s Preface viii
Some Important Events During the Lives of
Wordsworth and Coleridge ix
Introduction 1
PART 1: ANALYSING LYRICAL BALLADS 5
1 Childhood and the Growth of the Mind 7
‘Lucy Gray’ 8
‘We are seven’ 16
‘There was a Boy’ 23
‘Nutting’ 32
Conclusions 40
Further Research 41
2 Imagination 43
‘Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey’ 43
‘The Nightingale’ 56
‘Love’ 69
Conclusions 81
Further Research 82
3 Old Age: a ‘vital anxiousness’ 83
Michael: A Pastoral Poem 84
‘The Old Cumberland Beggar’ 100
‘The Fountain’ 114
Conclusions 125
Further Research 126
4 Social Issues: ‘the mean and vulgar works of man’ 127
‘The Convict’ 128
‘The Female Vagrant’ 141
‘The Thorn’ 156
v
vi Contents
Conclusions 171
Further Research 172
5 Nature and the Supernatural: ‘the strangeness of it’ 173
‘Lines written in early spring’ 176
‘The Tables Turned’ 183
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 190
Conclusions 205
Further Research 206
PART 2: THE CONTEXT AND THE CRITICS 207
6 The Politics of Wordsworth and Coleridge 209
(a) Wordsworth and the ‘Rabble-rousers’ 211
(b) Coleridge and dreams of Utopia 214
(c) 1798 and after 217
7 Reading and Writing in Eighteenth-Century
England 220
(a) Publishing, printing and book-selling 221
(b) Effects on writers 224
(c) Readers: education and literacy 227
(d) The Ballad revival 231
8 The Poet as Critic and Theorist 234
(a) Wordsworth and ‘pre-established codes
of decision’ 234
(b) ‘five hundred Sir Isaac Newtons’:
Coleridge’s literary theory 242
9 Dorothy Wordsworth and the Lake Poets 251
(a) Dorothy among the poets 252
(b) ‘more than half a poet’: home at
Alfoxden and Grasmere 257
(c) Dorothy herself: ‘Come forth and feel the sun’ 261
10 Critical Responses to Lyrical Ballads 264
I. A. Richards 269
Robert Mayo 273
Contents vii
Geoffrey H. Hartman 278
Paul de Man 282
Further Reading 287
Index 289
General Editor’s Preface
This series is dedicated to one clear belief: that we can all enjoy,
understand and analyse literature for ourselves, provided we know
how to do it. How can we build on close understanding of a short
passage, and develop our insight into the whole work? What features
do we expect to find in a text? Why do we study style in so much
detail? In demystifying the study of literature, these are only some of
the questions the Analysing Texts series addresses and answers.
The books in this series will not do all the work for you, but will
provide you with the tools, and show you how to use them. Here, you
will find samples of close, detailed analysis, with an explanation of the
analytical techniques utilised. At the end of each chapter there are
useful suggestions for further work you can do to practise, develop
and hone the skills demonstrated and build confidence in your own
analytical ability.
An author’s individuality shows in the way they write: every work
they produce bears the hallmark of that writer’s personal ‘style’. In the
main part of each book we concentrate therefore on analysing the
particular flavour and concerns of one author’s work, and explain
thefeatures of their writing in connection with major themes. In Part 2
there are chapters about the author’s life and work, assessing their
contribution to developments in literature; and a sample of critics’
views are summarised and discussed in comparison with each other.
Some suggestions for further reading provide a bridge towards further
critical research.
Analysing Textsis designed to stimulate and encourage your critical
and analytic faculty, to develop your personal insight into the author’s
work and individual style, and to provide you with the skills and
techniques to enjoy at first hand the excitement of discovering the
richness of the text.
NICHOLAS MARSH
viii
Some Important Events
During the Lives of Wordsworth
and Coleridge
1770 William Wordsworth is born, 7 April, in Cockermouth,
Cumberland.
1771 Dorothy Wordsworth is born.
1772 Samuel Taylor Coleridge is born, 21 October, in Ottery
St Mary, Devon.
1776 War of American Independence begins.
1778 Death of Wordsworth’s mother.
1779 Wordsworth sent away to Hawkshead Grammar School.
1781 Death of Coleridge’s father.
1783 Death of Wordsworth’s father. William Pitt becomes Prime
Minister.
1787 Wordsworth at St John’s College, Cambridge.
1788 Birth of George (later Lord) Byron.
1789 Fall of the Bastille – French Revolution begins.
1790 During the long vacation Wordsworth tours France and
Switzerland.
1791 Wordsworth graduates from Cambridge. Coleridge enters
Jesus College, Cambridge. Thomas Paine publishes
The Rights of Man.
1792 In Paris, Wordsworth falls in love with Annette Vallon; he
returns to London alone in October and their child,
Caroline, is born in December.
Birth of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
1793 Wordsworth publishes An Evening Walk and Descriptive
Sketches.
Wordsworth visits Salisbury Plain and Tintern Abbey.
William Godwin publishes Enquiry Concerning Political
Justice.
ix
