Table Of ContentWordsworth's Biblical Ghosts
Wordsworth's Biblical Ghosts
DEEANNE WESTBROOK
palgrave
WORDSWORTH's llllllTCAl GHOSTS
Copyright@ Deeanne Westbrook 2001
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library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Westbrook Deeanne
Wordsworth's Biblical ghosts/ Deeanne Westbrook.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4039-3513-7
r. Wordsworth, William, 1770-I850-Religion. 2. Religion and
literature-England-History-19th century 3. Religious poetry
English-History and criticism. 4. Bible-In literature. I. Title.
PR5892.R4 W47 2001
82r'.7-dc2r
200!021320
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Design by Letra Libre, Inc.
First edition: September, 2001
!098765432
ForAndy
AndrewWestbrook
1964-1997
. . .impatientas the wind
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements IX
Abbreviations XI
Preface
Chapter 1 Introduction:Poet in aDestituteTime 5
Chapter 2 TheWord asBorderer:
Incarnational Poetics-TheTheory 27
Chapter 3 TheWord asBorderer:
OfClothing and Incarnation-The Practice 49
Chapter 4 HowAwesome IsThis Place!
Wordsworth's Poems ontheNamingojPlaces 79
Chapter 5 Wordsworth's Prodigal Son:
Michael asParable and asMetaparablc 99
Chapter 6 Wordsworth'sSong ofSongs:
"Nutting"asMystical Allegory 123
Chapter 7 WordsworthianApocalyptics:
Definitions and Biblical Intertexts 145
Chapter 8 WordsworthianApocalyptics
inWhich Nothing IsRevealed 177
Notes 209
Works Cited 233
Index 239
Acknowledgements
M yresearch forthis bookhasvalidatedand deepenedmyrespect
for the communityofWordsworthianscholars,withseveralof
whom Ihavecarriedon aninteriorand lopsideddialogue over
the last several years.Their scholarship has furnished a foundation for
mywork,and their informed and thoughtful texts enter myanalysesat
every turn. I am grateful to my generous colleague, Carol Franks. who
read and helpededitthe chaptersastheywere emerging.and to the fine
editors at Palgrave,Kristi longand her staff Finally, mymentor in this
endeavorhasbeen Romanticsscholar.editor,and generouslady.Marilyn
Gaull,whose encouragementand support I treasure.
Abbreviations
Letters The LettersofWilliam andDorothyWordsworth: The LaterYears.
Ernest De Selincourt, ed.Oxford:The Clarendon Press,
1939·
OxfordP.W The Oiford Authors:William Wordsworth. Stephen Gill, ed.
Oxford and New York:Oxford University Press, 1984;
reprinted in.1987-
Prelude The Prelude 1799, 1805, 1850. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H.
Abrams, and Stephen Gill, ed. New York and London:
W W Norton& Company, 1979.
Pro W The Prose Works ofwilliamWordsworth. W ]. B. Owen and
Jane Worthington Smyser, ed. 3 vols. Oxford: The
Clarendon Press,1974.
P.W The Poetical Works ofWilliam Wordsworth. Ernest De Selin
court, ed. Oxford:The Clarendon Press,1952.
Preface
if
TheBiblebecamethesinglemosti'!flumtialdocumar: theRomanticperiodthe1II0st
popularbookinthefirstageqlpopularliterature.
--MarilynGaull176.
Wordsworth:,inrarcstinbIblicalnarratircshouldnotbeseenasseparateftomht:,riffec.
tionontheoriginandendsq/poetry.
- AllenBcwellIlO
Em]'sacredtruthnotone'sownbecomesajable,anoldsongtltarrequirescorrcatvc
reFt:'ion.. Word'worthalonefiundthenewway, ourwayalas, torumsacred
truths.
- HaroldBloom.RuintheSacredTruths125. 130
W illiam Wordsworth discovered in biblical texts both a basis
for his revolutionary poetics and models for his extraordi
narypoems,whoseexcellence and innovationsowe much to
his idiosyncratic and ingenious biblical readings and borrowings-his
"corrective revision,"the newwayto ruinsacred truths.For anumberof
years I have taughtacoursein the Bibleasliterature,along withcourses
in English Romanticism.Overtime,asI read the Biblesidebysidewith
Wordsworth,Iexperiencedaseriesofrecognitionsofwhat Iwantto call
thepresenceofthe Biblein Wordsworth'spoetryandmysensethatan un
derstanding oftheextent and effects ofthat presencewasrequired fora
richerappreciationofWordsworth'spoetryandpoetics.BypresenceIwish
to suggestsomething moreandotherthan the well-acknowledgedbibli
calinfluences-hisbiblicalallusions orhisadaptationofbiblicalplotand
2 WORDSWORTH'S BIBLICAL GHOSTS
language-although these constitute aspects ofthe phenomenon that I
have in mind.The presencewithwhich I am concernedispervasive and
subtleaswhitenoise andat the same timeinvasiveasahauntingbyanot
altogether-congenialghost.A case in point isthe lyric,"Threeyears she
grewinsun andshower" (discussedinchapter3),inwhichWordsworth's
Nature is possessed by and assimilated to Ezekiel's lustful, proprietary,
andhomicidal God. Oncerecognized, this startlingalienpresencetrans
forms one's understanding not only ofthis poem, but ofthe remaining
Lucy poems aswell,by providing a glimpse ofyet one more "speaking"
face-perhaps the true face, perhaps only a disguise-for Wordsworth's
enigmatic,shape-shifting Nature.
Many ofWordsworth'sbiblical ghostsare philologists,bothimposing
and imposeduponin Wordsworth's texts, exhibitinglike Wordsworth a
keeninterestin language,whetherdivineor human,anditspowers.Such
spiritsare made to serve the nineteenth-centurypoet'sclear recognition
that mind and world,life and death, are word-stuff; that,in Umberto
Eco's analysis,"being is something that is said," and,"as it is thinkable,
being manifests itselfto us right from the outset as an tjJectiflanguage"
(KantandthePlatypus 22).For example, in Book 2ofthe Prelude, onefinds
Wordsworth grappling to expressthis relationship between language and
being,betweensubstance (theprofaneform orimage) and essence (pure
beingrepresentedin thesilenceofthe heavensthatcan onlybe captured
insound,the ur-Ianguageassociatedwithbreath,theoriginarybreathing
expressedas"Let therebe .. .," spirit-wordsthatecho still from therock
beneathwhich the boy William stands,the "ghostly language ofthe an
cient earth" [1805 2:321 - 9]). Wordsworth, taking his cues from the
Bible,recognizedthefact that,again in Eco'swords, "forbeingto exist,it
isnecessaryto sayaswell as to think" (KantandthePlatypus 22).And that
saying takes Wordsworth to the very limits oflanguage, to a boundary
wheresubstancebecomesessenceand somethingbecomesnothing.'
In what follows, I want to make the case that reading Wordsworth
will be markedlyenriched byan awareness ofan omnipresent,agonisti
callysublime biblical presence. I speculate that somewhere on his own
road to Damascus Wordsworth was halted and his vision drasticallyal
teredbythe BookofBooks.Wordsworth'sstyle,forms,subjects,andpo
etics all are suffused-often unobtrusively, yet undeniably-with the
poetic matterofthe Bible.An importantcorollaryto this propositionis
thatbiblical sacrality,mystery,and metaphysicsadherelikelintto itslan
guage, images, themes, and forms as these undergo intertextual
processes-processes by which the nineteenth-century poet transports
themacross millennia, interprets, transforms,deforms, and adapts them
to hisownpurposes.Ishallargue thatthe debateoverWordsworth's"re-
