Wordsworth's Classical Undersong: Education, Rhetoric and Poetic Truth

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Wordsworth's Classical Undersong Education, Rhetoric and Poetic Truth

Richard W. Clancey

Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-18

Wordsworth's Classical Undersong

10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey



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Education, Rhetoric and Poetic Truth Richard W. Clancey Professor of English John Carroll University Cleveland, Ohio

9& 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey



t&

First published in Great Britain 2000 by

MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ffi

First published in the United States of America 2000 by

ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0-312-22560-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clancey, Richard W., 1928Wordsworth's classical undersong : education, rhetoric and poetic truth / Richard W. Clancey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-312-22560-1 (cloth) 1. Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850-Knowledge-Literature. 2. Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850 —Knowledge —Classical philology. 3. Classical education—England —History—18th century. 4. Classicism —England —History— 19th century. 5. English poetry-Classical influences. 6. Rhetoric, Ancient. 7. Poetics. I. Title. PR5892.L5C53 1999 821'.7-dc21 99-43170 CIP

© Richard W. Clancey 2000 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire



ISBN 0-333-76034^-


To my beloved teacher, Father Joseph McMahon, and to John Carroll





Acknowledgements

viii

L is t of A bbrevia tions

x

Introduction

xi

PART I: Wordsworth's Academic Training 1 Early Years

3

2 Wordsworth at Hawkshead: the Ethos of an English Grammar School

10

3 The Mancunian Paradigm, James Peake and the Hawkshead of William Wordsworth

25

4 Cambridge and 'knowledge ... sincerely sought and prized / For its own sake'

52

PART II: Wordsworth and Horace: Ethos and Poetic Truth 5 Horatian Poetics

67

6 The Mind of the Poet

87

7 The Poet's Truth

110

PART III: Classical Undersong: 'lively images', 'strong feelings', 'purest Poesy' 8 Ethos and the Power of The Prelude 9 The Poet's Calling 10 Classical Undersong, Text, 'angels stopped upon the wing'

127 150 164

Appendix: Aristotle's Ethical Proof: a Sampling of its Use in Recent Criticism

180

Notes

187

Works Cited

199

Index

208 vn 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


Contents

I would like to thank the Wordsworth Trust and especially its Chairman, Jonathan Wordsworth, and its Director, Robert Woof, for their kind help in my research, for allowing me to study Wordsworth materials in the Wordsworth Library, Grasmere, and for permission to quote from my lectures given at various Wordsworth Winter Schools. Here also I acknowledge my debt to Sylvia and the late Richard Wordsworth. It was through their kindness and encouragement that I was able to begin my research on Wordsworth's education. I thank the Governors of Hawkshead School for permission to study the contents of the school library and documents connected with the school's history, and for me to use my photograph of Hawkshead Grammar School on the jacket of this book, and especially I am indebted to John West, curator of the school, for his generous kindness in helping me with my research. Thanks are due to the Cumbria County Archives, Kendal, and especially its archivist Sheila MacPherson, for much assistance and allowing me to study the Hawkshead School materials in their keeping; Eileen Jay and the Armitt Trust, and its onetime Director, John Gavin, for their assistance and for allowing me to study the T. W. Thompson papers in their keeping; the Lancashire County Archives, especially its Archivist, Bruce Jackson, MA, DAA, for permission to study Hawkshead School materials and for permission especially to study the last will of the Revd William Taylor (document reference WRW/F 1786); Cambridge University Library, especially E. S. Leedham-Green, Assistant Keeper, the Archives, for allowing me to study manuscripts and other materials connected with the history of Cambridge University; the Master, Fellows and Scholars of St John's College, Cambridge, in permitting me the use of their archives, particularly for allowing me to quote vm 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


Acknowledgements

from the St John's College Order Book: especially I would like to thank Malcolm Underwood, Archivist, for all his kind assistance in my research; the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, for allowing me the use of their archives, and especially Dr Frank Stubbings, onetime Keeper of Rare Books, for all his assistance in my research; and the staff of the Grasselli Library, John Carroll University, and especially Ruth Reider, for all their assistance. I am grateful to Pamela Tabor for typing the first version of the manuscript and for her excellent editorial assistance, and to Jane and John Panza for typing the final version and, in turn, for their excellent editorial assistance. Special thanks are due to my chairperson, Jeanne Colleran, for her very helpful reading of my manuscript and for all her generous support in making this book possible. I also thank my colleagues George Bilgere and John McBratney for their very helpful reading of my manuscript and their excellent advice, and Bruce Graver of Providence College for his very careful reading of my manuscript and for his very helpful advice. I offer special thanks to the Administration of John Carroll University for its generosity in awarding me a George Grauel Faculty Fellowship and for all its generous support over a number of years enabling me to complete this book. Especially I would like to thank Dr David La Guardia, Associate Provost of John Carroll University, my former chairperson, without whose patience and continued kind help this book would never have seen the light of day. Especially, I must thank Mary Wedd, onetime Principal Lecturer in English, Goldsmith's College, University of London, and Duncan Wu, Reader in English, University of Glasgow, for their inspiration, kindness and generous help in making this book possible. Finally, I would like to thank Harvard University Press for its permission to quote from its edition of the Loeb Classical Library text and translations of Horace's Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica; W. J. B. Owen for permission to quote from the three-volume edition of The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, edited by him and J. W. Smyser; and Cornell University Press for its permission to quote from The FourteenBook Prelude, edited by W. J. B. Owen. Full bibliographical details for these editions are given in the list of works cited at the end of this book.



Acknowledgements ix

AP

DNB EY, MY, LY

14-Bk NP

Prose

PW

TWT

WC

Horace. Ars Poetica. Loeb Classical Library: Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica. Trans. H. Rushton Fairclough. Rev. edn Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929. Dictionary of National Biography. The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. The Early Years, The Middle Years, The Later Years. Ed. Ernest de Selincourt. 2nd edn rev. Chester L. Shaver, Mary Moorman and Alan G. Hill. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967-82. Wordsworth, William. The Fourteen-Book 'Prelude'. Ed. W. J. B. Owen. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, and Stephen Gill, eds. The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850. By William Wordsworth. New York: Norton, 1979. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Ed. W. J. B. Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. Ed. Ernest de Selincourt. Rev. Helen Darbishire. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1952-63. Thompson, T. W. Wordsworth's Hawkshead. Ed. with Introduction, Notes, and Appendixes by Robert Woof. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. The Wordsworth Circle.

x 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


List of Abbreviations

This study began in a schoolhouse, in an almost ancient classroom about 27 feet long and 15 feet wide. At one end is a fireplace and the raised desk of the schoolmaster; at the other, on the wall near the corner, a crudely painted list of the schoolmasters going back to the sixteenth century. I sat at one of the narrow desks near the spot where 'W Wordsworth' had been dug into the wood. Other desk tops had been deeply scored by similar carvings. I stared at the white walls, listened as a young Oxford graduate articulately explained the history of the school. Hundreds and hundreds of boys had passed through this schoolhouse. William Wordsworth spent eight years here. I wondered about this school, its teachers, its students, and especially its curriculum of Latin, Greek and mathematics. I wondered especially about how much this school and its teaching had affected a lively, talented lad who was to become one of England's greatest poets, a poet whose special genius was so particularly indebted to his earliest years, a poet whose youth had become the substance of some of the finest poetry in the English language. As I speculated about Hawkshead School and its possible effects on William Wordsworth, I resolved to do this study. Since that decision I have come to find how intriguing research into the early years of a writer can be. Usually, much information is simply not available. But in Wordsworth's case, undoubtedly because his youth is the source of so much of his poetry, that is not the case. There have been especially good biographies of Wordsworth by Emile Legouis, G. W. Meyer and Mary Moorman, covering the general character of his youth in detail. There are also Mark Reed's splendid volumes Wordsworth: the Chronology of the Early Years, 1770-1799 and Wordsworth: the Chronology of the Middle Years, 1800-1815, meticulously accounting XI



Introduction

for everything in Wordsworth's life during this period. The Cornell Wordsworth editions have also been of enormous help, as has been the biography of Wordsworth by Stephen Gill, a work reflecting so well its author's intimate knowledge of the Wordsworth manuscripts. Alan Liu, Wordsworth: the Sense of History, and Kenneth Johnston, The Hidden Wordsworth, provide us with a wealth of detail, and John Mahoney, William Wordsworth: a Poetic Life, illustrates how much poet and text are one. I should also mention Bruce Graver's work on Wordsworth's translations and the work of Duncan Wu, a complete critical edition of Wordsworth's juvenilia done as a doctoral dissertation at Oxford, and his excellent volumes Wordsworth's Reading 1770-1799 and Wordsworth's Reading 1800-1815. In addition to these, there are two valuable related volumes, Ben Ross Schneider's Wordsworth's Cambridge Education and T. W. Thompson's Wordsworth's Hawkshead, edited by Robert Woof, who has added extensive appendixes on Hawkshead School and library. Morris Marples has given us a general survey of the secondary education of six romantic poets and a fine discussion of Wordsworth at Hawkshead (15-47). My intent has been to complement these works. One may question the value of yet another study in this area, but my concern is with that schoolroom, with what happened within those walls, with the teachers who taught there, with their traditional and seemingly narrow curriculum, and especially with their mode of classical instruction. One cannot help but wonder how Wordsworth related to so much structure, for in the years when he was occupied in that schoolroom, he was also abroad in the mountains immediately outside. One cannot help but think of the boy who is described so vividly under a very different kind of tutelage: Oh! when I have hung Above the Raven's nest, by knots of grass And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock But ill-sustained; and almost (so it seemed) Suspended by the blast that blew amain, With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind Blow through my ears! the sky seemed not a sky Of earth, and with what motion moved the clouds! {Prelude 1.330-39)1



xii Introduction

What teacher's voice could ever compete with 'the loud dry wind'; what text could hold the eyes of a youth who, as though suspended, free, had seen the sky and moving clouds as Wordsworth had? How could algebra or Euclid, declensions or conditional sentences, poetic figures or the pomposities of classical oratory ever contain Wordsworth's imagination? He was 'the infant Babe', he the child, 'creator and receiver both, / Working but in alliance with the works / Which it beholds' (2.232, 259-61). Wordsworth himself had claimed that at Cambridge he 'was not for that hour, / Nor for that place' (3.81-2). Wordsworth's disaffection with Cambridge cost him a fellowship, deprived him of a secure future, and changed his life. Did this disaffection begin in that rural schoolroom? And yet it was at Hawkshead that Wordsworth truly became a poet. With deep affection he tells us in Book 10 of The Prelude that he began to write poetry at the urging of his beloved teacher William Taylor: This faithful Guide . . . He loved the Poets, and if now alive Would have loved me, as One not destitute Of promise, nor belying the kind hope That he had formed, when I, at his command, Began to spin with toil my earliest Songs. (541-56) By 1787, when Wordsworth left Hawkshead for Cambridge, he had written not just some good schoolboy verse, but - as Paul Sheats has shown so well - some good poetry. Still, the question naturally arises: did Wordsworth become a poet completely outside of or perhaps even despite Hawkshead? As an American, I was always tempted to read Tom Sawyer into the William Wordsworth of this period. Book 5 of The Prelude seems to invite such an association. There Wordsworth satirizes those educators who attempted to make prodigies of ordinary children through elaborate and unnatural educational means. His purpose is simply to emphasize his own natural education. He was never 'force-fed'. He was never trammeled by ideologies or constraints. He was free; he was educated by and for Nature: This Verse is dedicate to Nature's self And things that teach as Nature teaches: then



Introduction xiii

xiv Introduction

Oh! where had been the Man, the Poet where, Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend? If in the season of unperilous choice,

(232-40)

The question then arises, did Hawkshead, particularly in its classical-literary tuition, 'teach as Nature teaches'? Answering this question is one of the major goals of this book. It is a crucial question. Practically no poet has built so much of his poetry out of his experiences in youth. How much of a positive element was Wordsworth's Hawkshead education in those experiences? Furthermore, Ben Ross Schneider shows that Wordsworth was disaffected with Cambridge for philosophical and political reasons, and also for specifically literary reasons (40). At Cambridge the major emphasis was placed on mathematics even though classical and literary studies did remain a part of the undergraduate curriculum. But the point is that Wordsworth's basic, formal literary training was achieved at Hawkshead, though at Cambridge Wordsworth continued his formal study of the classics. In addition, particularly under William Taylor and then under Thomas Bowman, his successor, Wordsworth was encouraged and enabled to read much contemporary poetry. Thus Wordsworth's education was not just classical, but broadly literary as well. A study of Wordsworth's juvenilia reveals that at Hawkshead he worked hard at what must be called extracurricular classical translations. Serious Latin translation was begun at Hawkshead. There Wordsworth did his first extended piece of poetry, 'The Vale of Esthwaite'. When Wordsworth moved on to Cambridge, the classical translations and the original composition continued in much the same pattern as at Hawkshead. As will be shown later, Wordsworth's teachers and tutors, because of those close ties between Hawkshead and St John's, enabled Wordsworth's classical and literary studies to form one process, one coherent curriculum that Wordsworth followed in addition to his official Cambridge studies. Also, Wordsworth's own creative poetic endeavor in these Hawkshead-Cambridge years reveals change but also coherence, as Paul Sheats has shown (Making W. Poetry 1-59). Thus the foundation and essential fabric of



We had been followed, hourly watched, - and noosed [?]

Wordsworth's early poetic achievement developed organically from his Hawkshead classical education, though also influenced by British poetry, much from the eighteenth century. With these issues in mind, I studied the nature and influence of Wordsworth's Hawkshead training. I came upon a number of primary sources dealing with the history of the school and detailing the academic backgrounds of Wordsworth's schoolmasters. I have been particularly helped through the good offices and kindnesses of Dr Frank Stubbings of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Through Dr Stubbings I have been able to study the manuscripts containing the lectures of William Bennet, Bishop of Cloyne, who in the 1770s lectured on the classics at Emmanuel and very possibly taught Wordsworth's teacher William Taylor. Also, through the generous help of Mr Malcolm Underwood, Archivist of St John's College, Cambridge, and Dr E. S. Leedham-Green, Cambridge University Archivist, I have been able to study the records which substantially reveal the classical curriculum at Cambridge and at St John's College in the time of James Peake, Wordsworth's first schoolmaster, and in Wordsworth's time as well. In reconstructing Wordsworth's classical education at Hawkshead, I have found that - for its day and age - it was both excellent and practically unique. Generally it had a standard eighteenth-century English grammar-school curriculum, but Wordsworth's Hawkshead training was truly enlightened. Furthermore, there was a renewed zeal in classical study at St John's in Wordsworth's time. Thus the character and potential influence of Wordsworth's total classical education have proved much more significant than one might expect. As will be shown in detail below, Wordsworth's teachers were talented and ahead of their time. His first major schoolmaster, James Peake, came to Hawkshead in 1766, eager and fully equipped through his own education to reform the school. Peake was educated at Manchester Grammar School, at that time recently and creatively improved. He had studied classics and mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge, Wordsworth's future college. Under a new president at St John's, the curriculum and spirit of classical studies had been enhanced while Peake was finishing his degree. William Taylor, who profoundly affected Wordsworth, was a student of Peake's at Hawkshead, a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and an honors graduate. He too had excellent classical training and a love of eighteenth-century poetry. His was a directly creative influence on Wordsworth. It must be remembered that



Introduction xv

Hawkshead, and St John's as well, and James Peake and William Taylor, and lastly Thomas Bowman, were all committed to the classics as the mode of humanistic and literary education. But there was clearly something unique in the way Wordsworth learned the classics and was formed to literature by them. On the surface the content and the authors studied in Wordsworth's classical training were highly traditional. A classical education was heavily rhetorical. Oratory, Demosthenes, Cicero, et al., were at the heart of the curriculum. The other genres studied - epic, drama, history, literary epistles, moral essays - all had a powerful rhetorical cast. The goal of such an education from ancient times through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and eighteenth century was rhetorical as well. Students were trained for the law, the church, public service. The classics indirectly served banking, trade and commerce. Also the very essence of classical education, the trivium, the arts of the word, grammar, rhetoric and logic, had subsumed literature and poetry to grammar and rhetoric. Poetry was prominent in medieval and Renaissance schools but always studied with grammar and as a handmaid to rhetoric. Wordsworth was trained in standard classical authors. He does not appear to have studied drama, but he began Demosthenes in Greek at 16 (TWT 91). But there is something very different in the way he was taught, in the academic goals set for him especially at Hawkshead. The structure of his education, as will be seen shortly, was free of so many artificial shackles which typically encumbered classical education. Furthermore, there must have been a great personalism in his education, a respect for expressivism and subjectivity even when the rhetorical dimensions of his education are fully accounted for. Epic must have been emphasized and the ethical resonance of the poet's voice seems to have been regarded as special. Stephen Gill's assessment of Wordsworth as a 'visionary poet' has relevance here: Too little attention has been paid to the imperious, self-willed Wordsworth, who wanted to be recognized as an intellectual power, (vii) From his Hawkshead years Wordsworth seems clearly to have derived a sense of vocation and a sense of election to that vocation. Again Stephen Gill is most helpful. Further on we shall consider Gill's eloquent tribute to Wordsworth's Hawkshead education; here we



xvi Introduction

should note that he offers an explanation of Wordsworth's poetic selfconfidence, of how his vocational conviction shaped The Prelude (2-7). I would urge that the firmness of Wordsworth's personal conviction about his calling and his attachment to The Prelude in all its epic accoutrements were nurtured by a distinctive classical education that privileged epic and ethos. Much of Wordsworth's personalism and romanticism can be traced to the classical sources in his education as well. The prophetic and the ethical are especially decisive here. The popular tradition sees Wordsworth as a revolutionary. Ben Ross Schneider emphasizes his revolt against the snobbery and stultification of Cambridge, academic, political and otherwise. It may thus seem heretical to claim Wordsworth as a classically rhetorical poet no matter what the uniqueness of his classical education. But as Schneider himself shows so well, using Wordsworth's study of Cicero's De Officiis, it was from such classical writers as Cicero that Wordsworth derived some of his most advanced ideas (72-6). For Schneider, to understand Wordsworth as a revolutionary romantic, one must first see his reaction against the narrowness, arrogance and cruelty of late-eighteenth-century Cambridge: 'Wordsworth's revolt in 1788 against Cambridge foreshadows, parallels, and helps to explain his revolt in 1798 against eighteenth-century culture' (17). But Schneider also points out that the classics are not to be identified with the Cambridge view of the human condition or the nature of art or life: The Roman writers first influenced and then supported his [Wordsworth's] conclusion that the good life was the one conducted in harmony with nature herself, not merely in harmony with nature's mechanical laws. ... Tacitus' noble savages, Horace's and Juvenal's longing for the country life, Virgil's description of it in the Georgics and Thomson's imitation of Virgil, all contributed to Wordsworth's conclusion. (246) These comments are somewhat different from remarks Schneider makes earlier when speaking of Wordsworth's study of Horace's Ars Poetica and Literary Epistle: 'In these works he made his first acquaintance with those eighteenth-century critical principles he was later to violate so deliberately and successfully' (12). Schneider would seem to suggest that Horace's classical critical doctrine is identical with eighteenth-century neoclassical critical doctrine. Such an attitude is so common that it deserves comment. I wish this study to emphasize the



Introduction xvii

significant difference between classical critical doctrine and eighteenth-century neoclassicism. Recent eighteenth-century scholarship has abundantly demonstrated that eighteenth-century literary theory itself is hardly a rigid formalism ostensibly derived in toto from the study of the classics, especially from Horace. James Engell's Forming the Critical Mind (1989) is a penetrating treatment of the substantial variety in eighteenth-century critical thought. As was noted above, recent scholarship on Horace, especially the work of C. O. Brink, shows how much richer this great Latin lyricist is than some scholars of the eighteenth century would seem to allow. Thus in claiming Wordsworth to be a classically rhetorical poet, I do not suggest any kind of crypto-conservatism in Wordsworth; nor do I wish to invite a deconstructive analysis exhibiting an intrinsic contradiction in his essential romanticism. Wordsworth is surely the premier romantic poet as Meyer Abrarns has so famously demonstrated (Mirror 100-3). However, Wordsworth is both classical and romantic - expressive and lyrical and also rhetorical. Very simply, Wordsworth is a highly committed poet with profound epic aspirations. Here his classicism, especially in its rhetorical dimensions, emerges. As Abrarns has shown so well in Natural Supernaturalism, Wordsworth's ultimate design and goal are prophetic (11-80). He is ever the lyric poet, yet running through practically the entire fabric of his poetry is a real, though frequently muted, anxiety for relation beyond the immediate utterance. Wordsworth sought to imitate and outdo his hero Milton. Wordsworth's ultimate encompassing endeavor was a prophetic poem, The Recluse, capable of embracing intentionally and architecturally all of his poetry. Not every Wordsworth poem promises or insinuates such affiliation, but so many do bespeak a relationship to a great tradition of vatic utterance that such implication and hankering are major features of a significant part of Wordsworth's poetry. The Prelude is a promise, a completed declaration and a demonstration of Wordsworth's goal to be poet and prophet. 2 Wordsworth may well have abandoned any attempt to complete The Recluse by the time of the 1836 edition of his poetry, the first done after Coleridge's death in 1834. It may very well be true that he abandoned The Recluse because he found he simply could not do it; it lay beyond his abilities (Home at Grasmere, ed. Beth Darlington, Introduction, 31). But he never repudiated his vatic intention as such. No record so far shows he repented of his Miltonic ambition. The goal Wordsworth proposes to Coleridge remained a cherished ideal:



xviii Introduction

Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak A lasting inspiration, sanctified By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved Others will love, and we will teach them how, Instruct them how the mind of Man becomes A thousand times more beautiful than the earth On which he dwells. ... (Prelude 14.446-52) What could be broader in scope? The major part of Wordsworth's poetry, whether narrative or lyric, reflects this zealous spirited endeavor. But there is an added feature connected with this epic-like goal, its personalist, subjective, even lyrical aspect: 'we to them will speak / A lasting inspiration.' '[W]hat we have loved / Others will love, and we will teach them how, ...' Here Wordsworth as voice and as person projects himself as an epic model. To achieve this goal, he needs more than the ordinary resources of an epic narrator. He must prove himself to be a worthy protagonist and hero in what Abrams has identified as 'the distinctive Romantic genre of the Bildungsgeschichte', or the account of a secularized 'conversion and redemption' and 'selfformation', a narrative 'which culminates in a stage of self-coherence, self-awareness, and assured power that is its own reward' (Nat. Supernat. 96). This goal requires exceptional rhetorical skill to validate the authority of the voice and the claim of exemplary worth in the voice's experiences. The Bildungsgeschichte lays a double burden on the voice. The story of religious conversion, for example, derives its worth ultimately from the presumed value of the faith experience and its enclosing theodicy. But as Abrams points out in his discussion of 'Wordsworth's Program for Poetry' (Nat. Supernat. 21-32), Wordsworth differs from Milton, goes beyond theodicy, and strives 'to outdo Milton's Christian story'. Wordsworth seeks nothing less than 'to create out of the world of all of us ... a new world which is the equivalent of paradise' (28). One need not agree with all the details of Abrams' secular reading of Wordsworth's intentions, but it is clear that Wordsworth's validating norms must derive from largely novel and clearly subjectivist elements. Furthermore, when the epic goal is to be verified in the narrator as such, then the narrator's burden of self-validation is particularly onerous.



Introduction xix

The popularity of Wordsworth's poetry, especially The Prelude, strongly demonstrates Wordsworth's success in this endeavor. It is my contention that this success can be explained by our having recourse to Aristotle's Rhetoric and its discussion of what Aristotle calls the ethical proof, the means whereby the authority of the rhetorical voice is established by its demonstration from the very text itself that it is knowledgeable, honest, and generously disposed to its audience. Aristotle was the first rhetorical theoretician to delineate the triadic relation of these components and to insist that the ethical proof be established clearly in the text. 3 I hope to show that the grandeur, beauty and success of Wordsworth's poetry, particularly The Prelude, benefitted handsomely from his enlightened classical education which inspired the development of his powerful rhetorical ethos as described by Aristotle. The clear presence of these key Aristotelian values is a credit to Wordsworth himself and certainly to a large degree to the classical texts he studied and to the way he was taught them. Klaus Dockhorn ('Wordsworth und die rhetorische Tradition in England', recently translated by Heidi Saur-Stull) was a pioneer scholar of Wordsworth and classical rhetoric. Recent scholarship has shown a strong classical-rhetorical presence in Wordsworth (Bialostosky, Graver, Ginsberg, and so forth). J. Douglas Kneale has devoted an entire volume to Wordsworth's rhetoric, Monumental Writing, and two recent articles to Wordsworth's use of the classical figures of apostrophe and chiasmus. In an article on Wordsworth's sophisticated use of voice in Book 10 of The Prelude, Brooke Hopkins shows Wordsworth's skillful deployment of such devices as 'asyndeton', 'synathroesmus', 'polysyndeton', and 'anaphora' (291). Wordsworth's purpose, as he 'impersonates and sometimes even parodies his earlier self, is to render 'a kind of judgment on the naivete, not to say blindness, of his previous confidence in "History"' (289). Hopkins is concerned with Wordsworth's subtle use of voice. But typical of much in this line of criticism, her convincing study could easily be paralleled with a joint consideration of the ethical dimensions of the powers of voice displayed by Wordsworth. I wish to consider Wordsworth's use of the Aristotelian ethical proof. It is not just one dimension of his artistic achievement; it is at its core. Wordsworth's education in a special way endowed this core. Because Wordsworth's program for poetry is so personal, so ethically charged, he had to do The Prelude, and yet paradoxically it did not need to be published in his lifetime. It was always there.



xx Introduction

Wordsworth became a recognized bard of epic stature despite vicious criticism; he became poet laureate and achieved a fame second only to Shakespeare and Milton; and all the while his great Prelude lay unpublished. It could be argued that never was a poet's fame achieved so fully while his greatest poetic achievement lay embosomed in his consciousness awaiting posthumous publication. But The Prelude was always a sustaining source of strength for Wordsworth. It was his chief poetic proof of ethical stature, the moral ground of his poetic vocation and being. Geoffrey Hartman reminds us that The Prelude always enjoyed a secret life and yet an efficacious presence in and among the works and designs of Wordsworth. I would suggest that, though The Prelude lay unpublished, it always existed high in Wordsworth's consciousness and thus demanded of him an almost constant affectionate tinkering. His lofty intention and the supervening creative power of that intention also reigned high in Wordsworth's creative consciousness. The fervor of this inclusive zeal is the chief fruit of Wordsworth's education and the essence of Wordsworth's classicism. Because Wordsworth is so ingeniously subtle in the way he maintains and modulates this supervening prophetic intention, I have characterized its operative presence as a major component in Wordsworth's classical undersong. The Oxford English Dictionary defines undersong in this way: 1. A subordinate or subdued song or strain, esp. one serving as an accompaniment or burden to another. Freq. transf. of natural sounds 2. fig. An underlying meaning; an undertone. I find the figurative sense of this term to be true for most of Wordsworth's poetry. Geoffrey Hartman and Edwin Stein would seem to use the term similarly. Reflecting on Herbert Lindenberger's discussion of Wordsworth's use of the many voices in English poetry, Stein notes: Wordsworth also evoked those voices in a greater variety of ways than anyone else had done. ... There were many stops on the allusive instrument he used, and it produced borrowed tones of different quality and depth: As the thematic voice changed, so did the undersong. (1)



Introduction xxi

Hartman comments similarly, but more to our purpose; he identifies the classical burden directly in Wordsworth's undersong. In a study of Wordsworth's 'A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand' (PW 4: 92-4), Hartman discusses the extensive Miltonic (Samson Agonistes) and classical (Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles) foundations of the poem (Unremarkable 91). We find in this essay a model for the study of the operative presence of the classical in Wordsworth. Speaking of Wordsworth's revived interest in the classics in 1801, Hartman notes: Interpreters have commented adequately on the poet's return to Nature or memories of childhood and somewhat on his return to the writers of Reformation England. Equally remarkable is his regression, after 1801, to the Classics. It begins with a renewed interest in the poets of the Reformation, who were also poets of the Renaissance - who managed, that is, to revive the Classics as well as Scripture. (Unremarkable 93) Further on, Hartman states, 'Wordsworth's movement toward the Classics is virtually as daring as his movement toward childhood' (93). Finally, in his conclusion, Hartman says: The life of Wordsworth's lines is often uneasy and as if somewhere else: still to be manifested by the action of time or the utterance of future readers. ... Keeping The Prelude in reserve, almost like God his own Son, Wordsworth reposed on a text-experience whose life remained with God. He delayed becoming the author of a poem so original that it could not be accommodated to known forms of Christianity. In what he does publish, then, the relation of author to poem is often the strangest mixture of knowingness and childlikeness - it is, in short, a divine idiocy. The intertextual glitter of Milton, his blended might of Scripture and Classical lore, is but an undersong to Wordsworth's intratextual strain that repeats something already begotten in himself. (116; emphasis mine) What is striking in Hartman's commentary is the way the classics are one element in the rich texture of Wordsworth's poetry, and yet an element multivalent in its relations both in a particular office to Wordsworth as poet and as a referential embodiment and coalescing force for a number of other elements. Thus in and through the classics, Hartman discusses Milton, the Renaissance, Scripture, childhood,



xxii Introduction

and even the intratextual dynamics of Wordsworth's own expression. I do not mean to read into Hartman's commentary a privileging of the classics as the dominant source or influence in Wordsworth. I simply suggest that the classics stand out as the relational constant resonating in a richly orchestrated texture of sources and creative procedures. The accessible accommodation of the classics in these various relationships and the constancy of the classics as an ideal mode of expression, yet also as a comparative mode to be superseded at times, as in the Reformation by Scripture, illustrate the value of the classics. They operate as a common poetica franca, a common currency of poetic expression, and yet also in their grander moments as a norm of regal stature. The operative presence and normative value of the classics are a constant in Wordsworth, especially perceived in his overarching prophetic intention. This presence is what I call classical undersong. Its primary component is an epic-like design grounded in the classical tradition and immediately exemplified by Milton. But this design requires an artistic courage and correspondingly secure sense of authority. Here the Aristotelian ethical proof serves Wordsworth well. It endowed his voice rhetorically and lyrically and helped engender the goal Wordsworth envisioned and never actually ceased to work for. But the full dynamic of Wordsworth's classical undersong is realized not merely in his need for ethos, but in his prophetic goal for us. The one need feeds the other in Wordsworth. His ultimate intention is to rouse us 'to noble raptures', to the achievement with nature of a new 'creation' (Prose 3: 8). Wordsworth's goal is democratic. He urges us to realize our potential for poetic vision, our ethos for poetic creation. His prophetic goal in our behalf and his zeal for the achievement of that goal had their start in the classical training he received at the Free Grammar School at Hawkshead.



Introduction xxiii






Parti Wordsworth's Academic Training




1

Very early in his Autobiographical Memoranda, Wordsworth recounts the death of his parents. In the second paragraph he speaks of his mother's death in 1778. He then discusses his father who never recovered his usual cheerfulness of mind after this loss, and died when I was in my fourteenth year, a schoolboy, just returned from Hawkshead, whither I had been sent with my elder brother Richard, in my ninth year. (Prose 3: 371) From the age of 14 Wordsworth was an orphan, and this fact probably weighed more heavily upon him - even throughout his life - than either he or anyone has ever guessed. It is impressive that losing his parents rose so quickly to mind when at 77 he began to dictate the recollections of his life. Wordsworth's biographers consistently point out that his parents and almost all the major influences on his early life were affective and affirming.1 But Gill warns us that there were dark moments. The professional demands made on his father were severe and possibly caused the Wordsworth children to spend extended periods with relatives (Life 15). Wordsworth reflects upon one of these dark moments, as he admits to having an obdurate nature as a boy. In his Memoranda he recounts an incident when he wantonly tore into a family portrait at his grandparents' home in Penrith. He speaks of being punished and then comments: But possibly, from some want of judgment in punishments inflicted, I had become perverse and obstinate in defying chastisement, and rather proud of it than otherwise. (Prose 3: 372) 3



Early Years

4


The cause of this was, that I was of a stiff, moody, and violent temper; so much so that I remember going once into the attics of my grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity having been put upon me, with an intention of destroying myself with one of the foils which I knew was kept there. I took the foil in hand, but my heart failed. (Prose 3: 372) Despite his nature, Wordsworth's relationship with his parents was affectionate and strong. The image in The Prelude of his mother as guiding her children, not dominating them, of her lovingly allowing them as full a freedom as children can sustain, stands out as one of the poem's great portraits: Behold the Parent Hen amid her Brood, Though fledged and feathered and well-pleased to part And straggle from her presence, still a Brood, And she herself from the maternal bond Still undischarged; yet doth she little more Than move with them in tenderness and love, A centre to the circle which they make; (5.248-54) The terms 'centre' and 'circle' form the perfect image of the world his parents created, an environment in which especially his mother instructed him by love, example, tolerance and wisdom. Moorman suggests that Wordsworth's mother taught him to read (1: 15). She also formed his conscience. The child Wordsworth complained of not having received an expected penny for going to church. '"Oh," said she, recanting her praises, "if that was your motive, you were very properly disappointed"' (qtd in Auto. Mem., Prose 3: 371-2). His father opened his extensive library to Wordsworth as a boy. His father, according to Moorman, cared for English poetry, and it was he who taught his son William to learn by heart 'large portions of Shakespeare, Milton and Spenser.' His library was at his sons' disposal at all times, and William - the most voracious reader in the family - soon found in



He also admits that his disposition caused his mother anxiety. He was the only one of her five children whose future worried her:

Early Years 5

Moorman implicitly outlines the character of Wordsworth's father as teacher and the manner of Wordsworth's learning under his aegis. She notes how preoccupied John Wordsworth was with the Lowther affairs, but as one reads her account, one finds it easy to imagine even this busy father as a learned influence on his sons. If William had to memorize poetry extensively, John Wordsworth must have heard him recite at least some of that poetry. He and his library were a center to which Wordsworth returned. John Wordsworth was free with his books and tolerant in the way his son could use them. At Penrith Wordsworth attended a dame school run by Mrs Ann Birkett, where he studied with Mary Hutchinson, his future wife. They read the Bible and memorized passages (Moorman 1: 15). They also used The Spectator as a text for reading. Wu quotes a Dove Cottage manuscript recording Mary Wordsworth's comments about The Spectator as a reader: '"What would our modern Teachers say, to the Spectator being used by Children under 8 years of age? - But this old Lady tho' no bad Teacher, was indifferent to method" (D.C.Ms 167 36v; her emphasis)', (Wds Reading 1770-1799 131). In the Memoirs Christopher Wordsworth comments that 'tradition reports' that Ann Birkett was concerned with 'exercising the memory, without prematurely taxing the reasoning powers, of her young pupils' (1: 33; emphasis his). He then immediately comments that Wordsworth approved of her insistent training of the memory. Wordsworth also attended for a time a grammar school in Cockermouth conducted not too successfully by a Rev. Mr Gilbanks. Though not an impressive teacher, Gilbanks apparently was neither taxing nor severe (Gill, Life 16-17; Moorman 1: 15). There were classical texts of John Wordsworth available to William before he went away to school, but he undoubtedly did not begin the serious reading of Latin, as we shall shortly see, until he went to Hawkshead in 1789. Wu discusses what is apparently one volume of Cicero, containing orations, De Officiis, De Senectute and De Amicitia. Though not used till the Wordsworth boys were at Hawkshead, it was still part of their father's library and a part of their father's image as a learned man (Wu, Wds Reading 1770-1799 28-9; for a discussion of a Nepos, see 105. See Graver, 'Wu's Reading' 2-3, for further information on the Cicero).



Fielding's novels, Gil Bias, Don Quixote, and Gulliver a world of endless delight opened up to him. (WW 1: 9; quotations from Memoirs 1: 34)


Gill adds an eloquent note to the catalogue of Wordsworth's preHawkshead teaching influences. Gill discusses Wordsworth's 'The Sparrow's Nest', with its great tribute to Dorothy, '"She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; / And humble cares, and delicate fears; / A heart ... And love, and thought, and joy"' (Life 17). He cautions us that Wordsworth came to a full realization of the power of Dorothy's influence only after many years, but 'their mutual affection was the one absolute good he remembered from his Cockermouth years' (Life 17). Christopher Wordsworth in the Memoirs also comments similarly on this poem and on the great blessing Dorothy was to his uncle: 'Her loving tenderness and sweetness produced a most beneficial effect on his character', all the more important because of '[t]he contrast between the temper of the brother and sister ...' (1: 34). What stands out in all these pedagogical influences is the way in which in their best features they complement the loving and wise training of Wordsworth's parents, especially the genial nurturing of his mother. We do not usually regard the 'Blest the infant Babe' passage of The Prelude (2.232-89) as an academically geared educational text as such. But if we notice his mother's attendance to him and his easy, trusting response, we see more than maternal bonding. An entire schema of affective cognition and bracing self-confidence shows itself in Wordsworth. From being held in her arms he developed a vantage-point absolutely imperial in its scope. Speaking of himself, he claims: For him, in one dear Presence, there exists A virtue which irradiates and exalts Objects through widest intercourse of sense. (2.239-41) There are several interesting differences between the earlier and later versions of this section of The Prelude. Jonathan Wordsworth in his notes observes that when the deletion from the 1805 and the additions to the 1850 are accounted for, we find that [t]he child's power and creativity are thus reduced ... and his responses have been sentimentalized. The result is a more credible baby, but a weakened statement of Wordsworth's intuition of strength drawn from the child-mother relationship. (NP 81)



6

Even when these differences are allowed, we still have a child whose relationship to nature and the world has been fundamentally shaped by its being nurtured by its mother, especially through the emotive force in that nurturing. The following are from the additions made to the later versions, additions found in the Fourteen-Book Prelude: Is there a flower to which he [the child] points with hand Too weak to gather it, already love Drawn from love's purest earthly fount for him Hath beautified that flower; already shades Of pity cast from inward tenderness Do fall around him upon aught that bears Unsightly marks of violence or harm. (2.246-52) The emotive texture of the passage is marked by the dramatic contrast between 'flower', 'hand / Too weak', 'love's purest earthly fount', 'pity ... tenderness', and then 'violence'. Wordsworth is very much in the school of the heart. Thus when the child so schooled by its mother becomes 'creator and receiver both, / Working but in alliance with the works / Which it beholds' (259-61), the child reciprocally nurtured - becomes reciprocally creative and thus is 'like an Agent of the one great Mind' (258). The child learns a power of creativity socially conditioned and emotively sensitized because its own entire process of maturation has been not isolated at all but grounded in a dynamic of loving affirmation and reconfirmation. Wordsworth's whole educational formation is the product of care without threatening concern. The process initiated in his mother's arms, at her knee, among his father's books, in his presence and shadow, all bespeak a reciprocally and affectively conducted tutelage which evoked a creativity because the tutelage was as tolerant as it was firm and tender. When Wordsworth speaks of his going to Hawkshead and describes the essential character of the total educational process there, he does so in much the same language he has employed in speaking of his education at home in Cockermouth: Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear;



Early Years 7

8 Wordsworth's Classical Undersong

(1.301-6) It is a 'seed-time', not a dominative regimen to which he must submit. He is '[f]ostered alike by beauty and by fear', an interesting contrast between the external made internal, 'beauty', and the emotive-internal, 'fear'. He is 'favoured' and is 'transplanted' to a 'beloved Vale'. Thus he is cherished and caringly handled, but is 'transplanted' - the botanic image correlative to 'seed-time' - and is controlled, but controlled in an emphatically nurturing and nondominating order. So it is that he and his brothers were 'let loose / For sports of wider range'. The pattern is set which will be repeated again and again. Like his parents, the educative forces in his life are loving, exemplary, tolerant and wisely firm, directive but cherishingly so. The parental-familial model is also imagistically reflected in Book 5, which deals explicitly with education and which - as we have seen appropriately contains Wordsworth's eloquent tribute to his mother: 'My honored Mother, she who was the heart / And hinge of all our learnings and our loves ...' (259-60). In the same book, in his fervid indictment of mechanistic education, we find a similarly domesticfamilial nurturing reference. In the strangulation of forced learning, nature is forgotten. The opposing imagery describing a kindly nature is eloquent: Meanwhile old Grandame Earth is grieved to find The play-things which her love designed for him Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn. (339-42) One of the most interesting discussions of Book 5 and of the issue of Wordsworth and education is to be found in Richardson's Literature, Education, and Romanticism: Reading as Social Practice 1780-1832 (see 122-6 for his treatment of Book 5). As we shall see, the whole of Wordsworth's education is characterized in similarly familial and affective imagery. His academic education and even his years at Cambridge are seen in this way.



Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less In that beloved Vale to which erelong We were transplanted - there were we let loose For sports of wider range.

Wordsworth also recounts his relationship to the classics, the way they were taught him and his characteristic regard for them and use of them, in this kind of imagery. In all of these commentaries he is impressively consistent. The way he was educated at Hawkshead and paradoxically to an important degree the way he was allowed to learn at Cambridge also reflect the teaching process begun by his parents. Ultimately that process of affection, model tolerance and wisdom will prove a fundamental guide to our understanding of the full ethical dimension of his poetry and critical doctrine and the way his classical undersong enriches his work. There is an honesty, a self-effacing candor in Wordsworth's treatment of himself. Often when he is acerbic in his critical arguments, he frequently steps back, conceding he may be pushing his views too strongly, but even his expressions of self-assurance emerge in contexts where he is open, detailed, admitting of his faults. We readily see that his convictions arise not from solipsistic self-regard, but from patterns of experience, wisely disciplined and challenged by the pedagogical force of those whom he loved and who clearly loved him. From every quarter, not just Nature, a pattern of beauty and fear emerged, urging him always not only to the frankness of confession but also to a simultaneous ideal of objectivity, the truth of the palpably real. In all of this learning process a social force and a social goal constantly exert themselves and draw him on. Even when Wordsworth speaks most cherishingly of the 'mind of Man ... / In beauty exalted ... / Of quality and fabric more divine' (14. 450-6), he does so to Coleridge as part of a program to serve humanity. Thus honesty, truth and audience-concern become ethical goals not simply informing his argument, but goals which are of the substantial fabric of his motives, ideals and loftiest expression.



Early Years 9

Wordsworth at Hawkshead: the Ethos of an English Grammar School

Wordsworth is eminently a poet of place and has brought Hawkshead and its environs close to us in some of the most vivid poetry in our language. The Free Grammar School at Hawkshead was both a major institution in a particular locale and a major example of one of the most important cultural institutions in the West, the English classical grammar school. Because Hawkshead School had been revitalized not long before Wordsworth's coming, both its ancient character and renewed academic discipline stimulated Wordsworth as a student. Later on he would say of his years at Cambridge that he felt 'a strangeness in the mind, / A feeling that I was not for that hour, / Nor for that place' (14-Bk 3.80-2). In contrast, of the summer before taking his degree, he speaks of France and really himself also as though both were 'standing on the top of golden hours' (6.341). But if ever there were a place and an hour aureate in their beauty and forever present to him, that place and that hour were at Hawkshead when he was a boy. Much of the character, curriculum, and even methodology of the ancient English grammar school survives today, but there is also much that has been lost. Just to imagine the academic routine of a school whose absolutely dominating regimen was the teaching of the classical languages is a challenge for us. Even where today the classics are taught with genius and enthusiasm, our overall curricula tend to be broad and frequently conflicting. A half-dozen subjects jostle for a student's attention. Then it was mainly the classical languages; usually they alone took up, I would estimate, routinely at least 70 per cent of the time and energy of most students. 2 Wordsworth himself shows us that he had a very definite opinion on the specialized nature of the English grammar school. In a letter to 10 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


2

the Rev. H. J. Rose of Cambridge University, in January of 1829, Wordsworth complains of what he regards as serious contemporary problems in education. He is concerned with what he feels is a lack of proper philosophical and religious grounding in such institutions as the nonsectarian infant school, the University of London, and the Mechanics' Institutes. He then describes the kind of school which he regards as having an authentic philosophical and religious basis, the Edwardian and Elizabethan grammar school: If we look back upon the progress of things in this country since the Reformation, we shall find that instruction has never been severed from moral influences and purposes, and the natural action of circumstances, in the way that is now attempted. Our forefathers established, in abundance, free grammar schools; but for a distinctly understood religious purpose. They were designed to provide against a relapse of the nation into Popery, by diffusing a knowledge of the languages in which the Scriptures are written, so that a sufficient number might be aware how small a portion of the popish belief had a foundation in Holy Writ. (LY II: 23) We notice immediately that Wordsworth in speaking of the grammar schools does not speak of the classics, that is, classical literature, history or philosophy, but only of the classical languages as these pertain to the study of the Scriptures. We also notice that Wordsworth claims a pragmatic, indeed an apologetic or rhetorical purpose for grammar schools. Wordsworth's description reflects one of the major motives investing the Anglican grammar school. For us his emphasis on language as the means whereby a religious goal is to be achieved is especially interesting. Wordsworth reminds us that the grammar school was not necessarily committed to the teaching of classical literature or cultures; its goal was a truly linguistic mastery of the classical languages. Such a linguistic goal characterized grammar schools very often even when a religious purpose was not primary. The Renaissance classical school in Europe generally taught Latin and Greek, both for the mastery of those languages and for the sake of relishing the literatures of Greece and Rome. But even the Renaissance classical school had a significantly heavy commitment to linguistic and compositional goals. It is not always easy to determine if indeed the Renaissance school maintained an appropriate balance between the study of the classical languages and classical literature. The fervid



The 'Ethos' of an English Grammar School 11

enthusiasm in the Renaissance for writing in a truly classical style complicates the issue.3 As Wordsworth notes, the English Tudor grammar school had a significantly religious cast. But the history of the English grammar school goes back to medieval times and to a degree can be traced to ancient Rome. It is worth pausing over that history. It tells us much about Hawkshead Grammar School and it helps us understand Wordsworth's experience with and attitude toward classical learning. The father of the history of education in England, Arthur Francis Leach, in volume 1 of Early Yorkshire Schools, a work devoted to the ancient grammar schools of York, Beverley and Ripon, begins by quoting himself and thus also quoting what has turned out to be one of the great statements concerning English academic history. The statement makes a claim about what at one time was thought to be England's oldest school, St Peter's in York: 'Such an institution is older than the House of Commons, older than the Universities, older than the Lord Mayor, older than the House of Lords, older even than the throne or the nation itself. Such an institution exists in the "School of the Cathedral Church of the Blessed St. Peter of York, commonly called St. Peter's School."' (vii) In our text (1898), Leach goes on to explain that the above claim (1892) for St Peter's in York as England's oldest grammar school must be set aside in favor of Canterbury School, whose founding his researches show to have been 'from 621, and, by fair inference, from the days of Augustine' (viii). It is possible to trace the history of the English grammar school back through the Middle Ages to the classical schools of rhetoric in ancient Rome, whose character was definitively established by Quintilian (C.35-C.100). One of the great historians of English classical education, Foster Watson, considers the connection more nominal than real (Old Schools 7-8). For Watson, however, the crucial moment in educational history came near the time Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor (800). It was he at about this time who established his Palace School and invited the great Alcuin of York to be 'schoolmaster in what was the pioneer Court School' (Old Schools 1). What is especially significant for Watson is that the curriculum in this school contained 'subjects' not for religious goals, but 'because of their bearing upon social and individual culture' and because they 'were independent of the ecclesiastical colouring' (1).




A recent scholar does not see the secularization of Carolingian education as so easily achieved. Charles Jones, writing on 'Bede's Place in Medieval Schools', and having studied the use of Bede's manuscripts as school texts in the ninth century, sees very little difference in what the monks enlisted by Charlemagne taught within the monasteries to student monks and what they taught in monastic or cathedral schools open to externs: So the theocrats Pepin and Charles were quite satisfied with the Jarrow curriculum and imposed it by fiat. After all, were not the militia Christi and the militia Caroli marching together towards the New Jerusalem? (271; emphasis his) It is worth noting, even in our brief consideration of the history of the English grammar school, that its connection with both church and state, with practical and even professional training, and at times with pious endeavor has frequently dominated the grammar school in its various forms all through its long history in the West (Watson, Old Schools 1-2). Watson also notes that grammar was crucial in the Carolingian court school and was strenuously insisted upon by Charlemagne as he enlisted abbots and bishops 'requiring them to attend rigorously to the spread of the "study of letters'" (2). Watson points out that in the Middle Ages and down into the Renaissance, the seven liberal arts were taught, the emphasis in the grammar school being on the trivium: grammar, dialectic (logic) and rhetoric. But Watson notes that there was not necessarily that much classical literature taught, nor even grammar. Because the instruction was oral and because the disputation method was so popular even for professional studies, the study of literature and even grammar largely was sacrificed to the study of dialectic (5-8). It should also be recalled that the use of Latin was essential in every profession and even in commerce. The grammar schools were successful from a practical perspective, so much so that many a schoolmaster was more accomplished in Latin than in his native language (9-10). With the Renaissance and with the development of printing, the whole nature of grammar school instruction became much more literary, linguistic and sophisticated (12-23). In England, however, the Reformation brought a severe dislocation and much irreparable damage to grammar schools throughout the country. Following the dissolution of the monasteries (1536 and 1539) and with the




Chantries Acts of 1546-48, large numbers of grammar schools connected with these institutions were suppressed. In theory new educational foundations were to be made and some were, and some grammar schools were simply refounded; Eton and Winchester were handled by special provisions. Still, many grammar schools were lost to English education (Old Schools 26-39). During the reign of Mary Tudor a number of the English clergy went into exile on the continent and most were influenced by Calvin and his followers. Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth I (1558) they returned and some founded grammar schools. Two prominent Marian exiles who eventually became archbishops under Elizabeth are of concern to us. Edmund Grindal, upon his return, became master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and in 1575 he became Archbishop of Canterbury. Grindal founded and endowed a free grammar school in St Bees in what was then Cumberland. The school is not far either from Cockermouth or Hawkshead (Old Schools 51-6). It is worth pausing to consider the statutes laid down for St Bees School by Grindal. They are detailed and reflect the religious dedication of so many Anglican clerics exiled during Queen Mary's reign. His statutes are most explicit about religious instruction and prayer and about the study of Greek. Neither of these elements is as such exceptional in grammar-school statutes, but Grindal has a degree of fervor and explicitness about both which is somewhat rare. But most interesting for us is the declaration in Chapter 6 in his Statutes and Ordinances in which he describes the nature and purpose of the languages and the classical works to be studied in his school: He [the schoolmaster] shall chiefly labour to make his Scholars profit in the Latin and Greek Grammar, and to the end they may the better profit therein he shall exercise them in the best Authors in both Tongues that are meet for their Capacity. Provided always, that the first Books of Construction that they shall read either in Latin or Greek shall be the smaller Catechisms set forth by public Authority for that purpose in the said Tongues which we will they shall learn by heart, that with the knowledge of the Tongues they may also learn their Duty towards God and Man. These Books only shall be read in the said School except it shall be otherwise appointed hereafter by those that have Authority. (St. Bees Statutes 9-10) 4 Next follows a reading list for the school which includes the




Catechism, Psalter, Book of Common Prayer, the New Testament, all to be studied in English, then the Latin grammar, then a list of 16 authors, Cicero figuring the most prominently because five of his works (rather standard) are named. There are the major Latin writers like Sallust, Julius Caesar, Terence, Virgil, Horace and Ovid. There are also some non-classical authors, such as Christian writers from late classical times, Prudentius for example, and Renaissance Christian writers like Mantuan and Buchanan (10). Also one finds Grindal's comments on Greek interesting. The Greek grammar of Cleonard is specifically required. Beyond this requirement the master is left to choose any Greek author he may wish. This suggests a minimal and linguistic cast to Greek study (11). A final instruction tells the schoolmaster that he may use these authors and works as he sees fit, but he must include study of the accidence and the grammar and the Catechism for each form. Finally he is to be vigilant that the students are not to possess 'lewd or supersticious Books or Ballads' (11). There are several items here of special interest as we look at the history of the English grammar school. It is important to notice the insistence from the beginning that students shall study grammar and, therefore, that this may be done, the schoolmaster shall 'exercise them in the best Authors in both Tongues that are meet for their Capacity'. We are reminded of Wordsworth's linguistic-apologetic definition of a grammar school given in his letter to H. J. Rose in January of 1829 (above, p. 11). Clearly in both Grindal's view and Wordsworth's understanding what mattered was first the mastering of the classical languages. And that this might be achieved, according to Grindal, authors are to be chosen who are 'meet' for the students' capacity. Obviously a grammar school in this view is not essentially literary but linguistic. It is helpful to recall that biblical study per se may not require a sophisticated reading of the classics, but classical learning is crucial for Patristic commentary. Grindal does not say that the classical languages are to be studied so that Anglicanism can be defended, but he does say that the students are to learn their 'Catechisms... by heart' in Latin and Greek and 'that with the knowledge of the[se] Tongues they may also learn their Duty towards God and Man'. Grindal is almost as direct in naming the religious purpose of a grammar school as Wordsworth. But the Elizabethan-Stuart grammar school simply repeats, though perhaps with more linguistic intensity, the religious character very possibly




already established in the clerical-court grammar schools from the time of Charlemagne. As long as Latin was a universal language and with the intense study of Latin and Greek encouraged by the Renaissance and Reformation, the grammar school would continue to be religious and linguistic. Classical style and Biblical Greek simply intensified a long-established pattern. Grindal's statutes are also important because they give classical status to non-classical writers such as Prudentius, Mantuan, and Buchanan. They are recommended for their classical style and decency of content. John Colet, Dean of St Paul's and founder of St Paul's School (1509), recommends Prudentius and Mantuan and others for the same reason (Watson, En. Gram. Schools 373-5). What are of concern immediately to these clergymen are both style and content, but the fact that style is so important even with clergymen tells us how much style alone mattered. Colet is quite explicit when speaking of the authors to be studied at St Paul's: T wolde they were taught all way in good literature, with laten and greke, and good auctors suych as haue the veray Romayne eliquence joined with wisdome, specially Cristyn auctours that wrote theyre wysdome with clene & chast laten other in verse or in prose, for my entent is by thys scole specially to incresse knowlege and worshipping of god & oure lorde Crist Jesus & good Cristen lyff and maners in the children.' (qtd in Watson 373-4) It is not surprising that a cleric, even before the Reformation, would have so explicit a religious purpose in establishing a school. What does surprise us is the way that purpose is tied to classical style: 'veray Romayne eliquence' and 'with clene & chast laten'. What also interests us is that the writers chosen by both Colet and Grindal are important not necessarily only because of definite religious content. Some of the writers are religious per se, but some are not. For example, Prudentius (348-410), an attorney, judge and official in the Roman imperial court, was famous for much religious poetry. George Buchanan, classical tutor to James VI, wrote Latin poetry but his general Latin output is not that extensively religious. Lactantius (c. 240-c. 320), named by Colet, was regarded as the Christian Cicero and his extant work is mainly apologetically religious in character.5 Mantuan, Johannes Baptista Spagnolo (1448-1516), friar and humanist, was famous for his Eclogues, a mainly secular work. Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost (IV.ii.95) has made Mantuan a part of our immediate literary




consciousness. Mantuan's content was suitable for students, and he was a fine Latin poet (Watson, En. Gram. Schools 302-3, 375-6). What counted, then, was not so much that these writers be explicitly religious - Watson calls Mantuan 'safe' (376); what counted was a decency of content and classical style. Ultimately style made the classical writer, not position in history or Greco-Roman cultural commitment. Again Watson expresses the situation very well as he describes Colet's position on authors: the founder of the great classical school of St. Paul's was anxious to combine the advantages of classical style, if possible, with Christian subject-matter. Cicero was not suggested, for he was a heathen; but the Ciceronian style should be induced through reading Lactantius. Vergil should not be studied directly, for he too was not a Christian, but the Vergilian style should be inculcated through Prudentius, Sedulius, and Proba. (375) Colet and Grindal are major sixteenth-century clerical voices. They are followed in the seventeenth century by Puritan educators whose religious concern was intense. The seventeenth century was the age when, according to Watson, 'the English Grammar Schools were most flourishing,' but 'they subserved a practical national aim' (Old Schools v). Puritan schoolmasters were not necessarily dedicated to 'the teaching of the classics per se'; they wanted the grammar schools to be dedicated to 'the intensive study of the Scriptures' and the formation of a true 'pietas literata' (v; emphasis his): The dominating aim of education at that time and for the next generation was, in the words of Professor Patten, 'the visualisation' of the old theocratic dispensation of the Hebrews. Undoubtedly the 'holy languages' helped the general aim; and the classical aspects of those languages 'were added unto them,' sometimes very effectively; often, it must be added, with much searching of heart, (v) That dedicated clergymen and zealous Puritans would turn classical study to particularly religious and linguistic purposes, as we have noted, is not surprising. What does amaze us is the capacity of pagan classical authors to survive and be revered in this heady religious context. Milton's education, as we shall see, in Colet's own school, is certainly religious but very comprehensive in its use of the great heathen classics.




The similarity between Colet's educational goals without Cicero and Grindal's goals with him is clear. The classical canon could be manipulated by them and others, but somehow the same great figures generally emerge because they were the masters of classical expression. Qualities of text created the canon, not credentials based on history or philosophy or culture. It seems effete to value so highly the 'mere' capacities of expression that they constitute what is claimed to be the truly 'classical'. But it is the classical style which is the constant element. Comenius and others in the seventeenth century could so decry the reading of pagan writers that they called for new texts whereby classical languages and expression could be mastered (Watson, En. Gram. Schools 535), but as Watson also points out such an exclusivist attitude was not usually characteristic of 'cultured Puritans'; they maintained the general theory that Latin, Greek and Hebrew were the 'holy' languages, which especially enabled the pupil to get a closer acquaintance with the Bible, and with the earlier times of the Christian Church [As they read the pagan classics,] pupils were duly enjoined to remember their own responsibility in living in an age in which religion had illuminated their life and transcended the possibilities of the authors whom they had to read for the sake of their language and style. (536) Puritan writers like the ancient Christians and the ascetics of the Middle Ages could protest the sensuality of the Greco-Roman body of literature, but it survived. Allegory eased it through the monastic curriculum and the qualities of language, their Biblical-linguistic significance, eased the conscience of the Puritans. But relishing the qualities of text one way or another shows up again and again in establishing the classics and in determining the quality of a text done after classical times as being worthy to be called classical. Milton, whom we will discuss on this point ahead, is our most pertinent example. This stylistic hegemony explains much that has been sterile and much that has been brilliant in the long history of classical education. Wordsworth understood the sheer power of supposedly 'mere' language. To a large extent his power as a founding voice of romanticism was nurtured by his mastery of the dynamics of classical expression.6 Watson sees in the collapse of the Puritan ideal a major reason for




the generally acknowledged fact that after 1660 the English classical grammar school fell into a decline (Old Schools v-vi). Other scholars do not read the history of the grammar school in quite the same way. Richard Tompson, in Classics or Charity? The Dilemma of the EighteenthCentury Grammar School, surveys the state of the grammar school at that time. Tompson points out how some authorities like A. F. Leach and J. E. G. de Montmorency see the grammar school in the eighteenth century at its nadir because of low enrolments, poor faculty, bad teaching, low standards, and lack of discipline (4-13). We must recall that England did not have any national system of governmentsupported, primary education until 1870. Thus most grammar schools were of private charitable foundation, operated independently, and as such legally were responsible only to the Court of Chancery and ultimately to the Lord Chancellor.7 Tompson sees the main difficulty of the eighteenth-century grammar school as caused by its theoretically exclusive classical curriculum. The classical education afforded the poor in a free grammar school was frequently of little use unless the student went on to the university. Various attempts were made to handle this problem. Because of inflation and other social factors, many grammar schools were practically ruined, but despite its many problems, by and large the eighteenth-century grammar school, argues Tompson, survived pretty well (78-103). Reforms in the general operation of charities were mounted at the end of the eighteenth century and finally issued in the founding of a Royal commission, the Brougham Commission, whose report came in 1819. Thorough reform in secondary education, grammar school curricula, and so forth, did not really get underway until well into the nineteenth century (Barnard, History En. Ed. 126-34). Reform seems to have been delayed by a legal action initiated at the end of the eighteenth century, but Tompson shows that there were real efforts at reform and much more was accomplished than is realized, and thus the grammar schools were changing by the end of the eighteenth century (104-16; 124-6). Speedy grammar-school reform was challenged by the famous Leeds Grammar School case which began in a suit in Chancery in 1796. The dispute centered on an attempt by the governors of the school to expand the curriculum by using endowment income for the hiring of two additional schoolmasters, one to teach writing and a basic kind of arithmetic used for bookkeeping, and a second master to teach French and other foreign languages (116-17). Because the schoolmaster at





Leeds refused to hire the additional staff, a suit was filed against him. He refused, claiming that the charitable foundation upon which the school was established would not allow income from the trust to be used for any teaching other than Latin and Greek, and, besides, surplus funds should be paid to the schoolmaster and the usher (117). The litigation was resolved in Lord Chief Justice Eldon's judgement in 1805. The essence of his ruling is described by Tompson as follows: Eldon found t h a t . . . the school was 'for teaching grammatically the learned languages.' He rested this definition on usage, and not merely on the terms of the founder's will and subsequent grants. Eldon did not say, however, that there was no room for any other subject besides classics or that it was utterly illegal for other subjects to be taught. (Eldon qtd in Tompson 119) Eldon had actually proposed a compromise which in effect required the litigants to work out a plan of reform whereby subjects could be added to the curriculum to the degree that these new subjects conduced to the main work of the school, the teaching of Latin and Greek (119-21). Unfortunately it appears that, both in further legal actions and in the popular mind, the Lord Chief Justice's ruling in effect prohibited any deviation in endowed schools whose charters stipulated that the teaching of Latin and Greek was the main work of the school. Still, as Tompson is careful to show, change and reform came to the grammar school anyway (124-6). For our purposes, the Leeds Grammar School case has a special interest because of the prominence given to the definition of a grammar school and thereby to the nature of the study of the classical languages. The issue at stake was whether or not anything besides the teaching of Latin and Greek would be allowed, and the ruling was that '"the Charity is a Charity for the purpose of teaching the learned languages'" and again '"for teaching grammatically the learned languages'" (Eldon qtd in Tompson 124, 119). Eldon decided the case on the basis of the statutes and the continued practice of the schoolmasters at the Leeds Grammar School. He was impressed when the governors complained in their petition that over the years "'nothing else hath been taught therein but the Greek and Latin Tongues'" (qtd in Tompson 117). We notice the word 'Tongues' and see why Lord Eldon ruled as he did, 'the school was "for teaching grammatically the learned languages'" (119). What strikes us is the way the linguistic emphasis has clung to and



20

really dominated the teaching of the classics. It is the classical languages which were taught primarily, even though - of course - the literatures of Greece and Rome were also studied and even though studying those literatures constituted the theoretical goal of the study of the languages, at least for most literate people. Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary had defined a grammar school as '[a] school in which the learned languages are grammatically taught'. It is as though Eldon had simply used Johnson's definition. He did not. He consulted the school's statutes and school practice over the years. In Eldon's influential judgement we catch what most people thought of the manner and the content of classical instruction: the learned languages studied grammatically. Judging from Tompson's detailed account, no one disputed Eldon's definition; the only discussion focused on the limitations in curriculum the Lord Chief Justice thereby stipulated. Nothing was said about classical literature or the Reformation-Anglican ideal of studying the languages of the Scriptures and their patristic commentaries. The nature and purpose of a classical education never seems to have been a major concern. The problem in Leeds was that it had become a rich commercial city. Interest in 'the learned languages' had declined; the only question was whether or not the charitable foundation would lawfully be allowed to support other kinds of teaching. That studying the classics meant basically studying 'the learned languages' 'grammatically' seems to have been a foregone conclusion. It also seems to be an important comment for us about how the classics were understood generally. Of course a moment's reflection would bring most people to define and defend the classics because of their beauty and power of thought. Lord Eldon was not academically narrow. 8 But the general sense of most late-eighteenth-century academic thinking on the classics would not automatically hail them primarily as literature. With much care and detail in his Classical Education in Britain 1500-1900, Clarke covers the history of the eighteenth-century grammar school in his chapter entitled 'The Unreformed Grammar School' (46-60). He is specifically concerned with the study of the classics and sees much that needed reform but also much that was excellent. He reminds us of the key importance of teachers and their power to inspire and to overcome all kinds of obstacles. Basically the picture that Clarke and Tompson give is positive. Grammar-school reform, despite the narrow interpretation drawn so generally from Lord Eldon's ruling, was very much the concern of the best educators in England. One of the most interesting reforms to get





started in the eighteenth century was that of prizing classical literature more for its own sake and less for its merely linguistic properties. The late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, the Neoclassic period par excellence, present one of the great paradoxes of literary history. For all of the feverishly formal imitation of classical literature, the study of the classical languages themselves becomes more and more an academic and learned achievement and less an enthusiastically embraced general cultural accomplishment supported by the rising middle class. More and more, French becomes the language of diplomacy. Latin and Greek are studied with scholarly zeal, but lose in the aesthetic affection of many of the supposedly cultivated classes. The classics become the task of schoolboys and the province of scholars. Clarke discusses two important eighteenthcentury changes, the decline of spoken Latin and the rise of 'verse composition' (Class. Ed. 46-8). We shall see that Wordsworth cherishes a special love for the classics which is related to his theory of romantic poetry: 'spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings'. Clarke, in his chapter 'The Schools in the Nineteenth Century', speaks of reforms in grammar-school education and of a '"new humanism"' (74-5). One wonders if possibly something of the nineteenth-century achievement in classical study was anticipated at Wordsworth's Hawkshead. Clarke tells us that at the beginning of the nineteenth century there were between seven and eight hundred grammar schools unevenly distributed throughout England: Certain schools such as Eton and Winchester had always been boarding-schools; others, owing to valuable endowments, good headmasters or other reasons, had developed into public schools, schools, that is, which drew their pupils from the country as a whole rather than from their immediate vicinity. But so far as curriculum and methods of teaching went there was little difference between one endowed school and another; from this point of view Eton was only the largest and most important of the grammar schools. (74) The story of nineteenth-century classical education is the record of reform and achievement especially in the way the classics were taught. Though Lord Eldon had ruled in 1805 that grammar-school endowments stipulated to support classics teaching were to be assigned principally to that purpose, Clarke argues that the classics would not



22

have remained the main subject of grammar-school instruction simply because the endowed curriculum was protected by law; 'there were many who were chafing at the dead hand of the past' (75). Reform came from within from schoolmasters who had been trained in the eighteenth-century system and realized that changes had to be made: The old system was revivified. The changes introduced may at first sight appear to be slight, but they were none the less significant. Englishmen did not talk about a 'new humanism,' but something which could with justice be so described gradually replaced the old humanism which had survived from the time of the Tudors. (75) In describing the achievements of public-school classical teaching, Clarke emphasizes the accomplishments of great master teachers of the classics, for example, Butler and Kennedy of Shrewsbury, Arnold of Rugby, Lee of King Edward's School, Birmingham (78-81). In many ways Thomas Arnold is most pertinent for us. On the one hand, he is famous for regarding '"the study of language"' as the perfect instrument for the education of a young person, and he especially admired the inherent powers of the Greek and Latin languages in this regard (qtd in Clarke 79). Thus one might consider Thomas Arnold as merely enthusiastic for the grammatical study of the learned languages. But Arnold cared for meaning and content above all else. He loved the Greek historians. He introduced Plato and even Aristotle to his sixthform students, even though Aristotle was usually regarded as exclusively a university author (79-80). In his teaching Arnold was enthusiastic and inspiring. The same power he exhibited so tellingly in the pulpit he also demonstrated in the classroom. He was always sympathetic to his material and concerned for his students. He loved the classics, but he loved the English language as well: '"Every lesson in Greek or Latin may and ought to be made a lesson in English."'9 The same kind of enthusiasm marked the teaching of Samuel Butler of Shrewsbury who had the power of convincing his students of the intrinsic worth of classical subjects (80). One of the best assistant masters under Thomas Arnold, Prince Lee, went on to become headmaster of King Edward's School in Birmingham. Lee was famous for the way he insisted on good English translations. This practice was far superior to so much translating done in the eighteenth and even early nineteenth century in which an English equivalent had to be





produced for each and every Latin or Greek word. Such literalism is hardly translating at all. Lee insisted that the Latin or Greek be taken fully into account and the closest English idiomatic equivalent discovered so that the capacities of both languages and the special qualities of the text would all be realized (81). This zealous emphasis on doing good English translations from Latin and Greek became a major feature in classical academic reform in the nineteenth century. The concern for 'good' English reminds us of Coleridge's schoolmaster Boyer and his concern for honest English diction. Clarke points out that Boyer's preference for Greek authors to Latin identifies him with the nineteenth-century grammar-school reform. Especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, '[t]he belief in the virtues of the original genius and the poetry of nature which grew up in the mid-eighteenth century gave the literature of Greece a greater prestige than that of Rome which was so largely derived from it' (Clarke 76; Biog. Lit. I: 8-9). The mention of Boyer and of 'original genius and the poetry of nature' takes us back to our original concern of tracing Wordsworth's classical education. Our next step is to describe that education. We have noticed that the great reforms and accomplishments of nineteenth-century, public-school classical teaching were really the achievements of talented, inspired, devoted teachers. In many ways Wordsworth and Coleridge seem to have had a classical education whose quality shows in anticipation the best of nineteenth-century classical teaching. Wordsworth's golden hours at Hawkshead were very much the gift of his extraordinary teachers and the gifted way they taught him the classics.



24

The Mancunian Paradigm, James Peake and the Hawkshead of William Wordsworth

For Wordsworth, the soul of education was certainly not 'the little that can be learned from books and a master'; what mattered was 'all that life and nature teach' (LY II: 19). We have noticed that Wordsworth felt himself an outsider at Cambridge, that he was 'not for that hour, / Nor for that place' (Prelude 3.81-2). Did Wordsworth similarly feel estranged at Hawkshead and simply learn from nature? Perhaps the answer is in the following from The Prelude: the earth And common face of Nature spake to me Rememberable things; sometimes, 'tis true, By chance collisions and quaint accidents (Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain Nor profitless, if haply they impressed Collateral objects and appearances, Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep Until maturer seasons called them forth To impregnate and to elevate the mind. (1.586-96) Wordsworth tells us that nature saw to it that nothing in his experience was wasted. His classical education at Hawkshead is largely a story of how the classics were more than 'chance collisions' or 'quaint accidents'. They were confederates of nature and emerged later on as a major, tempering undersong in his poetry and critical doctrine. Wordsworth not only attended a particular kind of institution, the 25



3

English classical grammar school; he attended a particularly good institution in that tradition. Hawkshead Grammar School was endowed and founded by Edwin Sandys (c. 1516-88), Archbishop of York, who had the vision and the practical experience of a successful reformer. He was self-exiled during the reign of Mary Tudor. He returned to England with the accession of Elizabeth I. He became successively the bishop of Worcester and London and finally Archbishop of York. Because of his scholarship, he participated in the preparation of the Bishops' Bible in 1568 (DNB). Sandys was a learned, realistic and devout churchman. Like many successful men in the sixteenth century, he wanted to found a grammar school in his birthplace. The school was established through Letters Patent of Elizabeth I. Sandys drew up the statutes himself, completing them in the year he died, 1588. In many respects these regulations are similar to other school statutes of the sixteenth century: the schoolmaster to be paid £20 and the usher £3-6s; the long school day, March to October, 6:00 or 6:30 to 11:00 a.m., and then 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. In winter the day began an hour later and ended an hour earlier. There are to be two vacations, one at Christmas and the other at Easter. Prescribed prayers are to be recited every day; there is to be religious instruction at least once a week, and the schoolmaster and students are to attend the parish church in a body on Sunday on a regular basis (Cowper 470-81). Sandys is especially important because, like Bishop Grindal in his statutes, as we have seen, Sandys requires that his schoolmaster know both Latin and Greek. The schoolmaster is to have '"good understandinge in the Greeke and Latyne tongues'" (qtd in Cowper 473). The usher is to take over in the absence of the schoolmaster and thus should have something of the same qualifications (Cowper 473-4). The curriculum is stated very simply and is for us the single most important item Sandys mentions. 10 The schoolmaster is "To teache gramm'r, and the pryncyples of the Greeke tongue, wth other Scyences necessarie to be taughte in a gramm schole"' (qtd in Cowper 472). Sandys is somewhat exceptional in being so explicit about the teaching of Greek. He is truly exceptional in speaking of teaching other sciences necessary for a grammar school. I have not found any direct supporting evidence, but it seems that this statement encouraged the teaching of mathematics at Hawkshead. The connections between Llawkshead and Cambridge were strong. Archbishop Sandys was at St John's as an undergraduate and was




master of Catherine Hall, and Wordsworth's teachers at Hawkshead were all Cambridge graduates. Their excellent instruction in mathematics had helped Hawkshead students do well at Cambridge (Schneider 4-5); it was a prized and famous part of the Hawkshead curriculum (Gill 27-8). The advantage of Archbishop Sandys' Statutes was that they could allow, possibly even encourage, development in the curriculum. As we saw in connection with the Leeds Grammar School case, the nature of many charity bequests to grammar schools with respect to curricula could be quite rigid, and even so, the bequests had to be followed. H. Swainson Cowper gives an account of some of the most trying difficulties in the history of Hawkshead School during the seventeenth century and then gives an important general comment: Yet, in spite of all these vexations, the school rubbed along and flourished in a sort of way through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: for the very reason that these were the good days of Hawkshead, and the class of schooling provided suited the state of local society. (494) Cowper reminds us that the Free Grammar School of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, was a grammar school serving a market town and a very rugged, at times almost inaccessible, section of northwestern England. But the area of and around Hawkshead was fairly prosperous at the end of the eighteenth century, and Hawkshead itself remained a fairly important place. Hawkshead Grammar School thus reflected the general prosperity and even the slow but real upward mobility of the local rural population. Since Latin and Greek and mathematics were the university subjects, Hawkshead boys who were clever would do well at the university and in the clergy and the other learned professions later on. Those lads who did not go on to the university found in the curriculum the standard academic training still accepted even for those destined for commerce or military service or farming. Thus from an economic and a sociological standpoint, Hawkshead was very much a 'general', middle-class secondary school. The classics and mathematics constituted its curriculum, but its academic culture or general ethos was bourgeois with that important strain of the bucolic which usually protects students and faculty from bourgeois pretension. Hawkshead was a very healthy social environment. It should also be noted that Sandys founded and Hawkshead remained a classical grammar school. Contrary to Johnston's comment (70), the



Mancunian Paradigm, fames Peake, Hawkshead 27

school did not provide for 'charity boys' until the eighteenth century (TWT 283-4). Archbishop Sandys gave a brief but broad curriculum statement. The headmasters allowed their charges enough time off so that they could avail themselves of the necessary services of a writing-master and the social benefits of a dancing-master (TWT and Woof 92-4). What we notice in this context is that Wordsworth's Hawkshead schooling, mutatis mutandis, especially if one substitutes Latin and Greek for modern subjects, was not that different from what one might find in a literate small-town secondary school in the US or Britain today. The basic academic environment would be much the same. Hawkshead did enjoy one special advantage, the quality of the teaching staff. There were four excellent schoolmasters at Hawkshead at the end of the eighteenth century: James Peake, 1766-81; Edward Christian, 1781-82; William Taylor, 1782-86; Thomas Bowman, 1786-1829. n Though apparently he was not graduated from Cambridge with honors, Peake must have had some reputation for scholarship. He was chosen headmaster of Hawkshead in the summer of 1766, after having completed only three years at St John's, Cambridge. He had one more term to go before finishing his bachelor's degree. His appointment is dated 24 July 1766. It was made by the bishop of Chester 'on a lapse' (Admissions St. John's, Part III 692; Venn). Peake was awarded his bachelor's degree in 1767, his MA in 1775. He was ordained a deacon in July 1767 and priest 25 September 1768. He remained at Hawkshead until 1781 when he was appointed through the patronage of Henry Augustus Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire, the vicar at Cartmel and minister of the parish church at Edensor. The parish was connected with the duke's great estate, Chatsworth. Peake remained at Edensor until his death in December 1803 (692). What clearly establishes both Peake's ability as a mathematician as well as a classicist was the success enjoyed by Hawkshead boys when they went up to Cambridge. Peake also apparently enjoyed a fine reputation as a teacher (TWT 50). Wordsworth was a full year ahead of other freshmen at Cambridge in mathematics (Prose 3: 373). Furthermore, when Peake came to Hawkshead, there were between 45 and 50 students. When Taylor succeeded Peake in 1782, there were 90 (Schneider 5). It should also be remembered that Taylor, a first-class mathematician, graduated with honors, second Wrangler, had been a student of Peake at Hawkshead. Hawkshead attracted good students even from other good grammar schools where mathematics was also




taught because Hawkshead students were so successful in mathematics at Cambridge. And in Wordsworth's time, students trained by Taylor and Bowman continued to send a number of very good mathematicians to Cambridge (4-5). A study done by Charlotte Kipling indicates that much of the mathematical work done at Cambridge in the eighteenth century falls below standard and certainly honors work done by undergraduates today. Kipling suggests that the very weak preparation of so many undergraduates in Wordsworth's time necessarily kept the standards lower than they otherwise might have been. However, Kipling demonstrates most amply that Wordsworth's Hawkshead training was more than sufficient to enable him to be graduated with honors. Her sense is that Wordsworth refused to compete for honors because he refused to submit to the whole complicated and, as he thought, odious process of honors competition at Cambridge. But she has no doubt that, given his superior Hawkshead training, Wordsworth easily could have earned an honors degree (96-102). The success of mathematics at Hawkshead leads us to inquire how Peake came to be so interested in mathematics and so accomplished a mathematics teacher. He attended two important academic institutions at points in their history of major scholastic reform, St John's College at Cambridge, which we shall discuss later, and Manchester Grammar School. Today Manchester Grammar School enjoys the reputation for being one of the finest secondary schools in England. In the eighteenth century, when Peake was there as a student, it was in the process of a major reform. Manchester Grammar School was founded by Bishop Oldham of Exeter in 1515 as a Renaissance grammar school which also was to provide religious instruction (Mumford 7-19). The school survived the various political, religious and economic challenges of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and by the second half of the eighteenth century it enjoyed a certain prosperity (20-204). One of the means enabling the school to survive and even prosper was the establishment of boarding houses and the granting of halfholidays on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday so that students could study such subjects as mathematics, French and even bookkeeping (Bunn 23-33). Provisions were made so that students could study mathematics in the eighteenth century quite seriously and even see scientific demonstrations (Hans 40). Peake matriculated at Manchester on 25 June 1759 and remained for about four years, entering St John's, Cambridge, in October 1763.



Mancunian Paradigm, fames Peake, Hawkshead 29

During his time at Manchester, the Rev. William Purnell was High Master. Purnell, MA Oriel College, Oxford, had been second master for 27 years and then became High Master in 1749. He continued in that position until his death in 1764 (Manchester School Register 33). Purnell was scholarly and benevolent. He had a retiring personality but was a dedicated and excellent teacher. During some of the most trying days Manchester Grammar School experienced in the eighteenth century, the dedication and talent of Purnell served the school very well indeed (Mumford 142-3, 151). What was special about Purnell was his broad literary culture, which enabled him to encourage his students to read modern as well as classical literature and which led him to collect money in order to expand the library holdings in modern literature, acquiring such works as Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, the poetry of Pope, Prior, Spenser, and works on ancient and modern history (143, 169, 525-6). 12 Purnell was also interested in plays, classical and modern. There was a Christmas play every year, and so important had this become under Purnell's supervision as high master that in 1759, 1760, 1761, the Christmas play was performed for the town in the first theatre ever to be erected in Manchester, a theatre which had just opened in 1753. The performance of plays caused Purnell to be criticized by a prominent local citizen to whom Purnell, a devout clergyman and also a humble man with a sense of humor, replied in part: 'My notions of the stage are different from yours. I think it may be made use of for good ends and purposes and to promote virtue and religion as well as the pulpit. There are some vices more fit for reproval by the stage than by the pulpit As to virtue and religion, I have as great a regard for them as yourself, but as to reputation, I am entirely indifferent about it.' (qtd in Mumford 191-2) Purnell was Peake's main teacher at Manchester. He is especially important because he cherished the classics for a broad range of reasons, one of which was their value in teaching English composition. Through his efforts, six, possibly seven, copies of Henry Felton's A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style were purchased for the school library.13 This was a popular eighteenthcentury work designed to teach students a sophisticated approach to the translation of the classics which in turn would enhance their English expression. Because Purnell purchased so many copies of




Felton, I would conclude that Purnell must have been convinced that the classics can be an aid to English composition (Mumford 142-3, 169, 525-6). 14 The point here is that the school Peake attended prior to his going to St John's at Cambridge was the model for the reformed Hawkshead Grammar School Peake brought into being when he came to Hawkshead in 1766. Certainly the most obvious similarity, the enlarged curriculum at Manchester, is matched by the emphasis placed on mathematics at Hawkshead. We have already noted that many Hawkshead students did very well in earning honors degrees at Cambridge. It is a significant indication of how strong mathematics was at Manchester that 1759, the year Peake arrived, has been called the 'Annus Mirabilis' for the grammar school because so many of her students had done so well in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos: the positions of first, third, and fifth Wrangler were all held by scholars from the Manchester School. It is doubtful whether many English Grammar Schools possessed equally good mathematical teaching at this period. (193) Of even greater concern to us than the mathematics is the teaching of the classics. Purnell's qualifications were excellent, his experience extensive, and his dedication and humanity a legend.15 But there must have been in the teaching itself something of the man who revered the classics but also loved modern literature, the production of plays, and the development of skill in English composition. It is impossible to imagine anyone as literate and humane and contemporary in his literary tastes as William Purnell not glossing his commentaries on the Latin and Greek texts with references to English literature. From the evidence we have of Purnell's academic character, there would certainly seem to be every suggestion that his treatment of the classics was richly holistic, that is, a treatment of the classics which regards them not as sui generis and supreme, but as part of a living, evolving literary tradition. I should like to stress again that it was Purnell who secured six copies at least of Felton's Dissertation on Reading the Classics. Felton is a powerful proponent of the holistic teaching of classical literature and encourages great creativity in studying composition. With some classics teachers, creativity sprang from competing with the classical texts as norms of style. With Felton the same competition was recognized, the classical texts enjoying a major standing as a norm of stylistic excellence, but Felton is much



Mancunian Paradigm, James Peake, Hawkshead 31

more daring in the ways he suggests the classical texts be studied for the sake of creativity in English.16 Much of this spirit of holistic classical teaching and even daring in using the classics as models for creative composition could well have shown itself in the teaching of Purnell. Peake entered St John's College, Cambridge, in October 1763. Very shortly St John's went through a major academic reform under its new master, Dr William S. Powell. In July 1765, St John's College authorities voted to establish semiannual college examinations (C. Words., Scholae 352-3). Wordsworth, as will be shown, did well in several of these examinations. Peake must have seen their implications for future Hawkshead boys going to St John's. Classics, though not part of the university's final examinations, were still important because some of the most prestigious prizes and awards given at Cambridge were given through competitive examinations in classics. Most of the Hawkshead boys who went on to the university went to Cambridge, and a large number of these went to St John's (Schneider 1-9). Peake was appointed to Hawkshead in 1766, and not too long afterward he began teaching one of his best students, William Taylor. The beloved teacher of Wordsworth is buried in the cemetery of Cartmel Priory. Cartmel is south of Hawkshead in the Furness Peninsula, and it was in this area that Taylor was born. He came up to Hawkshead, studied under Peake, and then went off to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in October 1774; he was awarded his BA in 1778 and his MA in 1781; he was ordained a deacon in 1780; and was master of Hawkshead School from 1782 to 1786 (Woof in TWT 342; Venn). Taylor was talented and very successful at Cambridge. He was graduated second Wrangler, that is, with second highest standing in the mathematical Tripos, which meant in effect second in his graduating class. He also won the second Smith's prize (Venn), one of two prizes awarded for excellence in mathematics (Schneider 26). Taylor had a close friend at Emmanuel who left a warm tribute to him in a work dedicated to the worthies of Cambridge University. Taylor's friend was the minor poet and critic George Dyer, the friend also of Charles Lamb, Coleridge, and Wordsworth (DNB; Moorman 1: 264). There is nothing minor about Dyer's tribute to Taylor. He begins by admitting that in the course of his discussion of the various colleges at Cambridge, his concern has been to recount the lives and achievements only of those who have 'left literary memorials behind them ...' (History of Cambridge 2: 391). Dyer goes on, praising Taylor as 'a man of no common talents and worth'. They were close friends,




though Taylor was an expert mathematician and Dyer's strongest instincts lay elsewhere. They studied, walked together, shared ideas and interests and reading well beyond the routine academic requirements. Dyer tells us that 'we disputed, but never quarrelled: we always parted friends— He was not less a man of taste than judgment; and our disputes were probably advantages to [us] both ...' (History of Cambridge 2: 391). It is this comment by Dyer which makes me question the possibility of much political influence of Dyer on Taylor (Williams 30-1). Dyer's eulogy, written long after Taylor's death, recalls the full range of Taylor's attributes and interests and gifts: his metaphysics, his classical scholarship, his lack of exterior polish and even apparently his accent, so many elements which showed Taylor as decent, caring, and wise, a perfect man to become a schoolmaster. Yet [h]e was not a man of the world: he, so to speak, had been never in it: but a most piercing eye, a very fine physiognomy, a childlike modesty, and natural urbanity, commanded universal respect and esteem [L]et those who knew William Taylor ... bear testimony, that he was endowed with the most excellent qualities, both moral and intellectual. (392) Dyer has a footnote in which he comments on Taylor's second place in the Tripos. He and another student were the two top mathematicians among the examinees. There was a friendly rivalry between them, so friendly it was no real rivalry at all. Taylor accepted second place, glad at his friend's success (393). Through the extensive researches of Thompson, as reported by Schneider, a volume of Chatterton's verse was discovered which once had belonged to Taylor. The following is inscribed in the flyleaf: 'To the Revd. William Taylor, Master of the Free Grammar School at Hawkshead, to mark my appreciation of his luminous and pertinent reflections on the poets of our time, and especially the unhappy boy whose genius is evident in many of the pieces contained in this slender volume.' (qtd in Schneider 77; 273, note 22) And here we begin to see the taste and influence of Taylor. Unfortunately we don't know what Peake's reading habits were, but if Purnell's taste for and encouragement of the poets of his time rubbed





off on Peake, we can readily imagine Peake's encouraging an interest in contemporary poetry in Taylor, and thus we see the marvelous effect of Taylor's attachment to poetry in the generous words of a grateful admirer. Schneider makes a good case for Taylor's affection for the eighteenth-century graveyard, and melancholic poets such as Gray, having chosen a part of the 'Elegy' for his tombstone. His affection for the tragic Chatterton is a logical corollary to his admiration for Gray. Wordsworth's own melancholy posture in much of his early verse, Schneider points out, could very well have been encouraged by Taylor (76-9). But also important in this context is the clear indication of the teaching methods and teaching ability of Taylor. Moorman points out that the donor of the edition of Chatterton's poetry was Edmund Irton of Irton Hall, Cumberland. His mother had married a second time and her husband was the Rev. Reginald Brathwaite, vicar of Hawkshead and owner of Belmont. This was a large home able to accommodate his new wife and her six children. Irton was 20 when Taylor became headmaster at Hawkshead (WW 1: 50). Thompson points out that Irton had left Hawkshead School by 1780 and had gone on to Trinity College, Cambridge (53). One wonders how the young Irton came to know Taylor and how he came to hear Taylor lecture or discourse on poetry. He is undoubtedly commenting from personal experience: '"my appreciation of his luminous and pertinent reflections on the poets of our time ..."' (qtd in Schneider 77, 273, note 22). But however Irton heard Taylor, his comments evoke a vivid teacher in whatever context he worked. Since the 'teaching of contemporary poetry was certainly then not part of a grammar-school curriculum, Taylor must have met with students on an informal basis and possibly had contact in this way with the local gentry. But it surely seems possible that any teacher with this kind of commitment to contemporary poetry and this kind of gift for animated elucidation would strongly demonstrate these gifts in the context of teaching classical poetry. Naturally we cannot be certain. There seem to be no accounts of Taylor's teaching methods. We can only conjecture on the basis of our own experience. I would suggest that what Dyer and Irton describe is a personable, enthusiastic, learned, and articulately holistic teacher of the classics. Moorman goes from her discussion of Irton's gift of the Chatterton to Taylor to the whole question of Wordsworth's reading of contemporary poetry. Given his somewhat strained and dependent financial



34

situation as shown so clearly in his uncles' account books (TWT 91), we can be rather certain that he did not have the resources to buy editions of contemporary poets (Moorman, WW 1: 51). In his recent volume on Wordsworth's life, Johnston offers an extended commentary on eighteenth-century poets Wordsworth read (76-92). Also, from the research of Thompson into Hawkshead School library holdings contemporary with Wordsworth, 17 we learn that the library apparently had almost no eighteenth-century verse, yet Wordsworth clearly demonstrates much knowledge of such poetry. As Moorman, Sheats, Stein and Wu remind us, 18 Wordsworth's own early poetry is rich in eighteenth-century allusion and echo. He tells in Book 10 of The Prelude that William Taylor 'loved the poets' (552). As Moorman suggests, Taylor must have shared volumes of poetry with Wordsworth, and thus Taylor proved to be the perfect teacher for an aspiring poet (WW 1: 51). Thomas Bowman, Jr, son of the Thomas Bowman who had become usher in 1784 and then headmaster upon Taylor's death in 1786 (TWT 342), commented extensively on one occasion about Wordsworth's reading. According to Bowman, Wordsworth was an enthusiastic, an omnivorous reader as a young man at school: 'But it was books he wanted, all sorts of books; Tours and Travels, which my father was partial to, and Histories and Biographies, which were also favourites with him; and Poetry - that goes without saying. My father used to get the latest books from Kendal every month, and I remember him telling how he lent Wordsworth Cowper's "Task" when it first came out, and Burns' "Poems" ' (qtd by Woof in Appendix IV in TWT 344) In correspondence with Thomas Bowman, Jr, upon the death of his father, Wordsworth expresses his gratitude that the senior Bowman introduced him to so much eighteenth-century poetry: '"Langhorne's poems and Beattie's 'Minstrel' & Percy's 'Reliques' . . . Crabbe & Charlotte Smith & the two Wartons"' (qtd in TWT 344). Mrs Eileen Jay, whom Woof cites and thanks for having shared the text with him of this recollection of Bowman, Jr, explains in her discussion of this material the meaning of Bowman, Jr's reference to Kendal. There was a library in Kendal, 'the "Kendal Newsroom" or "Coffee Room" ... established in March 1779. Its facilities were available to local gentlemen by subscription, and Wordsworth himself used the "Newsroom" in adult life ...' (Jay 28).




What Bowman, Jr, seems to be describing is a Wordsworth already familiar with and enthusiastic about modern poetry. Given Wordsworth's testimony in The Prelude and Edmund Irton's tribute and his enthusiasm for reading just described, we may inquire if there is any evidence to indicate how Taylor supplied Wordsworth with books and possibly even discussed or even explained poetry to Wordsworth. Taylor as a true teacher of contemporary poetry is clear enough in the Irton tribute. Unfortunately there seem to be very few documents extant pertaining to Taylor directly.19 One document, however, is helpful with our point at hand: Taylor's will. Taylor died in June 1786 (Woof's Appendix III and IV in TWT 336, 342). His will is dated 25 April 1786. In his will he makes bequests in favor of his mother, his aunt and two nephews, and his brother-in-law. It is the disposition of his library which is our main interest. Taylor assigns his library to his nephews, John Taylor Oldham and Matthew Oldham. He stipulates that the executors of his will, Reginald Brathwaite and John Brathwaite (Reginald was the rector of Hawkshead), are to be compensated for any expenses they incurred in handling his estate and they are each to receive ten guineas and books at their discretion from his library. The remaining books were to go to his nephews. He is quite specific about this item in the will. 20 The books are to be divided between the young men when they become 21. It seems unlikely that Taylor would speak so fully of his library unless the library were of some consequence. It must have contained at least some books of value and, one would assume, it must have been fairly extensive so that the executors could choose books for themselves and still there would be enough left as a bequest for his nephews. It seems reasonable to suppose that Taylor's library could have been a good source of books for Wordsworth. Taylor could very well have loaned and discussed eighteenth-century poetry with Wordsworth and Irton and others. Certainly he could have loaned volumes of poetry the way Bowman was later to do. In the spring of 1779, Wordsworth came to Hawkshead and remained until October 1787. Taylor took over as headmaster some time after May 1782. There is no record in the school archives as to exactly when Taylor came to Hawkshead. Edward Christian's resignation is dated 18 July 1782 (Woof in TWT 342). Dr Frank Stubbings, onetime Hon. Keeper of Rare Books, Emmanuel College Library, has pointed out that 'Taylor was elected a Fellow of Emmanuel in 1781 and continued to sign the "College orders" until May 1782, when he apparently went to Hawkshead.'21




Taylor taught at Hawkshead from 1782 until his illness and death in 1786. It is not possible to say precisely when he taught Wordsworth, presumably during most or all of Taylor's years at Hawkshead. During Taylor's time there could have been as many as 90 to 100 boys, and apparently there were four on the teaching staff: the headmaster, two assistant masters and a writing-master (Woof in TWT 342-3; Schneider 4-5). Taylor must have taught the top three forms at least. One wonders what authors, particularly what classical poets, Wordsworth studied under Taylor. In order to answer that question, we shall consider the standard authors usually studied in grammar schools at that time and note the authors Wordsworth clearly knew. Finally, we shall consider the textbooks Wordsworth is known to have used. At the end of the eighteenth century, as we saw above, there was a very serious debate in England over secondary education. The famous liberal Lord Brougham led a campaign in Parliament to investigate all charitable trusts and foundations, especially those designed to provide free education in grammar schools. Such endowments were the chief means whereby the poor could receive secondary education. Parliament, in July 1817, commissioned Nicholas Carlisle, an assistant librarian in the King's Library and Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, to conduct a survey of all endowed schools. Carlisle went about his commission with dispatch. He sent out questionnaires to all known grammar schools; he even advertised in The Gentleman's Magazine. In 1818 he published the results, a report on 475 schools (Mack 132-7; Carlisle 1: xxx-xliv). Carlisle's survey was the first of its kind ever published and provides an excellent picture of the English grammar school at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Carlisle's questionnaire mainly required information about each school's history, its board of governors and basic organization, its scholarships or exhibitions at the universities, the name and salary of its headmaster. Carlisle also asked for a copy of the school's statutes, 'the routine of education prescribed', that is, daily timetable or schedule, and the name of the Latin grammar used (1: xxxiii-xxxiv). Carlisle's two-volume report, A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales, is arranged alphabetically by name of county and then alphabetically by name of school. Only a dozen schools or so actually report by name the classical authors studied, but there is such strong consistency in the authors named and in so many other elements reported that it seems safe to assume a basic similarity in the classical curriculum. The weekly and daily




schedules are very similar: school six days a week with some free afternoons. The daily schedule has school starting about seven and running till five with about two to three hours off for meals, and so forth. Half-holidays are common as are about eight weeks of vacation. Many schools describe their classical curriculum the way St Bees describes its curriculum. We have noticed above that in the sixteenth century, Archbishop Grindal was most explicit about curriculum. He named the catechism, the Psalter, the New Testament, and then 16 authors, and with Cicero he cites a number of his works to be read. In Carlisle's Concise Description, the report from St Bees reads: The Eton Latin and Greek Grammars are in use — and the Classical Authors are such as are usually read in great Schools. Writing also and arithmetic, geography, English grammar, and various branches of Mathematics are taught by a Third Master, who has a quarterly charge on those who receive such instructions, the School being only free for the Classics. (1: 167; emphasis his) The comment on the nature of the classical authors studied, 'as are usually read in great Schools', is typical of many schools, indicating the prestige or conservative influence of the great public schools. The fact that so many grammar-school teachers were educated at Oxford or Cambridge also helped secure the sameness of the curriculum. Teachers will ordinarily teach what they have been taught themselves. Teachers will also be concerned to satisfy the needs of the best students. Thus, because usually some students, at least in the better grammar schools, were headed toward the university, the overall classical curriculum would be structured to satisfy university requirements. Even though mathematics became the dominant study for honors at Cambridge, the classics continued to hold an important place in undergraduate education (Clarke, Cl. Ed. 67-73). But even for those clearly not intending to go on to the university, there was, as we noticed above, a certain eclat in studying Latin. Thus for social as well as academic reasons, the grammar-school curriculum tended to be traditional and standardized. Certain authors are so standard they are almost universally studied: Ovid, Horace, Virgil, Juvenal, Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, Xenophon, Homer, Demosthenes. Others are very common but not necessarily universal - Catullus or Pindar, for example. But as one goes through the whole body of literature on the grammar school, one finds great consistency in the curriculum (50-5).




St Paul's in London, the school of Milton, readily exemplifies the conservative character of the curriculum and teaching methods typical of the great public schools. In the Carlisle report on St Paul's, the Statutes as written by John Colet, the founder of the school, are given. Under the heading '"What Shall Be Taught"', Colet discusses the curriculum. He begins by admitting that he is unsure about particular details, but he is sure that he wants good authors, both Christian and classical, to be taught. Colet is most insistent that the Latin studied and used be of the purest sort: T would they were taught always in good literature bothe Laten and Greeke, and good autors such as have the verrye Romayne eloquence joyned with wisdom, specially Cristen autors, that wrote their wisdome with clean and chaste Laten, other in verse or in prose ' (Carlisle 2: 76; emphasis his; spelling as in Carlisle) Aside from this quotation, the Carlisle report does not quote Colet's comments about particular authors to be studied. As we have already seen, Colet was very much a conservative Christian and admired Cicero's style but not the study of Cicero, because he was a pagan (Watson, English Grammar Schools 374-5). In Milton's time, however, as is abundantly clear from Clark's detailed study of Milton's education at St Paul's, a typical classical curriculum was vigorously in force. Clark discusses a manuscript from the seventeenth century preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge, from among the manuscripts of Thomas Gale, High Master, 1672-97. The manuscript, 'The Constant Method of Teaching in St. Pauls Schoole London', lays out the entire schedule of lessons, authors studied, exercises in translation and composition, and so forth., and the times for each lesson, each day, for all eight forms (classes) for a typical week. Clark then gives this entire schedule verbatim (Milton St. Paul's 109-13). Clark next synthesizes the main features of the classical curriculum as given in the Gale manuscript. Finally Clark presents what he calls 'Conjectured Curriculum of St Paul's School 1618-1625'. This is a curriculum which Clark arranges, having taken into consideration all the circumstances special to Milton's time at St Paul's. Clark shows a curriculum and class schedule which are practically the same as in the Gale manuscript for the end of the seventeenth century (110-21).




40


Conjectured Curriculum of St Paul's School 1618-1625

Class I. Class II. Class III.

Class IV.

Class V.

Class VI.

Class VII.

Class VIII.

Latin Grammar. Read Sententiae Pueriles and Lily, Carmen de Moribus. Latin Grammar. Read Cato, Disticha Moralia and Aesop, Fabulae (in Latin). Latin Grammar. Read Erasmus, Colloquies and Terence, Comedies, for colloquial Latin, and Ovid, De Tristibus, to begin poetry. Latin Grammar. Read Ovid, Epistles and Metamorphoses (and perhaps other elegiac poets), and Caesar and perhaps Justin for history. Begin Greek Grammar, and continue with some review of Latin Grammar. Read Sallust for history and begin Virgil, Bucolics. Greek Grammar and the Greek Testament in the morning. Begin Cicero (possibly Epistles and Offices), continue Virgil (and perhaps take up Martial). Greek Grammar. Read minor Greek poets (perhaps chosen from Hesiod, Theognis, Pindar, and Theocritus), Cicero, Orations, and Horace. Hebrew Grammar and Psalter in the morning. Read Homer, Euripides, and Isocrates (and perhaps Demosthenes), Persius and Juvenal. (Perhaps Dionysius for history and Aratus.) (121)

From the above and from various studies of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century grammar schools, Clark shows how typical his conjectured curriculum for St Paul's School in Milton's time is for the authors studied and the routine of classes and the exercises are quite standard (121-6). Our next illustration is from Carlisle's report. It too lists authors and classes. It is 'The Weekly course of Instruction', in force at Shrewsbury School at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This is the grammar school which Dr Samuel Butler (1774-1839) took over as



The exercises and themes were correlated with the authors and guided by textbooks of grammar and rhetoric.

headmaster in 1798 and turned into one of the finest public schools in England. Both as teacher and scholar, Butler enjoyed great success for a number of years, achieved fame and was made bishop of Lichfield.22 The advantage of seeing the 'Weekly course of Instruction' for Shrewsbury in detail is that it shows us the classical curriculum and regimen of study at a major grammar school in which are reflected most of the significant reforms in grammar-school education in nineteenth-century England. It was this curriculum in the hands of Butler, the master teacher, that trained some of England's best classical scholars. 23 It is quoted as it stands in Carlisle: The Weekly course of Instruction, for the Sixth and Upper part of the Fifth Form, is, on MONDAY. 1. Chapel. History. 2. Dalzel's Analecta Majora: The parts read in this Class are, Thucydides, Plato, the Greek Orators, Aristotle, and Longinus. 3. Cicero's Orations. 4. Virgil. Chapel. TUESDAY 1. Chapel. Repeat Virgil. Shew up Latin Theme. 2. Dalzel's Analecta Majora: The parts read in this Class are, the Greek Plays, Pindar, and the Greek Lyrics, Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius Rhodius. After the Second Lesson, a Lecture is given by The Head Master on Greek metres; or, from Copplestone's Praelectiones Academicae; or, on some subject connected with Antient Literature. Half-Holiday. Dancing, Fencing, French, Drawing, and Writing. WEDNESDAY 1. Chapel. Tacitus. Demosthenes, or Selections from Plautus: and repeat the Dalzel of yesterday. 2. Greek Play. 3. Horace. Odes. 4. Scriptores Romani. Chapel. THURSDAY 1. Chapel. Repeat Horace, Shew up Latin Verses.




42 Wordsworth's Classical Undersong Homer. Lecture in Algebra. Half-Holiday, as Tuesday.

FRIDAY 1. Chapel. Repeat Homer. Shew up Lyrics. 2. Juvenal, or Horace, Sallust, and Epistles. 3. Tacitus, or Demosthenes. 4. Virgil. Chapel. SATURDAY 1. Chapel. Repeat Juvenal or Horace. Lecture in Euclid. 2. An open Lesson: either English translated into Greek Prose, or into Latin Prose, the Master being present. A Lecture on the Greek Grammar. A construing Lesson in Greek Play, or what the Master judges most convenient. The Prepositors of the Week shew up Greek Verses. Half-Holiday, as Tuesday and Thursday. SUNDAY Church in the Morning. Chapel in the Evening. After Evening Chapel, the Fifth and Sixth Forms are examined in Pretyman's Theology, or Seeker's Lectures: The Fourth, in Watts's Scripture History: The remainder of the School, in the Catechism. (2: 389-90) In order to compare St Paul's in the seventeenth century with Shrewsbury at the beginning of the nineteenth, one should compare the top four classes at St Paul's, Class V through Class VIII, with the classes shown in our Shrewsbury illustration, the top three classes or forms, the two parts of the sixth and upper part of the fifth form. These forms were taught by Butler. What we notice immediately is that St Paul's teaches Hebrew, at least its fundamentals, to its top class, and Shrewsbury does not. We next notice that St Paul's begins Greek with the grammar in Class V and reviews Latin grammar in the same year. At Shrewsbury the form corresponding to St Paul's Class V, the upper part of the fifth form, would have completed its regular training in Greek grammar and is occupied with major authors, as are the two parts of the sixth form. In this connection the whole curriculum at Shrewsbury seems much advanced as compared with that of St Paul's. It seems amazing that so good a school as St Paul's would, for example, only have taken up Cicero's orations in its seventh class.24



2.

The extensive curriculum in Greek at Shrewsbury is strikingly in advance of that at St Paul's. This is revealed in such things as using Dalzel's Analecta Maiora25 and the inclusion of Demosthenes on both Wednesday and Friday as one major alternative to two major Latin writers, Plautus and Tacitus. Demosthenes is listed only as a possibility at St Paul's. Also among the Greek authors studied at Shrewsbury are Aristotle and Longinus. They do not show up often among grammar-school authors. Aristotle was not that highly regarded as a philosopher in the eighteenth century and only the Poetics and Rhetoric were widely read. 26 Finally, we notice that the 'Prepositors of the Week', that is, the monitors at Shrewsbury, are required to do Greek poetry. Shrewsbury reflects the augmented study of Greek in the nineteenth century, and St Paul's teaching of Hebrew recalls the grammar school's commitment to biblical study. The authors studied, however, are generally the same. In Greek both schools studied Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Theocritus and playwrights. In Latin the similarity is even greater: Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Sallust and Cicero. Also at Shrewsbury the Eton anthology Scriptures Romani was used. Through using such a common anthology Shrewsbury would also teach authors found at St Paul's. Both schools did translation and verse composition in Latin and Greek. The verse composition is not shown in Clark's 'Conjectured Curriculum', but it is discussed and illustrated further on in his text (198-208). St Paul's in Milton's time and Shrewsbury under Butler were similar in other respects. Butler was a great classical scholar and one of the great schoolmasters of England (Clarke, Greek Studies 14, 23, 91-2). Milton's headmaster, Alexander Gil, was an excellent classical scholar and teacher (Clark 65-99). Both schools were about the same size, 153 students at St Paul's with three masters to teach them (42). Shrewsbury had 130 with a headmaster and second master (Carlisle 2: 387-8, 394). At both schools it was relatively easy for the headmasters to get to know their students and have a positive influence on them. Clark comments that Alexander Gil, Milton's headmaster, and Alexander Gil, Jr, undermaster in Milton's time, but not a teacher of Milton, both had a profoundly beneficial influence on Milton (65-6, 98). Wordsworth undoubtedly studied such standard schoolboy works as the Distica Catonis or some such text to learn sufficient phraseology in order to do a minimum of Latin conversation at least for the classroom exercises.27 Schneider is one of the first to comment extensively on Wordsworth's classical curriculum at Hawkshead and St John's,





Cambridge. Schneider points out that Wordsworth would have studied Virgil, Horace, Caesar and Cicero at Hawkshead; and for the semiannual examinations at St John's, he would have studied Horace, Virgil, Tacitus and Livy, and in Greek Xenophon, Sophocles and Demosthenes (Schneider 68). As we have seen, these are standard authors in good grammar schools. When the Greek authors are taken into account, we see that Wordsworth participated in a sophisticated classical curriculum. But in order to grasp the range of Wordsworth's classical study and also something of its depth, we should note at what stage Wordsworth began the study of Greek and we should consider how seriously he pursued this study. Schneider has claimed, 'For even from a purely academic standpoint, Hawkshead was one of the best schools in England' (4).28 For this to have been true, the curriculum in Greek was crucial. Furthermore, enhancement of Greek studies was a major element in the reform of classical teaching at the public schools in the nineteenth century (Clarke, CL Ed. 76; see also his Greek Studies 22-4). Wu in his detailed Wordsworth's Reading 1770-1799 provides the most complete presentation available of classical authors known either certainly or possibly to have been read by Wordsworth during his years at Hawkshead and Cambridge. Some authors were studied in academic texts and some were possibly read only in translation (for example, Aristophanes). Some authors, like the Greek poets Anacreon and Callistratus were translated by Wordsworth as part of his early work in poetry. 29 From various sources, Wu documents Wordsworth's familiarity with the following Greek authors: Anacreon, Aristophanes, Callistratus, Demosthenes, Homer, Lucian, Moschus, Sophocles, Theocritus and Xenophon. He does the same with the following Latin authors: Caesar, Catullus, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Livy, Quintilian, Lucretius, Martial, Nepos, Ovid, Phaedrus, Pliny the Younger, Statius and Virgil. This is an impressive list by late eighteenth- and even nineteenth-century standards as can be seen from our consideration of authors studied at Shrewsbury. Thompson and Woof in his annotations (90-1) and Wu (Wordsworth's Reading 1770-1799 169-70) give detailed accounts of books purchased for Wordsworth when he was at Hawkshead. Both Thompson-Woof and Wu quote Ann Tyson's Account Book and the accounts kept by Wordsworth's guardian uncles, Richard Wordsworth of Whitehaven and Christopher Crackenthorpe Cookson. Of special interest are the Greek texts purchased for Wordsworth. Ann Tyson records '"A Greek Exercises'" (Wds Reading 1770-1799 169); and



44

Richard Wordsworth's account shows '"2 Vol Homer & 1 Vol. [sic] Lucian for my Nephews'" (170); and from the same '"a Hedrick's [sic] Lexicon for William"' and '"a Demosthenes for William"' (170). The Ann Tyson Account Book also has an item of special interest, 'Paid for Anabasis'. The Anabasis was for Robert Greenwood, a schoolmate of Wordsworth (169). If Greenwood studied Xenophon, Wordsworth must have also studied Xenophon at school. These Greek texts are significant because they reveal that Hawkshead in the 1780s was teaching Demosthenes, an achievement of Samuel Butler's students in their highest forms. Emphasis on Demosthenes apparently did not reach St Paul's until the 1830s (Clarke, CL Ed. 81). Wordsworth was '"in Greek"' at 15 and doing Demosthenes at 16 (TWT 90-1). The fact that he received his own dictionary, that is, '"a Hedrick's [sic] Lexicon for William"' at the cost of one pound indicates seriousness in his classical studies. A pound was a considerable sum in those days. The 'Hederick's Lexicon Manuale Graecum ... [is] a Greek-Latin/Latin-Greek word-book which went through several editions in the eighteenth century' (Woof note in TWT 91). Though textbooks would surely have been shared and passed down from one Wordsworth brother to another, possibly William would keep both the word-book and the Demosthenes for Cambridge where he hoped to distinguish himself and earn a fellowship. As Schneider points out, Hawkshead boys had done well at Cambridge (4-7). Furthermore, given the quality of Wordsworth's instructors, his comment that Shaw taught him Latin so well, the excellence of Manchester Grammar School and Peake's clear teaching success at Hawkshead, and the very high quality and personal commitment of Taylor and Bowman, both Wranglers, one can see how Wordsworth's Greek curriculum could be so advanced. But the intriguing question is, how did Wordsworth actually study these classical authors? We know from his letter to Landor that as a student at Hawkshead he was not required to compose Latin or Greek verse (LY I: 125). Such a requirement commonly obtained in most public schools and good grammar schools. Wordsworth's experience was clearly something of an exception (Clarke, Greek Studies 18-19; Cl. Ed. 16-20, 58-9). There is another feature in the classical training at Hawkshead which seems a bit singular, not because it was done, but because it was done so generally that it must have been done with official approval and even perhaps encouragement. I refer to the use of translations or 'ponies'. It is possible to document a number of translations of major




authors which Wordsworth had at hand and apparently used in the preparation of his lessons. For example, we have already noted from the remark of Thomas Bowman, Jr, recalling his father's comment, that Wordsworth used the '"old books'" in the school library and that he used the Sandys translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Metamorphosis [sic] in 1632 edition, the one used at Hawkshead).30 In the foreword to the 1970, University of Nebraska Press, text of the 1632 edition, Bush comments extensively on the virtues of the Sandys translation. He begins his discussion by quoting the first nine lines of the Metamorphoses. This is followed by translations from Golding, Sandys and Dryden. Bush then comments in part: In substance Golding here follows Ovid with relative fidelity, but his tone is hardly Ovidian and the movement of his long lines [fourteeners] is monotonous. Sandys aims always at extreme conciseness and does not admit the padding that translations in verse commonly invite [B]oth Golding and Dryden are less literal and more lucid, (ix) Bush concludes his foreword, 'The reading of Sandys, both the translation and the commentary, gives us the feeling and flavor of Ovid in the last age of his full fame' (xiii). Thus Bush praises the Sandys translation as superior to Golding's and different from and in certain respects more interesting than Dryden's. Sandys 'gives us the feeling and flavor of Ovid'. This praise that Bush offers for the value of the Sandys translation recalls the values which Graver has demonstrated Wordsworth shows in his translation of the Aeneid. Wordsworth sought a new kind of translation, not one tightly literal, nor one loose and paraphrastic, but a translation literal enough and yet also one adroitly idiomatic in its English expression so that both Virgilian-Latin qualities and authentic English expression subsist in a single, aesthetically coherent whole, an authentic yet interesting 'translation that preserves its [the Aeneid's] qualities of sound, syntax, cadence and meaning' ('Wds. & Lang, of Epic' 274; emphasis his). Surely such an achievement is similar to the achievement Bush attributes to Sandys, who 'gives us the feeling and flavor of Ovid'. Graver does not suggest that Wordsworth derived his concept or ideals of translation from the George Sandys translation of Ovid. The Sandys translation is one of the most used books in the Hawkshead Grammar School Library. It is virtually impossible to know who used




a book like this, and when, in such a library, but Bowman, Sr, did say that Wordsworth used this volume. Probably other students did as well. But possibly Wordsworth's clear attachment to this translation of Ovid and the fact that so much of his Latin and probably Greek training come through the use of similar translations indicate that Wordsworth's skill as a translator began in the regular use of classical translations like these when he was at Hawkshead. Wordsworth's use of a translation as a formal device in his education began with a very special kind of Latin grammar which was used at Hawkshead. The history of Latin grammars in England, especially since the Renaissance, is a fascinating and complex story. Here we can consider only some of the highlights. What is known as Lily's Grammar was made from an accidence, done in English by Colet and Lily (eight parts of speech, declensions, conjugations, and so forth.). The second part, done by Lily and Erasmus, was a syntax in Latin containing grammatical verses by Lily, sections on figures of speech, prosody, quantity, and so forth. The first part was known as A Shorte Introduction of Grammar, and the second as Brevissima Institutio seu Ratio Grammatices.31 The Lily Grammar became the authorized grammar by royal decree in about 1540, though it was by no means the only grammar used in England. In 1758, the Lily Grammar was taken over and changed by Eton College 'and became known as the Eton Latin Grammar' (Watson, En. Gram. Schools 243-59; for further comments on grammar, see Watson 273-5). The problem with the Lily or Eton Grammar was that the syntax was in Latin and the general pedagogical method employed in teaching the syntax was to have students memorize it in Latin, even though, in many cases, they did not understand the rules they were learning by heart (Clarke, Cl. Ed. 51; Watson, En. Gram. Schools 261). In the seventeenth century the Lily Grammar had been completely translated into English in various editions (Watson, En. Gram. Schools 265-6). Wordsworth used a very special kind of text which translated and annotated elaborately some of the most difficult sections of the Lily-Eton Grammar. The text was done by Thomas Dyche, clerical schoolmaster and author and compiler of many school texts. 32 It is worth quoting its full title and other comments from the title page in order to see what his Latin text offered: The Youth's Guide to the Latin Tongue: or, an EXPLICATION of Propria quae maribus, Quae genus, and As in praesenti. Wherein the Rules are made plain and easy to the Capacity of




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The sections of the Lily-Eton Grammar which Dyche translates and explains deal with such troublesome items as the gender and declension of proper nouns and rules governing the formation of the perfect tenses of verbs, and so forth. In the Lily-Eton Grammar, these sections of the rules are presented in Latin hexameter verse, the first and third by Lily and the second by Thomas Robertson, another sixteenthcentury schoolmaster (254). Dyche's process of literal translation coupled with explanations is so elaborate, it almost amounts to an illustrative treatise on the art: and value of literal translation. In his Preface Dyche explains that his purpose is to help students understand the rules they are required to memorize. He makes no apologies for dealing with basic information and not offering elaborate glosses. He writes for young students, not scholars, and his purpose is to make 'our Common Grammar, however censured by some ...as instructive as any that can be made use of (ii; emphasis his). Watson shows that all kinds of elaborate translations and commentaries had been done on the Lily Grammar (En. Gram. Schools 265-72). The Lily Grammar was instituted as the 'authorised Latin Grammar' about 1540, and its institution 'is parallel to the authorization of a particular rendering of the Scriptures' (252). It continued as the 'authorised' grammar despite frequent challenges (a bill to strip it of official status was introduced in the House of Lords as late as 1675 but was then dropped). When it was taken over as the Eton Grammar in 1758, it retained '[t]his recognition' until 1868 (259). By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries royal authorization was not nearly so important as the social prestige of the grammar's being identified as the Eton Grammar (Stray 2-3). With Dyche, then, one gets the Eton rules with all of their cultural and academic authority plus much enlightened training in translation. It may be because Shaw used this grammar (with Peake's approval) that Wordsworth claimed he learned so much Latin so efficiently from him (Prose 3: 372). There is good evidence to suggest that the Eton Grammar was in use at Hawkshead by 1785. Perhaps Thomas Bowman, Sr, was not as enthusiastic about the Dyche as were others at Hawkshead. In the Nicholas Carlisle report on Hawkshead School in 1818, Carlisle states: 'The Eton Grammars are now used here: and the system of Education is nearly the same as at all other public Schools'



young Learners, By A new Verbal Translation, the Examples declin'd, and the Sense illustrated with useful Notes and Observations from the best Grammarians (Italics his). 33

(Concise Description 1: 662). Perhaps that comment suggests, especially by the adverb 'now' and the reference to the education at Hawkshead being the same as 'all other public Schools', that the Dyche grammar has been abandoned and that Hawkshead has taken on the typical academic regimen of a standard public school: 'Eton Grammars', both Latin and Greek, and very probably composing verse in Latin.34 To return to Wordsworth and his use of translations, we find that possibly his earliest classics text is Phaedrus, Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque, 1765. 35 This text is preserved in the Swarthmore College Library. It provides an intricately arranged but literal translation of Phaedrus' version of Aesop's tales; its manner of presentation is similar to that of Dyche. In the front part of the book at the left side of each line of each tale are to be found numbers running from one through six or seven as determined by the number of words in each line of Phaedrus' verse. The numbers indicate the place for each word if grammatical English word order were to be employed. In the back of the text is a special vocabulary where each word stands alphabetically but verbatim, that is, as it stands in the text - not changed to nominatives or principal parts. Tale and line numbers are provided. The particular meaning of each word in each and every one of its contexts is given and each word is parsed as it stands in each context. The students get both full, idiomatic translation and a full explanation of how the word achieves the meaning assigned to it in each instance of its use. In his preface to the Phaedrus, the editor-translator N. Bailey is very defensive about doing any translating whatsoever. He pleads that he has used as simple an English equivalent as he could find for the Latin. He wants to be accurate and clear, not figurative, and as helpful as possible. Some may accuse him of making his text too easy for students. He argues that he has not; he maintains that the young need every assistance. He points out that many Latin students have invested five or even six years in the study of Latin with really little to show for their efforts. Bailey contends that the main reason for their slow progress is the great amount of time spent memorizing Latin grammar rules. He insists that his system is much more effective, that it really works (vii-viii). It is interesting to pause over Bailey's comments. For him the goal of Latin study is the reading of the text, not the elaborate mastering of Latin grammar as such. As we shall see, Wordsworth also cared most about the classics for themselves, and he cared deeply about the art of translation. These important components in his relationship to the classics could thus have begun with his earliest texts.




Wordsworth intended to do professional translation or work close to it. In association with Francis Wrangham, he did the 'Imitation of Juvenal' in the mid-1790s (Graver, 'W's Translations from the Latin' 20; PW 1: 32-6, 372-4). This familiarity with Juvenal probably began at Hawkshead since Juvenal was a standard grammar-school author. Thanks to the efforts of Wu, we possibly have the Juvenal translation Wordsworth used. In the school library is a copy of the Stapylton translation in which Wu has discovered the signatures of Robert Greenwood and Fletcher Raincock, contemporaries of Wordsworth, and a signature which could very well be that of William Wordsworth from that time (Wds Reading 1770-1799 79-80). Wordsworth also used a translation of Horace and this is one of the most sophisticated he employed. It would appear certain that he owned at least the second volume of the Christopher Smart translation of Horace (The Works of Horace Translated into English Prose ... Dublin, 1772; Graver, 'W's Translations from Latin' 63; Wu, Wds Reading 1770-1799 76-7). Though a literal translation, this is nevertheless a supple handling of Horace. Smart enhances his treatment of Horace with some excellent annotations, some by Smart himself and some drawn from other classical critics. For example, one favorite critic whom Smart quotes or summarizes fairly often is Richard Hurd, the great eighteenth-century editor and critic of Horace. As we shall see, Wordsworth made a fine art out of a kind of literal translation, a translation which almost matches the Latin and English texts competitively. Finally, both Wu and Graver show that Wordsworth was very familiar with Dryden's translation of Virgil. Wu also shows that Wordsworth and his brothers had clearly used the Pitt translation of the Aeneid (dated 1736; Wu, Wds Reading 1770-1799 140-1). 36 We have seen that in connection with every major author, Wordsworth used a translation. It would seem that such a practice was sanctioned by his schoolmasters. We have also noted that he did no Latin verse composition. In the next section we will take up the implications of these two elements in his education because they figure so explicitly and implicitly in his work with the classics at Cambridge. But here we can pause to realize how consistent such instructional broadmindedness is with the whole procedure of teaching at Hawkshead and the whole fabric of Wordsworth's life during his Hawkshead years. Peake came from a reformed and enlightened Manchester Grammar School. He earned an excellent reputation for Hawkshead (TWT 90) and created a lively academic environment




which enabled Wordsworth to learn and enjoy not only mathematics and classics but also French and even dancing (92-4). Taylor and Bowman, as we saw, also considerably expanded Wordsworth's education through the leaven of contemporary poetry and broad reading (342-7; Jay 28). Gill pays special tribute to the excellent classical education Wordsworth received, its 'humane' character, its power to enable him to love the classics for themselves (27), and especially its demonstration that there was no '"burden of the past"'; there was instead a 'continuum' between the 'Classics prescribed for study' and the literature of his own time. His teachers, 'young enough themselves, perhaps, still [felt] ... some of the enthusiasm they fostered in their pupils' (29). These elements cannot be stressed enough. Wordsworth was educated holistically, by a father who was both a lawyer and a lover of poetry, by Peake, mathematician and student of Purnell, classicist, mathematician, and lover of contemporary literature, and especially by Taylor and Bowman. The one was honors graduate, metaphysician, mathematician, friend and lively foil to Dyer, and generous in sharing his love for contemporary poetry. Taylor was undoubtedly educated holistically by Peake and very probably by William Bennet, Bishop of Cloyne, who, as Fellow of Emmanuel College when Taylor was an undergraduate, lectured brilliantly on the classics and readily and affectionately related them to British literature. 37 Bowman, also an honors graduate, generous with his books, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and tutored by the excellent scholar William Collier (Regius Professor of Hebrew) who himself was a published poet. 38 Hawkshead provided Wordsworth with the same affection, tolerance, example, and wisdom that he had enjoyed at home at Cockermouth. He was spared the tedium and artificiality of Latin verse composition and was allowed to use translations honestly with the effect that he became a skilled translator himself and a connoisseur of texts. Here at Hawkshead he began to write poetry with an ethical zeal nurtured by the genuineness of the homely but inspired academic world which he so warmly shared.




Of my earliest days at school I have little to say, but that they were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty, then and in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked. For example, I read all Fielding's works, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and any part of Swift that I liked; Gulliver's Travels, and the Tale of the Tub, being both much to my taste. (Auto. Mem., Prose 3: 372) It seems presumptuous to attach much importance to Wordsworth's education when he so disarmingly emphasizes that at its earliest stages at least it was mainly a matter of freedom and reading. It is also interesting to discover that the poet Wordsworth so readily recalls reading so much prose. It seems even more presumptuous to attach importance to Wordsworth's Cambridge education when such an assertion is clearly and even plaintively undercut by his comments in Book 3 of The Prelude: Yet, from the first crude days Of settling time in this untried abode, I was disturbed at times by prudent thoughts, Wishing to hope, without a hope; some fears About my future worldly maintenance; And, more than all, a strangeness in the mind, A feeling that I was not for that hour, Nor for that place. (75-82) 52



Cambridge and 'knowledge ... sincerely sought and prized / For its own sake'

In a frank passage in Book 3 he accuses himself of being 'a spoiled Child' and unable to accept the 'captivity' which then he equated with 'in-door study' (355, 359, 370). In general his characterization of Cambridge is negative mainly because it failed to build an academic community where disinterested learning mattered before all else (374-401; 449-81). Gill reminds us that Wordsworth did indeed fail to use his opportunities at Cambridge made possible by his Hawkshead education and 'connections who could ease the way to academic and Church preferment' (37). Unfortunately 'within five years' he 'had thrown away every advantage' and despite 'an excellent start he had abandoned serious academic competition, taking only a pass degree' (37). Schneider explains how the system of academic competition or 'emulation' worked at Cambridge (25-39) and cites that and Wordsworth's being socially disadvantaged as causing his alienation, '[m]arked by his gown as a poor boy, eating left-overs from the Fellows' table, ... his culture nullified by his brogue, his gold [was] turned to lead by his station in the new society' (47). Moorman offers the view that Wordsworth's 'dislike [of emulation] was, perhaps, the main obstacle in the way of his obtaining a fellowship'; he was appalled at seeing the 'havoc' which 'the "low and mean" passions' caused when these were roused by competition (1: 96). Gill is sympathetic to the evaluations of Schneider and Moorman, but he also points out that Wordsworth's main reason was 'a resistance to having his life shaped for him by those he did not like and in ways he could not approve' (40). Johnston is much of the same mind as Gill (170-4). I would agree with Moorman and add that too little attention is paid to Wordsworth's eloquent description of what a university should be, a place cherishing 'a conviction of the power that waits / On knowledge, when sincerely sought and prized / For its own sake' (3.391-3). Schneider and Gill, however, both document the serious study Wordsworth gave to classical authors and to poetry. Gill speaks of Wordsworth's 'enjoyment of the Classics as living literature', his extensive reading of English poets, his allusiveness as reflected in An Evening Walk (41-2). Schneider recounts the classical authors Wordsworth studied at Cambridge and discusses major modes of influence they had on Wordsworth's poetry (75-6, 245-7). Wu provides a highly detailed account of Wordsworth's performance in the semiannual examinations he underwent at St John's College (Wds Reading 1770-1799 166-8). These examinations always



Cambridge 53


included a classical text. The College Examination Book gives a list of the texts set for each examination and an evaluative ranking of those who took the examinations. Wordsworth ranked in the '1st Class' once, in the '2nd Class' once; once he is specifically credited with doing well 'in the Classic'; twice he is credited with doing well in the part of the examination he took. In these latter instances, the examinations given in December 1788 and June 1790, from my study of the College Examination Book, I would agree with Wu that Wordsworth very probably discussed and did well in treating the assigned classical texts (Wds Reading 1770-1799 167, 168). Christopher Wordsworth's comments in The Memoirs of William Wordsworth, however, would seem to challenge any claim for Wordsworth's proficiency in the classics. Christopher Wordsworth states, 'Nature appears to have done more for Wordsworth than books ...' He further points out: 'At that time it was not the custom of northcountry schools to exercise their pupils much in classical composition,' and 'Wordsworth was a fair Latin scholar ...' (1: 43; emphasis his). Despite Wordsworth's performance in examinations and his clearly affective relationship to the classics, was he only a 'fair' Latinist? Here it is appropriate to consider the question of Wordsworth's not having done Latin verse composition and the correlative question, did this lack harm the development of an aspiring poet? Perhaps the best answer is Wordsworth's comment to Walter Savage Landor in 1822: In respect to Latin Poetry, I ought to tell you that I am no judge, except upon general principles. I never practised Latin verse, not having been educated at one of the Public Schools. My acquaintance with Virgil, Horace, Lucretius, and Catullus is intimate; but as I never read them with a critical view to composition great faults in language might be committed which would escape my notice; any opinion of mine, therefore, on points of classical nicety would be of no value .... (LYl: 125) Wordsworth seems almost smug; delivered of the burden of verse composition, he is free to enjoy the classics for themselves and became 'intimate' with many major poets. This love of the classics is a major characteristic of his relationship to the literature of Greece and Rome and a fine testimony to the excellent and liberal regime when he was at Hawkshead. His expression 'intimate' has an affective ring and reminds us of his affective ideal for university learning. Verse composition was required by the school's statutes of the '"Cheifeste



54

Schollars"' (qtd in Cowper 480), but this prescript does not seem to have been enforced in Wordsworth's time. Very basic Latin composition, the '"making of Latins'", had become a really major feature in English classical schools generally from the sixteenth century (Watson, En. Gram. Schools 401-12). Clarke points out that verse composition in Latin and Greek became more and more widespread as the eighteenth century progressed, despite the protests of some schoolmasters (Cl. Ed. 46-8). Wordsworth did do some Latin prose composition; regular themes were required when he was at St John's College.39 He possibly refers to these exercises in Book 6 of The Prelude: 'Misled, in estimating words', because of 'the trade in classic niceties, / The dangerous craft of culling term and phrase / From languages that want the living voice' (107-11), he admits to having used the classical languages in some kind of compositional work. Owen, in commenting on this passage, notes Wordsworth's letter to Landor. Owen also suggests that Wordsworth may be referring to the general practice in schools of using a work like Gradus ofParnassum, a popular English-Latin phrase book used for Latin composition (14-BK Prelude 114). Owen cites Coleridge's Biographia Literaria where, in a manner of speaking, Coleridge glosses Wordsworth's comment on 'classic niceties' in The Prelude. Coleridge is speaking of Gray's imitating Shakespeare and Milton, and of how such a poetic process really seems to result in a 'style of poetry, which I have characterised above, as translations of prose thoughts into poetic language'. This style of poetry had been kept up by ' the custom of writing Latin verses, and the great importance attached to these exercises, in our public schools' (Biog. Lit. I: 20-1). Coleridge credits Wordsworth with having brought out this very idea in conversation and for having expressed it far more competently than Coleridge feels he has been able to do (21). Given Wordsworth's comments to Landor, we can perhaps assume that Wordsworth traded in 'classic niceties' only in doing themes. In any case, Coleridge shows us how opposed Wordsworth was to artificial diction of any kind in poetry. An artist who created poetry as made from 'a selection of language really used by men' (Prose 1: 123) would hardly approve of verse concocted from phrase books. Given Wordsworth's strong and theoretically grounded opposition to Latin verse composition, it is undoubtedly just as well that he was not forced into such an artificial exercise. Wordsworth's freedom from doing Latin poetry, I would argue, should be coupled with his use of translations. Together these



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elements encourage a textuality in Wordsworth of the highest order. The use of translations is an interesting and complex feature in the history of classical education in England especially in the seventeenth century. 40 This accommodation appears to have helped Wordsworth become, not only much more than 'a fair Latin scholar', but a gifted Latinist. It would seem that from his ready access to and extensive use of translations, Wordsworth developed his interest in the art of translation and turned this interest into a major venue for distinguished poetic achievement. Graver has given us the most comprehensive treatment to date of Wordsworth's skill in translating Latin poetry. 41 But for easy access to Wordsworth's achievements in classical translating, the Hayden edition of Wordsworth's poetry is helpful here because it gives the poems chronologically and enables us to realize the prominence of translation in his early work. Hayden gives six translations and one partial translation among the first 24 poems, that is, up to An Evening Walk, published in 1793 (1: 37-76, 921-6). In the Landon-Curtis Cornell edition, Early Poems and Fragments, 1785-1797, 59 pages are devoted to Wordsworth's fragmentary translations from the Georgics alone (588-647, DC MSS. 2, 5, 6, 7). Wordsworth apparently had no intention of doing a systematic translation of the Georgics (614), but some translations are quite good (for example, Georgics hi.75-94: The Thoroughbred Horse, 625-7; see also Graver, 'Georgic Beginnings' 154-9). These fragments are one more instance of the high quality and seriousness of Wordsworth's classical study at Cambridge. He may not have been disinterested totally; some passages appeared in his verse eventually (Graver 141-3); and he certainly shows consistent skill and dedication. Of the Latin translations in Hayden, two are from Catullus and two are translations of sections of Virgil's Georgics. These are all fine pieces. The twenty-fourth poem in the Hayden sequence is titled 'Ode to Apollo' (1: 76). This is identified by Hayden (1: 926) and Graver ('Words. Translations' 170) as Wordsworth's translation of Horace's 'Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem' (Odes 1.31). This is dated by Graver as 1788, done not long after Wordsworth had begun his studies at Cambridge. In his article 'Wordsworth and the Romantic Art of Translation', Graver also discusses a translation done by Wordsworth in 1794, the famous Horatian ode 'O fons Bandusiae' (Odes 3.13). These two translations are important specimens of Wordsworth's work and both are very good. Graver comments that they are 'among the most graceful poetic translations of Horace in our language' (170).



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In the first we have a translation done shortly after Wordsworth had completed his education at Hawkshead and in the second one done about three years after he had completed his bachelor's degree at Cambridge. Thus translations continued to be a part of Wordsworth's classical education. He did not use them to make the classics easy, but found in them the intimate secrets of the stylistic nature of classical literature. In his discussion of these translations, Graver shows that they differ from each other very much. In his translation of the 'Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem' (Odes 1.31), 1788, Graver praises Wordsworth for his 'subtlety' in his 'understanding of Horace's spirit...' (170). Graver shows that Wordsworth's translation is excellent but somewhat free, 'by treating the Latin freely, he retains an implicit Horatian idea more fully than literal translation would allow' (171). But there are additions to Horace's ideas and other changes which Wordsworth introduces in his translation, though perfectly consistent with eighteenth-century ideals of translation and made so that Wordsworth can use a particular verse form, yet they also hint at a possible weakness in Wordsworth's command of his language. Perhaps in 1788 his skill as a poet was not fully enough developed to fit Horace's ode into this kind of stanza. (171) In discussing Wordsworth's translation, 1794, of Horace's 'O fons Bandusiae' (Odes 3.13), Graver shows how much more literal Wordsworth's translation is, 'following the Latin almost line for line' (172). For example, Wordsworth manages to catch a number of Horace's qualities of sound, even 'the predominant liquid consonants of Horace's poem' (172). What Wordsworth has achieved is a kind of translation very different from that done by Dryden, Pope and others in the eighteenth century: 'The result is an English that is influenced by the sounds and structures of the language of Horace ...' (173). But Wordsworth has done more than modify or even reform the methods of translation typical in the eighteenth century. Actually Wordsworth is using a method of translation which Graver identifies as essentially romantic in character and splendidly described by Goethe in his '"Noten und Abhandlungen" to the West-Ostliche Divan' (169). Goethe speaks of three modes of translation: rendering the text literally, paraphrasing the text, and then, as Graver explains, providing a poetic translation in which the translator seems to have created



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'ein Drittes,' a third something, a language which somehow combines and falls between the native and foreign tongues — the translator infuses his language with a new versatility - rhetorical, rhythmic, metric. Thus in Voss's translation of the Iliad, Homer appears as an 4eingedeutschte Fremde,' a 'be-Germaned foreigner,' not wholly German and not wholly Greek either (169-70) Graver argues that this form of translation, which seeks to preserve as much as possible of the original language in all its texture and idea, is correlative to the basic romantic notion of organicism in style, that is, the necessary identification of meaning with expression, a theory of style which Wordsworth explains so well in his Essays upon Epitaphs. There Wordsworth insists that language in good poetry is not as clothes are 'to the body', but as 'the body is to the soul'. The relationship is one of intimate consubstantiality (Prose 2: 84). Graver elaborates on the Wordsworthian-romantic theory of style: The organic metaphors fundamental to so much of Romantic poetry call into question whether meaning can exist apart from the words which express it. A poem, or indeed any literary work of art, is more than a representation of ideas: it is an imaginative experience, active and ongoing, in which such qualities of language as sound, syntax, and cadence interact with meanings and possibilities of meaning, to move the reader. (173) In his 1794 translation Wordsworth illustrates his command of romantic style by so literally, closely, yet also sensitively translating Horace that Wordsworth 're-creates' in his English translation 'a sense of what it is like to read Horace' in Latin, and he creates this experiential reality 'more fully than did any earlier translator' (173). Thus by 1794, Wordsworth demonstrates his skill in the romantic art of translation, and also amply demonstrates his command of the organic principle of romantic style. Wordsworth never seems to have lost his interest in these principles. My argument is that Hawkshead's genius for tolerance and sufficient academic rigor inspired a special classicism in Wordsworth. The translations are a key example. In his study of Wordsworth's partial translation of the Aeneid into heroic couplets, begun in 1823, and involving only about three books, Graver shows that in this translation also Wordsworth strove to achieve a romantic translation, a true 'ein Drittes'. Even though Wordsworth was disappointed



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the translation has been admired by discerning judges, and with good reason: Wordsworth's rendering of Virgil's Latin is remarkably subtle and complex [He strives] not only to make his translation literally accurate, but to make it imitate Virgil's patterns of sound, syntax, cadence, and idea. ('Wds. and Lang, of Epic' 261) As in his consideration of Wordsworth's 1794 translation of 'O fons Bandusiae', Graver points out in his discussion of the Aeneid that Wordsworth's method of translation is related to his concern for the romantic notion of organic style, but Graver also points out that Wordsworth's doctrine and practice in translation are related as well to his theory of diction as expressed in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads: In Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth reacted against artificial diction by treating subjects from rustic life in diction that was correspondingly simple and plain. Similarly, in his translation Wordsworth ... attempts to choose words and ornaments that are most faithful to the character of the original poem. In the case of Virgil that meant adhering to Virgil's diction more closely than did his predecessors, and being more faithful to Virgil's 'genuine ornaments.' (263) Graver points to Wordsworth's correspondence with Lord Lonsdale in 1823-24 as an excellent source for Wordsworth's discussion of his Aeneid translation. In his letter of 17 February 1824, Wordsworth says that in his translation he hoped to produce a work which should be to a certain degree affecting, which Dryden's is not to me in the least. Dr. Johnson has justly remarked that Dryden had little talent for the Pathetic, and the tenderness of Virgil seems to me to escape him. Virgil's style is an inimitable mixture of the elaborately ornate, and the majestically plain and touching. The former quality is much more difficult to reach than the latter, in which whoever fails must fail through want of ability, and not through the imperfections of our language. (LY I: 253; emphasis his) Wordsworth next expresses his concern that he has translated a passage near the end of Book 1 poorly (Aeneid 1.752). Wordsworth



and admitted failure, Graver sees much merit in it. He notes that


refers to Dryden's translation of this passage as 'meanly' done, but he frets that he in turn has been 'harsh and bald' (254). Graver has shown how important are Wordsworth's interest and skill in translations. The Aeneid translation is the longest work Wordsworth did after completing The Excursion; it is a work Wordsworth devoted himself to with great effort and interest. He abandoned the project because he judged that he had failed in his attempt to recreate in English verse as full a complement of Virgil's 'genuine ornaments' of style as he had hoped (5 February 1824, LY\: 252; emphasis his). But Wordsworth did succeed admirably in demonstrating great skill as a Latinist. One may not be impressed with Wordsworth's performance in his examinations; he did well, not brilliantly. One cannot but be impressed with his talents as a translator; these Graver illustrates clearly and thereby shows explicitly a genuine classical sensibility in Wordsworth ('Words, and Lang, of Epic' 285). 42 Many other twentieth-century scholars, Cooper, Worthington [Smyser], Bush, and others have also demonstrated Wordsworth's great ability in using classical material. 43 I hope to demonstrate the ethical power in Wordsworth's simultaneous lyric and rhetorical impulse. I would urge that this quality is a key to one of his most characteristic classical powers, his use of the ethical proof as detailed in Aristotle's Rhetoric. There, Aristotle claims that 'Persuasion ... achieved by the speaker's personal character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion ...' (1356a 25). We shall consider this mode of proof in detail further on. Here we should note that skill in using the ethical proof would not make one necessarily a classical rhetorician because Aristotle seeks to base his Rhetoric on universal principles. However, to deploy the ethical proof in all of its Aristotelian scope, and further, to evoke simultaneously correlative reminiscences of Horace, whose poetic doctrine is so close to Wordsworth in its personalism and simultaneous aspiration for poetry of the highest cognitive order, would surely invest one with the credentials of an Ancient. It is these ethical-Horatian achievements which explain to a large degree the classical undersong I find so prominent in Wordsworth. Many scholars like Bialostosky and Altieri have discussed Wordsworth's considerable rhetorical and (as we noted above) classical rhetorical skills, and others like Thomas have shown Wordsworth's talent as a teacher. 44 This he conceived as a major part of his vocation as he explained to Sir George Beaumont: 'Every great Poet is a Teacher: I wish either to be considered as a Teacher, or as nothing' (MY I: 195).



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My concern is with the ethical endeavor, as described by Aristotle, and especially with the persona in Wordsworth's texts, Wordsworth as both rhetor and lyric poet. It is this person who speaks to us, convinces us, and remains even today a major poetic voice. Wordsworth's translations reveal much of his high ethical sense. In speaking of his work in translating part of the Aeneid, Graver comments: Convinced that the affecting power of Virgil's poetry depends upon his style, Wordsworth is endeavoring to reshape his language, in more or less subtle ways, to partake of the nature of the original. ('Words, and Lang, of Epic' 264) Graver maintains that the principle expressed above describing Wordsworth's goal of translating Virgil as faithfully as possible is the same he states in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads with respect to poetic style: I have at all times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject; consequently, there is I hope in these Poems little falsehood of description, and my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance. (Prose 1: 133, lines 210-13) 45 Wordsworth seeks to be as loyal as possible to Virgil, to capture in English the very qualities of the Latin language as rendered poetically by Virgil (Graver, 'Words, and Lang, of Epic' 261-4, 273-4, 283-5). This endeavor is more than realism or stylistic naturalism. Wordsworth sets out to translate Virgil and charges himself with failure because he could not achieve the fidelity he sought with true artistic appropriateness (261). But we must remember that a Wordsworth seeks to translate a Virgil. I would contend his zeal was hardly misspent. In the translation process Wordsworth secured his own sense of what a truly iconic text great poetry is. This same reverence, this romantic dedication to organicism of style, is reflected in Wordsworth's love of the classics for themselves. In a letter to his brother Christopher, Wordsworth also included congratulations to his nephew Christopher, Jr, for his extraordinary achievements and the honors he received when he earned his undergraduate degree at Cambridge. One of his honors was 'Senior Classic in the Classical Tripos' (8 February 1830, LY II: 201 and footnote). In a second letter also sent to his brother and to Christopher, Jr,



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I should detest your honours if I thought they would cause you to love classical Literature less for its own sake when the stimulus of reading for distinction is withdrawn. But I have no apprehension of this fatal and too common result, in your case. (LY II: 215) These comments remind us of a passage we have already considered from Book 3 of The Prelude where Wordsworth speaks of loving learning for its own sake: Youth should be awed, possessed, as with a sense Religious, of what holy joy there is In knowledge if it be sincerely sought For its own sake (Prelude ['05] 3.396-9) There is an engaging consistency in Wordsworth's attitudes toward education, texts and the classics. Conscience, authenticity, the thing itself, T have at all times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject' (Prose 1: 133), all reflect one strong, dedicated focus. We shall see how this consistency and the moral energy it embodies led to an exalted ethics of poetry and poetic truth. In the Memoirs, Christopher Wordsworth, Jr, Wordsworth's literary executor, speaking of himself, records the following declaration by Wordsworth: To one of his nephews, an under-graduate, he said, 'Do not trouble yourself with reading modern authors at present; confine your attention to ancient classical writers; make yourself master of them: and when you have done that, you will come down to us; and then you will be able to judge us according to our deserts.' (Memoirs 1: 48; emphasis his) There is a touching humility and bracing self-confidence in Wordsworth. He reveres the classics; they are to be mastered; they are ideals, models, embodiments of artistry and wisdom. And yet they invite comparison and even rivalry. They do not daunt Wordsworth, but they teach him, in the words of Horace, 'sapere aude,' to dare to



Wordsworth again congratulates his nephew and makes the following comment on the classics:

think for himself. Such were his skills and such the quality of his education that he could invite comparison with the classics and confidently go on in his own way. Such was and is the power of the ethical stature in his verse that he can rouse and even endow us with the zeal to do the same. At Cambridge and in the following years, we see how the affection, wisdom, modeling, and tolerance of Wordsworth's education are melded into his respect for texts. The ineluctable beauty of the classics and the freedom especially of his Hawkshead days taught Wordsworth the true dynamic of language 'really used by men' and even the potential of silent poets.



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Part II Wordsworth and Horace: Ethos and Poetic Truth




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Wordsworth's classical undersong is especially to be found in his poetic rendering of what Aristotle identifies as the ethical mode of argument (Rhetoric 1355 b 24). Here Wordsworth and Horace, a classical poet he admired profoundly (Prose 2: 479), are strikingly similar. Before discussing the presence of the ethical argument in Horace and its Horatian analogue in Wordsworth, we should also recall that Aristotle does treat \\Qoq, ethos, extensively in the Poetics (Chapter 15) and in the Rhetoric (II. 12-17, 1389 a -1391 b ; Wisse 36-43), in terms of what we would call characterization of agents in a literary work or in terms of the means whereby an orator can appeal to different character types, classes of people, age groups, and so forth, in his/her oration. Horace is also concerned with proper characterization in poetic texts, as Brink has shown so well (Prolegomena 110-13, 139-40, 144, 251-2). But our focus is with the ethical appeal as delineated by Aristotle in the Rhetoric, as it exists in two of Horace's literary epistles, especially in the Epistle to Florus, and the degree to which Horace as author and as the persona particularly in that work embodies the principles of Aristotle. Brink shows interest in some related Aristotelian elements such as Horace's concern 'to link appropriateness of emotional styles with real emotion' (The 'Ars Poetica' 188). However, I have not found any critic applying the elements of the ethical proof as such directly to Horace. Let us recall Aristotle's definition of rhetoric: Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art. (1355b 24)

67 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


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Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker [the ethical proof]; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [the pathetic proof]; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself [the logical proof]. (Rhetoric 1356a 24-5; see also Brink, Prolegomena 82-3) In explaining the ethical proof, Aristotle comments, 'Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible' (1356a 25). Argument based on the character of the speaker is really crucial in those issues 'where exact certainty is impossible' (25). He also points out that the ethical proof 'may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion' (25). In his commentary, Grimaldi gives a translation of this passage which identifies the ethical proof as the most important rhetorical proof: '"the fact is that r)0og, practically speaking, carries the most authoritative jriaxig"' (Rhetoric I 42; emphasis his). In a further discussion, Aristotle names the ethical triad: 'There are three things which inspire confidence in the orator's own character ... good sense, good moral character, and goodwill' (1378a 91). Rhetorical demonstration, that is, the three fundamental modes of persuasion referred to above, is artistic or textual because it functions in the speech itself, not extraneously to it, as do 'witnesses', legal documents, and so forth (1355b 24). Thus the three qualities of the ethical proof also are to be verified in the text itself. To be trusted, the speaker must show in the very texture of the discourse, that is, 'by what the speaker says', that the speaker possesses 'personal goodness' (1356b 25). Aristotle also notes that the orator's evaluation, acts of praise or blame, redound to the credit of the orator himself or herself. Our moral worth is measured by the values we esteem (1366a 56). Even in matters of style, ethos can be enhanced; Aristotle gives the example of the ethical force of maxims (1418a 212). l As noted above, one of Wordsworth's strongest classical qualities is his use of the ethical proof as delineated by Aristotle. Thus far neither in Wu's research nor in my own have I found a direct use of the Rhetoric by Wordsworth. I attribute his ethical prowess to his general training in classical rhetoric and in the classics themselves. Though scholars are not unanimous, Brink argues a clear Horatian-Aristotelian



Let us also recall his threefold structure in rhetorical demonstration:

connection. 2 The Wordsworth-Horace connection, as we have seen, is strong and affectionate (Thayer 29-32, 53-64). The ethical argument in Horace is vital. 3 He verifies it as voice and pursues it in his argument. Horace eloquently and thereby ethically ennobles the status of the poet and stipulates the requisites for the poet's 'good moral character' (1378a 91). We shall examine Horace's equally eloquent and ethical argument for the special nature and worth of poetic knowledge, the poet's 'good sense', and his concern for audience. On these points he is one with and even in advance of Aristotle, and in these issues he and Wordsworth make some of the most appealing arguments for poetry that we have in our common literature. What especially identifies Wordsworth and Horace as brothers in poetry is the ethical zeal in their affection for poetry. To show Aristotle's influence on Horace, Brink focuses on the high status which the Aristotelian critical school afforded the poet. This must have appealed to Horace: Throughout his career as a critic Horace steadily pleaded for professional poetic standards; but he pleaded no less steadily against the divorce of poetry from the activities of the civis Romanus, the vir bonus, the vir sapiens Here [through Aristotle] he found poetics as part of a larger philosophy ... the proximity of the moral and political worlds which still hinted at the function of poetry in the close-knit political scene of the Greek city state. (Prolegomena 235-6) In Brink's explanation of Horace's recourse to Aristotle, we very well could have the basis of Horace's appeal to Wordsworth. His most obvious gift - like Wordsworth's - is the lyrical, the expressive, but in his critical doctrine he privileges the genres of drama and epic; the lyrical as envisioned by Horace often clearly aspires to the vatic, the rhetorically humanistic and the social (Prolegomena 221, 228). Aside from determining the degree of influence of Aristotle on Horace, there is abundant evidence that Horace fully shared in the dominative rhetorical concern so prominent in the whole tradition of Greco-Roman poetry. 4 This rhetorical bias plus his zeal for the status of the poet and poetry impelled his ethical concerns and fired his eloquence in behalf of his vocation. One of Horace's most striking ethical considerations of the office of poet comes in his Satires, specifically Bk I.iv.5 Here Horace seems to deny that the language of everyday life and ordinary experience and the very ordinary experiences themselves can constitute fit material



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for poetry. In talking about his satires, Horace seems to assert that he should not be called a poet simply because he can 'concludere versum' ('round off a verse'); nor is one a poet if he 'writes as I do, lines more akin to prose', 'qui scribat uti nos / sermoni propiora' (lines 41-2). Horace then defines poetry and claims that comedy properly speaking cannot be regarded as poetry: ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior atque os magna sonaturum, des nominis huius honorem. idcirco quidam Comoedia necne poema esset quaesivere, quod acer spiritus ac vis nee verbis nee rebus inest, nisi quod pede certo differt sermoni, sermo merus. (Satires I.iv.43-8) If one has gifts inborn, if one has a soul [more] divine and tongue of noble utterance, to such give the honour of that name. Hence some have questioned whether Comedy is or is not poetry; for neither in diction nor in matter has it the fire and force of inspiration, and, save that it differs from prose-talk in its regular beat, it is mere prose. (53) How amazing it would have turned out in the history of literature if the satires of Horace, some of the best satires we have, had not been regarded as poetry. Furthermore, what if comedy too had been excluded from poetry? Horace hardly seems serious, or at least he is to be taken ironically. Further on, he comments rather wryly, 'Hactenus haec: alias iustum sit necne poema', 'Of this enough. Some other time we'll see whether this kind of writing is true poetry or not' (I.iv.63, 53). Brink comments that the assertion of Horace that true poetry must be filled with passion - even in Horace's own terms - has relevance for 'some kinds of poetry' (Prolegomena 163; emphasis his). In this context Horace wishes to deny that poetry is 'playing with words in verse'. Also, Horace does not really wish to demean satire so severely, 'the argument is resolved into uncommitted irony' (Prolegomena 164). Horace does not say that a special or indeed an elegant language is required for poetry, but simply that an authentically impassioned language is required, a language which flows from a spiritually charged soul, a language which has 'the fire and force of inspiration'. Wordsworth says much the same when he locates poetic discourse




democratically in the 'metrical arrangement [of] a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation' (Prose 1: 119), language which bespeaks 'the essential passions of the heart' and language which is 'more permanent, and a far more philosophical language' (Prose 1: 125).6 In Horace's Epistle to Florus we find this inspired, lofty ideal of poetry argued as being especially found in the sincere passion of the poet and in the authentic language used by the poet. I would call Horace's theory of authentic diction for poetry so crucial that it amounts to philological poetics, but a poetics demanding a seamless fabric of authentic emotion, passion and utterance. To put Horace's theory of poetry and diction into proper context, we should recall that his epistles share the familiar structure and tone of his satires. However, the epistles are affirmative, never obscene, and are filled with advice and discussion. The three so-called Literary Epistles, because of their emphasis on strictly literary topics, alone constitute Book II of the Epistles. The Epistle to Augustus was completed in very probably 12 BC and the Epistle to Florus in 19 BC; the one to Augustus is placed first because of the prestige of the addressee. The Epistola ad Pisones, or Ars Poetica, was probably done around 10 BC (Rudd 1-21). The addressee of the Epistle to Florus is Julius Florus, a lawyer in the retinue of the future emperor Tiberius. He was a poet, a friend of Horace, and had asked Horace to send him some poetry (Rudd 13). Horace's reply in his verse letter is basically 'a series of excuses', begun wittily, as to why he had not written and especially why he had not sent any poetry to Florus.7 Finally in line 106, of a poem of 216 lines, Horace gets to his major reason for not writing poetry, as the tone changes from the elegantly witty to the quietly reflective. From here to line 125, Horace speaks of the labor involved in writing really good poetry. Next, from line 126 to the end of the poem (especially from line 141 on), Horace pleads his second major reason for not writing poetry: at his age he should devote what is left of his life to the study of philosophy, not to the frivolity of writing lyric verse. Rudd gives an excellent summary showing how this poem is structured 'as a series of pleas a characteristically Roman feature' (17, 14-18). I would emphasize the paradox that the affective brilliance of this poem lies in the irony in Horace's poetic arguments for not writing poetry, especially as expressed in the poignant, mature sensibility of the last two arguments. The poem begins as a series of seemingly friv-



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olous excuses offered to a young poet by a tired, older practitioner. Awe for poetry and reverence for the poet's vocation gradually come to the fore. Horace ends his poem with a priestly tribute to poetry and to the vatic ideal of a true poet. The Epistle to Florus is a masterpiece of ethical poetry in two ways: a poet in retirement self-deprecatingly pleads in elegant verse that he is no longer equal to the demands of his art; a humble poet protests the superiority of philosophy to poetry and yet does so in verse a part of which Brink calls 'philosophical poetry' (Epistles Bk. II522). Brink calls Horace's position here a 'fiction' and calls the Epistle to Florus 'a highly wrought poem' (266). I would go much further than Brink. I see much more than 'philosophical poetry'; I see the Epistle to Florus as a text sustaining autotelic poetic epistemology. In the section quoted below, lines 106-25, we have our first argument concerning poetry and the poet, especially beginning in line 109, 'qui legitimum cupiet fecisse poema', 'But ... [the poet] whose aim is to have wrought a poem true to Art's rules' (433). First we should consider this statement in its full context quoted below: Ridentur mala qui componunt carmina; verum gaudent scribentes et se venerantur et ultro, si taceas, laudant quidquid scripsere beati. at qui legitimum cupiet fecisse poema, cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti; audebit, quaecumque parum splendoris habebunt et sine pondere erunt et honore indigna ferentur, verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vestae; obscurata diu populo bonus eruet atque proferet in lucem speciosa vocabula rerum, quae priscis memorata Catonibus atque Cethegis nunc situs informis premit et deserta vetustas; adsciscet nova, quae genitor produxerit usus. vemens et liquidus puroque simillimus amni fundet opes Latiumque beabit divite lingua; luxuriantia compescet, nimis aspera sano levabit cultu, virtute carentia toilet, ludentis speciem dabit et torquebitur, ut qui nunc Satyrum, nunc agrestem Cyclopa movetur. (Epistles Il.ii. 106-25)




Those who write poor verses are a jest; yet they rejoice in the writing and revere themselves; and, should you say nothing, they themselves praise whatever they have produced - happy souls! But the man whose aim is to have wrought a poem true to Art's rules, when he takes his tablets, will take also the spirit of an honest censor. He will have the courage, if words fall short in dignity, lack weight, or be deemed unworthy of rank, to remove them from their place, albeit they are loth to withdraw, and still linger within Vesta's precincts. Terms long lost in darkness the good poet will unearth for the people's use and bring into the light - picturesque terms which, though once spoken by a Cato and a Cethegus of old, now lie low through unseemly neglect and dreary age. New ones he will adopt which Use has fathered and brought forth. Strong and clear, and truly like a crystal river, he will pour forth wealth and bless Latium with richness of speech; he will prune down rankness of growth, smooth with wholesome refinement what is rough, sweep away what lacks force - wear the look of being at play, and yet be on the rack, like a dancer who plays now a Satyr, and now a clownish Cyclops. (433, 435) Scholars have noted the emphatic legal reference in this poem (Rudd 13). The expression legitimum ... poema, 'a poem done according to the precepts of art' (my translation), reflects a metaphor derived from the various applications of lex, and such applications, as one can readily see, are easily carried to the arts (Brink, Epistles Bk II 330). I would suggest that as Horace speaks to Florus, a poet to a poet who also happens to be lawyer, the evocation of lex or law is crucial. Rudd, emphasizing the notion of 'censor' here, reminds us, without stating it, that Horace offers another reason, a legal reason as it were, for not writing poetry. It is an exalted skill to be practised according to standards, 'conditions or procedures that constitute an art' (Brink, Epistles Bk II330). Poetry makes legitimate demands; it cannot be done capriciously; it is not simply a matter of inspiration. Here, then, we have an honest and knowing declaration of the strongest ethical stature. Horace may be playful in refusing to send poetry to his friend, but he reminds us that it is an art which has demanding standards. The poet's responsibilities which Horace lays out in this section, especially from lines 111 through 119, are, as Brink notes, concerned with diction, 'Words, ... ordinary ... archaic ... [and] new' (Epistles Bk II 331; emphasis his). I would underscore the ethical force of his care about language. Horace, though presumably speaking only to Florus,



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really opens his text to the service of his readers, his audience in the broadest sense. In each instance where the task of the poet is described philologically, there is a humanistic aspect which is emphasized as well. Here we find the humanistic seeds of Wordsworth's egalitarian 'language really used by men'. With these concerns in mind, I would like to comment on five other key terms used in the context: splendor (line 111, splendoris); pondus (line 112, pondere); honore (line 112, honore); obscurata (line 115, obscurata); speciosa (line 116, speciosa). In our context the work of the poet is first laid out negatively. The poet is to 'remove' 'words [which] fall short in dignity' (433) ('parum splendoris'), regarded as worn-out in effect by Brink (Epistles Bk II 332); '[words which] lack weight' (433) ('sine pondere'), and words which are 'deemed unworthy of rank' (433) ('honore indigna ferentur'), rendered as '[words enjoying] a "position, recognition" of which they are not worthy' by Brink (Epistles Bk II 333). In addition, the poet is to 'unearth' (435) '[t]erms long lost in darkness' (435) ('obscurata'), and 'bring into the light - picturesque terms' (435) ('speciosa vocabula rerum', line 116).8 In all of these examples the text refers to words, some to be removed and others to be unearthed and brought into usage. But what we have is a positive catalogue of values derived from or related to aesthetic technique and the highest forms of human achievement. The poet is to be a master of words whereby he or she is to make real the splendor (brightness, lustre, clarity, nobility) of the pondus in human nature (weightiness or firmness morally considered in human character) and the honor in human beings (honor, esteem, public office, tribute, beauty). The poet's task is to make verbally real the grandeur in human nature, but to make that grandeur aesthetically splendid in the highest sense of aesthetic and human meaning. The poet's vocabulary also requires the revitalization of the obscurata (that which has been darkened or suppressed or made obsolete). It requires especially the speciosa vocabula rerum, words for things which expose and express and luminously display by shape and figure and idea the full beauty of the person or thing recounted. In all of this process Horace seems to be stipulating as the chief task of the poet the uncovering and the elucidation in words of the highest human values of the highest order. Also, the social-linguistic history of the race is required to stamp or thus confirm the pondus and honor of individual experience. Therefore, the obscurata must be revitalized and a social ancestry, as it were, established. In all of this the speciosa vocabula are crucial as the language of the poet because the poet's primary daedal




office is precisely to use the speciosa to make luminous and therefore socially inspiring the pondus and honor the poet seeks to expose and express. Brink summarizes the goal of the poet in this process as 'intensity and lucidity' (Epistles Bk II 328). In his commentary on this section, Brink has several notices of the social function of the poet; for example: in reference to 'censoris' (line 110), he speaks of 'the censor in the social field' (Epistles Bk II 332), of the possible 'social connotation' of 'pondere' (line 112) (333), the 'patriotic note' connected with 'Latiumque' (line 121) (342), and so forth (328-48). My concern is to point out that one of the most appealing features of this poem is Horace's profound and eloquent ethical zeal in delineating the office of poet. To these I should like to add the following gloss on line 120 which speaks of the poet as a social benefactor and uses the image of a river: vemens et liquidus puroque simillimus amni, 'Strong and clear, and truly like a crystal river, he [the poet] will pour forth wealth and bless Latium with richness of speech' (435). Horace's philological poetics embodies in the linguistic achievements of the poet simultaneously the highest form of poetic art and humanistic value. Here the vatic function of the poet is eloquently tied to language, and it is especially tied to speech, that part of language which the cives share collectively as the most obvious part of their cultural existence. The vates gives language as a voice to the people. Horace, the enthusiastic Augustan poet, has not lost his basic republicanism. This will prove to be a major connection with Wordsworth. The ethical ramifications are also important here. Implicitly the reading audience feels empowered as it is reminded that public speech is enhanced by poetic art. We emphasize the poet's function here encouraged by Brink's comment on line 120, 'By an easy metonymy, the qualities of the poem are seen as those of the poet' (340). I would add that Horace provides a foundation for Wordsworth's theory of poetic language as 'selection' (Prose 1: 125). In the Ars Poetica Horace assigns similar ethical responsibilities to the poet with a similar degree of artistic and social earnestness. There is the famous section on usage and its being the supreme law for language (AP lines 60-72). But this injunction comes after Horace has urged the poet to use sensitivity in stitching words together so that an old word can take on new vigor in a particular context ('notum si callida verbum / reddiderit iunctura novum', AP lines 47-8). The poet is urged to confect new words provided they are needed, and provided certain principles of etymology and taste are duly observed. After all,



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Horace insists, why cannot a modern poet serve his nation the way Caecilius, Plautus, Cato and Ennius have? Horace emphasizes in this passage the same social and artistic authority of the poet (lines 48-59) which we have just observed emphasized in his letter to Florus. The passage on the ultimate authority of usage as the standard for language is dominated by an extended and vivid meditation on mortality (lines 60-72). The passage is plaintive because of such remarks as 'debemur morti nos nostraque,' 'We are doomed to death - we and all things ours' (line 63, p. 455). The passage ends with the famous declaration that language, like everything else, is subject to change and all is as usage determines, 'si volet usus, / quern penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi': all is 'if Usage so will it, in whose hands lies the judgement, the right and the rule of speech' (lines 71-2, p. 457). Brink comments extensively on these lines (The 'Ars Poetica' 146-60), and he initiates his remarks with the following declaration: There follows [lines 60-70] what poetically is perhaps the most remarkable piece of the Ars ... Nature presides over natural change Language is related to the unalterable conditions of life: the recurrence of the seasons and the impermanence of the human lot. Hence the sudden rise of poetic tone, to something like the lyric intensity of the Odes .... Ep. II. 2. 111-19 [to Florus] lack this dimension. (146-7) The philosophical power of this passage suggests that Horace is possibly overlooking philology and even poetry itself. In glossing line 71, the expression 'si volet usus', ('as use will have it'; my translation), Brink comments that here Horace 'wants to ... lay stress on the impersonal or "natural" features of language' (158). Rudd, in glossing 'usus', employs the expression 'norms of educated speech' (162). I would also note that we cannot forget that Horace is dealing with speech, language, 'norma loquendi' ('the rule of speech' [line 72]) and thus, by implication, with poetry. Though Horace seeks to emphasize the impersonal power of language, he also emphasizes that language lives on the human tongue. Furthermore, both here and in his Epistle to Florus, he insists that there are ways in which the poet can influence language as such as the poet seeks to enhance the language of good poetry. The poet's task is to bring the 'speciosa vocabula rerum' (line 116) into currency and in this way he/she will 'bless' ('beabit,' line 121), or as Brink




suggests '"quicken, enrich"' or even '"delight"' (Epistles Bk II 342) the poet's own nation and culture. I would stress the ethical inspiration in this passage because the poet so honestly and honorably dedicates him/herself to the task of recognizing the objective power and dynamic of language and especially its social character and value. Here Horace wins his audience because he honors the communal and natural character of language, and yet he empowers both commonwealth and poet by arguing that there is an artistic way the poet can raise natural language into the 'speciosa vocabula rerum'. So it is that Horace would have the poet enrich the tongue of the commonwealth. One final point: if Horace stresses the office of the poet to bless his or her nation with bounteously rich expression, then necessarily Horace must believe with Wordsworth in the condign potential of 'a selection of language really used by men' (Prose 1: 123) for poetry. If a poet is called to so endue the speech of the nation, then the speech of the nation, its native potential in utterance, must be fit to receive this poetic endowment. The native linguistic core must be apt for poetry. And furthermore, this poetry when ingested and when informing native utterance is more than decoration or an elegant bauble. Thus 'legitimate' poetry enables the people to speak and voice their will with power concerning the most crucial issues in their total polity. This vatic ordinance is clearly at the heart of Wordsworth's critical doctrine. The Epistle to Florus is a master-work which luminously demonstrates the stature of the poet because Horace does not merely claim that status, he demonstrates it by the very elegance of his verse. But the ethical proof redounds to the nation and to poetry itself. They too, people and the art, possess an ethos, and it is these ethical repositories which Horace has also enriched. Our next concern is with poetic sincerity, a popular and contemporary credential for establishing the full honesty of the poet and the full authenticity of the text. 9 Meyer Abrams cites as a major source for the emergence of romantic expressivism a line in the Ars Poetica which begins 'si vis me flere' (Mirror 71-2). The full passage is one of the most famous texts in Horace: Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto et quocumque volent animum auditoris agunto. ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adsunt humani voltus: si vis me flere, dolendum est



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primum ipsi tibi: tune tua me infortunia laedent, Telephe vel Peleu; male si mandata loqueris, aut dormitabo aut ridebo.

Not enough is it for poems to have beauty: they must have charm, and lead the hearer's soul where they will. As men's faces smile on those who smile, so they respond to those who weep. If you would have me weep, you must first feel grief yourself: then, O Telephus or Peleus, will your misfortunes hurt me: if the words you utter are ill suited, I shall laugh or fall asleep. (459) Abrams shows that the expression 'si vis me flere, dolendum est / primum ipsi tibi', '[i]f you would have me weep, you must first feel grief yourself,' became a rhetorical commonplace. Over the years it was related to and used as an illustration and pivotal maxim arguing the importance of the 'evocation of feeling' as that principle became crucial in poetry. Abrams provides several examples of how the expression has been used in English literature and how it was related to poets and their task to be ethically convincing. He cites the splendid example of Samuel Johnson's comment on Cowley's elegy for Lord Hervey: "There is much praise [in this poem], but little passion ... When he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep himself..."' (72). Thus in this passage we clearly see Horace as a major proponent of authorial sincerity. Also from the context we have quoted, we should notice Horace's insistence on sincerity of characterization. As voice in his own poem, Horace calls out to two typical characters in Roman drama, Telephus and Peleus, that their expression must be in keeping with their character, that they must clearly feel what they speak or he as audience will sleep or laugh. This passage and the next six lines (that is, lines 99-111) would all seem to reflect a notion commented on by Brink with respect to lines 108-11, 'the psychology of style'. Horace is concerned in this passage 'to link appropriateness of emotional styles with real emotion - a doctrine of poetic sincerity, a rarish thing in ancient literary criticism' (The 'Ars Poetica' 188). Before leaving Horace's exemplification of the principle of sincerity, we should stress emphatically once again the extended commentary by Williams on the high quality and the sincerity of Horace's political



(99-105)

poetry (Tradition 79-101). Octavian was able to inspire Augustan poets to such an extent that they were convinced 'that they had a real place and function in society' (51). Horace's 'most original contribution to Roman literature' was his direct use of 'the form of lyric poetry to make political statements' (76). Williams also stresses that Horace 'is the poet, above all, of human relationships' (83). When these elements are put together, one can understand how, even in political verse where sham would seem almost a necessity, Horace could create poetry which is both excellent and honest, pragmatic, lyrical and true. Again we can see the appeal of Horace to Wordsworth. Both are lyric poets; Horace cherishes the Roman-Augustan ideal and Wordsworth aspires to do The Recluse. The ethical ideal we have so far considered in Horace involves his arguments for the exalted status of the poet. A second mode of ethical argument in favor of the poet, also found in the Ars Poetica and in the Epistle to Florus, further enhances the poet's status by claiming a special order of poetic truth. 10 According to Horace, there is a truth, a specific endowment of poetry, quite beyond ordinary human reason. Horace does not pronounce on the nature of poetic cognition; he urges the special nature of poetic insight in poetic terms. Ironically, as was said above, some of Horace's best arguments for the validity of poetic truth are to be found in the Epistles to Florus where he seems to prefer philosophy to poetry. A first step to understanding Horatian epistemology, however, is in the Ars Poetica with its mandate for a fully accomplished poetic mimesis. Horace speaks of the necessity of the poet's learning by serious study, 'Socraticae ... chartae' (line 310), which Rudd glosses as 'meaning, in general, "works on moral philosophy"' (202). Further on, Horace urges his tyro poet, once he or she has become an imitative artist, to look carefully at the exemplary instance of human conduct (lines 317-18). Brink cautions that this requires one to '"scrutinize"' (Horace's 'respicere', line 317), but this passage does not speak of mere 'realism', but a kind of general typology (The 'Ars Poetica' 342-3). He also points to relevant passages in Aristotle's Poetics where mimesis is discussed (Brink 343). Here I would suggest we have an explicit Horatian argument via mimesis for poetic epistemology. By far one of the most moving declamations on poetic epistemology is found in the final 90-line section of the Epistle to Florus, a rendering of Horace's second reason for not writing poetry. 11 Our passage begins with a delightful interval, lines 126-40, a humorous self-burlesque by Horace in which he claims he cares only to be deluded in his poetry



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and to care nothing for correction, 'Praetulerim scriptor delirus inersque videri' (line 126), T should prefer to be thought a foolish and clumsy scribbler ... rather than be wise and unhappy' (435). He recounts the happily deceived gentleman from Argos who thought he saw live performances and enjoyed them even though on an empty stage. His friends cured him of his delusions, and the man complained bitterly. He was happier deluded. Horace claims he wants the same fantasizing repose. Clearly Horace argues by masterfully delightful humorous contrast. He also argues by ironic example, self-directed (Brink, Epistles Bk II 348-9). His deprecatory comments remind one of Chaucer. The emphasis is on truth. The truth required in artistic evaluation is just as real as any form of social or human accountability. Artistic standards are not frivolous preferences; art has objective standards; aesthetic delusion is a form of madness; art has its necessary truth to tell (Brink, Epistles Bk II 516). The humorous tone of these last 15 lines is carried over even as we enter the most serious section of the whole poem. Here Horace declares his intention to seek wisdom, to abandon the useless toys of lyric verse, and take up the serious work of moral philosophy: Nimirum sapere est abiectis utile nugis, et tempestivum pueris concedere ludum, ac non verba sequi fidibus modulanda Latinis, sed verae numerosque modosque ediscere vitae. quocirca mecum loquor haec tacitusque recordor (141-5) In truth it is profitable to cast aside toys and to learn wisdom; to leave to lads the sport that fits their age, and not to search out words that will fit the music of the Latin lyre, but to master the rhythms and measures of a genuine life. Therefore I talk thus to myself and silently recall these precepts (437) Horace has hardly abandoned his sense of humor. He speaks in the first line of becoming wise and casting aside toys, the nugis, '"childish frivolities," in particular his lyric poetry' (Rudd 140). But more to our purpose, when speaking of moral philosophy, he describes it in elegant musical, philosophical and poetic terms, verae numerosque modosque ediscere vitae (line 144, 'to master the rhythms and measures



80

of a genuine life' 437). The musical elements are reminiscent of Pythagorean and Platonic metaphors for the moral life (Brink, Epistles Bk II 359-60; Rudd 140). Brink also sees the poetic reflected here, 'numeros ... modos (vitae): "way of life" understood in musical and poetic terms' (Epistles Bk II 360). It is significant that if Horace were serious about abandoning poetry, he would hardly choose musical metaphors whereby the same terminology is shared by philosophy, music and poetry. The musical terminology is also reminiscent of lyric poetry, among the ancients almost always associated with music. It is lyric poetry which Horace supposedly has abandoned (Lyne 186-7). But I would contend that what he is actually doing is characterizing philosophy through poetry. As his supposed repudiation of poetry comes in poetry, so his honoring of philosophy, and moral philosophy at that, comes in musical-poetic metaphors. Horace subtly unfolds an epistemological hierarchy. He bends philosophy to poetry by defining it through a pattern of poetic terms; poetry becomes dominant. From lines 146 through 179, Horace takes on a serious yet ironic tone. He meditates on the foolishness of avarice and concludes, using much legal terminology, that ownership - even when established most reconditely - is useless. Nothing is of any avail: 'Death reaps great and small - Death who never can be won over with gold ...' (lines 178-9, p. 439). I am much impressed with what I find to be the brilliant irony running all through this section. Brink (Epistles Bk II 360-82) and Rudd (16-17, 140-4) do not comment much on this point, but Brink offers a general statement on the Epistle as a whole: that Horace may claim he has abandoned poetry, but he has done so in 'a highly wrought poem' (266; see also 412). And yet the irony is so luminous in the account of death's victory that Horace gives us, not baleful lament, but elegant poetry which today for us has the ring of romantic elegy. The last 36 lines of the poem start out as a discussion of moderation. Despite the inevitability of death, Horace is neither depressed nor burning with determination to make what remains of his life count in a particularly spectacular way. He speaks with calm good humour. He does not say his meditative powers have overcome the menace of death or the threatening finality of change. Horace simply speaks with a modest, lyric warmth as he moves to acceptance and repose. The final 12 lines of the poem are especially poignant. They take us back to the reality of death, and yet they also maintain in lively good humor the tone of acceptance and repose we have just encountered:



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Non es avarus: abi. quid? cetera iam simul isto cum vitio fugere? caret tibi pectus inani ambitione? caret mortis formidine et ira? somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, nocturnos lemures portentaque Thessala rides? natalis grate numeras? ignoscis amicis? lenior et melior fis accedente senecta? quid te exempta iuvat spinis de pluribus una? vivere si recte nescis, decede peritis. lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti: tempus abire tibi est, ne potum largius aequo rideat et pulset lasciva decentius aetas. (205-16) You are no miser. Good! What then? Have all the other vices taken to flight with that? Is your heart free from vain ambition? Is it free from alarm and anger at death? Dreams, terrors of magic, marvels, witches, ghosts of night, Thessalian portents - do you laugh at these? Do you count your birthdays thankfully? Do you forgive your friends? Do you grow gentler and better, as old age draws near? What good does it do you to pluck out a single one of many thorns? If you know not how to live aright, make way for those who do. You have played enough, have eaten and drunk enough. 'Tis time to quit the feast, lest, when you have drunk too freely, youth mock and jostle you, playing the wanton with better grace. (441) In this last section Horace challenges himself and Florus too with a series of moral inquiries. The fact that he may not be avaricious is of no moment if he fails in other regards like being superstitious or fearful of death or unforgiving of his friends. Then comes the splendid passage, vivere si recte nescis, decede peritis (line 213, 'If you know not how to live aright, make way for those who do' 441). Next follows the banquet imagery, reminiscent of Lucretius, which possibly suggests, but not necessarily, that Horace wishes to abandon life and accept death (Rudd 149-50). Brink does not read this last passage bleakly. Horace has told Florus all along that the reason he has sent him no poetry is especially that he must drop poetry and take up philosophy. As was noted above,




Brink suggests that there is irony here because Horace's declaration of abandonment of poetry comes in a poem (Epistles Bk II266, 402). I would insist that all through the poem we have a masterful illustration of Horace's self-deprecating irony. He protests that he can write no more poetry because excellent verse seems beyond his talents, and this protest itself is rendered in elegant verse at many times quite above and beyond the chatty nature of a mere letter. He also claims that he prefers delusion and yet expresses his claim in conjunction with a brilliantly rendered anecdote. The sophistication of the rendering suggests the most knowledgeable of raconteurs. It is the consistent, suave irony melded into a metrical text of equally suave modulation that makes this such excellent poetry. Horace attacks avarice and does so by using legal jargon as he shows the fatuity of even legally protected possession. Even when Horace speaks of implacable death, he uses such masterful expression that he, Horace the poet, subdues to poetry that which he theoretically claims cannot be subdued. His poetry contradicts his theory by its own immortal power of expression coupled with its engaging metrical cadences: quidve Calabris saltibus adiecti Lucani, si metit Orcus grandia cum parvis, non exorabilis auro? (177-9) - what avail Lucanian forests joined to Calabrian, if Death reaps great and small - Death who never can be won over with gold? (439) The rhetorical questions Horace asks are typical enough; their traditional philosophical import is clear. They answer themselves. Nothing does or can matter if all ends in death. Brink takes Horace's image of lives being hauled off in a manner like the reaping of grain back to Euripides. Death as 'reaper' provides 'a lyric or epic touch'. Further on, Brink says that his 'Orcus, mowing his victims down with a scythe, is a composite Graeco-Roman figure, and a highly effective one at that' (Epistles Bk II 381-2). My point is that these elegant measures and these lucid poetic figures, this dominative topping of poetic tradition, elevates moral preachment to self-motivated poetic mosaic. I mention Brink because he reminds us of how sophisticated and



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literary and mythologically traditional - yet vigorous - Horace's figure is. I would argue that Horace has created an absolute order of poetic truth. Good images, tellingly imaginative figures are not in themselves sufficient to create an epistemology. Figurative material is practically as available to rhetoric and to a degree as available to scientific discourse as it is to poetic discourse. What raises the poetic discourse here to epistemological status and authority is the contextual density of the literary self-reference. When the expression and cadences of a text are so overtly, self-consciously and successfully literary, then the meaning enjoined asserts a literary or poetic epistemology. When the tenor of a passage or an entire text projects a truth which is organically and inextricably embodied in a vehicle ontologically literary as such, then we have poetic truth epistemologically realized as such. I am much indebted here obviously to Northrop Frye: In all literary verbal structures the final direction of meaning is inward In literature, questions of fact or truth are subordinated to the primary literary aim of producing a structure of words for its own sake, and the sign-values of symbols are subordinated to their importance as a structure of interconnected motifs. Wherever we have an autonomous verbal structure of this kind, we have literature. (1048) Wimsatt's notion of the 'concrete universal' is also relevant here. He joins that notion to his theory of objective criticism and proves most helpful to our endeavor to uncover the idiosyncratic way in which a literary text means and the way in which it is known: In each poem there is something (an individual intuition - or a concept) which can never be expressed in other terms. It is like the square root of two or like pi, which cannot be expressed by rational numbers, but only as their limit. Criticism of poetry is like 1.414 ... or 3.1416 ... , not all it would be, yet all that can be had and very useful. (83) Kinneavy provides a short but excellent critique of Wimsatt (317). Kinneavy also discusses a whole range of critical theories which treat the nature of the literary object (307-43). He is very careful to locate his relationship to Abrams' famous presentation in The Mirror and the Lamp (310-11, and passim). My use of Frye and Wimsatt may suggest I read in Kinneavy's terms Horace as a formalist (333-43) or a mimeti-



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cist (313-320), respectively. However, as I hope to show ahead, I find Horace quite beyond these schools of critical theory. In his reference to Orcus (line 179), Horace gives us a wonderful picture of death, and yet presents it in so sublimely a literary mode that it can be contemplated profoundly without threat or sense of menace. The final word auro bespeaks its essentially literary cast excellently. Its humor, coupled with the upside-down legalese of the entire context, reminds us that we are indeed dealing with change, mortality and death in a speculative context but with a literary provenance. It is like Aristotle's comment on imitation and so many critics' commentaries on aesthetic distance or meaning; we can consider the reality intimately, enjoyably, as Wordsworth maintains (Prose 1: 139-40), but we are not necessarily threatened thereby. Horace's whole performance in this poem is like his description of the implacable nature of Orcus; he gives us such a masterful performance which is particularly realized by his irony. Thus, even if it could be convincingly argued that the banquet imagery is such that Horace feels compelled to depart from this life (Rudd 149-50), we would protest. Brink observes that 'here the call is to life, philosophical and moral.' Our wily poetic comrade is most assuredly a peritus vitae, an expert at living. He has made moral philosophy into a fine art. Here again Brink is most valuable: H[orace] demonstrates, from within as it were, what makes great poetic art great and how that quality renders the making of such poetry both worthwhile and very difficult — The poem succeeds in that the reader is made to feel and understand that the two aims [of poetry and philosophy] are not really incompatible. Its [that is, the poem's] poetry appears clearly the best vehicle for its [philosophical] conclusions. This is an outstanding example of philosophical poetry as H[orace] saw it — (Epistles Bk II 522) Brink speaks of the fusion of philosophy and poetry, or the compatibility of poetry and philosophy or, as Brink expresses it, 'philosophical poetry'. What I am suggesting is quite different. Epistemology refers to the way we know. In his letter to Florus, Horace says that the poet blesses the nation through an endowment of language. This endowment, I claim, must mean ideas of a special kind embodied in a perfectly realized mode of expression. Brink suggests that the poetry is the vehicle and the philosophy is the tenor. I would urge that the poetry is both vehicle and tenor at once.



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A parallel emerges with the poet posing as deluded and then demonstrating his sophisticated skill as a raconteur. Here we have irony and actually an ironic way of knowing. One could claim this process as primarily rhetorical, but the subject and subject-matter are a poet and the way aesthetic truth should affect the poet. The voice is a poet illustrating on at least two levels of irony simultaneously how hard the truth about one's self as an artist is to acquire, live with, and use, and how ironically only a sophisticated artist in many ways would realize and be capable of using such truth when acquired. The same kind of irony, as has already been noted, operates in the musical-poetic imagery and the legalese and the elegance of the picture of Orcus. The use of irony as a mode of thought complements the supreme irony of using elegant poetry to disavow poetry for philosophy. I do not think we have philosophical poetry. I think Horace gives us poetry quite on its own and quite superior to philosophy. Nothing that is known in this entire poem - even at the highest philosophically moral level - could be known unless conceived poetically. The truth here as apprehended and specifically conceived, the intelligible species as such, is ontologically poetic. Horace claims that a poet has 'gifts inborn ... a soul divine and tongue of noble utterance'. Poetry must possess 'fire and force of inspiration' (Satires I.iv.43-6, 53). To be so masterfully and lyrically ironic in dealing with the most serious human issues, to do so with such understanding and delicacy, to build a single text with such poised, poetic cadences, all this gives us poetry as truth kindled with the white fire of special genius. Wimsatt comments: '"A poem should not mean but be." It is an epigram worth quoting in every essay on poetry' (81). I would insist, however, that there is meaning in the elegant Epistle to Florus, a meaning typical in quality of all Horace's great poetry, a meaning as absolute in its own order of being as that found in Mozart's great G minor symphony or in Beethoven's late quartets. In Horace we have meaning which excites but is quite beyond even legitimate paraphrase; meaning quite beyond the dialectics of aesthetics. In the Epistle to Florus Horace inscribes the nature of poetry in a structure and mode of expression rich in evocations of Parnassus.



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6

Geoffrey Hartman recently assigned a somewhat doubtful future to the study of poetry: The reading, writing, and also viewing of novels will continue. But already the reading of poetry, though not the writing of it, is jeopardized. Poe thought that a long poem was a contradiction: lyric nuggets held together by prosy passages. My recent experience as a teacher tells me that even midsize poems are now a contradiction to students. ('Fate of Reading Once More' 388) One hopes that there is at least a touch of irony somewhat reminiscent of Horace in Hartman's dark prediction about the reading of poetry. But what is interesting and certainly true to the experience of those who teach, there is much poetry being written. And here we fondly recall Harold Bloom's ringing assertion: Wordsworth has begun something new, something that keeps on beginning, despite all the waves of modernism, postmodernism, or what you will. In the longest perspective that we can achieve, the supposedly sober and tame Wordsworth remains the most original and disturbing poet of the nineteenth or the twentieth century. (138) Is the secret of Wordsworth's perduring power a strength of poetic presence that is challengingly new and yet somehow familiar? Is he read today for the same reason that poetry continues to be written, that the poetic act is so fundamental it is almost compulsive and the poetry closest to that basic impulse is still cherished in 87



The Mind of the Poet


[A] characteristic excellence of Mr. W's works is: a correspondent weight and sanity of the Thoughts and Sentiments, - won, not from books; but - from the poet's own meditative observation. They are fresh and have the dew upon them. His muse, at least when in her strength of wing, and when she hovers aloft in her proper element, Makes audible a linked lay of truth, Of truth profound a sweet continuous lay, Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes! S. T. C. (II: 144-5; emphasis his) Coleridge also speaks of Wordsworth's 'perfect truth of nature' (148), his 'austere purity of language' (142), 'sinewy strength and originality of single lines and paragraphs' (148), 'meditative pathos, a union of deep and subtle thought with sensibility' (150), and finally 'imaginative power' where 'he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton; and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed and his own' (151). There is a linguistic but especially a cognitive emphasis which stands out in this catalogue. Wordsworth's originality is stressed, but his stature is confirmed in terms of the capacious giants Shakespeare and Milton. In effect Coleridge gives us an ethical account of Wordsworth's powers, especially his feeling commitment to truth and with truth, 'meditative pathos ... [and] sensibility'. Here I find Coleridge also speaking of sincerity, honesty of commitment. It is this combination of appeals which possibly has led scholars to notice a third appeal in Wordsworth, his call to his readers to share in his very act as poet. Nabholtz urges that such a sharing is characteristic of romantic prose generally and certainly of Wordsworth's famous Preface ('My Reader My Fellow-Labourer' 69-80). He even sees the 'identification of prose reader as poet' (76). Bialostosky speaks of how, according to Wordsworth's doctrine in the Essay Supplementary, such 'passion and power' can be diffused by the poet that 'the external



an otherwise increasingly barren age? Certain key elements help explain our ready attachment to Wordsworth. A truly important one of these is named by Coleridge in his famous discussion of Wordsworth's poetry in the Biographia Literaria:

effort of producing critical discourse, making new poems, ... or committing political acts' can result (Wordsworth, Dialogics 16). Meisenhelder argues much the same (233-5). Is Wordsworth's attraction a rousing of the creative energies of his readers? Is the eloquent conclusion to the Prelude a call from Wordsworth to Coleridge to share their work as poets with people at large? Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak A lasting inspiration, sanctified By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved Others will love, and we will teach them how, Instruct them how the mind of Man becomes A thousand times more beautiful than the earth On which he dwells, above this Frame of things (Which 'mid all revolutions in the hopes And fears of Men doth still remain unchanged) In beauty exalted, as it is itself Of quality and fabric more divine. (14.446-56) Much critical discussion has been devoted to this passage. Havens offers a helpful comment on the term 'Nature' (14-Bk Prelude, 14.446); he reminds us that Wordsworth probably never regarded 'himself as primarily a poet or prophet of external nature; "the Mind of Man" was the main region of his song' (2: 637). In invoking the Prospectus, he anticipates Abrams' discussion of Wordsworth's master poetic purpose (Nat. Supernat. 17-32). Also commenting on the conclusion of The Prelude, Thomas emphasizes that Wordsworth intends 'to teach his readers how to love, or how to think, and not what to think', and that in this emphasis on manner we have 'the heart of Wordsworth's ideas about poetic education' (3; emphasis his). Jonathan Wordsworth regards 'the poet's bravura' (emphasis his) in this passage as rather sad, 'to be valued chiefly in its poignancy' (Borders of Vision 338). I find that this passage recalls the enthusiasm of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's shared idealism in Somerset. But Wordsworth let the passage stand, and if it does not speak necessarily for Coleridge, it does announce Wordsworth's sustained determination to make his poetry serve a public purpose. His appeal now, to us in our time, could surely reflect how well his purpose and means have coincided.



The Mind of the Poet 89


Wordsworth's success is not the achievement of didacticism, despite his declaration in a letter to Sir George Beaumont, 'Every great Poet is a Teacher: I wish either to be considered as a Teacher, or as nothing' (MY I: 195). Coleridge is undoubtably right: the main appeal of Wordsworth was and continues to be 'perfect truth of nature', moving expression, and the genius of imagination. And there is something else, his position as poet. His call to his readers to share his vocation is a major element in the power of his truth, and this is so because of his clear moral stature as poet. The appealing aspects we have just recounted in Wordsworth by now have a familiar ring, the characteristic Aristotelian ethical values. But one wonders if Aristotle's doctrine is relevant in our time. Before explicating Wordsworth according to Aristotle, we should note that the use of the ethical proof in strictly literary analysis has grown significantly in our time. In my Appendix, I give a sampling of recent studies. 12 Here let me comment on one element in one of the studies discussed fully in the Appendix. In his dissertation, Cherry offers a helpful distinction between empirical author and implied author, and so forth; we shall simply predicate the ethical values we discover in Wordsworth to Wordsworth as empirical author. Certain nuances should be noted as to the relationship between Wordsworth as empirical author and possible personae in his works. Because this is such a large question, and because ethical predication should be assigned to the empirical author (we follow Cherry here), we will leave the issues of implied author and Wordsworthian personae mainly untouched. We will still note, however, some aspects of his polyphonic character. His reverence for authentic poetic language inspires his candor and also his subtlety as he discloses himself with a fascinating variety in his texts. The Preface to Lyrical Ballads is one of our most important critical statements. Its doctrines have been debated for almost two hundred years, but I think that the key to its appeal lies in the feisty exuberance of its voice. The drama of that voice as it champions a new creed in poetry is largely the drama of a contender, one minute defensive, somewhat unwilling, a bit embarrassed at having to undertake an apologetic task, and the next moment insistent, almost stentorian, then confessional, vulnerable, and then lyrical and Delphically engaging. The Preface, as we noted, is one of the great canonized documents in English literature, but we must approach this text with a degree of caution. Heffernan, one of Wordsworth's most sympathetic critics, has reservations:



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Parrish is much more positive. The Preface 'remains a remarkably literate, coherent, and rich analysis of what Wordsworth felt throughout his career to be the central topics of criticism' (10). Parrish emphasizes the 'rhetorical' purposes and character of the Preface (10-11). Nabholtz offers a careful analysis of the Preface as a highly successful rhetorical piece. It may not yield itself easily to logical scrutiny, but in all fairness such analysis misses 'the integrity of the work as rhetoric and as apologia' (80). Nabholtz is especially helpful in noting the ethical force of the Preface; though he does not explicitly cite Aristotle or discuss the elements of the ethical proof, he does speak of Wordsworth's 'ethical appeal' (73) in the 'exordium' or first 'five-paragraph introduction' to the Preface (72). But it is Nabholtz's use of 'apologia' (80) and his overall view of the 'means' of the Preface in achieving its goal, to 'establish the credibility of the writer' (71; emphasis his), which show his awareness of much of Wordsworth's ethical endeavor. 13 My main concern is the ethical stature of Wordsworth as voice in the Preface. I read the Preface as more in the vein of celebratory or epideictic rhetoric. In part Wordsworth is apologetic, but mainly his 'arguments' are thinly supported, impassioned and eloquent assertions. The rhetoric I find in the Preface is that of Henry V's St Crispin's speech or John of Gaunt's 'This England'. The Preface neatly divides itself as each major ethical issue is urged. Wordsworth starts, taking up vigorously the first requisite of ethical argument, the task to establish his honesty as chief voice in the Preface. This endeavor begins with his declaration of purpose for Lyrical Ballads, 'The first Volume of these Poems ... was published, as an experiment ...' (lines 14-15) 14 and runs through the first eight paragraphs (184 lines) of the Preface. Wordsworth's chief concern is to explain what Lyrical Ballads attempts as poetry and what he hopes to accomplish in the Preface by way of defense of his verse. Wordsworth's tone is frank and insistent but also winningly self-effacing. Immediately, even in these first paragraphs, a pattern emerges followed throughout the Preface. Where Wordsworth is concerned to establish his personal veracity, as it were, he uses the first person and



The Preface simply does not have the homogeneity of a schematic treatise. More than an ephemeral outburst and less than a definitive account of the poetic art, the Preface is in fact the mirror of a mind in motion, at once the mind of a rebel who came to destroy and the mind of a poet who came to fulfill. (56-7)


speaks with almost a confessional candor. Where he is occupied in formal argument, he uses the third person. But as we shall see, the sections devoted to self-authentication provide an inspiriting tonality which echoes in and enlivens the more cognitive sections with a modulated but warm personalism. The Preface begins quite defensively in the first person. As Nabholtz points out, 'these "introductory remarks" are rhetorical and apologetic' (71). But it is the personalism that gives these lines their winning tone. The third paragraph offers a disclaimer. It begins with a familiar and homely appeal: 'Friends', out of respect for the poet's achievements in this poetry, urged him to do an elaborate defense. Naturally he must demur, but he does not do so before planting a vigorous claim for the value of Lyrical Ballads as an ultimate poetic standard. The poet hides himself as he voices this claim through the mouths of others. His 'Friends' urged him, from a belief, that, if the views with which they [the poems] were composed were indeed realised, a class of Poetry would be produced, well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the quality, and in the multiplicity of its moral relations: and on this account they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of the theory upon which the Poems were written. (28-33) Wordsworth's argumentative ploy is all too familiar; it is impossible not to use it sometime in one's life. Here we catch and possibly approve Wordsworth's candor - that he would risk being so openfaced gives a relaxed familiarity to his text; the very homeliness of his argumentative ploy enhances his sincerity far more than would a sophisticated argument. Here we can expect argument without guile. Wordsworth must refuse an elaborate defense, though, because he realizes how 'coldly' (34) his attempts would be viewed, 'the selfish and foolish hope of reasoning' his audience 'into an approbation of these particular Poems' (36-7; emphasis his). Furthermore, space forbids his doing a logically rigorous defense that would require discussing such items as 'the present state of the public taste' (42) and 'in what manner language and the human mind act and re-act on each other, ...' (44-5). He 'therefore [has] altogether declined to enter regularly upon this defence ...' (47); but it would be 'something like impropriety' not to say something in explanation or 'introduction' (he does not use the word defense here) to 'Poems so materially differ-



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ent from those upon which general approbation is at present bestowed' (48-51). Wordsworth is hardly suave in making his excuses, but he is very definite in limiting the responsibilities of his defense. As Nabholtz and others point out, he does defend himself despite his disclaimer.15 But the style of his refusal is still quite effective. His honesty is shrewdly evidenced by his image of how 'coldly' any defense would be viewed. We sympathize with him and the charge of potential prejudice is cheerfully borne by us, his readers. We are impressed at how his mind can anticipate learned objections and the dimensions of proper learned explanation. We are glad, however, to be delivered from such theoretical disquisition. We are intrigued, finally, because Wordsworth admits the risk of 'impropriety' if he does not say something. His 'Poems [are] so materially different ' This procedure is typical of so much of the first-person, gangling rhetoric of the Preface. As expected in the elaborate but obvious demur, Wordsworth frees himself from potentially threatening burdens, but he also placards a bold claim for his poetry. He reveals his honesty, shows intellectual acuity in acknowledging problems involved in a fully detailed defense of his poems, and thus we come to respect his character and his defense - the novelty of his poetry, so self-effacingly declared, guarantees this - but we are also eager, if warmed at all to the challenge of his endeavor, to hear him out and do so all the while we contend against our potential for prejudice. We have noted already in Stephen Parrish's reading of the Preface, 'Wordsworth's poetic tactics and his critical pronouncements taken together make it clear that poet and reader are joint participants in the experience of literature' (32). As we have also seen, Nabholtz is of much the same mind (76). This is clearly demonstrated in our paragraph, but what is amazing is Wordsworth's skill in luring us into bearing the rhetorical burdens so willingly. But I would contend that we are lured, not as laborers, but as sympathetic confidants. All Wordsworth asks is a friendly hearing. Wordsworth becomes rather defensive16 in the fourth paragraph with a somewhat pompous declaration of literary principle. Here we have the third-person declarative counterpart to Wordsworth's firstperson confessionalism: It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association This exponent or symbol held forth by metrical




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Wordsworth frankly admits that his readers may very well charge him with violating the conventions of verse even though these conventions evolve in time and create sequentially different legitimate bodies of expectation. Wordsworth realizes that readers will experience 'strangeness and awkwardness' (69) because they will not recognize his verse as poetry (64-71). Thus he begs to be allowed to state what I have proposed to myself to perform;... that I myself may be protected from one of the most dishonourable accusations which can be brought against an Author; namely, that of an indolence ... [not knowing] his duty, or, when his duty is ascertained, ... [not] performing it. (72-80) It may seem strange that a poet seeking 'to destroy' (Heffernan 56) would be so preoccupied with, almost daunted by, the conventions of poetry, historically apprehended. He returns to the first person and admits the strangeness of his work, but he wants to place it somehow in that tradition. We respect his candor and his professional knowledge. We also feel flattered that he cares that his readers see him as struggling to align himself with legitimate aesthetic expectation. His fear of the charge of 'indolence' seems sincere. It is a valuable reference. The charge necessarily lurks in any context where the new is heralded and a competing artistic tradition must be challenged. It is so easy for a contending voice to sound flippant. Wordsworth censoriously comments on 'the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers' and speaks of those who would condescendingly 'inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that title' of poetry (lines 66-71). However, we are inclined to allow him his peevish tone. He has already pleaded for our tolerance. Especially, though, we hold our judgement because his conscience is clearly aroused, his respect for his audience truly genuine, as he frets over 'one of the most dishonourable accusations' an author can face, 'indolence', failure to perform his professional 'duty'. Such self-effacing concern for audience and tradition in a context where an author projects a new kind of artifact



language must in different aeras of literature have excited very different expectations: for example, in the age of Catullus, Terence, and Lucretius, and that of Statius or Claudian, and in our own country, in the age of Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher, and that of Donne and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope, (lines 52-61)

is rare and highly engaging. As audience, we are comrades in his defensive process - just as Parrish and Nabholtz have observed. But we feel an intimacy as we become privy to his fervor and vulnerability. And here we feel the lyrical as well as ethical power of Wordsworth. He has won our respect. With the dominance of the third-person declarations and the classical references to the Roman writers Catullus, Terence and Claudian, this paragraph has a strong classical heft. It provides an austere, tempering prelude, a kind of learned Doric frame, for the four absolutely crucial and distinctively Wordsworthian paragraphs that follow, paragraphs 5, 6, 7 and 8 (lines 81-184), which perhaps more than any other critical texts define Wordsworth and much of English literary romanticism for the academic and even the popular mind. Paragraph five declares Wordsworth's 'object... [as] proposed in these Poems' (81) and retails, particularly as the text reads in its final version, the special materials so characteristic of his poetry, 'incidents and situations from common life' (82), 'a selection of language really used by men' (83-4), 'the primary laws of our nature: ... [as] we associate ideas in a state of excitement' (88-90). Paragraph six contains Wordsworth's famous definition of poetry rendered as part of an elaborate defense of the 'worthy purpose' to be found in each poem (123; emphasis his). Paragraph seven, shortened in the final version, has his famous justification of feeling, 'feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling' (147-9). Paragraph eight expands on Wordsworth's doctrine of feeling, his 'endeavour to produce or enlarge' the domain and the health of human feeling (158-9). The critical commentary is extensive on Wordsworth's purpose, choice of rural life and 'language really used by men', his definition of poetry and doctrine of feeling.17 Our concern is with the ethical dimensions of these paragraphs and the possibility of their fulfilling Coleridge's claim that among Wordsworth's strongest appeals are 'weight and sanity of the Thoughts and Sentiments' (II: 144) and correlatively a 'perfect truth of nature' (II: 148). We should expect to be foiled in our quest. Coleridge famously criticized many of the theories in these paragraphs, though he concedes that Wordsworth is to be praised for, among many things, his attack on 'falsity in the poetic style of the moderns' (II: 40). Coleridge disagrees with Wordsworth's theory of diction, 'language which actually constitutes the natural conversation of men' (II: 42). He objects to Wordsworth's focus on





Tow and rustic life' (II: 43). Practically the whole of Chapter 17 of Biographia Literaria II is devoted to criticism of Wordsworth on these points. And yet, despite the negative commentary by Coleridge and others especially on the issues of common life and common language, we are intrigued because we are implicitly touched by the ethically generous view Wordsworth takes of the materials and agents in the poetic act. His democratic and attempted philosophic inclusion perhaps reveals why these Wordsworthian paragraphs have generated so much interest. If Stephen Parrish is right, the Preface gives us 'a remarkably literate, coherent, and rich analysis of what Wordsworth felt throughout his career to be the central topics of criticism' (10). The paragraphs will exhibit that rich analysis in a special way. The first of the especially 'Wordsworthian' paragraphs, paragraph five, beginning with 'The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems ... ,' is dominated by the rather grand, third-person impersonality of some of Wordsworth's best theoretical declamation. Nabholtz indicates that this paragraph shows 'in full play' the 'rhetorical procedures' so far clearly shown in 'the exordium' (74). I do not see a clearly classical procedure here. I see much classical reference and many classical figures, but I find an overall argumentative pattern made up of first-person confessional avowal and third-person insistent pronouncement without much formal argument even of an enthymematic character. In this paragraph, Wordsworth declares his special purpose in doing the poetry of Lyrical Ballads and the special rationale he cherishes for focusing on country life and rural folk. I quote from the beginning of the shorter 1800 version and the longer 1850 version from the Owen and Smyser text: 1800 The principal object then which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to make the incidents of common life interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement, [lines 72-6] 1850 The principal object, then, proposed in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things



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The striking difference between the two is, of course, size. The second is not only larger but heavily freighted with abstract terms. But we also notice the difference caused by dropping the first-personsingular-pronominal reference. Owen notes that the deletion of the first-person reference occurred in the 1836 and subsequent editions of the 1802 Preface (Prose 1: 111). Our 1850 version is almost aloof in its dry resonance. This kind of heavy philosophic prose is characteristic, as already noted, of Wordsworth's more directly declamatory passages. Again we have a classical ring, one long periodic sentence tied together by five infinitives (one without its sign) and a climax pointed to by the conjunctive adverbs 'further, and above all'; the climactic infinitive phrase is enhanced by a dependent gerund phrase which, with all its modifiers, is made up of 31 words in a sentence of 108 words. Statistics of grammar can have their uses. Here Wordsworth is declaring a new kind of poetry, and to do so in such grand cadences is striking. The third-person, pronunciamento structure contrasts effectively with the first-person apologetic tone basically pursued to this point. Our paragraph begins with a pointed assertion of purpose: 'The principal object ... in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life ' It then goes on to the business of explaining why certain main features of that purpose were 'chosen': 'Humble and rustic life' (90-100) and 'language' of those involved in that life (100-7). An elaborate conclusion is drawn (107-14). These latter sections of our paragraph, actually just three sentences, have a highly classical tonality. The sentences are richly complex and possess some of the most characteristic features of Latinate periodic sentences. Each sentence is stitched together by firmly sequenced parallel dependent clauses and their attendant phrases. Given the issues of subject-matter and language whose appropriateness to general purpose is now argued, one would assume that here Wordsworth would undertake very serious, formal argument. Actually, he does not. In the first sentence we have what Nabholtz calls, not an '"argument"' per se, but an 'example of the balanced



should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. (81-90)

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Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because, in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and, lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. (90-100; emphasis mine) This formidable declaration is constructed of four elaborately detailed causal clauses defending the virtues of rural life. But the reasoning in each of these in turn is based upon an implied and unproved premise, that is, rural life is necessarily endowed with the capacities to produce inspiring results. We may be inclined to allow some of these benefits, to some people, on some occasions; but we might find we cannot share the full sweep of Wordsworth's enthusiasm. Wordsworth, however, assumes we share his views rather fully. His method of argument attempts enthymematic avowal.18 Coleridge, for one, disagreed in much detail with Wordsworth's premise (II: 44-5). However, though Wordsworth's faith in the powers of the bucolic remain unsupported, we are readily inclined to believe him, to accept his assertions. Part of this is perhaps sentiment, but much persuasive force is bodied forth in the passage and others like it simply from the classical formality of the text itself and from the almost Delphic confidence of the voice. It is third person, but these remarks come within the echo of the authorial first person who concluded the last paragraph. There Wordsworth worried over possible 'accusations' and 'duty'. That authorial voice implicitly operates here. We have come to trust that as the voice of one who cares about poetry and audience, and thus we allow an authority to that voice now in the third person in its emphatic pronouncements about rural living. These declarations may lack convictive power from a logical standpoint, but they evoke a person who has already won us



structure of Wordsworth's "credible reasoning style" substituting for a formal demonstration' (74). The first sentence is typical of his procedure and is quoted in full:

by his passion. Here that passion is especially appealing because it is now so carefully tempered within solidly traditional formulaic structures. Our next paragraph, paragraph six (115-44), contains Wordsworth's famous definition of poetry. The paragraph is an amazing conglomerate of relatively competing issues and yet it is profoundly Wordsworthian and earnestly ethical. If ever Wordsworth wanted to explain his special vision of poetry, of himself as poet, and his mission to his audience, he seeks to do so here. Some may find his line of reasoning divagating, unconvincing, but the truth of his caring invests the disparate elements of his argument with such motile energy that there is much more relatedness and latent truth than we may have suspected. The paragraph is initially dominated by Wordsworth's first-person, confessional presence. His initial concern reminds us of his fear of being accused of 'indolence'; here he confronts possible charges of 'triviality and meanness, both of thought and language' (116). He recognizes the seriousness of the 'defect' (118), and he defends himself - interestingly - against possible qualitative weaknesses in his verse by insisting that each of his poems 'has a worthy purpose' (123; emphasis his). At this point one expects Wordsworth to catalogue a series of goals he hopes his poetry to serve or a series of themes it is to proclaim and defend. Instead, he provides a detailed recounting of his mode of composition as it originates and develops through the intertwining of thought and feeling. Owen explains how complex Wordsworth's process is (Wordsworth as Critic 37-42). The central truth advanced by Wordsworth seems well summarized by Owen to the effect that, as the poet contemplates the relationship between 'feelings and subjects', eventually 'his powerful feelings' will generally be connected with truly 'important subjects' and thus such 'feelings ... are a suitable basis for an important poem' (40-1). Magnuson takes a somewhat different approach and focuses on possible meanings of '"spontaneous"' (101): 'Wordsworth's theory does not imply that poetry is unpremeditated ...' (102). Emotion is twofold; 'aesthetic emotion' results from serious thought (106). 'Contemplation is ... essential ...' (107). Heffernan stresses the influence of Hartley and sees the creative process declared by Wordsworth as 'the educated effluence of a mature mind - a disciplined spontaneity'; however, 'it is equally plain that consciousness plays no part in the creative act itself (43).





Westbrook disagrees and argues a much greater presence of control and even creative freedom in Hartley's doctrine (97-9). Parrish sees Wordsworth as supporting the view that 'the creative ... [is] a matter of conscious artistry' (5). This position is 'foreshadowed' in the additions made to the 1802 version of the Preface on the nature of the poet (7). Perhaps the best critical purchase on the multifarious nature of this paragraph is offered by Charles Altieri through his theory of a 'Poetics of Eloquence' (131-62), that is, that feature of rhetorical performance that exemplifies the power of the passion rendered to situate the speaker so that a mutual process of amplification takes place: what the speaker attributes to the world as worthy of the passion rendered can be tested only to the degree that it moves the audience to identify with it as a potentially tranformative [sic] force in their lives. (133) In our paragraph Wordsworth speaks fervidly of his 'habits of meditation' which have, I trust, so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose, (lines 125-7; emphasis his) Thus, as Wordsworth describes 'objects ... [which] strongly excite those feelings', he not only enables poetic 'purpose' (125-7; emphasis his) to come into being; but, in Altieri's terms, he enables us through 'a mutual process of amplification' to participate in his own cognitiveaffective processes. As, through disciplined thought, his feelings engage worthy objects and raise them to poetic status, so he brings us with him through the exemplary process to relish not only the objects raised to poetry but the creative power itself. Here we are reminded of Heffernan's excellent discussion of 'creative sensibility': This concept provides the Preface with its second voice. For while the major voice denounces 'art' in favor of 'elementary feelings', a minor voice enunciates the value of a discerning sensibility and meditative emotion. (87)



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enables the poet to receive the impulses of nature, to create in harmony with those impulses, and to distill them - usually by means of recollection - in the alembic of meditative feeling Properly understood, the concept of creative sensibility establishes the role of feeling in the production of poetry. Feeling is the crucial link between passive response and imaginative transformation. (93-4) We are, then, sharers in the benefits of Wordsworth's 'habits of meditation' (Preface, line 125) both as they have 'regulated ... [his] feelings' and have endowed his poetic 'purpose' (126-7; emphasis his), but also as these habits endow us through our sharing his experience. The implication of 'meditation' and its far-ranging inclusive dynamic are emphasized by Wordsworth's categorical declaration, 'If this opinion be erroneous, I can have little right to the name of a Poet' (128-9). This comment contains an important echo of Horace and emphasizes how seriously Wordsworth considered this procedure grounded in meditation and emotion and resulting in movingly informative text. Because these consequences are so important and because Wordsworth's famous definition of poetry is enfolded among these consequences, the last part of this paragraph is quoted in full: If this opinion be erroneous, I can have little right to the name of a Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: and though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings; and, as by contemplating the relation of these general representatives to each other, we discover what is really important to men, so, by the repetition and continuance of this act, our feelings will be connected with important subjects, till at length, if we be originally possessed of much sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced, that, by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits, we shall describe objects, and utter sentiments, of such a nature, and in such connection with each other, that the understanding of the



Further on, Heffernan explains how 'creative sensibility' works: it


Wordsworth, we notice, begins by emphasizing the importance of his doctrine of mediation to his identity as poet. He then defines poetry as feeling and then returns to thought and feeling and their dyadically intertwined operations. Altieri speaks of 'projectible [sic] imaginative power' (140); and Heffernan refers to 'meditative emotion' (87) and 'alembic of meditative feeling' (93). The passion emphasized by Altieri is qualified but not imperiously by Heffernan's reference to 'meditative'. What we have is charged tension in the relationship between the two elements, thought and feeling. Wordsworth's energetic grappling with and attempt to balance these elements dominate the last part of this key paragraph. One way to see how Wordsworth struggles admirably to coordinate the appropriate realms of the cognitive and the affective is to look again at his shift away from his first-person singular defensive stance against the possible charges of 'triviality and meanness, both of thought and language' (line 116): T cannot ... be insensible' (115), T acknowledge' (118), 'though I should contend' (120), 'Not that I always began' (124), T trust' (125), T can have little right to the name of a Poet' (128-9). He handles these possible charges, as we have seen, by an assertion of 'purpose' (123; emphasis his). The voice freed through 'purpose' now shifts to third-person declamatory insistence: 'For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ...' (129-30). We have the same process we observed above, impersonal pronouncement. We expect some substantiation, at least, of how 'poetry is the spontaneous overflow of ... feelings,' but the assertion is allowed to stand with oracular finality. The definition seems undermined by having a concessive clause tagged immediately to it, 'though this be true'. The sentence then urgently proceeds to declare the universal proposition: Poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. (130-3) It is almost as though Wordsworth's declaration should read, 'Although poetry can be understood as feeling, it is really the result of profound thought.'



Reader must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified. (128-44)


For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts ... indeed the representatives of all our past feelings — [with the result] that the understanding of the Reader must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified. (133-44; emphasis mine) We now share in the poetic enterprise and we find ourselves examining and indeed by 'contemplating' (135), 'we discover what is really important ...' (136-7). Nabholtz comments that, in 'this identification of prose reader as poet', we have a fine example of 'a main motive or impulse in the most original romantic prose writing on poetry' (76). I would add that we especially have ethical argument forcefully realized in a dual thrust. The voice has declared a truth about poetry with such defining emphasis that the knowledge of the voice seems incontestable. But the first-person plural is used and the audience is also involved and thereby appealed to. The audience is inclined to assent because its creative reactions have been described so eloquently (Nabholtz passim, esp. 80). Paradoxically, however, we find that we don't need to agree. Perhaps we cannot, but we still cheer for and enjoy Wordsworth's fervor. Wordsworth's whole mode of argument operates dialectically. As we have noted, the third-person propositional declamations ring true because the first-person cautionary sharing has enabled us to trust the voice. We now trust Wordsworth all the more because he has brought us so inclusively into his endeavor. In the earlier version of the Preface, Wordsworth provided clear examples of what he meant by 'feelings' or 'passion' or 'moral sensations' (1800 text, lines [133-66]). In the very descriptive terms he employs, we can catch his composite notion of feeling and idea. Here too he describes his thematic intentions in terms of poetic purpose: this purpose will be found principally to be: namely to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are associated in a state of excitement [I]t is to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature by tracing the maternal passion through many of its more subtle windings, as in the poems of the Idiot Boy and the Mad Mother; ...



Such a reading would push Wordsworth too far. He returns to his emphasis on feeling and the interchange of feeling and thought. He also changes his voice to first-person plural:

104


These examples readily illustrate why so much of Wordsworth's energy is devoted to balancing thought and sentiment, cognition and emotion. Just the expression 'the maternal passion' tells volumes. The notion of a mother's love at the abstract level is powerful enough, but the challenge to render and share that experience as 'passion' is daunting, and also so absolutely worthy. Interiority as well as intensity marks the engagement of Wordsworth's poetic focus. His quest is always 'the mind A thousand times more beautiful than the earth ... In beauty exalted, ... Of quality and fabric more divine' (14-Bk 14.450-6). It is the full mind - thought vigorously interfused with its condign emotional relationships - which Wordsworth seeks to disclose, especially that mind as discovered in the humbler stations of life. At this point in the Preface we can readily assess its strength and its fascination. We do have the truths Coleridge honored and the expression of a poet which he also respected. Especially, we have Wordsworth himself with us, not arguing critical absolutes in chiseled logic, but sharing all the contesting energies and impulses that cause him - and us through him - to rejoice in the captious wonder of poetic appeal. Here too it is important to recall his categorical declaration about himself as poet. Wordsworth has asserted that habits of meditation have ... so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose. If this opinion be erroneous, I can have little right to the name of a Poet, (lines 125-9; emphasis his) Here, Wordsworth is quoting Horace from a key passage in the Ars Poetica:

descriptas servare vices operumque colores cur ego si nequeo ignoroque poeta salutor? (86-7)



or by displaying the strength of fraternal, or to speak more philosophically, of moral attachment when early associated with the great and beautiful objects of nature, as in The Brothers; [134-49]

Fairclough translates, 'If I fail to keep and do not understand these well-marked shifts and shades of poetic forms, why am I hailed as poet?' (457, 459) Wordsworth's attachment to Horace is quoted in an eloquent testimonial in the Memoirs by Christopher Wordsworth: 'Horace is my great favourite: I love him dearly' (2: 479). This attachment is pervasive in Wordsworth and, as we saw above, has received much critical commentary. The passage in the Ars Poetica, which Wordsworth echoes, bears a striking resemblance to Wordsworth's argument here. Horace has laid out an elaborate scheme, citing the different major literary genres and commenting on their requisite characteristics. He would claim poetic status to the degree he is a master of these characteristics. Brink suggests that Horace may simply be 'deprecating and mock-modest ... [He] seems to direct against himself what he is censuring in others' (The 'Ars Poetica' 173). As I have argued in another context, 19 the similarity between Wordsworth and Horace is that both identify what they regard as the chief duties of the poet. For Horace it would be mastery of the demands of his art, its genres, structure, subtleties, and so forth; Wordsworth sees the tasks and character of the poet somewhat differently. We have just commented on his dedication to interiority: thought, passion, description, purpose. Wordsworth is just as devoted to his art as Horace, but his ethical concern is here more overt. He recalls his classical mentor, differentiates himself to a degree from him, because here he would emphasize his zeal to find a just balance among the interior principles of poetry. The Horatian echo is an affirmation of the seriousness of his quest for the deep springs of poetic creativity. His reverence for Horace is undiminished, but Wordsworth must push on because his is a poetry which is 'materially different' (line 50). At the beginning of paragraph nine, Wordsworth announces a new direction in the Preface: Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aims of these Poems, I shall request the Reader's permission to apprise him of a few circumstances relating to their style, in order, among other reasons, that he may not censure me for not having performed what I never attempted. (185-8; emphasis his) In explaining his style, Wordsworth disavows 'personifications' (189) and 'poetic diction' (202) and even a large body of common and possibly cliched poetic





Wordsworth furthermore insists that, as he has endeavored 'to adopt the very language of men' (192), he is justified because '[i]t may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition' (266-8; emphasis his). Nabholtz points out that in these stylistic issues also Wordsworth is concerned to sustain a close identity with his reader and 'the apologetic nature of the discourse' (77). I see a Wordsworthian, populist version of the philological poetics of Horace. Though he discusses the nature of the poet and the kinds of truth poetry is able to render (319-476), and the powers and value of meter (523-659), Wordsworth also maintains his vigilant defense of ordinary language as a foundation for poetic expression. As he nears the end of the Preface, he declares: Having thus explained a few of my reasons for writing in verse, and why I have chosen subjects from common life, and endeavoured to bring my language near to the real language of men, if I have been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the same time been treating a subject of general interest (660-4) We notice the emphasis on 'common life' and 'language of men' that has dominated the Preface and in these issues we find a third key mode of the ethical proof, concern for one's audience. Wordsworth is constantly at pains to placate the frustrated expectations of his readers. Again, as he draws near the end of the Preface, he comments apologetically: Hence I have no doubt, that, in some instances, feelings, even of the ludicrous, may be given to my Readers by expressions which appeared to me tender and pathetic. (673-5) Nabholtz has explained how Wordsworth seeks to enlist his readers in sharing his ideas and the very creative work of giving meaning to his text. Speaking of a sentence in the section where Wordsworth offers his famous definition of poetry and describes the powers of mind involved in the poetic act, Nabholtz comments: 'In effect, the



expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but which have been foolishly repeated by bad Poets, till such feelings of disgust are connected with them as it is scarcely possible by any art of association to overpower. (219-22)

sentence attempts to turn readers into poets engaged in a rhetorical enterprise of "enlightening" and "ameliorating" an audience ...' (75). My own reading of Wordsworth would surely agree with Nabholtz, but I would especially urge that Wordsworth wants his readers and people at large to think of themselves truly as poets in some real way, even if only as 'silent poets'. Wordsworth's intention in Lyrical Ballads is not only 'that the understanding of the Reader must... be ... enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified' (142-4), but also that the reader enjoy a very special kind of pleasure, a 'pleasure ... of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry' (206-8). Scoggins identifies the quest for this goal as crucial for Lyrical Ballads and its Preface (382). It is 'his theory concerning the relation between style and the new kind of poetic pleasure' which enabled Wordsworth to accomplish 'his signal break with the eighteenth century.' (383). Ethically Wordsworth appeals to his audience because his goal is their pleasure, a self-effacing goal on his part, and a goal accomplished through the materials immediately available to the very audience this new poetry was designed to please. As Wordsworth declares: My purpose was to imitate ... the very language of men; ... I have wished to keep the Reader in the company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him. (lines 191-9) Wordsworth also prides himself that 'little falsehood of description' can be found 'in these Poems' (212), an achievement reached because T have at all times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject' (210-11). Wordsworth's focus is the reality of general humanity, the reality most immediate to his audience. Furthermore, in cataloguing the gifts of the poet, he ends with the observation: But whatever portion of this faculty [gift of poetic expression] we may suppose even the greatest Poet to possess, ... the language which it will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and truth, fall short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual pressure of those passions (341-5) Wordsworth also observes that the poet is to remember 'that no words, which his fancy or imagination can suggest, will be to be




108 Words worth's Classical Undersong

Poets do not write for Poets alone, but for men the Poet must descend from this supposed height; and, in order to excite rational sympathy, he must express himself as other men express themselves. (512-17) Wordsworth's new poetry is made from 'the language of men', 'flesh and blood', with Tittle falsehood of description', and honors that 'language' which 'in liveliness and Truth' real people utter under 'actual pressure of ... passions'. It is the real world which Wordsworth heralds poetically and makes available to us aesthetically. Our life and our speech are fundamentally the stuff of poetry. Here Wordsworth's generous inclusiveness redounds to his ethical appeal. Here we find a potent value in Wordsworth. Because he defends the common life as poetic, he opens poetry to all of us and lays the groundwork for his doctrine of silent poets. This is too broad a subject to develop here. However, I would suggest that the inspiration that led to the Wanderer in The Excursion (Poem 2: 42-3) is a ghostly presence at the back of the Preface. Wordsworth is, in effect, enlarging the scope of the ethical proof by emphasizing and enriching the ethos of his audience, our ethos. We began sharing Hartman's observation that much poetry continues to be written. It is a living agent in human heritage and ethically Wordsworth wins our gratitude because he explains why. In the 1800 text of the Preface Wordsworth speaks of 'Low and rustic life' as the normative source for his poetry [76]; in the 1832 (1850) text he speaks of 'Humble and rustic life' (90). But in other contexts he is less socially fixated and he simply speaks of 'a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation' (16-17); 'a selection of the language really spoken by men' (284). Though Wordsworth does not appeal directly to us as audience and say that we can share in the vocation of poet because the materials and passions and characteristic utterance of passion are ours by right of our humanity, he does so implicitly. We may even be a bit vain and quietly hope that if poetry can be made from common experience and standard expression, then perhaps our experience and language are potentially poetic. I find this a latent but genuine appeal in the Preface. The Preface is not the recondite pronunciamento of a scholar-



compared with those which are the emanations of reality and truth' (361-3; emphasis his). Finally, the poet is to recall one great injunction:

critic, but the warm testimony of a friend whose kindly theories enable us to share his very vocation as poet. Though we shall consider the Preface in other aspects ahead, it is helpful to pause for a special consideration here. Usually we do not assign aesthetic value as such to critical prose, but with Wordsworth's Preface it is most appropriate. He cares deeply to prove the worth of what he regards as a new kind of poetry, and he cares deeply to include us in that poetry as ours by right of inheritance. His vision of the 'speciosa vocabula rerum' is somewhat different from Horace's, but his humanistic goal is the same. In The Prelude he famously describes his state in the heady, hopeful days of the French Revolution, 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive' (11.108). We do not need to share Wordsworth's critical theories in all points to relish the artistic vigor of the Preface. Its commitment and youth are enough.




7

At the heart of the extended addition to the 1802 version of the Preface stands Wordsworth's famous declaration about Aristotle: Aristotle, I have been told, has said, that Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so: its object is truth (lines 377-9) The general tenor of this addition concerns the language of poetry, but as can be seen from the above, the question of poetic truth is a competing if not an equally important issue. It starts with a noun clause interpolated into the 1800 text. The addition grows into 239 lines (283-522, 1850 text); the total number of lines in the 1802 (1850) text is 791. Wordsworth offers a response to an objection raised against his theory of diction and his assertion that a large portion of the language of every good poem can in no respect differ from that of good Prose. We will go further. It may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. (265-8; emphasis his) Immediately Wordsworth addresses the means whereby ordinary language can be used convincingly in poetry. Wordsworth refers not to all language, nor just any language, but a selection of the language really spoken by men; that this selection, wherever it is made with true taste and feeling, will of itself form a distinction far greater than would at first be imagined, ... (284-6) 110 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


The Poet's Truth

With 'selection', as Owen points out, we have a major point developed by Wordsworth in the 1802 addition and correlatively we have the poet involved in a mimetic enterprise (Wds. as Critic 66-7). Wordsworth's argument quickly takes him from language to mimesis and from mimesis to the issue of poetic truth. Wordsworth's concern for poetic truth begins with the question, 'What is a Poet?' (319). The poet is fundamentally 'a man speaking to men' (320-1), endowed with ordinary human talents, but to a greater degree; and thus the poet has 'a more comprehensive soul' (323) and other powers (321-40) including a special gift for expression. The ethical import in this section is truly impressive. In speaking of the nature of the poet, Wordsworth speaks of himself. His declaration of professional responsibility wins our respect. Also it is rare in critical literature, as we noted above, for a poet to be so inclusive of audience in the poet's own account of vocation. Wordsworth carefully balances the special talents of the poet with the poet's ordinary nature and constricting responsibility of the realistic identification with those whom he/she describes. Indeed, so important is this process that the poet is obliged at times 'to let himself slip into an entire delusion, and even confound and identify his own feelings with theirs' (353-4). The only mitigation in the attempted realism of this endeavor is that the poet remember that the language he/she would use as a poet must be crafted 'for a particular purpose, that of giving pleasure' (355-6). Wordsworth faces and quickly disposes of another challenge to his theory of language. His dismissal of the challenge is expressed in a tartly negative characterization of his opponents, and this leads us to the issue of truth and eventually to his spirited reference to Aristotle. He deprecates those who talk of Poetry as of a matter of amusement and idle pleasure; who will ... [speak] about a taste for Poetry, as they express it, as if it were a thing as indifferent as a taste for rope-dancing, or Frontiniac or Sherry. (374-7; emphasis his) Here we are reminded again of Wordsworth's high ethical regard for poetry. He moves on to speak of Aristotle and in this passage the triadic force of the ethical appeal is particularly strong. Aristotle as one of the most famous philosophers immediately reminds us of Wordsworth's quest for truth, the honest zeal it requires, and the social responsibility incumbent on a society to prize knowledge.



The Poet's Truth 111


Aristotle, I have been told, has said, that Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so: its object is truth, not individual and local, but general, and operative; not standing upon external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion; truth which is its own testimony, which gives competence and confidence to the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same tribunal. Poetry is the image of man and nature. The obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the Biographer and Historian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encountered by the Poet who comprehends the dignity of his art. (377-87) Before considering Wordsworth's understanding and use of Aristotle, certain features of Wordsworth's citation should be noticed. Owen points out that Aristotle does not say, as Wordsworth has it, that 'Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing.' Owen notes further that Wordsworth is not quite accurate in other elements of his understanding of Aristotle (Wds. as Critic 88). Owen also points out that Wordsworth probably derived his misunderstanding of Aristotle from Coleridge. In Chapter 22 of Biographia Literaria, Coleridge claims Aristotle teaches that 'the essence of poetry' is that it is 'the most intense, weighty and philosophical product of human art' (II. 126). As Owen indicates, the reference in Aristotle's Poetics relative to these remarks of Coleridge does not assert the absolute philosophic authority of poetry but simply its superiority to history (Prose 1: 179). Aristotle states that 'poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts' (Poetics IX. 1451 p. 35). Though Wordsworth and Coleridge may have misunderstood Aristotle in the same way, they use him very differently with respect to his supposed assertion about the universality of poetry. In the context we speak of in the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge criticizes Wordsworth for his 'matter-of-factness in certain poems' (II: 126; emphasis his). Coleridge has recourse to Aristotle and, as we have just seen, asserts that Aristotle insists on the broad universality of poetry. In his invocation in the Preface, Wordsworth does claim an Aristotelian sanction for poetry as philosophic and universal. But



Because of its importance and eloquence, the invocation is quoted in full:

Wordsworth emphasizes the specific epistemological nature of poetry, its criteriology, its mode of appeal, its human authority. Poetry does not depend upon premises outside its own self-cognizance; thus poetry does not require 'external testimony'. Because Wordsworth studied Locke (Schneider 106), he may very well have known the principle involved in asserting self-evident truths. Thus poetry is 'truth which is its own testimony'. Scoggins makes much of this passage and identifies imagination as Wordsworth's 'tribunal' for truth (393). Owen suggests that the second Essay upon Epitaphs gives us a description of the kind of truth Wordsworth has in mind in his comment in the Preface, 'truth ... carried alive into the heart by passion; truth which is its own testimony'. Owen quotes such expressions as '"sensations which all men have felt and feel in some degree daily and hourly"' (Wds. as Critic 90; Prose 2: 78). I should like to recall the key passage earlier in the Preface where Wordsworth speaks of 'habits of meditation [which] have ... so prompted and regulated my feelings' (1: 125-6). If Wordsworth's meditative powers could lead him to choose and describe objects intrinsically worthy of general poetic purpose, then it is possible that a given poetic text could incite a similar process in reverse. If a poet's creative sensibility could endow a text with axiomatic and possibly even automatic artistic appeal, an appeal evocative of the poet's power, then the text possesses, as Wordsworth claims, 'truth which is its own testimony' and it does not require outside authentication. The only possible means of judgement would be reciprocal vision: truth ... which gives competence and confidence to the tribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same tribunal. (381-3) Wordsworth asserts the universal character of poetic truth, 'truth, not individual and local, but general, and operative' (379-80). How is it possible for a poetic stance which prizes the subjective, 'spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings', to sustain this kind of cognitive scope? Owen argues very well that the expressionist position clearly accepted by Wordsworth in 1802 did not preclude a universal grounding: In terms of this poetic, the poet, rather than the rustic, is mankind's epitome; and in expressing himself he expresses all men. (Wds. as Critic 104)





By way of the universally valid talent of the poet, the immediate truth of the text is guaranteed. But we should also notice that Wordsworth sustains his claim to truth by the power of and in its textual utterance. It is an easy step from Wordsworth's theory of the self-sustaining power of a poetic text and the poet as authority to Aristotle's theory of the ethical proof as necessarily to be verified in the text (Rhetoric 1355b 1356a 24-5). 20 Here too we see Wordsworth and Horace as brothers, almost twins, in asserting a special poetic epistemology. Poetry may indeed deal with general truth, but in its own epistemological order, a truth which the text itself as poetic utterance makes possible. Here we have the triumph of the irony in Florus. The textual-poetic density creates the appealed-to and power-conferring 'tribunal' spoken of by Wordsworth. There are other aspects of Wordsworth's zeal for truth that can best be perceived by our return to his question, 'What is a Poet?' (line 319). Anne Barton points out that Wordsworth would definitely seem to echo Ben Jonson in this context. She relates Wordsworth's writing of the 1802 Preface to a period when he had studied Jonson seriously, March of 1802. Jonson caused some serious disagreement between Wordsworth and Coleridge when the latter visited Wordsworth and Dorothy in March 1802 (227-8). Barton quotes from two sections of Jonson's Discoveries (lines 2386-7, 2398-9), which Wordsworth had read. Here Jonson speaks of the nature of poetry and refers to Aristotle. Barton suggests that these are the items which emerge in Wordsworth. Barton makes a fine case, and I quote the passage she quotes, but I do so more extensively. My purpose is to be able to show further on how much richer cognitively Wordsworth's notion of poetry is than the basically mimetic-didactic one championed by Jonson: The Study of it [poetry] (if wee will trust Aristotle) offers to mankinde a certaine rule, and Patterne of living well, and happily; disposing us to all Civill offices of Society [And according to Cicero, poetry is valuable] insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thought her the absolute Mistresse of manners, and neerest of kin to Vertue. And, wheras they entitle Philosophy to bee a rigid, and austere Poesie: they have (on the contrary) stiled Poesy, a dulcet, and gentle Philosophy, which leads on, and guides us by the hand to Action, with a ravishing delight, and incredible Sweetnes. (2386-2400; emphasis his)



114

We can readily see how Barton argues the influence of Jonson on Wordsworth. But we should also notice that Jonson reflects the traditional Aristotelian-Horatian Renaissance view of poetry as mainly mimesis for the cultivation of moral ideals. This tradition is elegantly presented in Sidney's Defence of Poesy (published 1595), a work Jonson must have known. 21 The Renaissance tradition, however, represents the poet as primarily a 'maker'. As Barton points out, the passage in Jonson which most clearly is the analogue to our text is the one entitled, 'What is a Poet?' (2346-55; emphasis his). As she says, 'Wordsworth asks Jonson's question, ... repeating Jonson's precise words' (225). Jonson's reply emphasizes the etymology oipoiein, to make: 'A Poet is that, which by the Greeks is call'd ... a Maker, or a fainer: ...' (lines 2347-8; emphasis his). Further on Jonson declares: Hence, hee is call'd a Poet, not hee which writeth in measure only; but that fayneth and formeth a fable, and writes things like the Truth. For, the Fable and Fiction is (as it were) the forme and Soule of any Poeticall worke, or Poeme. (2351-5; emphasis his) Wordsworth's vision of a poet does involve elements of mimesis. We saw above how crucial this can be in dramatic work. Wordsworth even requires poets to fall into a 'delusion' in order that the passions involved in dramatic characterization can be honestly and tellingly realized (350-4). But the great difference between Wordsworth and a mimetic-dominated poetic is the emphasis Wordsworth puts on the special character of poetic truth. This feature is reflected in poets' fervid concern to touch their audience, to reflect the world sympathetically, to enable their texts epistemologically to serve human nature in a special way. Mimetic truth is prized for its clear universality but risks authoritarian remoteness. Wordsworth's poet is 'a man speaking to men'. 'Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing', but Wordsworth prizes a lyric force which aspires to epic range. A strange paradox obtains in the populist and yet inspiring mode of Wordsworth's ideal: Poetry is the image of man and nature The Poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human Being possessed of that information which may be expected from him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a mariner, an astronomer, or a natural philosopher, but as a Man. Except this





Wordsworth's poet has a prophetic office to fulfill, yet one not characterized by Delphic pronouncements or their interpretation. The poet can assume no specific knowledge in his/her audience (Owen, Wds. as Critic 90), only the mind of ordinary human beings. Here, typically, Wordsworth is being most democratic and ethical. Wordsworth's poet must give pleasure. This is a rhetorical goal and requires careful accommodation (Burke's 'identification', Motives 19-29, 55-69) with ordinary people. Furthermore, Wordsworth's extended treatment of pleasure is a reminder of the human and humane way he would have poetry engage even in its gravest moral and intellectual dimensions. He accords a lofty status to pleasure: Nor let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure be considered as a degradation of the Poet's art. It is far otherwise. It is an acknowledgment of the beauty of the universe ... it is a homage paid to the native and naked dignity of man, to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy but what is propagated by pleasure We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone, (lines 394-406) Wordsworth is at pains not only to make poetry of 'a selection of the language really spoken by men' (284), but to make enjoyable poetry for human beings at large. As we noted above, near the end of the addition of 1802, he emphatically reminds poets of their broad social duty, 'Poets do not write for Poets alone, but for men' (512-13). Here again we find the ethical force of Wordsworth's vision. It is not enough even that poetry be 'true'; its 'truth' must also serve. He emphasizes this duty in his inspiring discussion of the relation of poet and scientist and the place of both in his vision of a future culture: The knowledge both of the Poet and the Man of science is pleasure; but the knowledge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and unalienable inheritance; the other is a personal and individual acquisition, slow to come to us, and by no



one restriction, there is no object standing between the Poet and the image of things; between this, and the Biographer and the Historian, there are a thousand. (383-93)

habitual and direct sympathy connecting us with our fellowbeings. The Man of science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the Poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science. (432-42) As noted above, Coleridge praises Wordsworth for 'weight and sanity of the Thoughts and Sentiments' (II: 144). Our quotation validates Coleridge's accolade. It witnesses Wordsworth's devotion to truth. This passage honors Wordsworth's genius in a special way and encourages us to accept the distinction of poet and scientist and yet also to realize, as Wordsworth compares and contrasts ordinary human knowledge and the expertise of the scientist, that there is nothing ignoble in the ordinary way human beings know. Wordsworth's epistemological import is significant and ethically charged. We are reminded of his Prospectus to The Recluse: 'words / Which speak of nothing more than what we are, ...' (Prose 3: 7, lines 116-17). He claims for ordinary humanity a mode of 'truth' properly its own and genuinely in its own cognitive order. Here he lays his basis for 'poetic truth'. Here, then, we see how Wordsworth's notion of poetic truth far outstrips Jonson's 'things like the Truth'. It is truth in and of its own order and authority. It is not merely a moral lackey to philosophy. It is the joyous, natural companion and birthright of humanity at large. In a footnote relating to a passage where 'the language of Prose' and 'the language of every good poem' (263-5) are being discussed, Wordsworth laments the conventional distinction made between 'Poetry and Prose' and states that he prefers 'the more philosophical one of Poetry and Matter of Fact, or Science' (Prose 1: 135). This recognition does much for the authority of poetry; the realm of truth has been divided into two major principalities. The noetic sovereignty of poetry has been asserted; it is a coequal and it is the characteristic and accessible truth of human experience. Wordsworth is so self-effacing in his account of non-scientific knowledge, he almost seems dismissive. However, Wordsworth encapsulates and editorializes and leaves no doubt as to the regal worth of the poetic form of human knowledge in his spirited pronouncement, 'Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ...' (441).




Granted that it exists as 'impassioned expression ... in the countenance of all Science,' but it is still the 'finer spirit of all knowledge' (441-2; emphasis mine). We may be tempted to wonder why Wordsworth troubled the waters of poetic discourse in order to take up a comparison and contrast which - even in his age of scientific dawning - could so easily work to the disadvantage of poetry. Sharrock offers a fascinating account of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's relationship with the chemist Humphrey Davy and his influence on Wordsworth's thinking about science, especially in 1802, and his very positive influence on Wordsworth's view of the scientist and aspiration for the day when 'science ... [will be] familiarised to men' (467), and the poet will share in the social consequences. Wordsworth came to know Davy through Coleridge and got to know him well enough so that Davy 'undertook to correct the proofs of the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, receiving them in batches from Wordsworth with his directions' (Sharrock 44). Davy gave a famous and seminal lecture on chemistry at the Royal Institution, 21 January 1802 (44). Davy's lecture was undoubtably read by Wordsworth and was enthusiastically heard by Coleridge. Davy answers some of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's charges that 'scientific intellect is merely passive; he [Davy] argues that the chemist deals with matter in activity ...' (45). Davy advanced a number of ideas congenial to Wordsworth and even in language which has 'markedly Wordsworthian character' (46). The result was that in the 1802 version of the Preface, in the passage we are now considering: Wordsworth reasserts the distinction between the poet who offers a universal truth because his vision of the world is fitted to the needs of common human nature, and the specialist investigator who analyses particular truths. However, he makes the distinction in such a way as to achieve a compromise more favourable to the scientist than any other pronouncement by him or Coleridge. (48) Ultimately Wordsworth sees the day when 'the technological revolution comes about' and a 'third world' will emerge 'between the human world and the world of nature studied by the scientist' (49). The 'poet will rise to meet the challenge' so that life in this 'third world' can be lived with a 'transformed human sensibility', the '"form of flesh and





[The poet] ... is the rock of defence for human nature [T]he Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge The remotest discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist [should they become] familiarised to men ... [and be] ready to put on ... a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man. (lines 444-70) Thus Wordsworth's purpose in taking up a comparison between poet and scientist is to establish the poet as an active, creative agent of reconciliation in the future. The poet is co-regent with the scientist and yet enjoys a humanistic, affective dominion because it is the poet who gives 'flesh and blood' to truth; it is the poet whose charge is the 'dear and genuine' in the human 'household'. It is the poet whose 'divine spirit' can aid in 'the transfiguration' of speculative truth so that it serve human needs. Thus the authority of Wordsworth's stirring assertion: 'Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge' (453-4). The great addition of 1802 is mainly concerned with language, but Wordsworth's classical education, his affection for Horace, seem to have fired him to preserve and even enhance the Olympian authority of a poetry made of 'a selection of the language really spoken by men'. In tracing Wordsworth's dedication to the ethics of poet and poetry, we should consider one final element, the relationship of thought to expression, or text to the truth, which the poet's honesty compels him/her always to seek. There is a principle argued by Cicero in his De Oratore, a work Wordsworth very probably knew (Graver, 'Oratorical Pedlar' 95), which stipulates that any separation of thought from verbal construct is fundamentally wrong. Ideas are not independent and indifferent lodgers in the housing of their expression. Ignoring the power of style amounts to so deadly a bifurcation that Cicero equates it with sundering the body from the soul: 'ab animo corpus sic a sententiis verba sejungunt' (De Oratore III.vi.24).22 Horace expresses a similar concern in the Ars Poetica, 'verbaque provisam rem non



blood"' Wordsworth speaks of as the poet's share in the day when the truths of science become commonplaces in our lives (49). Wordsworth is most optimistic in characterizing a future cooperation of scientist and poet:

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Energy, stillness, grandeur, tenderness, those feelings which are the pure emanations of nature, those thoughts which have the infinitude of truth, and those expressions which are not what the garb is to the body but what the body is to the soul, [such expressions] themselves [form] a constituent part and power or function in the thought (Prose 2: 84; emphasis mine) In this context Wordsworth proceeds to lament the degrading of the public's poetic taste which has resulted even in bad epitaphs, a form of poetic utterance which should be natural and therefore almost automatically eloquent. This degraded state of public taste provokes Wordsworth to one of his most famous critical comments: Words are too awful an instrument for good and evil to be trifled with: they hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts. If words be not ...an incarnation of the thought but only a clothing for it, then surely will they prove an ill gift; such a one as those poisoned vestments ... which had power to consume and to alienate from his right mind the victim who put them on. Language, if it do not uphold, and feed, and leave in quiet, like the power of gravitation or the air we breathe, is a counter-spirit, unremittingly and noiselessly at work to derange, to subvert, to lay waste — [T]he excellence of writing, whether in prose or verse, consists in a conjunction of Reason and Passion (84-5; emphasis mine) With the striking image of 'awful instruments' Wordsworth begins the clear delineation of his principle of the substantial unity of thought and expression. He also confirms his doctrine of poetic epistemology. Our first passage asserts that 'feelings which are the pure emanations of nature' are like 'thoughts which have the infinitude of truth'. Furthermore, this passage urges that such 'feelings' and such 'thoughts' are one with or in effect the same as 'those expressions which are not what the garb is to the body but what the body is to the soul' (emphasis mine). All three of these elements, 'feelings', 'thoughts',



invita sequentur' ('when the content is present, the words will naturally follow'; line 311; my translation; see also Brink, The 'Ars Poetica' 339-40). Wordsworth's eloquent expression of his ideal of this union as a critical principle comes in Essays upon Epitaphs, HI:

'expressions', are constituted as a single unity, having had their origin in emanations of nature; they have become 'themselves a constituent part and power or function in the thought...' (84). This same unity is emphasized as Wordsworth describes how words, when ill used, necessarily become of themselves an 'ill gift ... [like] poisoned vestments', and again, 'Language, if it do not uphold ... is a counter-spirit ' Wordsworth urges all of these ideas because he is convinced that good writing 'whether in prose or verse, consists in a conjunction of Reason and Passion ' Thus again, here in his conclusion, Wordsworth has stressed his necessary triad 'feelings' - 'thoughts' - 'expressions'. Wordsworth's emphasis on the unity of thought and expression is clearly felt in this passage, but there is something more. Wordsworth also stresses his doctrine of poetic truth. He warns that if there is no adequate or proper fusion of thought and expression, no proper 'incarnation of the thought', then words, having become outcasts, 'alienate from his right mind' the person who would treat words as mere notional garb, mere togs for thought. Here again we have a doctrine quite close to the principle of the 'speciosa vocabula rerum', Horace's philological poetics. Wordsworth reminds us here, through the scriptural overtones suggested by 'incarnation of the thought' and the metaphor 'body is to the soul', of the passage in the Preface we just considered where he speaks of the abstractions of scientists, the 'discoveries of the Chemist, the Botanist, or Mineralogist'. When the day comes that these works of science 'shall be ready to put on ... a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration'. It will be the work of the poet that will enable 'the Being thus produced' to become 'a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man'. To achieve such a transfiguration, as Wordsworth claims at the end of this passage, is to realize truly a 'sublime notion of Poetry' (Prose 1: 141, lines 461-72). In the Preface Wordsworth seems to imply that this is a supererogatory work that the poet does. In the Essays upon Epitaphs, III, he warns that such good offices of the poet are a necessity. Words are not indifferent agents. Wordsworth asserts that whenever words are to be used in any verbal structure wherein they are more than mere passive or indifferent linguistic ciphers, certainly on any occasion beyond the most astringent scientific utterance, then ideas do indeed take on 'a form of flesh and blood'. Here the poet must be at work, the poet or at least a rhetorical counterpart, so that the proper 'incarnation of the thought' can take place, lest words really do become and function as





a 'counter-spirit'. Wordsworth here insists that thought and expression must be properly united, that when unattended the powers of language are willful and dangerous, and especially he insists that the epistemological work of the poet is a cultural necessity. Wordsworth has pushed the vocation of poet far beyond the vision of Cicero, having matched and even, I would say, exceeded the vatic ideal of Horace. In the interest of making our picture of the quest for ethos in Wordsworth as complete as possible, we should also look at a passage in the first of the Essays where Wordsworth speaks of a special kind of poetic knowledge which clearly resembles the kind of truth the ethical endeavor especially seeks: The character of a deceased friend or beloved kinsman is not seen, no - nor ought to be seen, otherwise than as a tree through a tender haze or a luminous mist, that spiritualises and beautifies it; that takes away, indeed, but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may appear more dignified and lovely; may impress and affect the more. Shall we say, then, that this is not truth, not a faithful image? ... - It is truth, and of the highest order; ... it is truth hallowed by love - the joint offspring of the worth of the dead and the affections of the living! (Prose 2: 58; emphasis his) What is so valuable about this passage is its image empathetically making real the kind of truth which the poet is to share. This is a Wordsworthian correlative to the exemplar vitae spoken of by Horace (AP 317). We also have a wonderful illustration of Wordsworthian imitation, a selection and a shaping made from the total possible configuration of the person. The person is quintessentially and affectionately and honestly rendered. The imitation 'takes away' 'but ... that the parts ... not abstracted may appear more dignified and lovely — ' Thus in Wordsworthian poetic theory, not only is the poet ethically obliged to be honest, but the poet is obliged to exhibit a very specific kind of honest insight. The poet must so select (Owen, Wds. as Critic 128) and shape in order that the image given 'may impress and affect the more'. The poet must know his or her subject with affection so that the affective and affecting may be in the portrait. The poet as intimate, as lover, must appear in the portrait. This is Horace's ut pictura poesis (AP 361) only to a degree. It is quintessentially Wordsworth: the ethos of the artist lyrically present; and this kind of lyrical voice is frequent in the epic dimensions of The Prelude.23



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Finally, a few words should be said about the good will of the poet toward the audience. Wordsworth's concern for his audience is clear in the passages just considered, but it is especially powerful in the following passages. We have emphasized all through this section that ethically Wordsworth's definition of a poet, a 'man speaking to men', as one human being speaking to other human beings, is fundamental to Wordsworth's poetic doctrine. Here, as Nabholtz indicates, Wordsworth also seeks the active and sympathetic understanding of the reader for a text (95), a text - 1 would emphasize - designed specifically for the reader. In the following passage from the first of the Essays, Wordsworth speaks of the tone and language of the epitaph: The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should speak, in a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general language of humanity as connected with the subject of death - the source from which an epitaph proceeds - of death, and of life. (Prose 2: 57) In the following, from the same section, Wordsworth refers directly to the various readers an epitaph may have and how the poet must appeal to them all: But an epitaph is not a proud writing shut up for the studious: it is exposed to all - to the wise and the most ignorant; it is condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its story and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, and indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired: the stooping old man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book; - the child is proud that he can read it; - and the stranger is introduced through its mediation to the company of a friend: it is concerning all, and for all .... (59)24 It is appropriate to end by reminding ourselves of Wordsworth's own characterization of poetic tone, 'a tone which shall sink into the heart'. We have been immediately concerned to see how Wordsworth's zeal for the honest fusion of thought and expression and his idealization of poetic truth are particularly realized through an unflinching rhetorical ethics of truth, honesty, and audience regard. Like the Preface to Lyrical Ballads and like most of Wordsworth's poetry, no matter its argumentative or narrative burden, the Essays upon Epitaphs are elegantly lyrical. There is much of the tone of Horace's odes here. In championing the epitaph, Wordsworth wins





our admiration because his respect for humanity inspires his affective eloquence in disclosing humanity's native endowment for the poetic. He shows us how the epitaph can be 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings' and how in its way it can be also 'the most philosophic of all writing'. Such an ethics allows poetry to be 'condescending, perspicuous', and loving with no offense because clearly it is intrinsically open, 'it is concerning all, and for all'. Though the similarities to Aristotle and Horace are clear and profound, Wordsworth rises beyond them. His doctrine for epitaphs is not necessarily an encapsulation of all his major poetic theories, but it is especially valuable for the eloquent capacity the epitaph gives all of us to share in poetic truth, a truth which must be seen through a tender haze or a luminous mist, that spiritualises ... it; ... a faithful image; It is truth, and of the highest order; ... truth hallowed by love - the joint offspring of the worth of the dead and the affections of the living! (Prose 2: 58; emphasis his)



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Classical Undersong: 'lively images', 'strong feelings', 'purest Poesy'



Part III




8

Wordsworth's classical undersong is Horatian, vatic, philological and Aristotelian. It is also characteristically Wordsworthian because of the special sensitivity he shows in blending the lyrical and rhetorical into one body of expression. But there is a tension in this relationship. Wordsworth's lyrical impulse can assume that nothing need be proved. The rhetorical is a tempering force, and thus the ethical issues it enlivens are so important a criteriological standard in Wordsworth's poetry. The burden of truth is at the heart of The Recluse, the work of a poet in retirement whose philosophy is so fixed and worthwhile that it can be shared. The Prelude also bears that truth-burden. It is an elaborate examination of life and conscience. Its very conception and constant development reminded Wordsworth and remind us that the essence of The Prelude is quest and the goal an ethical assurance, a sense of truth, of the highest order.1 The Prelude could almost be reduced to a narrative process of self-examination turned into deliberative rhetoric. The challenge of The Recluse must have been daunting. Wordsworth's quest is dominated by its evidentiary goal, as we shall see ahead in our examination of the Preface to the Excursion (Prose 3: 5). Abrams emphasizes the 'quest' motif in The Prelude: 'the act of composing The Prelude itself was seen by Wordsworth 'as a perilous quest through the uncharted regions of his own mind' (Nat. Supernat. 285). Because the ethics of discovery and even honest confrontation are so much of the nature of The Prelude, Wordsworth's theory of poetic truth is crucial. All his elaborate details of literary epistemology end in The Prelude. If that fails as a creative process for truth as well as providing a trustful answer about his calling, all other truth for Wordsworth is relatively incidental. Onorato almost suggests that 127 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


Ethos and the Power of The Prelude

Wordsworth has made himself a fictional character.2 I would say he is creating an argumentative text, and truth in its construction is crucial. We also think of The Prelude as history and Liu's claim that Wordsworth 'learned to create his crowning denial of history: autobiography' (35). I wish there were space to discuss Liu's interesting text in detail. It is true that The Prelude is history, but it is especially an elaborate form of argument. It may seem Wordsworth denies 'history' (34), but I would contend that all his procedures, his rearrangement of chronology, his suppression of key incidents in his life, and his omission of certain details are part of a deliberative construction. Wordsworth is simply following his own prescription, the one we just considered in the Essays upon Epitaphs. An epitaphic portrayal is not a literal rendering, but a process of selection, omission and emphasis, so that the excellence of the subject may be all the more properly seen and the presence of the creator of the epitaph be articulated. As we saw, Wordsworth insisted that the result is truth, its own kind of truth, but truth 'of the highest order, ... truth hallowed by love - the joint offspring of the worth of the dead and the affections of the living!' (Prose 2: 58). I am not suggesting, of course, that The Prelude is an elaborate epitaph. I am arguing that the artistic process, especially as determined by the principle of selection, is fundamentally the same. At its core is the process of selection, the same principle championed in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Furthermore, Wordsworth's affection for the agents which inspired and nurtured his poetic vocation would also cause him to do the same affective rendering of his life as a creator of an epitaph would feel inspired to do so for someone else. The Prelude, then, is history, but it is first and especially a lovingly rendered, argumentative account. It must tell Wordsworth the truth and must thereby always remain as a confirming testament as to the authenticity of his calling. Wordsworth never ceased editing and changing the text; The Prelude was a living and changing, maturing presence in Wordsworth's life. It sustained his faith in himself in the face of some of the most harrowing criticism any poet ever experienced. Altieri and Owen offer excellent explanations of the argumentative process Wordsworth developed through autobiographical reconstruction of critical instances in his life. Altieri speaks of Wordsworth's 'exemplification' (141), his 'providing a concrete surrogate' of his experience whereby he is able to convince his readers of the worth of his experience (143). Owen speaks similarly. Wordsworth provides a




convincing 'literal transcript of his experience' and has this 'transcript' then 'work on the reader as the object or event had worked on him' (Wds. as Critic 226). Both Altieri and Owen explain how Wordsworth turns autobiography into argument and thus how Wordsworth is able to be so convincing to his readers. But we must also remember that he had to convince himself. Kneale has discussed Wordsworth's use of classical apostrophe in The Prelude. It is a trope to be differentiated from Wordsworth's speaking to his addressee, Coleridge. Kneale does not discuss Wordsworth's voice apostrophizing himself ('Romantic Aversions' 158-61), but I would say this kind of self-reference and notice is implicit in The Prelude. True, I find the instances where he directly addresses himself to be rare. One of the most striking follows his invocation of imagination in Book 6. He then addresses himself: 'To my conscious soul I now can say, "I recognize thy glory"' (599-600). But the wealth of personal detail that he readily supplies gives The Prelude the tone of a personally directed, recollective confessional text. We are convinced because we feel the self-convictive power of the text work ethically on the voice. Another way to assess Wordsworth's epistemology, rooted in his rhetorical lyricism and invested with ethical appeal, is to recall again his declaration of intention for doing The Prelude. As we noted above, Wordsworth's basic motive was investigative: Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary Work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such employment. (Prose 3: 5) It is worth pausing to consider the kind of work Wordsworth proposed to himself. Here I wish to add to Abrams' ample discussion (Nat. Supernat. 19-32) an emphasis on the ethical dimension of voice. Wordsworth seeks to do 'a literary Work that might live', using an expression which echoes Milton's discussion of his own poetic ideals and plans. In his Preface to Book II of The Reason of Church Government, Milton speculates about doing a major literary work, perhaps an epic in imitation of Homer, Virgil or Tasso, or possibly even a work in imitation of some sublime book of the Scriptures like the Song of Solomon or the Book of Job (668-9). Clearly Wordsworth realized that his intended endeavor would lead him to compete with



'Ethos' and the Power of 'The Prelude' 129

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that by labor and intent study ... joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly let it die I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end ... but to be an interpreter and relater of the best and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this island in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I ... might do for mine — (668) This declaration of Milton as applied to Wordsworth seems to explain only Wordsworth's epic intention. But Wordsworth's echoing of Milton's personalist assertions also reveals a kind of competitive self-consciousness in Wordsworth and an assertive lyric endeavor. In his proposed work, Wordsworth the poet is to be expressed and to earn a place among Milton and the ancients. 3 Now we should look again at the Preface to The Excursion. As we have seen, Wordsworth speaks (of himself in the third person) of his concern 'to take a review of his own mind'. As part of that inquiry, he wrote The Prelude, that is, 'to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them'. That being now complete, Wordsworth has sufficient self-assurance and has developed a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled, the Recluse; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement. (Prose 3: 5) Further on, Wordsworth makes two other comments helpful to our understanding of this broadened and personal goal for his poetry. Speaking of the voice structure involved in The Recluse, he notes that the first and third parts of The Recluse will consist chiefly of medi-



Milton and, like Milton, to compete with classical writers. Milton also seems to have been interested in this kind of competition. He anticipates Wordsworth in not imitating the classical writers in their own languages. Milton was determined

tations in the Author's own person; and that in the intermediate part (The Excursion) the intervention of characters speaking is employed It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a system: it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. (6) These passages reveal that motivationally Wordsworth will operate in a complex of roles: as a philosophic poet, a respectful competitor of Milton and thus perforce of the classical poets and the classical tradition; as an expressive-lyrical poet whose epic reference will be himself, 'sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement'; and as an imagistic rhetorician whose 'system' will embody itself. How well Altieri and Owen describe Wordsworth's argumentative enterprise. But in all of this elaborate discussion of goals, clearly Wordsworth's intention is primarily epic and lyrical, integrally so. It is also competitive. Even without the powerful echo of Milton, no writer, no matter how connected with Western literature, could hope to live on in his or her work without a strong awareness that a place in the tradition must be won. Also, in this complex of roles, Wordsworth envisages a special place for this audience. Abrams reminds us of the importance of the Prospectus to The Recluse and the program for poetry Wordsworth proclaims there (Nat. Supernat. 21-32). Abrams notes the heavy emphasis Wordsworth places on the way humans are seen as fitting into the universe so that a 'procreative marriage [takes place] between mind and nature', and how 'Wordsworth's song is to be the "spousal verse," or sustained prothalamion, of its anticipated "consummation".' 4 Thus the epic goal of Wordsworth is to arouse even ordinary people to great acts of creativity.5 Wordsworth is to achieve this through 'a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation' (Prose 1: 119), that is, through 'words / Which speak of nothing more than what we are' (Prospectus, lines 116-17 [full Prospectus, Prose 3: 5-9]). And the sublime objects created, 'Paradise, and groves / Elysian', ordinary folk will discover to be 'A simple produce of the common day'. And all of this is to be created in 'the individual Mind' (Prospectus, lines 105-6, 113, 121; Abrams, Nat. Supernat. 25-7). Ethically, as will be seen, Wordsworth's making poetry accessible to




people in general, not simply as subjects but as agents, proves to be one of his great appeals as a poet. We share not just in his poetry; we create our own. Wordsworth's theme also includes singing not only democratically but realistically and even naturalistically of people as they are. He will sing of them with the commemorative respect and the compassion which they are due. As poet, he will 'see ill sights / Of madding passions mutually inflamed'; he 'Must hear Humanity ... / Pipe solitary anguish'; he has hopes that through his voice 'these sounds / Have their authentic comment' (lines 132-5 and 138-9). Finally, Wordsworth's theme includes himself. Like his mentor Milton, Wordsworth begs assistance from the 'prophetic Spirit! that inspir'st / The human Soul of universal earth' (141-2). Wordsworth prays that his 'Song / With star-like virtue in its place may shine' (146-7). He prays too that if he should speak of himself, 'the Mind and Man / Contemplating; and who, and what he was - ' (153-7) that this will not prove 'labour useless' (153-7). As he concludes, he begs of the 'dread Power!': may my Life Express the image of a better time, More wise desires, and simpler manners; - nurse My Heart in genuine freedom: - all pure thoughts Be with me; - so shall thy unfailing love Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end! (158-65) Wordsworth prays that there be a paradigmatic virtue in the testimonial he offers of his life. Here in the Prospectus he speaks of the poet-author of The Recluse, 'the Mind and Man / Contemplating', and he hopes that the record of his experiences may become an 'image of a better time'. And here we have an emblematic definition of The Prelude correlative to the description of The Prelude given in the Preface to The Excursion. There, as we saw, Wordsworth spoke of an inquiry as to his talent, 'powers', moral temper, his qualifications to do The Recluse. His quest was successful because he completed a work demonstrating the talent he had set out to discover in himself. Here in the Prospectus we have a second declaration of intention to objectify, to make rhetorically-ethically relevant the otherwise seemingly subjective character of The Prelude. Wordsworth's quest into himself as a poet is itself to be an autobiographical exemplum; that is, The Prelude




itself is to be an 'image of a better time' (161). Haney's comment on the end of The Prelude as being 'autobiography as an exemplary figure' and 'an ethical act of teaching' (138) has a powerful relevance here. But The Prelude as exemplum is, as just noted, simultaneously an inquisition into the self to discover talent equal to the writing of a poem of philosophical status. The materials of The Prelude are not just narrative but a body of proof. The Prelude presumably must reveal how Wordsworth became convinced he could answer his high calling. We do not usually think of the ethical proof as self-directed, as designed for and working on the subject who creates the proof. And yet Wordsworth had to persuade himself; The Prelude is an elaborate examination of talent, history and also conscience. What evidence did he use; how did he assess this evidence; what happened within him cognitively, aesthetically and even morally, so that he felt, as he claimed, justified in forming 'a determination to compose a philosophical poem' (Prose 3:5)? Wordsworth bears a heavy ethical burden. He must be convinced about the meaning of his life, but so must Coleridge, and so must we. To see The Prelude as argumentative seems, as we noted above, at odds with its overall nature described, for example, by Abrams as a 'circular or spiral quest' or 'Bildungsgeschichte' (Nat. Supernat. 193, 123). But given the task Wordsworth set for himself and his comment to Coleridge as he completed it, Wordsworth was very much involved in not just recounting his life but in evaluating it: And now, O Friend! this History is brought To its appointed close: the discipline And consummation of a Poet's mind When we may, not presumptuously, I hope, Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such My knowledge, as to make me capable Of building up a Work that shall endure — (14.302-11) There is a relatively consistent pattern in The Prelude which helps illustrate the argumentative and evidentiary qualities of the work.6 This pattern is clearly grounded ethically: Wordsworth's honesty is revealed as he candidly recounts the details of his life; his knowledge is clear in his cogent use of fact and simultaneous power of philosophical disquisition based on experience; his most obvious concern for audi-





ence emerges from his respectful attendance on Coleridge, his immediate addressee; however, this aspect and all the aspects of Wordsworth's ethical endeavor will prove much stronger than might be expected. The Prelude remains narrative, but the drama of its unfolding lies in the way experience challenges argument. Often the argument emerges as simple epideictic lyrical celebration of what has transpired in Wordsworth's life. But often, too, event is transposed into argument and conviction by the very power of the poetry and the person of the poet whereby the event is probed and tested for meaning. The pattern which works rather consistently in The Prelude unfolds in the following way: each book moves along in its own sequence of narrative events. Sometimes, as with 'the Glad Preamble' of Book 1 (J. Wordsworth, Borders of Vision 101-6), we are immediately confronted with disquisition or commentary. Usually, as in Book 6, the text moves from various topics and events as this text moves from studies at Cambridge to reading and then to the long vacation of 1790 and the events of the trip through France, with the highlights being Wordsworth's seeing Mt Blanc and crossing the Alps at the Simplon Pass. In contexts like these, we find narration and elaborate commentary. What is so interesting in these narration-commentary passages is a carefully ordered structure made up of the following elements: first, a dominative action is performed on Wordsworth by nature or one of its coadjutors; second, there is a clear and sometimes quite dramatic reaction by Wordsworth; third, the word motion or its equivalent is present in each context, and this particular word seems to function as a textual marker emphasizing the narrative elements of the passage. Similarly each context has the word voice or its equivalent. This word, as a textual marker, seems to emphasize the disquisitional elements in the passage. The word voice also reminds us in itself and in its various correlatives that the text is not mere narrative but lyrical and rhetorical as well. Because these words, motion and voice, are so often and so significantly repeated at key points in major contexts of The Prelude, it seems reasonable to accord them a textual function. It seems as though they provide a byplay reminding us of a kind of contention in the texts themselves between potential domination by narrative elements and the simultaneous insistence in the text of its lyrical-rhetorical character. The fourth and final textual component is a lyrical-rhetorical reaction commentary by Wordsworth. Here we find some of the most profound and eloquent passages in The Prelude. These sections could



134

possibly remind one of the celebratory passages in Horace's odes or the choruses in Greek tragedy. Early in The Prelude it is clear that the lyrical-rhetorical reactions are subsequent to the events in the narrative. As The Prelude progresses, text and event become fused so that event is subsumed into text and the narrative becomes the history of the textual disclosure itself. Thus in Book 6, the Simplon Pass sequence is really a small narrative of frustration leading into the grand lyricpaean of the work of imagination in the actual construction of a text:7 We questioned him again, and yet again; But every word that from the Peasant's lips Came in reply, translated by our feelings, Ended in this, that we had crossed the Alps. Imagination - here the Power so called Through sad incompetence of human speech That awful Power rose from the Mind's abyss Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps At once some lonely Traveller. I was lost, Halted without an effort to break through; But to my conscious soul I now can say, T recognize thy glory'; — (lines 589-600; emphasis his) As Owen reminds us in his commentary on this passage, some manuscripts show the presence of imaginative operation to be simultaneous with the composition of the text, but other manuscripts and other textual-narrative considerations would seem to suggest something different (14-Bk Prelude 129-30). This famous passage in Book 6 certainly reflects a valuable ambiguity in the time-structure of these lyrical-rhetorical commentaries. The narrative records Wordsworth's inability to realize he had crossed the Alps. His senses had failed; the language of reportage from the peasants and his feelings interpreting that language confirm that failure and disappointment. The triumph - whenever it came - lies in imaginative usurpation, its domination and its aesthetic translation of the facts. This temporal sequence of the entire passage is transposed into one 'now', the composition of the text. 8 My point in stressing this passage in Book 6 on the intrusion of imagination is to emphasize the inherent movement of the text, its unceasing undertow from mere narrative to lyrical-rhetorical commentary and celebration. But there is also a counterpoint felt in




a 'reluctance' of the text, its gravitational opposite impulse to keep the narrative in prominence. Thus the narrative reworking and repetitions so often present in the text. In these reflections I am indebted to Kneale for his discussion 'suggesting that The Prelude contains its own allegory of reading' (99). He comments: 'The poem attempts to narrate the life of an actual person but finds itself instead narrating the semiological problems of that narration' (99). I would claim a much more dominating presence of Wordsworth as poet and voice in The Prelude. It is true that the text reveals the narrative of and the contentions embodied in its own composition. But The Prelude operates symphonically; the actions of nature and reactions of Wordsworth, the textual markers, and especially the culminating lyrical-rhetorical commentary - all these shuttle back and forth, echo and re-echo one another. But precisely because there is such a strong rhetorical presence in the lyrical commentaries, the narrative texture does loosen and the lyrical authority of Wordsworth rings out with clear and powerful resonance. The wonderful combination of rhetoric and lyric enables The Prelude to illustrate so perfectly the fittingness of the human to the universe. We have Wordsworth illustrating the creation resulting from his artistic consummation with nature. And in The Prelude, especially as celebrated and explained in the lyrical-rhetorical commentaries, we have the exemplary text, the 'concrete surrogate', the 'literal transcript', empowering us to become in our own way poets ourselves. We are endowed because in this process we have Wordsworth's appealingly ethical persona developed before us. Here we see the ethical triad raised to aesthetic achievement of the highest order. Also we notice a four-part movement in the text, what I call a quaternion further on. Voice and imagination compete and yet are held in balance, and with them nature and text hold equal balance. The Prelude's lyrical-rhetorical and narrative process is revealed in several major passages. In general, at the beginning of The Prelude, as we might expect, the actions of nature and nature's associates dominate the passages. Little by little, movement is mastered by Wordsworth, voicing shifts to his utterance entirely, and the lyrical commentary, especially in the last books dealing with imagination, becomes almost dominant. Narrative never ceases because the lyrical commentary rhetorically becomes more self-referential, and more and more the reader now overhears the poet in the intimate composition of the poem. Initially the narrative, rendered as a rhetoric of experience, operates with a certain dialogic vigor, Wordsworth speaking with




nature and Coleridge, and so forth. As The Prelude proceeds, the dominative rhetoric is less overtly dialogic, except in the Coleridge passages. More and more Wordsworth speaks out, shaping his own visions, challenging himself through the craft of his expression. His lyricism becomes the art which unlocks the meaning of what he discovered in his experience. More and more the rhetoric of The Prelude becomes the utterance of a heated, creative meditation, a self-dialogue, an authorial voice speaking implicitly to text as both are mutually shaped. Kneale offers an excellent commentary on Wordsworth as both narrator-'spectator' and simultaneously as 'actor... in the autobiographical translation of a self into language' (127; 100-28). I am concerned with many of the same issues and instances but from the standpoint of the moral authority of both author and persona. We shall also observe, as the narrative-lyrical-rhetorical byplay works through The Prelude, the taut ethical concern of Wordsworth as voice and as argumentative inquisitor, evaluating the meaning of his life. Again and again, his conclusions rise up as a result of a probing account of the shaping experiences of his life. It is the ethical concern of this voice which provides a major source of energy in the text. Our first passage is long but crucial: Book 1, lines 301-400. The narrative events are tightly intertwined: Wordsworth's arrival in Hawkshead, the bird-snaring, and the boat-stealing. In the first of these sequences, Wordsworth illustrates the authoritarian action of nature and his own reactive but secondary role. The difference between nature's operation and Wordsworth's reaction is expressed by a sharp contrast in verbs: the active voice is used for natural operation; the passive voice is used for Wordsworth in certain key contexts. In other contexts, Wordsworth and nature seem to compete, and the verbs employed for Wordsworth tend to be aggressive and almost feral at times: Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear; Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less In that beloved Vale to which erelong We were transplanted - there were we let loose For sports of wider range. Ere I had told Ten birth-days, when among the mountain slopes Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped The last autumnal Crocus, 'twas my joy, With store of Springes o'er my Shoulder slung,




To range the open heights where woodcocks ran Along the smooth green turf. Through half the night, Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied That anxious visitation; - moon and stars Were shining o'er my head; I was alone, And seemed to be a trouble to the peace That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befel, In these night-wanderings, that a strong desire O'erpowered my better reason, and the Bird Which was the Captive of another's toil Became my prey; and when the deed was done I heard, among the solitary hills, Low breathings coming after me, and sounds Of undistinguishable motion, steps Almost as silent as the turf they trod. (301-25; emphasis mine) The passive voice is insistent in such past participles as 'Fostered', 'favoured', 'transplanted', and 'let loose' and is matched by the dominative emphasis in the impersonal expressions 'it befel' and 'a strong desire / O'erpowered my better reason' (302, 303, 305, 317, 318-19). The suzerainty of nature and its control of the narrative structure are clear from such expressions as 'Low breathings coming after me, and sounds / Of undistinguishable motion, steps ...' (323-4). In the following, Wordsworth describes his conduct as almost barbarous, and yet even here the power of nature clearly supersedes. The voicing and the motion are specifically assigned to nature: Nor less, when Spring had warmed the cultured Vale, Roved we as plunderers where the Mother-bird Had in high places built her lodge; though mean Our object, and inglorious, yet the end Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung Above the Raven's nest, by knots of grass And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock But ill-sustained; and almost (so it seemed) Suspended by the blast that blew amain, Shouldering the naked crag; Oh, at that time, While on the perilous ridge I hung alone, With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind





Blow through my ears! the sky seemed not a sky Of earth, and with what motion moved the clouds!

Wordsworth's lyrical commentary begins with the eloquent declaration, 'Dust as we are, the immortal Spirit grows / Like harmony in music; ...' (340-1). This passage, for all its singing lyricism, is a splendid piece of epideictic rhetoric which celebrates the 'Inscrutable workmanship' (342) of nature shaping every element in his life to fit and work together 'in making up / The calm existence that is mine when I / Am worthy of myself!' (348-50). Wordsworth is grateful and bursts into a testimonial thanksgiving, 'Praise to the end! / Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ!' (350-1). His lyricism is not self-centered except in the reference to his being 'worthy' of himself. Basically the lyrical power of the passage is identical with and serves and is itself in turn served by the rhetorical motive dominating the passage, Wordsworth's epideictic praise of nature and his ethical account of how nature directly molded him as a poet. Here we have a splendid illustration of the organic unity of both rhetoric and lyric in The Prelude. Though The Prelude may have distracted Wordsworth from The Recluse, it still possesses a propaedeutic function to that poem. The Recluse demanded that Wordsworth's philosophical authority, his vatic ethos, be established. His testimony in the above passage revealing the directness of nature's influence is a powerful witness and proof of his knowledge and virtue in the vatic order. Wordsworth's poetic authority is clearly derived from an 'ordaining process' performed by nature: Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ! Whether her fearless visitings or those That came with soft alarm like hurtless lightning Opening the peaceful clouds, or she would use Severer interventions, ministry More palpable, as best might suit her aim. (351-6; emphasis mine) What is amazing is the deftly personified, specifically dominative role nature is given. One would think that the goal is to make Wordsworth a helpless votary. This kind of overt, officious nature is undermined by the way Wordsworth emphasizes the coordinating



(326-39; emphasis mine)

focus and goal of all this process: all is 'interfused / Within my mind' (346-7). Again emerges the sharp epistemological goal in Wordsworth's ethical enterprise as expressed in the Prospectus to The Recluse, how the mind and universe are fitted together and especially how a 'creation' results, how poetry is made as a consequence of this natural fittingness. The authority of that poetry is established in the objective order by the way nature shapes the poet to the conjunctive act of creation and yet respects the autonomy of the poet as master of an 'immortal Spirit' capable of subsuming all shaping elements into an almost autotelic growth 'Like harmony in music' (340-1). This ethical stature of the voice is especially stressed. Our next illustration is from the boat-stealing sequence (1.357-400). Again three major narrative components stand out: the action of nature, and reaction of Wordsworth, motion and voicing textual markers. The narrative section is then followed by a lyrical commentary (401-14). The boat-stealing passage is somewhat different from the bird-snaring sequence just considered. Here the first one to act is Wordsworth. He initiates the entire sequence rather boldly and then is overcome and subdued by nature: I found

A little Boat ... Strait I unloosed her chain, and, stepping in, Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure ... With an unswennng line, I fixed my view ... lustily I dipped my oars ... And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat — I struck, and struck again, With trembling oars I turned, ... stole my way ... I left my Bark, ... homeward went (357-89; emphasis mine)




Wordsworth is confronted by nature directly. Here, though, we should note the dynamic character of the verbs Wordsworth uses to express his action at first. Nature intervenes, the force of his diction slackens; the verbs become flaccid; he abandons the boat. Finally it is Wordsworth's mind which becomes passive and is even possessed by the retributive force of nature: 'my brain / Worked with a dim ... sense / Of unknown modes of being ' He is possessed by 'darkness ... solitude / ... blank desertion.' Haunting guilt comes upon him. Natural blessing, 'familiar Shapes' and 'pleasant images' have fled (391-6). A kind of punishment takes hold: But huge and mighty Forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams. (398-400; emphasis mine) Intervening between the action of Wordsworth and the possession of his brain by nature as moral force is the emergence of nature as judicial presence. Even though this presence is created by Wordsworth's imagination, its personified character is textually elided. Nature as judge quickly becomes self-endowed: When, from behind that craggy Steep, till then The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head. - I struck, and struck again, And, growing still in stature, the grim Shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion, like a living Thing Strode after me. (377-85; emphasis mine) What interests us is how Wordsworth's claim in behalf of the beneficent power of the spots-of-time sequences is paradoxically reflected in the internalization just seen of the inquisitional force of nature. In Book 12, Wordsworth claims that the spots of time exist




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(220-3)

The emergence of threatening nature in the form of a looming mountain and its haunting possession of Wordsworth's consciousness hardly bespeak his mind's being 'lord and master'. And yet clearly it is. It is his imagination which has configured nature in this context as a judgemental force. It is not any 'voice of conscience' which reproves him for appropriating someone else's boat; it is a mountain he has imaginatively endowed with judicial powers. It is that judicial presence which 'Strode after me' (1.385), and that judicial presence which he even more vividly characterizes as possessing his 'brain'; this is a presence, multiple in character, agents which are 'unknown modes of being' (391-3). Thus Wordsworth's mind is 'lord and master' because it has created this extraordinary original vision of conscience; no cliches here. His imagination has brought it into being initially, has even now offered it as part of the creative process making The Prelude. And here imagination brings nature and event into being as text. Here the lordship and mastery are those of a poet. Here too is a democratic poet articulating events, their moral dimensions, their present dramatic influence, all of which any ordinary person can easily identify as similar to his or her own. The eloquence, of course, is Wordsworth's; but all else is within our ken and has also played on our pulses. Thus the doctrine of the spots-of-time explains The Prelude so well. Our suggested Prelude pattern of action on Wordsworth, his reaction, the voice and motion markers, and then the lyrical-rhetorical celebration simply illustrates the spots-of-time recollective process as the fundamental process running throughout The Prelude. The basics of this process are not that foreign to the lives of most people. 9 In our immediate context the motion and sound markers are especially vivid and remind us of the dual thrust of the text as both narrative and lyrically rhetorical. They also forcefully remind us in their emphasis on conscience that they exist in a text which now gives the narrative full articulation and ontology: It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice



Among those passages of life that give Profoundest knowledge how and to what point The mind is lord and master - outward sense The obedient Servant of her will.


Of mountain-ecftoes did my Boat move on,

Further on Wordsworth speaks of how the uprearing peak seemed to pursue him, 'with purpose of its own / And measured motion' (383-4; emphasis mine). Then follows an interesting variation in the voice markings. In contrast to his initial vigorous rowing, now: With trembling oars I turned, And through the silent water stole my way Back to the Covert of the Willow-tree; (385-7; emphasis mine) The lyrical commentary, beginning 'Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe! / Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought' (401-2), is reminiscent of the prayer to the 'prophetic Spirit' in the Prospectus to The Recluse (Prose 3: 8, lines 141-65). There Wordsworth's impetration focuses on the turning of all the narrative events of his life into his 'Song' that it '[w]ith star-like virtue in its place may shine' (146-7). Ultimately he prays, 'may my Life / Express the image of a better time' (160-1). As has been urged, in effect Wordsworth prays that his life may have a paradigmatic value and that The Prelude be the exemplary text. When he declares in The Prelude in epideictic gratitude his recognition of the power of nature, we can understand why he is convinced of the special visitation of that power. His celebratory use of abstract terms matches forcefully the concrete experience he has just recounted: Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought, That giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting Motion! not in vain, By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn Of Childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human Soul, Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature, ... (1.401-10)



(361-3; emphasis mine)


At this point, we can see clearly how Wordsworth has applied the experience of nature and his reaction then, and his creative reaction now, ethically to himself. The dramatic detail of his experience is told in rapid confessional fullness. For example, his pain of conscience is real: Tike a living Thing, / [it] Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned ...' (384-5). We are convinced of the authenticity of the moral dimensions of his experience because he seems so convinced that as a child he was convinced of the moral quality of what he did and that it had consequences in the face of nature and realm of conscience. We read with interest as witnesses to a trial nature has set for Wordsworth but which Wordsworth clearly created for himself. We accept the fiction readily because we see how important the fiction is for Wordsworth. Wordsworth is able to endow nature with such convincingly dominative moral energy, an energy we are inclined to allow, because he describes, narrates and structures the experience with such crafted realistic detail. It is not a question of pantheism, but allegory as a means whereby ethically Wordsworth learned the power of conscience. Because Wordsworth deals with such commonplace yet convincing details from youth, we share in the allegory and perceive Wordsworth's ethical concern for his audience. It is no private moral reverie he shares; he has created a truly personal exemplum. There is a textual candor, a zeal of disclosure that touches the reader immediately. Wordsworth has balanced the narrative, the operation of nature on him and his reaction, with the lyrical-rhetorical explanation of its total meaning. We see it all emerge now in the text as one fabric of meaning. Now we catch the full range of his emotions. The elegant epic dimensions of The Prelude are located in the 'high objects' and 'enduring things' (1.409) which paradoxically can include the delinquent escapades of a youth. In the passages just considered the narrative element begins the sequence and the lyrical commentary concludes. In our next passage, the long vacation dedication of the summer of 1788, T made no vows, but vows / Were then made for me' (4.334-5, the entire section running 297-338), Wordsworth narrates a series of events seemingly at odds with beneficent nature. At the beginning of this section Wordsworth indicts himself for having given himself far too much to a pursuit of a 'heartless chase / Of trivial pleasures' (297-8). His narrative elaborates a night of dancing, of 'unaimed prattle flying up and down - / Spirits upon the stretch' (315-16). It ends at dawn and, as



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Magnificent The Morning rose, in memorable pomp, Glorious as e'er I had beheld; in front The Sea lay laughing at a distance; - near, The solid mountains shone bright as the clouds, Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light: And, in the meadows and the lower grounds, Was all the sweetness of a common dawn; Ah! need I say, dear Friend, that to the brim My heart was full: I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit. On I walked In thankful blessedness which yet survives. (323-38)

Here the narrative is actually that of the writing of the poetry, the lyrical celebration, nature again epideictically rendered. Just before this long passage of descriptive celebration of the dawn (320-32), Wordsworth had blamed himself both for the way he had spent his time that summer and for condemning himself subsequently, now - at the time of composition, for thinking that such seemingly trivial human contact could not be used by nature and contain in its very humanness the capacity to mold Wordsworth poetically: Far better had it been to exalt the mind By solitary Study; to uphold Intense desire through meditative peace. And yet, for chastisement of these regrets, The memory of one particular hour Doth here rise up against me. (304-9; emphasis mine) What now, as he writes, rises in testimony against Wordsworth's self-condemnation is the recollection, the spot of time, that splendid dawn whose powerful beauty was then seeded in Wordsworth's soul



Wordsworth walks back to Hawkshead, he is filled with awe at the beauty of the sunrise:

now to be recreated, poured out in poetry. Now Wordsworth knows that then he was, as Owen suggests in his commentary in his edition of this text (88), baptized into poetry, a 'godparent' having spoken his vows. But those vows would never have been made then if then Wordsworth had not had the poetic sensibility to experience the dawn and then cherish it in a pre-text configurative memorial, a memorial now born into poetry. Here event and text, narrative and lyrical commentary, are embodied in one poetic celebration. The motion words in our text are particularly emphatic: 'Magnificent / The Morning rose, in memorable pomp ...' (323-4) and 'On I walked / In thankful blessedness which yet survives' (337-8). Wordsworth has made great progress since stealing the boat. There the mountain rose and he was chastised. Here the 'memory' of a blessed experience rises 'against' him, it is true, but not in judgement. Whatever guilt the frivolity of that summer may have legitimately caused Wordsworth, he is absolved. When he saw the sunrise, his poetic sensibilities were so profound, he was confirmed a poet. The sound markers are especially eloquent and joyous. 'The Sea lay laughing at a distance ...' (326), and T made no vows, but vows / Were then made for me ...' (334-5). Vows is an excellent term to evoke the splendid event of vocation and its perdurance. The term is enforced by the sacerdotal-prophetic expression, 'bond unknown to me / Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, / A dedicated Spirit' (335-7). The voicing is a kind of prophet's oath which has been - at first implicitly - with growing awareness cherished by Wordsworth and is now reaffirmed in his text. Here we have a compelling instance of ethical maturation. Wordsworth's conscience was troubled, but now he recalls how Nature cared for him. He may have been thoughtless, but then Nature showed him the dawn, and he responded. Thus, he was confirmed a poet. And now that care and the proof of his being truly 'A dedicated Spirit' lie not in any egotistical claim but manifestly, compellingly in the beauty of his poetic account. We need no further proof why Wordsworth was chosen and why he remains so. Book 4 ends with the narrative of Wordsworth's encounter with the discharged soldier (370-472). The details of Wordsworth's coming upon this person are similar to those in the sunrise-vows segment, an evening of light pleasure and then a return to Hawkshead. Here the time is night; the moon has replaced the sun (381); 'the road's watery surface' (380) and the moon's resemblance of 'another stream / Stealing with silent lapse to join the brook / That murmured in the




Vale' (382-4) replace the sea. With the exception of the three concluding lines, the entire passage is narrative, but here, as in the sunrise sequence, everything hinges on Wordsworth's humanistic and poetic sensibility. The discharged soldier acts on Wordsworth, but Wordsworth's own actions clearly dominate the passage. The motion text-markers bear this out. The discharged soldier's spiritual presence is shown hardly to move at all: 'His shadow lay and moved not' (408); 'but, unmoved, / And with a quiet uncomplaining voice, / A stately air of mild indifference ...' (418-20); 'Though weak his step and cautious ... / His ghastly figure moving at my side ...' (431-4). The voice references in the passage are typical of a Wordsworthian compassionate encounter with a vagrant-like figure. Here Wordsworth seems to bristle a bit as he admonishes the soldier to ask for help and not to struggle on alone. Wordsworth characterizes his comments as 'this reproof (457). The soldier offers a gentle reply: '"My trust is in the God of Heaven, / And in the eye of him who passes me'" (459-60). In the final lines of this passage we have Wordsworth's eloquent declamation as to what the passage means and also what the entire Prelude is all about: This passed, and He who deigns to mark with care By what rules governed, with what end in view This Work proceeds, he will not wish for more. (470-2; emphasis his) Like the sunrise-vows passage wherein Wordsworth's poetic awareness determined the result of the experience, so here Wordsworth's poetic sense is crucial. He crafts an eloquent, compassionate description and then recounts his respectful and caring, if a bit officious, treatment of the soldier. His art serves his humanity, and the soldier rewards Wordsworth. 10 We are reminded again of Kneale's insightful use of de Man's phrase '"allegory of reading"'. Kneale identifies this as 'a linguistic structure whose literal or narrative level simultaneously repeats its rhetorical substructure, so that what seems "literal" or thematic is already "allegorical" of its own figurality' (149). What our text literally says is that the experience of Wordsworth with the discharged soldier constitutes a kind of essential parable for the way The Prelude as a whole is being made. Thus allegorically that very parabolic power itself is now being textually exhibited. The





rhetoric of the parabolic construction in itself demonstrates how Wordsworth is being molded as a poet. As we now read and experience the emergence of the text, we see the poet-artist at work creating and evaluating himself at the same time as he is molded by the reciprocally creative process of constructing his text. Kneale reminds us of the difficulty of the 'translation of a self into language' (149). This very difficulty provides a textual dynamic, an implicit textual motion-reference, reminding us that the nature of The Prelude is a textual process. This process was entered into by Wordsworth in order to see 'how far Nature and Education had qualified' him 'to construct a literary Work that might live' (Prose 3: 5). Despite language, despite the 'sad incompetence of human speech' (The Prelude 6.594), The Prelude is all about language. What we read is Wordsworth's struggle for expression. What he set himself to do in The Prelude was to test his power of expression. In the sunrise sequence his pretext poetic sensibility won him poetic ordination. In the discharged-soldier sequence, despite his obtrusive words - gently overruled by the soldier - his poetic sensibility and his kindness win him a spot of time, and that results in the eloquence of his text. What makes The Prelude so interesting is the intimacy of sharing with a poet in his very act of poetic struggle. In all of this he teaches us to do the same. 11 The Prelude is surely 'speech overheard'. Wordsworth had to prove himself to himself. Only when he was satisfied that he had the ethos, not only the goodness and knowledge and human concern, but also the linguistic mastery of a great poet, only then could he dare speak as voice in The Recluse. No wonder the essential struggle of The Prelude, Wordsworth's joust with language, has such a contemporary ring. And here again we are caught by another aspect of Wordsworth which we have seen encouraged by his special form of classical education: his artistic populism. In every context he demonstrates and comments on the power of the commonplace. For all of its 'Magnificent... pomp,' Wordsworth eloquently responded that morning to 'all the sweetness of a common dawn' (Prelude 4.323-30). The discharged soldier's mild comment, '"My trust is in the God of Heaven, / And in the eye of him who passes me'" (459-60) has the dignity and also the amazing simplicity of the diction of the King James version of the Bible. His evocation of the Good Samaritan parable, his consistently underasserted discourse, 'half-absence' (443), his 'faltering voice' (463), remind us of our encounters, possibly even ourselves, in such dire straits. He certainly reminds us in his simple



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eloquence of our fundamental responsibilities. Also in terms of the commonplace, we can experience the expanded range of Wordsworth's ethical appeal. Because he deals so graphically with ordinary experience, we feel included; we even feel empowered to seek our own touches of poetic sensibility. There is a special ethical force in the final passage in the dischargedsoldier sequence we have quoted above and repeat here: This passed, and He who deigns to mark with care By what rules governed, with what end in view This Work proceeds, he will not wish for more. (470-2; emphasis his) Here the Wordsworthian voice speaks directly to his reader. We can see how he built The Prelude on a series of providential events. Even when he had failed his better nature, as in the boat-stealing sequence, a providential force arose in the moral precincts of his imagination and changed human weakness into a convincing narrative of an aroused conscience. Here the moral force is clearly human but also quite directive. Wordsworth's vocation is tested in these instances and his moral struggle witnessed to. We can see the grounds of his prophetic assurance emerge, and we are heartened both by his struggle and the modesty of his frank account.




9

Most readers of The Prelude would agree with Abrams' account of the overall order of events or the 'three stages' that make up the basic narrative of The Prelude: 'a process of mental development'; with this in turn 'broken by a crisis of apathy and despair'; the mind is restored but at 'a level higher than the initial unity'; it enjoys benefits which are 'the products of the critical experiences it has undergone' (Nat. Supernat. 77). The turning-point in the narrative structure, the 'crisis' referred to by Abrams, would surely seem to come in Book 11: So I fared, Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds, Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind, Suspiciously, to establish in plain day Her titles and her honors, now believing, Now disbelieving, endlessly perplexed[,] Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, [I y]ielded up moral questions in despair. This was the crisis of that strong disease, This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped, Deeming our blessed Reason of least use Where wanted most: ... (293-309) It is interesting that the poet who could voice the memory of such 'despair' could also have written not many months before: 150 10.1057/9780230595750 - Wordsworth's Classical Undersong, Richard Clancey


The Poet's Calling

The Poet's Calling 151

He speaks with such passion in both contexts because he recalls the anguish he experienced in the 1790s and the conviction he finally reached then and maintained always after of poetry as his major source of truth. In the notes relative to this passage in the Norton Prelude, Jonathan Wordsworth assigns the spring of 1796 as the time when Wordsworth was dealing with these questions because it was then that he was reading the second edition of Godwin's Political Justice (NP 408). So fervid is Wordsworth's concern for poetic truth and its authentic dominion in the total 'household' of human experience that one could almost say anxiety for truth is his dominant rhetorical impulse throughout The Prelude and passion to establish the claims of poetic truth, especially its authority in that very 'household' and even beyond, his dominant rhetorical goal. It would seem that Wordsworth knew that the very elaborateness of the structure of The Prelude would cause him to be charged with possible dissembling. Kneale discusses Wordsworth as 'engaged with and yet disengaged from his experience' (xviii-xix). Onorato, with reference to Bateson's term '"technique of self-preservation and self-recreation"', has commented: For it is in relation to the desperate circumstance in which those obscure processes of mind first began to fashion a personal myth, a fiction of the self, that the 'egotistical sublime' of the poetry is best understood. (411) I would say, however, Wordsworth must trust the 'self he discovers and must trust the power of truth in the means of discovery. Thus Wordsworth knew he had to construct a believable text, a 'truthful' text, because he above all had to be able to trust it. Thus the passion for truth 'in poetry' and especially the passion for poetry as truth. Thus, especially, as he reaches his climax in Book 14, he honors imagination because it proves to be the source and test of poetic truth:



Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so: its object is truth, not individual and local, but general, and operative; not standing upon external testimony, but carried alive into the heart by passion; truth which is its own testimony, (Prose 1: 139)


This spiritual love acts not, nor can exist Without Imagination, which in truth Is but another name for absolute power And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And reason, in her most exalted mood. This faculty hath been the feeding source Of our long labor: we have traced the stream From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard Its natal murmur; followed it to light And open day; ... - Imagination having been our theme, So also hath that intellectual love, For they are each in each, and cannot stand Dividually. - Here must thou be, O Man! Power to thyself; — (188-210) This passage is one of the most forceful declarations of theme in The Prelude. Surprisingly it does not refer explicitly to Wordsworth's task of proving to himself that he is qualified to do The Recluse. The celebration of imagination is triumphal and absolute. It includes a number of 'mind' references: 'insight', 'amplitude of mind', 'reason, in her most exalted mood'. We immediately recall the thematic declaration: 'the Mind of Man - / My haunt, and the main region of my song', from the Prospectus to The Recluse (Prose 3: 7, lines 98-9). We also think of the commendation of mind which ends The Prelude, 'the mind of Man ... / Of quality and fabric more divine' (14.450-6). The ethical force of the entire Prelude seems to converge on imagination and mind and, thereby, on truth. The Prelude as poem would seem to be in itself the best argument that 'Poetry is ... truth which is its own testimony' (Prose 1: 139). Much audience appeal lies in The Prelude as an aesthetics of personal conviction. Rarely has human selfconfidence been grounded in such high art: 'Here must thou be, O Man! / Power to thyself; ...' (14.209-10). Wellek warns us against using Wordsworth's pronouncements on imagination in The Prelude 'as literary theory' (Modern Criticism 145), but he does allow important truth content in the Snowdon passage. He quotes the lines containing 'clearest insight, amplitude of mind, / And reason, in her most exalted mood' (lines 191-2 above); and then he comments:



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Wellek emphatically identifies an epistemological core as the center of Wordsworth's notion of imagination in this passage from Book 14. Gill succinctly charts some of the main features of the development of Wordsworth's concept of imagination from 1800 through the 'loftier and more capacious' definition of 1815: 'In the first, Imagination is a creative faculty associated with the making of works of art. In the last it is a function of man's spiritual being ...' (238). Gill also points out in this context, focusing on Wordsworth's concreteness, which we have emphasized as part of the manner of his ethical endeavor, that The Prelude interests because all of its 'philosophy' arises from one man's life-story, and it grips the reader because of the specificity with which experience of many kinds is rendered. Understanding the poem's overall structure, however, must lead eventually to abstractions because at its heart are Imagination, Love, Truth,... (238) Given the passion with which The Prelude ends in its heralding of truth and imagination, it is not surprising that Wordsworth's chief crisis, his 'soul's last and lowest ebb' (11.307), is loss of faith in the power of naked reason and the possibility of efficacious truth. Onorato is critical of Wordsworth in this crisis. Speaking especially of Wordsworth's impassioned lines: 'Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, / [I y]ielded up moral questions in despair ...' (304-5), Onorato comments that here Wordsworth is 'accuser and judge, not realizing the sense in which he is the accused himself; Wordsworth seems 'strangely like Robespierre' (366). I find him describing a pattern of human experience far more common than is often realized. The crisis is real and Wordsworth's self-dramatizing imagery sincere. He may very well be speaking of more than political issues and epistemology. The solution he presents possibly seems disappointing in its simplicity, but it is so logical artistically that we can readily understand and accept. It is Dorothy who rescues him and does so by bringing him back to a full consciousness of and faith in the calling he first nurtured at Hawkshead: 'She in the midst of all preserved me still / A Poet ...' (11.345-6). Wordsworth's crisis over truth is solved by Dorothy's reasserting the



Imagination is here conceived as intellectual intuition, as a higher faculty of knowing, as reason, nous, Vernunft, which demands the association of love, the love of mankind and of God. (146)


one great truth of his life, his poetic calling. This done, The Prelude takes on a new development in Book 12 with the consideration of the spots of time and in Books 13 and 14 with the apotheosis of imagination. But precisely what had Wordsworth been called back to by Dorothy? She 'preserved' Wordsworth 'A Poet, made me seek beneath that name, / And that alone, my office upon earth' (11.346-7). Our last consideration of the narrative, rhetorical, lyric structure of The Prelude is devoted to the ministry of Dorothy and William Taylor to Wordsworth's vocation. Book 10 of The Prelude begins with Wordsworth's return to Paris and his last days in France in the late autumn of 1792. Next Wordsworth returns to England and is tormented as he discovers himself an alien in his own land. England and France are now at war. His agony is then compounded as he sees the Revolution become a bloodbath in the Reign of Terror. Finally the news of the death of Robespierre seems to bring an absolute change in Wordsworth's life and spirits: O Friend! few happier moments have been mine, Than that which told the downfall of this Tribe So dreaded, so abhorr'd. - The day deserves A separate Record. (511-14) Typically and appropriately, Books 10 and 11 of The Prelude are read for their political meaning. Gravil offers an excellent commentary and even reminds us of Onorato. Gravil speaks of Wordsworth's creating a 'Robespierrean alter ego' (emphasis his), a self-presentation related to 'other manifestations of Wordsworth's revolutionary persona, the Solitary of The Excursion and Oswald in The Borderers ...' (129). Springer summarizes the main events and features of Book 10 relative to Wordsworth's hearing about the death of Robespierre. She points out that instead of immediately giving an account of the news of Robespierre's death, Wordsworth promises to give the day 'A separate Record', (514) 'but then prepares that record through an intricate digression into the layers of memory associated with it' (Springer 243). Springer notes Wordsworth's eloquent description of nature and how it resembles his description of the dawn when he was consecrated to poetry (4.323-38), and how he also recalls Hawkshead and the visit that morning to the grave of his teacher William Taylor. She quotes from Wordsworth's comments on Taylor, a reference to their final conversation, Taylor's epitaph, verses from Gray, and Taylor's



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'sustaining faith that he, Wordsworth, would one day be a poet' (244). All this amounts to a 'rediscovery' of his vocation (244). Springer devotes the remainder of her informative essay to how Wordsworth receives the news of Robespierre's death, 'almost as an afterthought' (244) because he is so preoccupied with describing the situation on the Leven Sands where he receives the news (244-5). Springer concludes, 'Even in the most deliberate discussions of his political involvement Wordsworth remained less the poet of Revolutionary France than a proud and intensely private figure, like Gray's own phantom poet ...' (245). I want to focus on the earlier part of this section in greater detail than Springer does, particularly the passage of Book 10 devoted to Wordsworth's visit to Taylor's grave and the way that passage resembles the dedication passage in Book 4. The reason for my concern is that Books 10 and 11 (at one time a unified book) tell the story primarily of Wordsworth's redoubled disillusionment. Prior to Robespierre's death, Wordsworth was pained, but had hope. After Robespierre's execution, hope is intensified, but speculation seizes Wordsworth and eventually his idealism is poisoned, and he falls into a quagmire of doubt (as we saw above). Because the nightmare proved so absolute, I would urge that it took both William Taylor and Dorothy to deliver Wordsworth by resuscitating his vocation and attachment to poetic truth. Taylor, as it were, lays the groundwork and Dorothy at the appropriate moment moves to save her brother. Upon hearing that Robespierre is dead, Wordsworth breaks into 'A Hymn of triumph' (10.584). He celebrates the reborn progress of political liberty: 'Come now, Ye golden times,' Said I, forth-pouring on those open Sands A Hymn of triumph, 'as the morning comes From out the bosom of the night, come Ye: Thus far our trust is verified; behold! They who with clumsy desperation brought A river of blood, and preached that nothing else Could cleanse the Augean Stable, by the might Of their own Helper have been swept away; Their madness stands declared and visible; Elsewhere will safety now be sought, and Earth March firmly towards righteousness and peace.' (582-93)




After this 'Hymn of triumph', Wordsworth records that he went along framing 'schemes' (594) whereby disagreements could be reconciled and 'The glorious renovation would proceed' (597). But even as he planned and hoped, Wordsworth still poured out his exuberant 'Hymn of triumph'; he found himself 'interrupted by uneasy bursts / Of exultation' (598-9). Wordsworth's poetic text itself tells us something which possibly Wordsworth himself never fully realized. In this context we find our full Prelude process of nature's working on Wordsworth, his reaction, motion- and voice-markers, and his lyrical-rhetorical subsuming of these experiences into elegant poetry. When the experiences recorded in Book 4 took place, Wordsworth had no thought of any Prelude text; he had only a profound experience. He later came to understand what happened and his realization became the poetic testimonial of Book 4. Here in Book 10, there seem to be two distinct events: Wordsworth's hearing of Robespierre's death and Wordsworth's experience of nature, the enthroned sun and its evocation of Hawkshead, these last elements also intensifying the emotive force of his visit to William Taylor's grave. Wordsworth claims that nature and Taylor are recounted as 'A separate Record' to emphasize the importance of the day when Wordsworth's faith in the French Revolution is renewed. Wordsworth invests so much in the text of his enhancement that ironically his epideictic contextualization itself becomes such eloquent poetry that Robespierre and politics seem to slip into the background. Thus poetry subverts politics, but in a way different from the one seen by Springer. Wordsworth's formal intention is muted in his instinctive creativity as a poet. The political realities of Book 10 remain, but they are hardly paramount. Ultimately it is Wordsworth's dramatic account of his visit to Taylor's grave which dominates the passage. Here, very much like the dim and then powerfully epiphanic encounter with the discharged soldier, the pausing at Taylor's grave seems incidental at first Wordsworth has offered it as an example to serve another purpose. Quickly Taylor commands the passage. Wordsworth is so detailed that it is like a spiritual vision. Wordsworth's emotional focus becomes so direct that he almost speaks to Taylor. There is a special kind of dialogic intensity. Here in this context, as we have said, are displayed all the characteristic features we find to be typical in The Prelude: the action of nature and its cohort, sun and William Taylor, and the reaction of Wordsworth. But here all elements are intensely fused. Wordsworth acts as he moves on his way from Taylor's grave to the




Leven Sands, but it is Taylor who has moved up and poignantly absorbed Wordsworth's and our imaginative vision. It is his voice we especially hear - he is both directly and indirectly quoted by Wordsworth. We hear Wordsworth respond as he expresses the hope that he has fulfilled Taylor's encouraging charge to him as a schoolboy. Unlike the clearly recoUective narratives and lyrical celebrations of Book 4, here in Book 10 the text seems vividly immediate, as though Wordsworth has just come before us to recount an experience he has just had. He intends to discuss the French Revolution, but Taylor reconfirms him as a poet and the poetry of that reconfirmation challenges if not eclipses every other attempted textual consideration: And when I saw the turf that covered him, After the lapse of full eight years, those words, With sound of voice, and countenance of the Man, Came back upon me, so that some few tears Fell from me in my own despite. But now I thought, still traversing that wide-spread plain, With tender pleasure of the Verses graven Upon his Tomb-stone, whispering to myself: He loved the Poets, and if now alive Would have loved me, as One not destitute Of promise, nor belying the kind hope That he had formed, when I, at his command, Began to spin with toil my earliest Songs. (544-56; emphasis mine) In this scene Wordsworth makes his own vows and experiences one of the most profound moments of recollection and assurance recorded in The Prelude: '- As I advanced, all that I saw or felt / Was gentleness and peace' (557-8). In this passage we see the action of nature, first in the splendor of the sun, described so stirringly that description seems an end in itself. The details of memory are also now so tellingly recalled that recollection alone seems to count. It seems that the presence of Taylor is dominant: 'sound of voice, and countenance of the Man, / Came back upon me' (546-7; emphasis mine). In this vivid evocation of Taylor, both motion and voice are splendidly united. Wordsworth's first response is tears, but then he modestly speaks of his poetry already done and fervently declares that Taylor's commission is being fulfilled. Here is, I find, the emotive and aesthetic center of Book 10. From reading the very text before us, we readily concur




that Taylor's commission to Wordsworth is being fulfilled and witnessed to in the very poetic text before us; here again Wordsworth's art has itself enacted an usurpation. His poetry here proves Taylor inspired, but the text now becomes the dominant voice and Wordsworth's act in creating the text the dominant narrative event. In a way Wordsworth's vocation, the gift of the confidence of his teacher, steals Book 10 from politics and reminds us that we are dealing with the development of a poet. Book 11 recounts Wordsworth's final political struggle, but Wordsworth's enthusiasm seems boundless. At first he gives us the famous lines and he also notes wherein the seeds of despair would lie: Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! ... ... Reason seemed the most to assert her rights, ... (108-13) All too quickly Wordsworth fell under the spell of reason, and then, eventually, he found himself 'betrayed / By present objects, and by reasonings false' because they had their source in 'a heart that had been turned aside / From Nature's way ...' (287-91). Here we see the familiar vocabulary of reason and heart (emotion) and nature. It is at this moment that he, 'Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, / Yielded up moral questions in despair' (304-5): - Then it was, Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good! That the beloved Woman in whose sight Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice Of sudden admonition - like a brook That does but cross a lonely road, and now Seen, heard, and felt, and caught at every turn, Companion never lost through many a league Maintained for me a saving intercourse With my true self: for, though bedimmed and changed Both as a clouded and a waning moon, She whispered still that brightness would return, She in the midst of all preserved me still A Poet, made me seek beneath that name,




And that alone, my office upon earth. And lastly, as hereafter will be shewn, If willing audience fail not, Nature's self, By all varieties of human love Assisted, led me back through opening day To those sweet counsels between head and heart Whence grew that genuine knowledge fraught with peace Which, through the later sinkings of this cause, Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now (333-55; emphasis his) In this passage we find Dorothy both agent in motion and voice: 'speaking in a voice / Of sudden admonition', Dorothy 'Maintained for me a saving intercourse / With my true self. Dorothy 'whispered', and thus it was 'She ... preserved me still / A Poet'. We notice that here as in similar passages, nature works upon Wordsworth, 'Nature's self, / By all varieties of human love / Assisted'. What is so impressive is that the deleterious effects of the traumatic skepticism Wordsworth had fallen into are dispersed so simply by the presence and the caring admonitory words of a sister. No reasons are given; no Delphic utterances offered: 'now speaking in a voice / Of sudden admonition - like a brook / That does but cross a lonely road' (336-8; emphasis his). The brook image reminds us of Dorothy's conjunctive operation with nature. That image and the suddenness of her simple admonition remind us of the discharged soldier. But most significant of all is to realize how absolutely characteristic Dorothy's salvific ministry to Wordsworth is. She propounds no doctrine, sends Wordsworth to no text or authority; she sends him back to himself as poet. Dorothy enables Wordsworth to maintain 'a saving intercourse / With my true self and thus she 'preserved me still / A Poet' (341-6). Nature confirms her work: 'Nature's self, ... / Assisted' (349-51). It is most appropriate that the premier romantic poet is sent back to himself. Wordsworth's lyric impulse, his expressivist authority, his ethos are all reconfirmed. Like the sunrise-vow experience, the discharged soldier, and especially like William Taylor, Dorothy reconfirms Wordsworth in his vocation. Her ordaining or reconfirmation office differs from the others because it emphasizes the expressiveromantic epistemological grounding of Wordsworth's poetry. It may seem trite to say that Wordsworth's crisis was essentially epistemolog-





ical, but it clearly was. Dorothy does not repudiate the French Revolution or Wordsworth's active participation in politics. She simply re-grounds his vocation in the authenticity of self and the true authority of self, the ethics of the rhetorical - or vatic - lyrical. Here Dorothy - though unknowingly, perhaps - is one more key agent in Wordsworth's classical education, one more shape of Wordsworth's classical undersong. Wordsworth's education reminds us, through the classical authors he studied, that he was truly trained ethically even as a poet to seek a truth with a solid foundation in fact and humanity. In Chapter 7 above devoted to 'The Poet's Truth', we saw the affinity between Wordsworth's ideal of poetic truth and the notion of rhetorical truth espoused by Cicero in De Oratore. Cicero maintains that there is a form of public truth, not as profound as the highest philosophical truth, but, to translate his words fairly closely, a form of truth quite genuine and appropriate for public affairs, the truth which is the special province of the orator: 'Verum ego non quaero nunc quae sit philosophia verissima sed quae oratori conjuncta maxime' (III.xvii.64). Possibly Wordsworth was seduced by Godwin into thinking that there was an absolute truth available to the political theorist (14-Bk Prelude, note, 221). Wordsworth admits that 'wild theories were afloat / To whose pretensions sedulously urged /1 had but lent a careless ear' (11.189-91). Whatever the source or sources, it was a kind of philosophical absolutism which caused Wordsworth's crisis. We have seen the irony with which Horace treats the supposed superiority of philosophy to 'mere poetry' in Part II. Clearly Horace argues a poetic-intellectual ideal, that special truth which the poet having mastered formal philosophy - expresses in his or her own way and on his or her own authority (AP 309-22). It is especially the poet's task to consider life in its exemplary terms (respicere exemplar vitae, AP 317) and to become a true imitative artist (doctum imitatorem, AP 318). It is, then, to Cicero and Horace and the poet's own truth that Dorothy in effect recalls Wordsworth. He is delivered from metaphysics and the tortures of exaggeratedly abstract ethics. He takes up again what is 'alone' his 'office upon earth' - simply being 'A Poet' (11.346-7). But we must not think that Dorothy has merely encouraged the elegantly classical enterprise gnothi seauton (know thyself), nor a guru solipsism of the externalization of self oracularized in verse. Wordsworth returns to a public task and office; he reveals this by a Miltonic reference reminding us he has been saved for himself as poet



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but as poet with an epic goal. Wordsworth has been saved by Dorothy and 'Nature's self for a purpose which shall unfold 'lastly, as hereafter will be shewn, / If willing audience fail n o t . . . ' (348-9; see PL 7.31). In many ways, Dorothy is like William Taylor, and both, in their ministry to Wordsworth, remind us of Hector and Venus as they direct and reinspire Aeneas to fulfill a new destiny. Dorothy does not divert Wordsworth from his vatic ideal; she only recalls him to his poetic 'office' (347), to 'counsels between head and heart... / genuine knowledge' (352-3) which is nothing else than the vision of the poet in all its vatic power as declared in the Preface: 'the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society' (Prose 1: 141). In a recent article about Wordsworth's discussion of his experience with the French Revolution (48), Hodgson asks, 'What becomes of revolution in The Prelude? Does it somehow gather upon Wordsworth only to rush over[,] ... leaving Wordsworth himself mysteriously unaffected?' (49). Hodgson concedes that with the hearing of Robespierre's death, 'Wordsworth find[s] his voice' (60), but citing Liu's similar view, Hodgson admits that Wordsworth characteristically turns the 'political to personal history' (61). However, this is 'history and ... poetry ... domesticated but not denied' (63). Hodgson here quotes from Wordsworth's unpublished 'Essay on Morals', 1798, and from the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, the section on Aristotle and the philosophical character of poetry (Prose 1: 139). He shows that Wordsworth's position is that poetry is a necessary vehicle for political and moral philosophy ...[,] much more than this, that poetry also incarnates such philosophy. Not only is poetry the intelligible voice of revolution; the political lessons of revolution are the very principles of poetry. (65) Hodgson then proceeds to illustrate 'the political lessons' that can be drawn via Wordsworth's poetic discussion of spots of time (65-9). He is especially concerned here with the primordial political virtue of 'sympathy' (65). Hodgson reminds us of the importance of Wordsworth's unpublished 'Essay on Morals' as a key to understanding how the poet takes political positions and serves his community as a moral witness. To some it may seem Wordsworth has gone from 'politics to poetry', but Hodgson sees this as 'not a departure but a reorientation, not a denial but an incorporation of the lessons of history' (64).





Hodgson is obviously talking about Wordsworth's rhetorical stance though he makes no mention of Aristotle, rhetorical proof, or ethical argument. The 'Essay on Morals' is an amazing document and advances all the elements of the ethical proof as requisite for decent political argument, but it too does not discuss Aristotle, rhetoric or ethos. Wordsworth declares at the beginning unequivocally that the theoretical arguments concerning moral behavior of such thinkers as William Godwin (1756-1836) and William Paley (1743-1805) are 'impotent' (Prose 1: 103). Wordsworth is concerned with our conscious moral acts, 'that part of our conduct & actions which is the result of our habits' (103). He argues that no one's 'habit' or morally determined conduct will be permanently affected by a series of propositions, which, presenting no image to the [? mind] can convey no feeling which has any connection with the supposed archetype or fountain of the proposition existing in human life[.] (103) Wordsworth likens 'naked reasonings' with no convincing imagistic substantiation to a 'juggler's trick [? s] ... fitting things to words' (103). He then insists that the failure of these arguments is that they 'are impotent over our habits, they cannot form them; ... they are equally powerless in regulating our judgments concerning the value of men & things. They contain no picture of human life; they describe nothing' (103; emphasis his). He further argues that abstract reasoning does not help us envisage how people should act in morally challenging situations, how we might act with 'new ardour & new knowledge when ... [we] are proceeding as ... [we] ought' (104). Very clearly Wordsworth requires his moralist to have the honesty, the knowledge and the good will him/herself to argue these values personally or graphically to present moral agents in texts who can argue them. What Wordsworth describes in terms of moral argument he illustrates in his life as recorded in The Prelude. In each instance when he personally is shaped, it is Nature, oracularly personified, or some compelling individual - his mother, Beaupuy, William Taylor, Dorothy, Coleridge, to name the chief ones - who molded his character. The unpublished 'Essay on Morals' is unfortunately all too short, hardly begun, not quite 700 words. It reads as a kind of blueprint for The Prelude. Wordsworth is convinced of his vocation because, in part,



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he had such humane and compelling teachers. We are much inclined to agree with Owen, Altieri and Gill and others who find the attractiveness of The Prelude to lie in its appeal as a body of living experience. We similarly find Wordsworth to be a compelling human voice, a poet whose ethics of inclusion enables his struggles to rise to an aesthetic level.




Classical Undersong, Text, 'angels stopped upon the wing'

The Snowdon episode provides a striking conclusion for The Prelude, especially because it gives us the final evidentiary act confirming Wordsworth's vocation. Here his classical undersong resonates with special elegance. Wordsworth fuses the ethical triad and narrativeepideictic Prelude process. He melds into a sinewed hold of poised Grecian balance nature, imagination, poet and text. Here he shows what poetry is, what a poet does, and he invites us to share in both. Here he reminds us of Horace so much so that the Epistle to Florus could very well serve as a key to Book 14. Now he is fully able to declare that he is ready to do the work of The Recluse because here the famously lyrical Wordsworth shows himself 50 convincingly to be both poet and prophet. I want to begin by focusing on what Hartman calls Wordsworth's 'concrete Act of Imagination' (Wds Poetry 184) and the fact that, as several scholars have commented, Wordsworth is most self-effacing in recounting his presence in this 'Act of Imagination'. 12 Wordsworth's depiction of his vision on Snowdon serves a number of purposes, but I want to stress how artistically Wordsworth turns an apocalyptic natural vision into poetry. His rhetoric of selfdisplacement foregrounds nature, poetry and paradoxically himself as poet. Wordsworth follows the same modest manner he has frequently employed in narrating his other Prelude epiphanies. It will be recalled that Wordsworth used the passive voice with great effect in Book 1 to express the power of nature's domination over him. In his famous account of the Simplon Pass episode in Book 6, there is a poignancy as he seems to suggest fault through his own insensitivity:



10

Classical Undersong 165

[But all] Ended in this, that we had crossed the Alps. (587-92; emphasis his) When rescued by imagination and enabled to make sense of the entire experience, Wordsworth's imaginative vision comes not at his bidding but 'Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps / At once some lonely Traveller' (596-7). Horsman offers an interesting commentary in opposition to Hartman's reading of this scene: Hartman even claims that Wordsworth actively avoids 'apocalyptic self-consciousness': that is, that he avoids confronting his own inner mind. But Wordsworth has shown himself constantly aware of 'the might of Souls, And what they do within themselves' [The Prelude, ('05) III. 178-9] .... (104) My own sense of these occasions is that Wordsworth at first defers obeisantly to nature, allows its domination, and then, particularly in later books of The Prelude, achieves creative control, but never does so without deferential caution. We have noted Horsman's assertion that Wordsworth is fully aware of 'the might of Souls', but I would urge that he demonstrates this 'might' not by argument, but by his epideictic eloquence in those passages where the meaning of his experience with nature is realized in poetry. It is this deference resolved into poetic celebration which makes Wordsworth as protagonist in The Prelude also an appealing human being; it lies at the heart of his ethical appeal. Wordsworth's great vision on Snowdon, which Kneale has compared to 'Adam's ascent to the "top / Of Speculation" with Michael (PL 12.588-9)' (68), begins with Wordsworth's almost assuming the role of an intruder into a Delphic preserve of nature. As noted, some scholars see Wordsworth's retiring demeanor as honoring nature; I focus on the details of Wordsworth's expression as it builds a special poetic momentum. One can see how the verbs characterizing his climb into the vision all bespeak the pressure of opposition: Then, cheered by short refreshment, [we] sallied forth.



Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear, For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds,


In silence as before. With forehead bent Earthward, as if in opposition set Against an enemy, I panted up With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts. (14.10, 14-15, 28-31; emphasis mine) Nature's domination of the scene is announced by the dramatic declaration, 'For instantly a light upon the turf / Fell like a flash ...' (38-9). Wordsworth's agency is stilled despite the 'and lo!' because he is almost muted by the grammatical subordination of 'as I looked up ...' (39; emphasis mine). Everything grammatically and rhetorically points to the sky where 'The Moon hung naked in a firmament / Of azure without cloud ...' (40-1). Wordsworth has subordinated himself to nature by not saying, T saw' or T beheld'. True, what we know of the scene is what he describes, but he characterizes himself not as a testifying witness but as merely an onlooker, 'as I looked up'. We see him looking up, a spectator ab extra. And thus Wordsworth allows the moon a more emphatic dominion over the other landscape features like the hills with 'dusky backs upheaved', lost in mist below the moon. Even the sea, 'the main Atlantic', appears 'To dwindle, and give up his majesty, / Usurped upon' by the moon (43-9). Wordsworth himself is held in the mist which 'at my feet / Rested' (41-2). The dominance of the moon, because it is so absolutely declared, would require, if challenged, an opponent whose power must be articulated with a sufficiently competitive vigor. Wordsworth's description of 'the roar of waters', though not as detailed as the account of the status of the moon, competes well because of the assertion that the waters are heard, 'roaring with one voice!' This single roar is hyperbolically exploited by the claim of its being 'Heard over earth and sea, and ... / so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens' (59-62). Thus far the Snowdon passage hardly strikes us as autobiographical because the scene and experience have been reported on, not personally recounted or emotively detailed. Onorato describes Wordsworth's climbing of Mount Snowdon as a 'visionary experience': 'the Poet stands emblematically on the mountain's summit between earth and heaven, like a lord and master' (215). What strikes us, however, is



But, undiscouraged, we began to climb The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round,

that Wordsworth at first describes his experience on Mount Snowdon with great restraint, self-abnegation, and much objectivity. It is only after his detailed recounting that Wordsworth tells us what the scene means to him - and yet, even here, he does so with amazing restraint in speaking of himself. First of all, we must notice that he declares no special privilege in seeing this vision. Hartman comments that the scene is 'no private revelation but one for any man and even for others than man' (Wds Poetry 184). When into air had partially dissolved That Vision, given to Spirits of the night, And three chance human Wanderers, in calm thought Reflected, it appeared to me the type Of a majestic Intellect, its acts And its possessions, what it has and craves, What in itself it is, and would become. (14. 63-9) The 'Vision' fades, a vision he and his companions, 'three chance human Wanderers,' just happened to see. He makes no claim upon its special relationship to himself, and thereby he can make no special claim upon it as to its meaning. He has recorded an account of the sight. He has rendered it all with convincing detail, but he demurs from offering definitive interpretation and says only that 'it appeared to me the type / Of a majestic Intellect' (66-7; emphasis mine). Owen's comprehensive explication of this passage emphasizes that 'what is imaged is an intellect a mind, the mind of a poet ...' ('Image ... Mighty Mind' 6). My point is that the text is so compelling in its graphic portrayal that even though Wordsworth points to a 'mind', and even though he characterizes the faculties of that mind in great detail, what is dominative in our experience of Book 14 is the epiphanic vision of the moon from Mount Snowdon as rendered in a poetic text. At first, nature seizes our focus. Wordsworth's reduction of himself gives his voice an objectivity, a candor, and thus endows his characterization of the vision on Mount Snowdon and the power that made it possible, the 'majestic Intellect', with an authoritative timbre. Wordsworth's vision is not his, but it is the operation of that 'majestic Intellect' which he later identifies with 'the emblem of a Mind / That feeds upon infinity' (70-1). Further on he speaks of a 'function ... of such a mind' (78) which he then relates





the express Resemblance of that glorious faculty That higher minds bear with them as their own. This is the very spirit in which they deal With the whole compass of the universe: (88-92) Wordsworth here details in epic-catalogue fashion the works and achievements of that 'glorious faculty' of 'higher minds', and not surprisingly this faculty turns out to be imagination, as Owen points out in his notes to our passage: '"this prime quality ... the faculty which is perhaps the noblest of our nature"' (260; qtd in Owen from both the Preface of 1815 and Essay, Supplementary to the Preface, Prose 3: 35,81). Wordsworth, however, does not use the term or speak of imagination explicitly until line 189, nearly halfway through Book 14. We know what imagination is at that point because Wordsworth has described its features in such multifaceted detail. It is everything from a capacity by which 'higher minds' (90) can create, 'send abroad / [k]indred mutations' (93-4), to a heightened awareness whereby they can perceive with special sensitivity, 'Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound / Of harmony from heaven's remotest spheres' (98-9). They are able 'To hold fit converse with the spiritual world' (108); 'Such minds are truly from the Deity' (112); they enjoy 'peace / [w]hich passeth understanding' (126-7); 'repose / [i]n moral judgements' (127-8); 'genuine Liberty' (132). The moral ideal of imagination is not described but confessed to by Wordsworth as he speaks of his own life as a 'humbler destiny ... of lapse and hesitating choice' (136-7). He honors the 'Mountain Solitudes / Within whose solemn temple' (139-40) he was instructed and protests that he was true to his conscience, 'Never did I ... / Tamper with conscience from a private aim' (150-1); he fought vigilantly against The tendency, too potent in itself, Of use and custom to bow down the Soul Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,



to a 'power which all / Acknowledge' in themselves (86-7) which turns out to be


And substitute a universe of death For that which moves with light and life informed, Actual, divine, and true.

What strikes us is not so much Wordworth's claim of fidelity as his graphic rendering of the tests of conscience and his image for failure, 'universe of death'. Wordsworth may sound a bit self-serving here, but this fervent passage honors imagination as a morally generative force. His personal inquisition seeks to serve that end. In this context Wordsworth's account of imagination - still unnamed - culminates in a disquisition on fear and love and the apotheosis of love: 'To fear and love, / To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends...' (162-3). Here too what matters and moves us is not Wordsworth's experience but his description of human affectivity: By love subsists All lasting grandeur, by pervading love; That gone, we are as dust. (168-70) Next follows the picture of the lamb and its 'Mother' (173), introduced by the biblically evocative 'Behold the fields ...' (170). The whole section has a scriptural overtone. It refers to the affection one feels for 'The One who is thy choice of all the world' (178). This affection, in turn, must 'by a still higher love / [b]e hallowed ... [b]y heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul ...' (181-4). The culmination is a proclamation of the characteristics of imagination in their most exalted features: This spiritual love acts not, nor can exist Without Imagination, which in truth Is but another name for absolute power And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And reason, in her most exalted mood. (188-92) We arrive at imagination having followed a sequence of images as though laid out like a procession on a tapestry. When Wordsworth



(157-62)

declares so unequivocally, 'This spiritual love' cannot operate 'without imagination', we immediately recall our long progress from the depiction of Snowdon and all the intervening claims made for the mind that enabled that vision to exist. Those 'higher minds' and their legion of powers so eloquently declared by Wordsworth we can now readily accept and understand as 'spiritual love' and imagination in its proper form. Wordsworth has followed an amazing argumentative process so far in Book 14. Supposedly he intended to describe nature on Mount Snowdon. He did so, but immediately loses himself in an eloquent disquisition on mind and imagination, the agents responsible for human creativity in its most exalted form. We can also notice that Wordsworth's presentation here follows a method of argument we observed in the Preface of 1802. Wordsworth there was directly autobiographical, spoke in the first person, could be quite testy and defensive, 'The first Volume of these Poems ... was published, as an experiment, which, I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain ...' (lines 14-16). Wordsworth is most disinclined to defend his poetry because he fears his readers will charge him with odious special pleading, 'the selfish and foolish hope of reasoning' his audience 'into an approbation of these particular Poems' (36-7; emphasis his). His correlative argumentative ploy, as we also noticed above, is to use the third person when speaking of literary principles and, eschewing elaborately formal lines of argument, to plead his case by insistent declamation: 'For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ...' (129-30). Generally in The Prelude and especially in Book 14, Wordsworth follows the same method and enjoys the same rhetorical advantage. Here in Book 14 he diminishes his presence especially in the first half of the book. He describes Snowdon powerfully; he catalogues the implications of that sight and does so by third-person, imagistic testimony: T beheld the emblem of a Mind / That feeds upon infinity ... a mind sustained / By recognitions of transcendent power ...' (70-5). The first person initiates the chain narratively, then follows a thirdperson inventory with no proof offered that such minds as recounted here do indeed exist. Because the third-person pronouncement is so emphatic, we tend to accept its words. When Wordsworth says, 'Such minds are truly from the Deity' (112), or, as he does here, 'Imagination ... in truth / Is but another name for absolute power / And clearest insight ...' (189-91), the force




of the pronouncement is derived, we must also recall, not just from the zest of convictive utterance, but from the ethical authority voicing that utterance. That voice wins our assent because of its candor, its muted self-rendering, and yet also its talent for vivid, descriptive witness. Here, however, as The Prelude winds to its conclusion, the pattern of argument takes a fascinating turn. Wordsworth at this point has introduced imagination, the supreme faculty which Snowdon has evoked. But Wordsworth here declares that the entire Prelude has been the story of this power: 'the feeding source / [o]f our long labor,' 'the stream' whose course he has followed from its birth or 'natal murmur', and whose course has disclosed everything from the 'works of man, and face of human life' to reasons for 'Faith in life endless'; 'Imagination' has been his 'theme' (193-206). But if imagination has been his theme in the entire Prelude, and if as he declares ahead in Book 14, to Coleridge, And now, O Friend! this History is brought To its appointed close: the discipline And consummation of a Poet's mind In every thing that stood most prominent Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached The time (our guiding object from the first) When we may, not presumptuously, I hope, Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such My knowledge, as to make me capable Of building up a Work that shall endure; (302-11) then imagination as presented here and his 'Poet's mind' in some way are one and the same. Wordsworth has achieved an amazing ethical triumph. He has identified himself as poet because of and through imagination and has in Book 14 given us a most beautiful characterization of imagination, and yet the predication of imagination thus ennobled to himself has been done with practically no egotistical implication. As noted already, Wordsworth's description of Snowdon and his delineation of imagination are graphically convincing. We believe and trust him in those depictions. His displacement of self helps authenticate these renderings, and it simultaneously helps his assertion that imagination as detailed here in all of its power is also true of




him. The poetic quality of his rendering of imagination provides his final textual argument. The very beauty and vitality of his text give an 'appointed close' to his life, the 'consummation of a Poet's mind', and thus he is ready via imagination as inscribed in text to do 'a Work that shall endure' (303, 304, 311). At this point there is another element that calls for consideration relative to the impressive stature Wordsworth achieves in his text. Looking again at the beginning of Book 14, whether we focus on the 1805, 'The perfect image of a mighty mind' [NP 13.69; emphasis mine], or the version in our text, 'type / Of a majestic Intellect, ... the emblem of a Mind / That feeds upon infinity ...' (14-Bk 14.66-71; emphasis mine), or on any of the terms recounted by Owen ('Image ... Mighty Mind' 3), we always find an expression that emphasizes text. Even though these are references to 'Mind' or 'Intellect', they are always conveyed with a correlative designate which has textual connotations. The reason text should be stressed in Book 14 is that Wordsworth uses the 'Mind' passages as major signs, master images, the fonts, whereby imagination is graphically introduced, proclaimed, described, and defined. As we have observed, the very term imagination is not used directly until line 189, but the text has ineluctably led us to that term and its climactic placement. The text thus has located imagination in the mind, then endowed mind with such powers, properties, functions so that mind shares in the whole catalogue of elegant attributes assigned to imagination. In a real sense, mind and imagination are made equivalent not by argument so much as by simple textual deployment of terms. But as we go back, as it were, from the grandeur of imagination to mind, we must recall that the Prelude process as it unfolds at the beginning of Book 14 leads us from the Snowdon vision to 'Mind' or 'Intellect'. With the expression 'type / Of a majestic Intellect' (66-7), we move from nature to mind and then to poetic text. The familiar process has been followed by Wordsworth: nature acted upon him by the disclosure of an extraordinary vision. The voicing is stressed heavily by the reference to the 'roar of waters ... roaring with one voice!' (59-60). We have emphasized that epideictic celebration which 'type / Of a majestic Intellect... emblem of a Mind' (66-70) initiates. Most of Book 14 is actually a tour de force, first of mind / imagination, spiritual and intellectual love, then of those who educated and nurtured Wordsworth and, like Raisley Calvert, made his vocation as poet possible. There is a strong epideictic element as




Wordsworth concludes. First, he declares to Coleridge that his 'powers [are] so far confirmed, and such / My knowledge, as to make me capable / Of building up a Work that shall endure' (309-11). He then speaks of The Prelude itself as 'this Song, which like a Lark / I have protracted' (384-5). Especially we have noticed the motion-terms, mainly those which characterize Wordsworth's struggle up to the vision he beheld: T panted up / With eager pace' (30-1). But the most important motionterm is in reference to the vision itself and is accomplished by the text: When into air had partially dissolved That Vision, given to Spirits of the night, And three chance human Wanderers, in calm thought Reflected, it appeared to me the type Of a majestic Intellect, its acts And its possessions (63-8) In the text itself, it would seem Wordsworth has stationed a powerful argument for the superiority of poetry to nature, even when nature has - analogously speaking - operated most imaginatively. With the affecting term 'dissolved', Wordsworth elegizes the ephemerality of natural creation and artistically asserts the perdurance and interpretive dominance of poetry. Wordsworth maintains his modest demeanor, but as impresario poet he now translates the natural into the poetic sublime. Wordsworth intensifies his claims for poetry by constricting the entire scene to the words 'type' and 'emblem'. These functional abstract nouns would seem to attempt to draw down into themselves the whole majesty of Snowdon and reduce it to the status of referent in service of a cognitive-poetic analogue. On the surface, Wordsworth intends to explain nature; he appears to use nature to illustrate poetic act. In the cataloguing of powers, as we observed above, the properties of mind are detailed as also are the capacities of the mind's most accomplished 'function' (78): imagination. Wordsworth then further textualizes all of this by commandeering to poetic utterance a veritable trove of abstract terms such as 'infinity' (71); 'recognitions of transcendent power / In sense, conducting to ideal form' (75-6); 'soul... mortal privilege' (77); 'function' (78); 'abstracted ... endowed / ... interchangeable supremacy' (83-4); 'glorious faculty' (89); 'Kindred mutations' (94); 'fit converse





with the spiritual world' (108); 'minds ... from the Deity' (112), and so forth. But Wordsworth also balances his philosophic endeavor of explaining mind and imagination abstractly by a counterpointing process of using concrete images - relatively few - at crucial junctures in his text, and thus giving his meaning a more typically poetic cast. In describing 'higher minds' and how they discover imaginative manifestations when these arise unexpectedly, Wordsworth claims that such minds are 'Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound / Of harmony from heaven's remotest spheres' (98-9). What Wordsworth has accomplished, despite the constant selfeffacement we noted early in the account, is to go from a description of nature and its amazingly creative powers to a demonstration of the amazing power of poetry and his own consummate skill as a poet. As we have already observed, Wordsworth similarly describes the powers of imagination with modest self-reference and ends up with our predicating those very powers of him. Wordsworth begins with a vision rendered in memorable poetry, but he almost undermines nature as the regent of that vision by identifying what nature has accomplished as a vision that fades. He becomes the source and the explicator of what nature has done, and Wordsworth's text becomes the inscription whereby the achievement of nature at Snowdon exists among us. His textualizing of the event and its implications in terms of mind and imagination further would seem to displace nature, raise the status of the human, and especially underscore the ultimate authority of poetry over nature since the entire sequence from climb to vision to dissolution to disquisitive reflection exists now only in poetry. And yet we must still ask ourselves precisely what exists: a poetic text that pictures memorably the imaginative operation of nature. But even though the textual ciphers like 'index' are used, ultimately we do not repose in an abstract, metaphysical disquisition. Our focus now, for all of the textual inventory of mind and imagination, our conception, our cognition, even our mutual 'hearing' are caught by the splendor of a moon that now hangs dominatively within our mind, our imagination, as it once hung in nature with its attendant forces and in the affective and affected consciousness of a poet. Thus Wordsworth's poetic act, his text, abides as it imagistically renders, not so much mind or even imagination, but what mind and imagination figuratively in nature have accomplished. The elaborate commentary on mind and imagination only have convictive power,



174

as Owen and Altieri would observe, because the moon and the associated chorus of waters have been rendered so vividly. No wonder Hartman says that 'Wordsworth did take the experience literally' (Wds Poetry 184). But Wordsworth gives us more than graphic poetic account. I would go beyond Horsman's claim that the Simplon scene has apocalyptic meaning only after imagination has been invoked (104). I would argue that as textual impresario, master of the natural scene, cataloguer of imagination's powers, Wordsworth has created a poetic apocalypse participating in all these elements, an apocalypse available even to ordinary mortals. Wordsworth identifies himself with Coleridge as 'Prophets of Nature' who will herald the human mind, 'the mind of Man', as being 'Of quality and fabric more divine' (14.446-56). In the Prospectus to The Recluse, he speaks of how we are fitted to the universe and it to us and that once we fully realize the implications of this marriage, once we share in the 'noble raptures', we too can bring into being a new 'creation (by no lower name / Can it be called)', all achieved through the 'blended might' of the human with nature (Prose 3: 7-8, lines 115-29 especially). We have argued that Wordsworth's doctrine of poetic truth is crucial and that it is especially realized in the diadic 'one flesh' of poetic text and meaning. Here he has illustrated the fruit of that marriage. Wordsworth has described human imagination, his theme all through The Prelude, through an imaginative act of nature, just as all along he has narrated and imaged his poetic vocation through his being shaped by nature and others and in turn by shaping himself and all else into the permanent testimonial of a poetic text. Wordsworth has domiciled all at once in the 'solemn temple' (Prelude 14.140) and truth of his poetry. What we have is a quaternion of extraordinary classical balance: nature, imagination (natural and human), poet, and poetic text. None seems to dominate; Wordsworth balances all, at first in awe and then with affirming vigor. And here we have his greatest ethical achievement. Owen has provided two excellent studies of Book 13('05). In the first he is particularly helpful in assessing the merits of the end of the book. 13 In the second he discusses Wordsworth's declaration that, finally, he is ready to do The Recluse: It is ironic that the vision from Snowdon, which to me demonstrates the poet at the height of his imaginative power as a poet of the natural and intellectual sublime, should be the starting-point-





It could well be that Wordsworth did not realize what he had accomplished in The Prelude generally and in the Snowdon account in particular. At this point, we see a possible constraint imposed by Wordsworth's classical undersong. He thought he needed to do a formal epic. Furthermore, Coleridge would have convinced him that the 'epic' should be a philosophical poem. However, we should remember the irony we encountered in Horace's Epistle to Florus. Both Horace and Wordsworth are supposedly undone by philosophy. Horace is about to abandon poetry for its sake. We would take him seriously except that his rejection of poetry comes in a beautiful poem. Wordsworth also seems to defer to philosophy, to the doing of a philosophical epic. As Book 14 concludes, Wordsworth declares to Coleridge that his powers [are] so far confirmed, and such My knowledge, as to make me capable Of building up a Work that shall endure; . . . . (309-11) We cannot help but catch Horatian irony in this pronouncement of Wordsworth, his hope of doing a work that will endure. Wordsworth has already shown us how nature survives in an enduring poetic text. With Horace in mind and the issues he raises about poetic epistemology, we cannot help but notice how epistemologically and ironically powerful so much of Book 14 is. We recall the commentaries above on the nature of the poetic and specifically on the character of poetic truth as advanced by Frye and Wimsatt and Wordsworth himself. My reading of these authorities on poetic meaning points to the conviction that poetic truth exists autonomously in texts where poetic expression is such that tenor and vehicle are one, and especially also where the poetic truth as such can exist in no other way except in the specific ordinance of the particular poetic construct. I draw Wordsworth's sanction for these conclusions from his insistence, as we noted above, that poetic thought and expression are so intimate to each other that they constitute one reality: 'not what the garb is to the body but what the body is to the soul' (Prose 2: 84). I read Book 14 very much as I read the Epistle to Florus. In both cases



ing [sic] for a tedious and obscure argument which will tell you that the very power which conceived that vision is not enough ('Descent ... Snowdon' 73)

supposedly poets are not quite philosophical enough. In both cases, however, the poets so master their material, so subdue it by the density of their poetic texture and eloquence of their voices that the issue of philosophy disappears as the 'full-orbed' poetic truth emerges and yet remains embodied in the poetic text. From his schoolmasters, Wordsworth was trained in a major precept, a most classical principle: the regal status of the text as such, its autotelic value as the principium of the truly poetic. Wordsworth was wisely delivered from Latin verse-composition and wisely too allowed the use of translations. The wonderful and possibly even paradoxical benefit is that Wordsworth emerged enriched by these seeming indulgences. In his own way, he became an ardent classicist who loved the classics for themselves and so loved the classical texts that he sought to translate them with rigorous, literal fidelity and abandoned his considerable endeavors rather than discolor the authentic cast of the classical text as he worked to do a proper translation. Wordsworth took his classical training, as we saw above, as the basis for his romantic text theory and practice. One cannot help but think of Wordsworth's prizing of textuality and the splendor of poetry as one observes the awed demeanor of the visitant to Snowdon who then creates a legitimum poema, a true poem, and does so with arduous skill and yet with all, ludentis speciem dabit, he creates with such modest poise. His poetry has captured Snowdon through his speciosa vocabula rerum; he too has, beabit divite lingua, blessed his commonwealth with authentic poetic utterance. 14 Owen is right; Wordsworth here is already doing the work of The Recluse. But Wordsworth's pledge to do the poetry of The Recluse is a marvelous play upon Horace's recusatio, his refusal to do any poetry. Both are being ironic in their devotion to philosophy. Wordsworth could well be indulging in the classicalHoratian dissembling of modestly undercutting the obvious achievements of his text. Like Horace, who apologizes for not sending poems by doing so in an elegant poem, so Wordsworth promises philosophical verse in poetry of the profoundest quality. Also, despite this promise, Wordsworth's faith in the powers of texts assured him that The Prelude would speak for itself. By its own metaphilosophical power, it would make the promise of future philosophical poetry clearly problematic. And here again, Wordsworth supersedes Horace. Both actually do supply poetry, but Wordsworth's is of epic stature because it displays - ironically - the power of poetry in a vatic yet personal text. Wordsworth has risen to epic status, and yet he remains




the humble poet because he so beautifully suffuses into one, poet, nature, imagination and text, and here his classical undersong engenders a poise of truly Attic objectivity. One final consideration rises as we think of Wordsworth's textual mastery as realized in Book 14. At its conclusion, Wordsworth calls to Coleridge to be his ally in a kind of cultural crusade. If humanity prove 'too weak to tread the ways of truth, ... / [and] fall back to old idolatry', and should 'Men return to servitude' (435-7), he and Coleridge will use their office as poets to save them. As joint laborers in the Work (Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe) Of their deliverance, surely yet to come. Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak A lasting inspiration, sanctified By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved Others will love, and we will teach them how, Instruct them how the mind of Man becomes A thousand times more beautiful than the earth On which he dwells, above this Frame of things (Which 'mid all revolutions in the hopes And fears of Men doth still remain unchanged) In beauty exalted, as it is itself Of quality and fabric more divine. (443-56) We notice that Wordsworth and Coleridge are to serve an epistemological cause should humanity prove 'too weak to tread the ways of truth' (435). They will guide us prophetically by sharing a Tasting inspiration' whose essential teaching concerns the sublimity, the 'quality ... divine' of 'the mind of Man'. It seems impossible that the claimed sublimity of 'the mind of Man' spoken of at the end of Book 14 should not be read against the 'majestic Intellect' (67) and the 'Mind / That feeds upon infinity' (70-1), and indeed also the implied but real presence of the poet's mind that recreated into poetry 'That Vision' which 'had partially dissolved' (63-4), but which he as poet-coadjutor with nature has here realized as poetic text. The Prelude and certainly Book 14 demonstrate the validity of Wordsworth's vocation, but they also constitute a kind of conduct book whereby we are implicitly invited to share in that vocation. In




Book 14, the invitation is made vivid as Wordsworth calls to Coleridge to join him in proclaiming the extraordinary worth of the human mind, 'Of quality and fabric more divine' (456), if only we are willing to share in the nuptials with nature he describes in the Prospectus. The immediate means Wordsworth would use is that he and Coleridge 'will speak / A lasting inspiration' (446-7). Such a lasting inspiration' (emphasis mine) can only be found - as we learn in Book 14 - in a poetic text. Wordsworth and Coleridge will save humanity from its latest fall by an 'inspiration', by pure poetry. Thus Wordsworth's conclusion that he now can do 'a Work that shall endure' can easily mean the work of making The Prelude live as a creative agent, a living text in us. Wordsworth's great achievement as the Romantic poet and critic has indeed been a 'Work' that has and 'shall endure'. He opened not only poetry but the poetic act itself to us ordinary mortals. Being silent poets is just a beginning. From Horace he learned the sacred status of the 'speciosa vocabula rerum', Wordsworth's own idealization of 'a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation' (Prose 1: 119): 'that [language] which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual pressure of those passions', the language which the poet imitates (1: 138). We can also justly probe our own experience, those special moments when people speak with stunning authenticity, those confidences and conversations, often too, those texts, purlieus of affecting utterance which - if not absolutely poetic - possess a penumbral richness of the genuinely poetic. There are times for all of us when heart and mind and tongue are at one, and suddenly merely human utterances transmute into poetry. Perhaps I press Wordsworth much too far, but I am prompted by recalling the mountains of Cumbria where Wordsworth's formal training in poetry seriously began. Perhaps I read too much of the populist in Wordsworth, but I cannot help recalling that rude classroom and the whole boisterous world of the Free Grammar School at Hawkshead.




1. The following works have been selected because they show a wide variety in contemporary critical terms of the application - to strictly literary texts - of the ethical proof, as Aristotle explains it in the Rhetoric (1355b, 1356a, 1378a). Full bibliographic details for these works are provided in my Works Cited. These works have encouraged me in my application of Aristotle's Rhetoric to Wordsworth. I confine myself to the ethical proof as detailed in the Rhetoric. I do not include the whole issue of ethos in Aristotle, Poetics, and so forth, as discussed by such critics as Halliwell, Price, and others.

In 1966, writing about the Kennedy-Nixon pre-election television debates of I960, Rosenthal recounts that he discovered 'that ethos, as an explanatory theoretical concept, was one of the great "poverty pockets" of rhetorical theory' (114). Since he viewed the contest between Kennedy and Nixon as essentially ethical, not one fundamentally argued on issues (124), Rosenthal had to develop 'an enlarged and modified conception of ethos that departfed] from the notions traditionally associated with the term' (114; emphasis his). There are elements in his theory related to the position of Aristotle, but very much that is new. Especially interesting, I find, is the distinction he argues between 'personal as opposed to nonpersonal persuasion' (passim and summarized 126; emphasis his). In 1994, an entire volume was published devoted to critical issues associated with ethos as it relates to Aristotle's notion of the ethical proof (Baumlin and Baumlin, eds, Ethos). In the Introduction, Baumlin recounts the history of the ethical argument from Plato and Aristotle to Derrida and Foucault. Baumlin concludes with a vivid description of some of the problems facing the contemporary rhetorical critic concerned with ethos: 'theories that would shatter the author's hypostatized voice into a set of textual functions' (xxvi-xxvii) or theories 'that would refuse to locate the speaker or writer "inside" or "outside" (or anywhere)' (xxvii). Baumlin hopes his present volume, a broad selection of viewpoints, will provide 'an affirmative answer' to such challenges (xxvii). For example, some 'essays ... sharpen and extend the theoretical issues surrounding ethos, most often from a new historicist or feminist perspective' (xxvii). Alcorn's essay in this volume, 'Self-Structure as a Rhetorical Device: Modern Ethos and the Divisiveness of the Self (3-35), begins by pointing to an important similarity between Aristotle and Kenneth Burke: they both emphasize how frequently the principle holds true that 'it is not a person's ideas but a person's character that changes people' (3; emphasis his). 'For Burke, persuasion works via mechanisms of identification or "consubstantiality"' (3), as Burke explains:



Appendix: Aristotle's Ethical Proof: a Sampling of Its Use in Recent Criticism

Appendix 181

Burke suggests a continuity between Aristotelian and contemporary theories of rhetoric. Alcorn suggests something of the same, but he especially emphasizes how the twentieth century has a new theory of the 'self and thus requires an expanded theory of ethical argument: 'Aristotle's ideas are not outdated; they are restrictive. Aristotle formulated his ideas about rhetoric within a particular social and psychological moment' (17). Further on, in his analysis of Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, he claims an ethical argument emerges different from Aristotle's because one does not find 'a character of intelligence and good will presenting a clear case for his or her side' (32). What we have here is presumably a different argumentative procedure: The ethos of the text does not say, 'Trust me' or 'Do this.' Instead the ethos says, 'This is what happened to me.' And through a kind of plotted intricacy, the instability of the text's initial political position promotes its rhetorical effectiveness. (32; emphasis his) Alcorn's analysis focuses on the 'self-division' in the voice in Orwell's text. Alcorn contends that Orwell's voice speaks with a particular rhetorical style - a confessional style - of self-division. This self-division has particular rhetorical effects because it reflects a dynamic of self-structure that moves us Change, after all, is what rhetoric is all about. (33) Alcorn is helpful because he is so typical of the best-informed, in my experience, of contemporary rhetorical theorists who use Aristotle knowingly and appreciatively, but are not confined to his categories and are able to avail themselves of the full scope of contemporary rhetorical and general critical theory. We are treated to Aristotle understood at a sophisticated level and matched with and contending with the most alert critical minds of our time. Some contemporary feminist critics find women excluded from Aristotelian and Ciceronian rhetorical theory (Ratcliff 20). Others, like Jarratt and Reynolds in the volume, '£t/ios/definitely identify themselves as 'feminist rhetoricians', but they 'look to classical rhetoric for a conceptualization and practice of a politically constructed and "located" subject useful to feminism' (40). In a broadly ranging essay, also in 'Ethos', Short points out the importance of Aristotle's Poetics and its notion of catharsis via '[t]he Freudian principle of transference' to contemporary considerations of ethos (370). He further comments that 'the recent battle over de Man's collaborationist essays ... shows that the classical rhetorical notion of antecedent ethos is still very much alive' (371; emphasis his). In a 1965 study, Moore rather directly, if also with stringent cautions as to



Here is perhaps the simplest case of persuasion. You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his For the orator, following Aristotle and Cicero, will seek to display the appropriate 'signs' of character needed to earn the audience's good will. (Rhetoric of Motives 55-6; emphasis his)

182 Appendix

Ethical proof above all other modes of validation suits modern times because it presupposes the value of undiscriminated human nature, the one value that has survived thus far the widespread skepticism about all values. (437) Moore sees a definite danger in accepting a doctrine of necessary poetic sincerity (436-8); he reminds us of Wordsworth's connecting 'sincerity with morality' and quotes from Wordsworth's Essays upon Epitaphs, II, noting Wordsworth's dictum to that effect (435). I quote the passage more fully than Moore because of the important Aristotelian point Wordsworth makes and Moore touches. Wordsworth stipulates that 'in a sepulchral inscription', the quality of 'sincerity' is crucial: And indeed, where the internal evidence proves that the Writer was moved, in other words where this charm of sincerity lurks in the language of a Tombstone and secretly pervades it, ... habits of reflection [will provide] a test of this inward simplicity ... and ... I am now writing with a hope to assist the well-disposed to attain it. (Prose 2: 70) Further on in his article, Moore comments: The most serious defect of ethical proof as now accepted is that it is allowed to consist of a show of good intentions alone without implication of virtue or intelligence, which Aristotle included' (437). Unfortunately what Moore does not explain and what Wordsworth insists upon is that sincerity can be discovered in the quality of the text; it is organic. Wordsworth offers his essays as an instructive guide designed to aid people to discover textual evidence of sincerity. Aristotle emphatically stipulates that the values honesty, truth and audience-concern must be verified in the text. The ethos of the voice cannot rest on antecedent, extratextual credentials: 'This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of... [his] character before he begins to speak' (1356a 25). Moore's discussion of ethos and sincerity and the issues of textual versus antecedent ethos lead us to our last example, a very impressive doctoral dissertation by Roger Cherry, 'Ethos' in Written Discourse: a Study of Literary and Persuasive Texts. Cherry begins (6-55) with a most comprehensive account of the nature of ethos from a 'philosophical and discourse-oriented' standpoint (2). Here he offers a particularly lucid discussion of the Aristotelian elements in ethical argument: 'sound judgment (phronesis), moral character (arete), and goodwill toward the audience (eunoia)' (8, 22-35; emphasis his). Because a major focus in the dissertation is the critical analysis of Fowles' novels The Magus and The French Lieutenant's Woman, Cherry devotes his second chapter, 'Ethos vs. Persona: Locating the Author in the Literary Texf (56-95), to the issues of author, narrative voice, and ethical evaluation. Basically he follows Wright in arguing the theory of literary persona (73-95). He discusses the opposing view, especially as represented by Ehrenpreis (75-7). But what is most helpful in Cherry's discussion is his use of various critics



its full applicability, uses Aristotelian ethical doctrine as a means of analyzing twentieth-century poetry:

like Mack, Booth, and McKeon to construct a fivefold horizontal scale made up of the following: 'Empirical Author -» Ethos -> Implied Author -» Persona / Omniscient Narrator -» Dramatized Narrator' (86). Particularly interesting is his argument for the distinction between 'implied author and the ethos of the empirical author' (87). According to Cherry, Booth regards the 'implied author ... as the guiding intelligence behind the creation of the persona', and also as 'a form of authorial presence that is omniscient and omnipotent within the confines of the imaginary world posited by the literary text' (86). The principle of the '"implied author"' according to Booth also involves our '"intuitive apprehension of a completed artistic whole; the chief value to which this implied author is committed, regardless of what party his creator belongs to in real life, is that which is expressed by the total form"' (qtd in Cherry 88). But Cherry insists that for evaluative purposes, we must remember that 'the implied author is itself a creation of the empirical author' (87). To what extent are 'the creation of the implied author' and 'other aspects of the literary text ... credible and convincing as a result of an effective ethical appeal on the part of the author' (87)? The 'author's ethos ... emerge[s] from the literary text itself (94; emphasis his) and enables '[t]he literary work as a whole ... [to function] as a kind of argument through which the author seeks to persuade readers of the validity and worth of his/her experience and the value of its embodiment in literary form' (92-3). The examples we have considered have ranged from works in rhetorical theory which used Aristotle or touched Aristotelian doctrine as a point of reference to Cherry who uses Aristotle's ethical principles with a fullness and rigor. Aristotle's influence is strong, but his ethical theory can be accommodated to a number of contemporary critical positions. 2. The following works are sources for or general studies of the meaning and applicability of the Rhetoric's treatment of the ethical proof. Bibliographies Aristotle. On Rhetoric: a Theory of Civic Discourses. Trans. George A. Kennedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. This excellent text has a selected bibliography plus an introduction, extensive notes and several supplementary texts, for example, Gorgias' Encomium of Helen; supplementary essays by Kennedy, for example, 'The Composition of the Rhetoric'; and a glossary. Baumlin, James S. and Tita French Baumlin (eds) 'Ethos': New Essays in Rhetorical and Critical Theory (treated above in Appendix, Part 1). This text has a selected bibliography (433-52) specifically devoted to ethos and related topics like 'persona, voice, self-fashioning, audience, and ethical argument'. The editors 'have concentrated on articles written in English after 1960 and on book-length studies that treat the subject extensively' (433; emphasis theirs). Erickson, Keith V. Aristotle's Rhetoric: Five Centuries of Philological Research. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1975, for a non-annotated bibliography of printed works on the Rhetoric since the fifteenth century. The intent is to provide 'an exhaustive list', and thus translations as well as critical studies



Appendix 183

and even unpublished 'theses and dissertations' are included (vii). There is a brief history of the Rhetoric beginning this text. Garver, Eugene. Aristotle's Rhetoric: an Art of Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. This text is much more than a commentary on the Rhetoric. As Garver rightly claims, 'This work is the first book-length philosophic treatment of Aristotle's Rhetoric in English in this century' (3). Further on he states, 'It is my hope that the study of the Rhetoric can transform the future career of discussions of phronesis, character, and argument' (4; emphasis his). His Chapter VI, 'Making Discourse Ethical: Can I Be Too Rational?' (172-205), treats the ethical proof with great insight, emphasizing the absolute need for the ethical demonstration (176-7). The bibliography is rich in philosophical entries related to Aristotelian rhetorical issues. Hart, Roderick P. Modem Rhetorical Criticism. 2nd edn. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1997. This text treats rhetorical and ethical issues mainly from the perspective of public affairs, advertising, and so forth. Interestingly there is only one short reference to Aristotle and under the heading in the Index of 'Ethos,' one is referred to 'Credibility' (363). However, in considering 'Credibility,' such issues as 'Competence,' 'Good Will,' 'Idealism,' and 'Trustworthiness' are considered (222-5). The bibliography is broad and contemporary (335-60). The text contains extensive analysis of political speeches and letters, for example, the so-called 'Checkers Speech' of Nixon (79-82, 86-7, 89-96, 100-3). These analyses can readily be related to Aristotelian categories, and the analyses themselves readily suggest how literary personae can be studied from an ethical standpoint, for example, an exchange of letters between President Truman and then presidential candidate Eisenhower (21-4). General Texts Cope, E. M. An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric. London: Macmillan, 1867. (Wm C. Brown Reprint Library [1966].) This is a classic study of the Rhetoric and valuable because it comments on the three modes of ethos presented by Aristotle: that which pertains to the rhetor, that which enables the rhetor to appeal appropriately to the audience in terms of age, social standing, and so forth, and the ethos exhibited by the rhetor in terms of style (108-13). Dockhorn, Klaus. 'Wordsworth and the Rhetorical Tradition in England'. Trans. Heidi I. Saur-Stull. Dockhorn takes the notions of ethos and pathos down through the eighteenth century to Wordsworth, but does not speak of the ethical or pathetic proofs in Aristotle. Dockhorn is concerned with the paired concepts, 'the f\Qr\ - naQr\ formula,' which he translates from his German equivalents into the English terms 'manners and passions' (266), and he shows how this formula came from classical literature and that it is a constant in Wordsworth (see especially 275-8). Herbert Lindenberger has an extensive commentary relative to Dockhorn (On Wordsworth's 'Prelude,' especially 25-39.) See Works Cited for full bibliographic entries for Dockhorn and the Saur-Stull translation. Gill, Christopher. 'The Ethos / Pathos Distinction in Rhetorical and Literary Criticism.' Classical Quarterly 34 (1984): 149-66. Gill traces the development of the concepts of 'ethos' and 'pathos' from Aristotle through Cicero, Quintilian and to Longinus. With Longinus, ethos mainly becomes 'a stylis-



184 Appendix

tic term, associated with "sweetness", "irony", "urbanity" ...' (164). Similarly 'the term pathos can suggest the emotional style, its desired effect, or the power in the speaker or author that gives this style its power'. Longinus particularly holds this view (165). Grimaldi, S.J., William M. A. Aristotle, 'Rhetoric': a Commentary. 2 vols. New York: Fordam University Press, 1980-88. This magisterial study is especially valuable for its elaborate analysis of Aristotle's meaning and learned explication of Aristotle's Greek terminology (see 1:38-47 for general discussion of rhetorical proofs; see 2:9-12 for discussion of the elements of the ethical proof). Grimaldi is also very valuable for references to other rhetorical theorists in antiquity such as Cicero.

Because, as Gill shows so well, Cicero uses Aristotle's concepts of ethos and pathos but with certain differences (156-8), and because, as Gill also shows, Quintilian presents a somewhat 'muddled' picture (159) of the ethos /pathos distinction, and especially because, as we saw above, Brink argues such a clear influence of Aristotle on Horace, especially by way of Neoptolenus of Parium (Prolegomena 79-150), I have gone back to the Rhetoric itself for my analysis of the ethical proof in Wordsworth. I have restricted my analysis to the elements of the ethical triad as delineated in the Rhetoric Book I, Chapter 2 (1355b, 1356a 24-5) and Book II, Chapter 1 (1377b, 1378a 90-1). I do not consider ethos and style as discussed, for example, in Book II, Chapter 21 (1395a 137). I am encouraged in my procedure by Cherry, 'Ethos' in Written Discourse: a Study of Literary and Persuasive Texts (1-55). I am also encouraged by a similar use of Aristotelian ethical concepts in the following recent doctoral dissertations: Abromaitis, Carol Nevin. Ethos and Figures in Three Poems of Alexander Pope. Diss. University of Maryland, 1976. UMI, 1976. 77-21, 342. Focusing on An Essay on Criticism, Epistle HI (To Bathurst), and Dunciad IV, Abromaitis is concerned with Pope's use of such figures of speech as antithesis, iscolon, chiasmus (see these figures analyzed with respect to the Essay on Criticism 50-7) as a way of demonstrating Pope's ethos. See her discussion of the relation of figurative usage and ethical demonstration (especially 1-49, 151-6). The Appendixes present an impressive catalogue of major classical figures discovered in the works of Pope discussed in the dissertation (157-208). Payne, Paula Harms. Aristotle's 'Rhetoric': 'Matter' and 'Manner' in Sidney's Sonnet Sequence 'Astrophil and Stella' and in His 'Defence ofPoesie'. Diss. University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1987. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1987. 8805598. Payne sees a close association of Aristotle and Sidney with respect to rhetorical proofs (44) and ethos (for example, 184, for comments on as shown in Astrophil and Stella). Snow, Sara E. 'Worthy of Belief: 'Ethos' in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' and Ernest Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises'. Diss. Northwestern University, 1985. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1985. 8511862. Because of the widespread skepticism in the 1920s over rhetoric, Snow argues that Hemingway and Fitzgerald seek



Appendix 185

186 Appendix


to establish the ethos of their respective first-person narrators especially through the element of sincerity (6-9). Snow sees these narrators as 'successful rhetoricians', and she finds that 'their ethical appeals succeed. We believe they are sincere because we watch them experience what they are describing' (387).


Introduction 1. All quotations and references are to The Fourteen-Book Prelude, ed. by WJ.B. Owen, unless otherwise indicated; copyright © 1985 by Cornell University Press (Ithaca, New York); used by permission of Cornell University Press. 2. For an elaborate discussion of Wordsworth's prophetic mission especially as compared with Milton, see Coombs, Wordsworth and Milton: ProphetPoets, especially Chapters 5 and 6, 'Wordsworth's Prophetic', and 'Wordsworth's Prophetic Poetry' (108-79). See also Lindenberger for a discussion of the 'voices' in The Prelude, especially its 'Public Tone' and 'Epic Task' (3-15). See also Mahoney (123-7). For the view that the lyrical elements are dominative in The Prelude, see Proffitt, 'The Epic Lyric: the Long Poem in the Twentieth Century', especially pp. 24-6. 3. For the major discussion of the ethical proof in Aristotle's Rhetoric, see Book I, Chapter 2, where Aristotle explains the three 'modes of persuasion', the ethical proof, the pathetic proof, and the logical proof. The ethical proof establishes the persuasive power of the speaker, Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1355b and 1356a, pp. 24 and 25 in The Modern Library edition, translated by Roberts. All references will be to this edition by section number and page. For a general discussion of Aristotle's originality and the Aristotelian view on the elements of the ethical proof, see Cherry, 'Ethos' in Written Discourse: a Study of Literary and Persuasive Texts (6-9, 22-35, 48-55). Part I Wordsworth's Academic Training 1. Moorman is particularly eloquent in her characterization of Ann Wordsworth as an affirming and unobtrusive mother. She gave her children 'the priceless gift of a peaceable and tranquil love' (1: 2). Thomas attests to the wisdom of Ann Wordsworth in allowing William to read as his curiosity urged him: 'She was untainted by the nervous educational theories that may have warped many of William's youthful contemporaries' (10). 2. See ahead to my discussion of the daily schedule of Shrewsbury School. 3. See ahead for my discussion of Dean Colet and the Statutes of St Paul's School. 4. I quote 'a small modern collection of the old Statutes and Ordinances' (letter to me) prepared by St Bees School. I am indebted to Mr A. A. Cotes, Senior Classics Master, St Bees School, for the copy of the Statutes and the information explaining their being selected and printed. 5. For information on Prudentius and Lactantius, see Watson, English



Notes

6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

Grammar Schools to 1660 (374), and Oxford Classical Dictionary. For George Buchanan, see Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, new edn. For a discussion of the influence of classical style on the West from the Renaissance, see Highet, The Classical Tradition (19-20, 112-13, 158-61). Tompson has an excellent discussion of the legal status of endowed grammar schools as charities and the extensive efforts made in charity reform generally at the end of the eighteenth century. The famous Leeds School case, lasting from 1796 till judgement was rendered by Lord Chancellor Eldon in 1805, is part of the general academic and charity reform movement (104-26). Tompson quotes from Lord Eldon's ruling and thereby shows that Lord Eldon intended to be as accommodating as the law would allow to those seeking curriculum reform in the endowed grammar schools. Eldon is shown to be quite sensitive and even progressive. Unfortunately for the history of grammar school reform, 'The Eldon decision and its effect on the Leeds Grammar School are poorly understood' (120). Quoted by Clarke (Class. Ed. 80). Clarke describes the kind of enlightening translations Arnold encouraged from his students. My sense is that Wordsworth was educated in the same way. The most complete source for various grammar-school curricula and quotations from statutes which I have found is Nicholas Carlisle's two volumes A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales, 1818. Relatively few schools spell out their curricula. My general impression is that the curriculum in grammar schools was relatively standardized, or thought to be so. In my research I have not found anything like the broadly inclusive Hawkshead School statement in any grammar-school source. Here I follow the carefully documented listing by Woof in Appendix IV, TWT (342). Mumford has in his Appendix 15 (525-6), a listing of books purchased for the Manchester School library very probably by Purnell. The existence of the 'School holiday library', the collection of the funds to buy books, and apparently also the selection of books from 1725 to 1739 are credited by Mumford to 'someone of wide interest and kindly nature', 'William Purnell' (142-3). The listing in Appendix 15 (525-6), notes a purchase of the 1713 edition of 'Henry Felton, "A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and forming a just style"' (525). On the following page there is a second entry referring to Felton: 'Felton's On ye Classicks (six copies)'. The edition is not listed, but by the time all these books had been purchased a second edition, 1715, had been published. This edition simply expands the basic principles of the 1713 edition with more discussion and illustrations. I examined a copy of the 1730, fourth edition, preserved in the Manchester Grammar School library. The British Library Catalogue lists a fifth edition of 1753.1 found the 1730 similar to the 1715, expanded version. I have not been able as yet to establish a direct connection between Wordsworth and Felton, but I am much impressed by the similarity of their views on the values of classical study and the nature of translation. For eloquent tributes to Purnell, see Mumford, 142-3, 151, 167.



188 Notes

Notes 189

There is no need of tying ourselves up to an Imitation of any of them [classical writers]; much less to copy, or transcribe them. For there is Room for vast Variety of Thought and Style, as Nature is various in her Works, and is Nature still. (39) Felton recommends, among the various modes of translation, literal, paraphrase, and so forth. His comments remind us of Wordsworth. Felton insists that a skilled translator must put himself into the Place of his Authors, not only be Master of their Manner, as to their Style, the Periods, Turn, and Cadence of their Writings, but he must bring himself to their Habit and Way of Thinking... (158) Further on he declares that where the Language will bear it, and the Sense and Spirit of an Author can be fully expressed, I take the most literal Translations to be the best, as well as truest. (164-5; emphasis his)

17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24.

He is most emphatic in urging that 'we shall never attempt to write in Greek or Latin with any Hopes of coming up to the Celebrated Authors in those Languages, but content ourselves with Writing in English ...' (198; emphasis his). He admits that in comparing Latin and English, his 'Preference [is] to the Latin' (201; emphasis his). These holdings are listed in Wu, 'The Hawkshead School Library in 1788: a Catalogue'. See Moorman (WW 1: 59-67); Sheats (5-40); Stein (19-41). Wu is most elaborate and detailed in his discussion of all echoes and sources relative to Wordsworth's early verse; see Wu's doctoral dissertation, 'A Chronological Annotated Edition of Wordsworth's Poetry and Prose: 1785-1790'. See also Johnston (77-92). See Woof, TWT Appendix IV (342). My own research efforts have yielded little more than Woof had uncovered. This information is to be found in the last will of William Taylor, Lancashire Record Office, Preston. It is because of the apparent extent of his personal library that I account Taylor's helping Wordsworth read eighteenth-century poetry, not any outside religious or political influence (Williams 29). Letter to me 13 December 1982. Clarke has an excellent account of Butler's success (Cl. Ed. 76-8). Clarke (Cl. Ed. 78) notes some of the very successful scholars trained by Butler. One of the most eminent of these was B.H. Kennedy, who succeeded Butler as headmaster. Kennedy 'was the foremost classical teacher of his age', and he became 'professor of Greek at Cambridge' (90). See Watson, En. Gram. Schools (7, 315, 319, 414) for the importance of Cicero in mastering the skills of Latin conversation as well as the ability to do Latin composition. The study of Cicero's epistles began early in grammar-school training.



16. The following are from Felton's second edition (1715) and indicate his emphasis on the creative use of the classics:

25. For an account of the work of Andrew Dalzel, Professor of Greek at Edinburgh University, 1772-1806, and his very important anthologies of Greek writers, the Collectanea Maiora and Minora, see Clarke, Greek Studies (44-5). 26. Clarke, in Greek Studies (112-14), gives an account of the low status of Greek philosophy generally in the eighteenth century, but he also notes the use of the Poetics and Rhetoric of Aristotle. 27. Clarke (Cl. Ed. 8-9) explains the nature of basic conversation texts. 28. Gill pays eloquent tribute to the high quality of Hawkshead School, 'a very good school,' and the 'humane way' in which Wordsworth was educated (27). 29. For sources used and an account of the translations, see Wu, Wds Reading 1770-1799 (2-3, 24). 30. TWT, Appendix IV (344). For the various editions of Ovid connected with Wordsworth, see Wu, Wds Reading 1770-1799 (108-9). The University of Nebraska text identifies the 1632 edition as 'a revised ... edition'. Their 1970 text is 'essentially that of the 1632' edition (xv). 31. I quote from the title pages (n. pag.) of the respective sections of Lily's Grammar, the 1567 edition, with an introduction by Vincent J. Flynn, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1945. This particular 'form' of the grammar was used by Shakespeare (Introduction xi). Flynn gives an excellent account of the development of the Lily Grammar (iii-xii). 32. The Rev. Thomas Dyche, fl. 1719, did a number of popular textbooks. His Latin grammar went through several editions. He also did a series of texts for English studies (DNB). 33. I quote from the 3rd edn which is practically the same as the 4th edn which I also inspected carefully. 34. See Wu, Wds Reading 1770-1799 (164), for evidence showing the use of the Eton Grammar in 1785 at Hawkshead by students younger than Wordsworth. Since Bowman was usher at the time (Woof in TWT, Appendix IV 342), he could have instituted the use of the Eton Grammar. 35. The volume lacks a title page but is identified by the library as part of the 'Wordsworth Collection of John Edwin Wells'. Its title is Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque (1765). This book has 'W. Wordsworth' written firmly on page v, the beginning of the Preface and the first page of the text to have survived. This could have been one of Wordsworth's first textbooks. 36. Wu cites a number of Virgil translations connected with Wordsworth and states, 'It is extremely likely that W read Dryden's Virgil before 1787' (Wds Reading 1770-1799 141). Graver discusses Wordsworth's consultation of Dryden's Georgics translation. He shows how the early Wordsworth is a more sensitive translator of Virgil than Dryden ('Wordsworth's Georgic Beginnings' 147). 37. I have studied the lectures, some rather fully written out, of Bishop Bennet in Emmanuel College library. Bishop Bennet was very much the holistic teacher of the classics. His lectures on Book I of Cicero's De Oratore suggest to me that Taylor heard these lectures and passed the information on to Wordsworth. As yet I cannot definitely prove that William Taylor attended any lectures by Bennet. Emmanuel College records also do not show who Taylor's tutor was.



190 Notes

38. In Trinity College library, Cambridge, I examined the following items of Collier: Sonnets Original and Translated, which appears to have been privately printed, a volume which also has works by Coleridge and Burke; Poems on Various Occasions; with Translations from Authors in Different Languages (2 vols, London: 1800). Collier shows skill in his translations and the characteristics of the eighteenth-century poetry of sensibility. I found him to be an impressive scholar and poet. 39. The St John's College Order Book contains a regulation dated 7 November 1775, to the effect that all students are 'to give in to the Rhetoric Lecturer at least four themes in every Term'. The only ones excused were those in the term 'immediately preceding their degrees'. Prizes were awarded each year for the best themes. According to Mr Malcolm Underword, St John's Archivist, these themes in the eighteenth century would have been in Latin (private consultation I had with Mr Underword). 40. See especially Watson, English Grammar Schools to 1660, Chapter XXI, 'Translation of Authors' (349-59). Clarke notes one eighteenth-century schoolmaster, John Clarke of Hull, who favored a kind of 'commonsense utilitarianism' inspired by Locke and who provided his students with 'literal translations'. But Clarke's 'views were not generally accepted' (Cl. Ed. 47-8). 41. See especially Graver's doctoral dissertation, 'Wordsworth's Translations from Latin Poetry', 1983, where he considers everything from Wordsworth's juvenile translations through his sophisticated though partial translation of Virgil's Aeneid. Wu's dissertation, 'A Chronological Annotated Edition of Wordsworth's Poetry and Prose: 1785-1790', 1990, is also very valuable because it comments on items like Wordsworth's translations and paraphrases from the Greek which are not considered by Graver. 42. Highet provides a fine summary of the influence of the classics on Wordsworth. First, 'They meant spiritual nobility' for him and encouraged a strong political commitment in his poetry (409-10); Stoicism influenced him (410-11) as also did Plato (411-12); and Wordsworth's view of emotion is very Greek (412). Highet provides an extensive discussion of the possible classical influences on Wordsworth's 'Imitations of Immortality' (675-6). 43. For a consideration of Wordsworth as both rhetorical and lyric poet, see Kneale, Monumental Writing, where he speaks of how both 'The Prospectus combines ... lyric and epic elements' just as 'The Prelude turns out to be a lyrical epic ...' (4). Kneale's approach is very valuable because it is in modern rhetorical terms, but I emphasize the place of Aristotle's ethical argument in the Wordsworthian epic-rhetorical-lyrical procedure. See also Proffitt (esp. 24-6). 44. See Thomas, Wordsworth and the Motions of the Mind. For another aspect of Wordsworth's teaching skill, see Meisenhelder for the way Wordsworth educates his readers' tastes and feelings whereby they are enabled to appreciate his poetry more fully. The reader is to engage the text energetically (233). Thus 'the sensitive reader' 'use[s] the poem as the basis for his own creative act of building. In thus becoming an active creator, the reader also serves the text By the activity of the reader, the text is brought out of



Notes 191

192 Notes

Part II Wordsworth and Horace: Ethos and Poetic Truth 1. For an extended discussion of Aristotle's definition of rhetoric, see Grimaldi 1: 35-47. For an excellent treatment of 'Persuasive Discourse' and 'Literary Discourse', see Kinneavy, A Theory of Discourse 211-392. Aristotle also notes the importance of ethos and audience-appeal in political and cultural terms, 1366a 55-6. I shall focus only on the basics of the ethical triad as set forth in 1355b, 1356a, and 1378a, the core issues of the ethical argument. 2. For a comprehensive discussion of the Horace-Aristotle relationship, see the magisterial volumes of C. O. Brink, Horace on Poetry, passim. See especially the first volume of this series, Prolegomena to the Literary Epistles, pp. 287, 292, where the many major specific references in that Brink text to the possible connection of the Ars Poetica to Aristotle are listed. Brink does definitely link Horace to Aristotle by way of the poet-grammarian Neoptolemus of Parium, who probably lived in the third century BC. To the question of whether Horace knew Aristotle's Poetics directly, Brink responds with 'an unqualified "no"' (Prolegomena 140). Brink also would seem to disallow Horace's knowing Aristotle's Rhetoric directly (Prolegomena 100, note). However, it must be stressed that especially through Neoptolemus, Brink shows a strong Horace-Aristotle relationship. Williams, who like Brink is very enthusiastic in his treatment of the Ars Poetica, cautions that it is virtually impossible to be sure what sources, rhetorical or otherwise, Horace is using. Discussing the very famous passage from the Ars Poetica in which Horace speaks of the necessity of knowing well the various characteristics of human beings at the various stages and conditions of human life (lines 156-78), Williams points out its possible source in Aristotle's Rhetoric Il.xii-xiv (Tradition 333). Williams makes the very important point that the sources almost do not matter because Horace is so original in the way he uses them: Like Virgil, he not only uses Greek literature eclectically but he blends it into his composition so that the finished work requires the reader to know as much as the poet - but it has no immediate or simple relationship to one Greek source. (Tradition 330) 3. Williams points out the seriousness of Horace's vatic aspirations; he wants to comment on the Roman state and have his words matter (79-101). See Lyne, Horace: Behind the Public Poetry; the Conclusion is especially helpful (215-17). 4. See Lyne for his relating of Horace to the didactic, public office of poet in Greco-Roman civilization (21-30). Lyne explains passim how difficult this public role was for Horace and the genius Horace exhibited in fulfilling it.



its dormant state and acquires new life' (234). Meisenhelder focuses on Wordworth's pedagogy with respect to his own texts. I see his pedagogical process as leading his readers also to create their own texts as poets in their own right to the degree they are able. 45. Graver emphasized this point of view to me in private conversation.

5. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and Loeb Classical Library from Horace, Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926, rev. 1929). I use the Loeb editions for Horace's Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica, both for the Latin text (indicated by genre title, book, poem, and line numbers) and for translation (indicated simply by page number). Where the translations are my own, where necessary I indicate this in my text. 6. See Brink, Epistles Book II, p. 635, for his listing of the multiple references in his text to philological issues in Horace. For Horace on 'Words ... ordinary' (emphasis his), see this volume, pp. 331-6, 502. 7. We should recall that Horace makes a similar declaration at the beginning of his first Epistle (Epistles I,i, lines 1-19, pp. 251, 53). Lyne argues that, though Horace's refusal in both contexts seems ironic since he is replying in hexameter poetry, Horace is to be taken seriously. Because of a change in his patronage relationship with Augustus, it was difficult for Horace to do the serious kind of ode that he regarded as true poetry (186-92). 'Compared to the lyric Odes... the Epistles are not to be seen as poetry ...' (186). 8. For my translation of Latin terms, I use The White Latin Dictionary (Chicago, 1951). 9. For an illuminating discussion of the problems involved in establishing sincerity in a literary text, see Elliott, The Literary Persona, Part 2, 3. 'Sincerity' (35-62). 10. For a discussion of poetic truth as reflected in Horace's Ars Poetica and as influenced via Neoptolemus by Aristotle, see Brink, Prolegomena (129-34). See also Epistles Book II (357-8, esp. 517-22) for Brink's comments on this issue and the Epistle to Florus. For similar epistemological issues in Wordsworth, see Owen, Wordsworth as Critic (90-109). 11. See Lyne (186-92) for a strong political reason. 12. See Appendix in this text. 13. Though he does not discuss audience or reader appeal as such, as an Aristotelian ethical value, he makes this element his chief concern. He refers to 'ethical appeal', and explains this as 'the speaker['s] ... evidence of his responsible and sympathetic character' (73). This emphasis is true both in his treatment of the Preface (67-80 passim and especially 71-2) and the Essays upon Epitaphs (94-6, particularly 96, where he states that 'in thematic terms the reader remains Wordsworth's central concern here as in the other two works we have examined'). My study focuses on many of the same points raised by Nabholtz, and we discuss several of the same paragraphs in the Preface and in the Essays upon Epitaphs (especially the first six paragraphs of the Preface). I am concerned, however, with the full ethical triad of Aristotle and those rhetorical elements in Wordsworth that make his prose so pleasing aesthetically. 14. I quote from The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, vol. 1, edited by WJ.B. Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser, 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). All quotations are made by permission of WJ.B. Owen. For the 1850 edition (which includes the addition made to the Preface in its second edition of 1802), I shall simply cite line numbers in parentheses from the Owen and Smyser text. For references to their rendering of the



Notes 193

15.

16.

17. 18.

19. 20.

1800 text (left, facing and parallel to 1850 text), I shall enclose their line numbers in brackets, [ ]. Nabholtz calls Wordsworth's procedure here his '"credible reasoning style" ... [where he seeks] to describe or to reenact his reasoning process...,' not offer 'formal' proofs (74). See also Schell's article 'Prose Prefaces and Romantic Poets: Insinuation and Ethos' for an explanation of how the ethical appeal, typically made in prose prefaces up to Wordsworth's time, lost favor. Wordsworth regards the 'insinuatio' or direct appeal of the author for a favorable reading from his/her audience as 'counter-productive' and thus he does not do 'a detailed preface to the 1798 edition of the Lyrical Ballads ...' (86-7). Wordsworth's Note to 'The Thorn' 'hint[s] at the new relationship between prose preface and poem introduced by the Romantic poets' (89). The preface or Note to 'The Thorn' possesses an 'ethical appeal which, in turn, provides an essential modification upon the following poem', and, in this way, 'Wordsworth radically revises the insinuatio' (89; emphasis his). Unfortunately Schell does not discuss the Preface to Lyrical Ballads nor does he discuss Aristotle's ethical triad, though he very ably presents the essentials of the ethical argument (86-7). As can be seen from my text, I argue in detail that Wordsworth's claim that he does not want to offer 'a systematic defence of the theory upon which the Poems' of Lyrical Ballads are based (32-3) is simply a part of Wordsworth's argumentative strategy. I definitely urge that Wordsworth's Preface does reflect some elements of the traditional exordium (as argued by Nabholtz), but it follows an idiosyncratic Wordsworthian pattern. It also participates in the ethical features of insinuatio as explained by Schell. See ahead to note 17 for references to enthymematic argument which Wordsworth approaches. Here we notice that he does not attempt an elaborate formal argument. Nabholtz sees this paragraph as typical of the Preface, not a 'systematic defense', but an appeal to win over the audience and to establish the voice as trustworthy (71). For Wordsworth's handling of the nature of rural folk and for his general discussion of language in this context, see Owen, Wordsworth as Critic (3-26). For a discussion of the enthymeme, see Gage, 'Teaching the Enthymeme: Invention and Arrangement'. I do not see Wordsworth's pattern of assertion about country life as fulfilling the criteria for enthymematic argument by Gage, especially the necessity that the enthymeme be made of 'two complete, declarative sentences, one of which is stated as the reason for the other' (42). Wordsworth simply offers reasons for his choice of country life as presumably possessing certain virtues. He does not address the central issue demanding to be argued: does country life possess the virtues he claims. See my 'Wordsworth, Horace, and the Preface to Lyrical Ballads' (1989). See Scoggins for a general discussion of Wordsworth's theory of 'a new kind of pleasure' (382; emphasis his) his poems were to give. There is a 'higher knowledge' which is the source of this 'pleasure'; 'Imagination' is the means to that 'knowledge' and the 'romantic symbol' its mode of expression (396).



194 Notes

For a discussion of the Aristotelian concepts of 'episteme,' truth demonstrated by scientific process, and 'phronesis,' truth as operating in the order of 'practical reasoning' (95), and ethical issues (ethos) related to truth in Wordsworth's Preface, see Sebberson, 'Practical Reasoning, Rhetoric, and Wordsworth's "Preface" [sic].' Sebberson points out the influence of Burke on Wordsworth and argues 'similarities between eighteenth-century rhetorical theory and Wordsworth's poetic theory of "moral relations'" (107). I would see Wordsworth closer to Aristotelian 'phronesis' than Sebberson would seem to allow. I do not use the ethical proof in the way he does (98-9). 21. It could well be that Wordsworth, as Owen suggests, reflects Coleridge's comments on Aristotle (Prose 1:179). I would urge that Jonson, in using the expression 'a dulcet, and gentle Philosophy', reflects the fusion of Aristotle and Horace so typical of the Renaissance (Herrick, The Fusion 1). The word 'dulcet' clearly echoes the famous expression in the Ars Poetica that the good poet makes his verse a combination of the useful and the affecting, 'miscuit utile dulci' (line 343). 22. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and Loeb Classical Library from Cicero, De Oratore, 2 vols, trans. E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942). Here the translation is mine. 23. For a full discussion of Wordsworth's linguistic theory, especially as exemplified in his critical treatment of the epitaph, see F. Ferguson, Wordsworth: Language as Counter-Spirit (especially 28-34). Ferguson notes the degree to which mortality touches Wordsworth's theory: 'By placing the funeral monument rather than passionate utterance at the beginning of his version of language, Wordsworth establishes the sign of mortality at the origin of language ...' (33). For a full delineation of the Biblical, theological, and contemporary philosophical-linguistic implications of Wordworth's epitaphic doctrine, see Haney, William Wordsworth and the Hermeneutics of Incarnation. Haney declares his thesis early in his text: I argue that Wordsworth's incarnational poetics does not simply secularize a Christian concept in the service of a theory of representation, but rather pursues a critical, nonrepresentational, historically engaged, concrete hermeneutic of both thought and language. (2) Contrary to Ferguson, who sees Wordsworth's theory of 'language as incarnation', presented in a discussion of the epitaph, as 'a strange tack, because the incarnation of language comes into direct opposition with the factual deaths, the de-incarnation of the actual human beings who are memorialized in the epitaphs' (Ferguson 31), Haney argues that the incarnation of language posits 'a very historical relationship entirely different from that which sees language as a more or less adequate representation of thought' (17). Haney invokes Gadamer as urging 'words as events' (19). Haney quotes Wordsworth's Note to 'The Thorn' where he sees 'words .. ."not only as symbols of the passion, but as things, active and efficient, which are of themselves part of the passion"' (24; emphasis Wordsworth's). Haney's argument leads to crucial ethical issues: Wordsworth's 'contrast ... between language as the incarnation of thought and as merely clothing



Notes 19 5

for thought provides a fundamental Romantic metaphor for how to link ethical and epistemological positions' (43). Typical of Haney's procedure is his comment on Book 5 of The Prelude to the effect that it starts with 'a lament for language's inadequacy and end[s] with a celebration of language's power' (73). He is comprehensive and helpful in showing the implications of Wordsworth's incarnational theory. Chapter 3, 'Ending The Prelude: Incarnation and the Autobiographical Exit' (103-39), is of particular interest for its rhetorical concerns. Speaking of Wordsworth's final 'totalizing gesture - wrapping up the autobiography as an exemplary figure', Haney shows how (rhetorically in effect) Wordsworth, 'by offering his experience as an exemplary sign at the end of The Prelude, ... belies the act of representational figuration even as he enacts it' (138). This constitutes a rhetorical, 'an ethical act of teaching' (138); with 'Coleridge as reader', The Prelude 'leaves the author's control... and enters the world of interpreters' (138-9). The Prelude 'becomes a "saying" in the noneconomy of gift exchange' (139). 24. Devlin, Wordsworth and the Poetry of Epitaphs, offers a broad consideration of how the epitaph and Wordsworth's theory concerning it are at the core of so much of Wordsworth's poetic doctrine and practice. Especially interesting is Devlin's argument about the importance of the epitaph: 'An epitaph is for Wordsworth the epitome of poetry because it is analogous to the "spot [sic] of time" and his own poetic mode' (121). For a discussion of the nature of the 'truth' in an epitaph where the author of the text presents the deceased as 'seen ... as [is] a tree through a tender haze or a luminous mist' (Prose 2: 58), see Sharp, 'Re-membering the Real, Dis(re)membering the Dead: Wordsworth's "Essays Upon Epitaphs'" (especially 290-2). We should also note, as we are involved with Wordsworth's ethical concern for audience, that Gill comments in connection with the Preface to Lyrical Ballads that its special and original value lies in Wordsworth's choosing 'subjects from "Low and rustic life"[,] ... for believing that in such subjects the poet will come close not only to essential human nature but to the source of a truly "philosophical language"' (188). Part III Classical Undersong: 'lively images', 'strong feelings', 'purest Poesy' 1. For my reading of The Prelude, I am much indebted to Abrams' second chapter in Natural Supernaturalism, 'Wordsworth's "Prelude" and the CrisisAutobiography' (71-140) and his section two of Chapter 5, 'Wordsworth: the Long Journey Home' (278-92). Abrams stresses the 'three stages' in The Prelude: 'mental development', 'crisis of apathy and despair', and the state of Wordsworth when he 'recovers an integrity', a much enriched state (77). He also stresses the work of nature directly shaping Wordsworth and Wordsworth's final status as 'Evangelist' (134-40). I focus on the way the educative process operates on and in Wordsworth and is revealed textually. I emphasize the importance of William Taylor and Dorothy and the textual explicitness of Wordsworth's calling as poet and the rhetorical-



196 Notes

ethical foundations whereby he becomes secure and convinced of his vocation. Abrams also speaks of The Prelude as 'a poem which incorporates the discovery of its own ars poetica,' its realization of a whole new subject matter for poetry, 'the ordinary world of lowly, suffering men and of commonplace or trivial things transformed into "a new world ..."' (78). I would extend Abrams' scope for Wordsworth's evangel of the 'lowly' and explain The Prelude as a text which exemplarily empowers the 'lowly' to share to the degree they are able in the very act of creating poetry. 2. Richard Onorato insists that it is difficult to assess the 'truth' presented by Wordsworth concerning his life: In a poetic autobiographical account of the growth of a poet's mind, it would be useful to emphasize the inventive sense along with the recollective sense of the I-speaking character, and remember that the poet is creating a character, is 'characterizing' himself, by using both Memory and Imagination. (6) 3. For a full discussion of Wordsworth and Milton, see note 2 in Introduction, the reference to Coombs, Wordsworth and Milton. See also Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism 21-9. 4. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism 27; Wordsworth, Prose 3: 6-9, for the text of the Prospectus to The Recluse. I cite the line numbers as given in the Owen and Smyser edition. 5. See Meisenhelder, Wordsworth's Informed Reader: Structures of Experience in His Poetry. She is concerned with the way Wordsworth enables readers to respond creatively to his texts. I argue that Wordsworth also would have us attempt texts, or at least pretexts, of our own. For Meisenhelder, see especially her Conclusion (229-35). For a consideration of 'silent poets' in this regard, see Land, 'The Silent Poet: an Aspect of Wordsworth's Semantic Theory'. As can be seen from my text, I do not agree with Land's conclusion that Wordsworth 'locates poetry essentially in the pre-verbal thought or feeling and confines the word, not its semantic content (the thought or feeling), to the sphere of the commonplace' (168). 6. For a work as complex as The Prelude, I do not suggest that the pattern I discuss is more pronounced than any discussed by scholars. As has been observed, Abrams sees 'a coherent understructure' (281) which emphasizes the metaphor of journey (Nat. Supernat. 278-92). Another way of looking at a possible process in The Prelude is offered by Lindenberger, a 'habit of interchanging qualities of the animate and inanimate, of the mind and external nature, is central to The Prelude ...' (44). Hartman notes a pattern which often unfolds when Wordsworth experiences significant moments of revelation such as the vision on Snowdon. There is an 'experience' which falls into three parts: these include an 'ascent', or 'inscrutability', 'the vision proper', and then 'a meditation arising immediately after it' (Wds. Poetry 61). Johnson's The Written Spirit: Thematic and Rhetorical Structure in Wordsworth's 'The Prelude' (1978) focuses on several structural elements which concern us. Johnson's main interest is Wordsworth's awareness of '"power"' which he seeks 'to define' and whose 'proper "home"' he seeks to locate. He sees The Prelude's basic 'structure as a sequence of five homol-



Notes 197

7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12.

13. 14.

ogous cycles, each of two phases' (iv). The result is 'the mature integration of the poet's mind' (v). Johnson does not discuss Prelude patterns quite as I do, but he does offer very helpful comments on elements like motion (61-7, 114-19, 132, 200, 252), voices (176, 179-84, 199-202, 251-2), lyrical celebration, 'panegyric' (52, 103, 189, 215). Johnson does not discuss Aristotle or the ethical proof. For an account of the events in this passage rather close to the pattern I have outlined, see Hartman, Wordsworth's Poetry (16-18), a context where Hartman gives his famous definition of imagination. Hartman does not explore motion or voice or Aristotlian rhetoric. See Hartman's further discussion of the Simplon episode (39-42). It is here that he claims, 'Wordsworth does not sustain the encounter with Imagination' (41). See Horsman for a structural reading of The Prelude emphasizing 'a pattern of experiences [in] which ... each leads to some kind of illumination' (97). He sees the Simplon sequence differently from Hartman (103-4). Liu connects the Simplon passage with Napoleon (23-31). For an elaborate discussion of the way the spots of time work recollectively in Book 4, where also the boat-stealing episode is linked to the discharged soldier, see Johnson (128-62, especially 149-62). As noted ahead, I see much more artistic autonomy in Wordsworth than Johnson seems to allow in the vows scene (Johnson 139). For a Freudian account of the boat-stealing episode, different from my rhetorical approach, see Onorato (268-74). For a reading emphasizing the 'power' (154) of the discharged soldier, his likeness to the cliffs from the boat-stealing episode (155-6), see Johnson (149-62). For discussion of Wordsworth's self-awareness as the creator of his text, see the classic essay by Reed 'The Speaker of The Prelude' (especially 279-81). For an articulate discussion of this issue in terms of contemporary critical doctrine, see Kneale, Monumental Writing (especially 100-28). Hartman notes that 'the poet stumbles on a naked vision' (Wds Poetry 254). Richard Schell observes the secondary place of the poet and how prominently nature figured in the earlier version of this scene in MS. W (Schell, especially 594-5, 600-2). Schell then notes that in the A text of the Snowdon episode 'Imagination' takes over as the 'theme of the incident ...' (601). My concern is with the ethical achievement of Wordsworth. I do not see contention at all in the final version, but I see nature and imagination participating in the quaternion I mention above. See Johnston for an account rich in particular, physical detail, which relates the Snowdon episode to relevant material from Descriptive Sketches and other sources (266-73). See Owen, 'The Perfect Image of a Mighty Mind', for a discussion of the first part of Book 13 (1805), including early versions. See above, II. 1. 'Horatian Poetics', for a full explanation of these expressions in Horace's poetry. It is my contention that Wordsworth offers us here a parallel, even if done unconsciously. See Graver, '"Honorable Toil,"' for an account of Wordsworth echoing Virgil's Georgics in Book 1 of The Prelude. Graver also convincingly argues that Wordsworth so thoroughly assimilated the classics that they are a constant presence in his poetry. They do not 'obtrude', but they are formidable in his work (359).



198 Notes

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Works Cited 207

Abrams, Meyer, xviii, xix, 77-8, 89, 127, 129, 131, 133, 150, 1 9 6 - 7 n l , 197n3, n4 Alcorn, Marshall W., Jr., 180-1 Alcuin of York, 12 Altieri, Charles, 60, 100, 102, 128-9, 131, 163, 174-5 Anglican grammar school, 11 Aristotle, xx, 23, 4 1 , 43, 69, 9 0 - 1 , 110, 111-12, 114, 115, 124, 127, 161-2, 1 9 2 n l , n2, 1 9 3 n l 3 , 195n21, 198n7 ethical proof, xx, xxiii, 180-6, 187n3 ethical values, 90, 1 9 3 n l 3 Poetics, 43, 79, 85, 180-2, 192n2; reputation in 18th century, 190n26 Rhetoric, xx, 43, 6 0 - 1 , 67-9, 180-1, 185, 187n3, 192n2; definition of, 1 9 2 n l ; ethical proof, xx, xxi, xxiii, 9, 60, 63, 65, 187n3 discussion of t h e ethical proof as a critical device, 180-6; elements of: honesty, xx; knowledge, xx; audience concern, xx; ethical proof used in 20th century literary analysis, 90; feminist critique, 181; Horace relationship, 192n2; truth in rhetorical discourse, 195n20 Arnold, Thomas, 23

Barnard, H. C , 19 Barton, Anne, 114-15 Baumlin, James S., 180 Beaumont, Sir George, 60, 90 Bede, Venerable, 13 Bennet, Bishop William, 190n37 Bialostosky, Don H., xx, 60, 88-9 Bible, xxii, xxiii, 11, 15, 18 Bildungsgeschichte, xix Birkett, Ann, 5 Bloom, Harold, 87 Book of C o m m o n Prayer, 15 bookkeeping, 19 Bowman, Rev. T., Sr, 28, 29, 35, 46, 47, 48, 51 Bowman, Thomas, Jr, 35 Boyer, 24 Brathwaite, Rev. Reginald, 34, 36 Brink, C. O., xviii, 67-71, 72-8, 79-84, 105, 120, 185, 192n2, 193n6, nlO Brougham, Lord, 37 Brougham Commission, 19 Buchanan, 15, 16 Bunn, R. F. I., 29 Burke, Kenneth, 116, 180-1 Bush, Douglas, 46, 60 Butler, Samuel, 23, 40, 41 success as teacher, 189n3 Cambridge University, xiii, xiv, xvii, 8, 9, 10, 29, 52, 63 competiition for honors, 53;

208



Index

honors degree (Tripos), 29, 30, 33 canon, classical, 18 Canterbury School, 12 Carlisle, Nicholas, 37-43, 48-9, 188nl0 Catechism (Anglican), 14, 15 Chancery, 19 Chantries Act, 14, Charlemagne, 12-13, 16 Chatterton, Thomas, 33-4 Cherry, Roger Dennis 90, 182-3, 187, 188n3 childhood , xxii Christian, Edward, 28, 36 Christianity, xxii Cicero, Marcus Tullius, xvi, 5, 15-18, 38-44, 122, 160, 181, 185, 189n24 Ciceronian style, 17 De Amicitia, 5 De Officiis, xvii, 5 De Oratore, 119, 160, 190n37, 195n22 Epistles, 189n24 Orations, 4 1 , 42 Clark, Donald L., 39-40, 43 Clarke, M. L., 21-4, 38, 4 3 - 5 , 47, 55, 188n9, 189n22, n 2 3 , 190n26, n27, 191n40 classical education, xii, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, xx, 21-4 classical languages, 10, 11, 15, 21-2 grammatical study of, 21 classical oratory, xiii classical undersong, xxi-xxiii, 25 classics, xiv, xvi, xxii, xxiii, 9, 10, 11, 13, 2 1 , 22 holistic teaching of, 3 1 , 32, 34, 51 Cockermouth, 5, 6, 7 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, xviii-xix, 9, 24, 88-90, 95-6, 98, 104, 114, 117-18, 129, 133-4, 136-7, 162, 171, 173, 175, 176, 178-9, 195n21, 195-6n23 Biographia Literaria, 55, 88-9, 112 values in Wordsworth's poetry, 88, 90 Colet, Dean John, 16-18, 39, 47,

209

187n3 Collier, William, teacher of Bowman, 191n38 Commenius, 18 'Constant Method of Teaching . . . St. Pauls ...', 39 'concrete universal', 84 Cookson, Christopher Crackenthorpe, 44 Coombs, James H., 187n2, 197n3 Cornell editions, xii court school, 13 Cowper, Henry Swainson, 26-7, 54-5 critical theory, classical, xvii curriculum, xi, xii, xiv, 10 Dalzel, Andrew, 190n25 de Man, Paul, 147, 181 de Montmorency, J. E. G., 19 Devlin, D. D., 196n24 drama, xvi Dryden, John, 59-60 Dyche, Thomas, Youth's Guide, 47-9, 190n32 Dyer, George, 32-4 education, general, xiii, 3, 7 (mother's training of WW) 18th-century British literature, xvi, xvii 18th-century British poetry, 33-5 Eldon, Lord Chief Justice, 20-2, 188n7, n 8 Elliott, Robert C , 193n9 Elizabeth I, 14 Emmanuel College, xv, 51 English studies, 23-4 English composition 30-2 epic, xvi, xix, xxi, xxiii epistles, literary xvi epitaphs, see William Wordsworth, Works Erasmus, 47 essays, moral, xvi ethical, xvi, 9 ethical proof, see Aristotle, Rhetoric ethos, xvii, xxiii, 180-6 Eton College, 14, 22 Eton Grammar, see Lily-Eton



Index

Index Grammar

Felton, Henry, Dissertation on Reading the Classics, 30-1, 188nl6 Ferguson, Frances, 195n23 Fielding, Henry, 5 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 185 Florus, Julius 71, 82 formalism, xviii, 84 Fowles,John, 182-3 France, 10 French, 22 Frye, Northrop, 84, 176 Gage, J o h n T., 1 9 4 n l 8 Gale, Thomas, 'The Constant m e t h o d of Teaching in St Pauls ...', 39 genre, xvi Gilbanks, Rev., 5 Gill, Stephen, xii, xvi-xvii, 3, 5, 6, 27, 5 1 , 53, 153, 163, 190n28, 196n24 Goethe, J o h a n n Wolfgang von, theory of translation, 5 7 - 8 grammar, xvi, 13 grammar school (English classical), 10-24 curriculum, 38 decline in 18th century, 19 Elizabethan/Tudor /Stuart, 14, 15 reform of, 24 religious character, 15 Graver, Bruce E., xii, xx, 5, 46-7, 50, 56-61, 119, 190n36, 191n41, 192n45, 1 9 8 n l 4 Gravil, Richard, 154 Greek xi, 11, 14-16, 20, 22, 23, 24 Grimaldi, S. J., William M.A., 68, 184, 1 9 2 n l Grindal, Edmund, 14-18, 26, 38 half-holidays, 29 Haney, David P., 133, 195-6n23 Hans, N. A., 29 Hartman, Geoffrey H., xxi-xxiii, 88, 108, 164-5, 167, 175, 197n6, 198n7, n8, n l 2

Havens, Raymon Dexter, 89 Hawkshead (village), 5, 7, 8, 27 Hawkshead Grammar School, xi-xvi, xxiii, 12, 22, 24, 26, 27 classical education offered there, xi-xvii, 24, 48, 4 9 - 5 1 , 63 library, 35 enrollment, 28, 37 general curriculum, 27, 28 mathematics, 27, 28, 29 schoolmasters, 28 teaching methods for classics, 45, 50 teaching staff, 37 Hebrew, 18 Heffernan, James A. W., 9 0 - 1 , 94, 99-102 Hemingway, Ernest, 185 Herrick, Marvin, 195n21 Highet, Gilbert, 188n6, 191n42 history, xvi Hodgson, J o h n A., 161-2 Horace xvii-xviii, 15, 38-44, 50, 54, 56-7, 58, 60, 6 2 - 3 , 67-86, 87, 101, 105-6, 115, 119, 124, 128, 134-5, 160, 164, 176, 177, 185, 192n2, n 3 , n4, 195n21, 1 9 8 n l 4 and art demanded of the poet, 72-3 and didactic office of the poet, 192n4 as a rhetorical poet, 69 as philological poet, 193n6 ethical argument in, 69 irony in, 70, 71 'legitimate poem', 72-3 Literary Epistles xvii, 64, 71, 193n5, n7, nlO; Ars Poetica xvii, 67, 71, 75-6, 79, 104-5, 119-20, 122, 192n2, 193n5, nlO, 195n21; art demanded of the poet, 75; ethical proof, 77-8; law of usage, 76; mimesis, 79; nature and language, 76; poetic diction, 75-6; poetic truth/poetic epistemology, 79; romantic expressivism, 77-8; sincerity, 78; social concern, 75-6; Epistle to Augustus, 71;



210

211

Epistle to Florus, 67, 71-5, 76-8, 79-86, 114, 164, 176-8, 193nlO; art demanded of the poet, 72-5; as genuine poetry, 193n7; ethical proof, 75, 77; humanistic values, 74-5; irony, 83-6; law of usage, 74; 'legitimate poem', 72-3; moral philosophy, 82; philological poetics, 74-5, 83-6; poetic diction, 72-5, 77; poetic truth /literary epistemology, 79-86; republicanism, 75; social concern, 74-7; 'speciosa vocabula rerum', 74-5, 76, 109, 121, 177, 179 literary theory, 70, 71 poetic diction, 72-3 political voice, 79 relation to Aristotle, 65, 69 Satires, 6 9 - 7 1 , 193n5 vatic aspirations, 192n3 Horsman, E. A., 165, 175, 198n8 humanistic education, xvii

23, 24 (and Greek) verse composition 22, 45, 51, 55 composition ('making of Latins'), 55 (Roman) literature, xvii Leach, Arthur Francis, 12, 19 Leeds Grammar School case, 19-20, 27, 188n7, n 8 Lily (Lily-Eton) Grammar, 48, 190n31 at Hawkshead, 190n34 Lindenberger, Herbert, 185, 187n2, 197n6 liberal arts, seven (trivium and quadrivium), 13 literary education, xiv literary epistemology, 79-86 Liu, Alan, xii, 128 logic, xvi Lonsdale, Lord, 59 Lyne, R. O. A. M., 192n3, n4, 1 9 3 n l l lyrical, xix lyrical poet, xviii

Irton, Edmund, 34, 36

Magnuson, Paul, 99 Mahoney, John, 187n2, Manchester Gammar School, xv, 25, 29-31 mathematics, 29, 31 student dramatic performances, 30 Mantuan, 15, 16, 17 Mary Tudor, 14 mathematics, xi, xiv Meisenhelder, Susan Edwards, 89, 192n44, 197n5 Middle Ages, xvi, 18 Milton, John, xix, xxii, xxiii, 4, 17, 39, 197n3 Moore, Arthur K., 181-2 Moorman, Mary, xi, 4-5, 32, 34-5, 53, 1 8 7 n l , 1 8 9 n l 8 Mumford, Alfred A., 29-31, 1 8 8 n l 2

Jarratt, Susan C , 181 Jay, Eileen, 35, 51 Johnson, Karl R. Jr, 197-8n6, n9, nlO Johnson, Samuel, 2 1 , 59, 78 Johnston, Kenneth R., xii, 27, 53, 189nl8, n l 2 Jones, Charles W., 13 Jonson, Ben, 195n21 Juvenal, xvii Kendal Newsroom, 35 Kneale, J. Douglas, 129, 136-7, 165, 191n43, 1 9 8 n l l Kinneavy, James L., 84, 192nl Kipling, Charlotte, 29 Kneale, J. Douglas, xx, 147-8, 151, 191n43, 1 9 8 n l l Lactantius, 16, 17 Land, Stephen K., 197n5 Latin, xi, xiv, 5, 11, 14, 16, 18, 20,

Nabholtz, J o h n R., 88, 91-3, 95-8, 103, 106-7, 123, 1 9 3 n l 3 , 194nl5, n l 6 nature, xii, xiii, xiv, 9, 25, 134-79 neoclassicism, xvii, 22



Index

Index

Norton Prelude, 6 Onorato, Richard J., 127-8, 151, 153-4, 166, 197n2, 198n9 oratory, classical, xvi original composition, xiv Orwell, George, 181 Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), 15 Sandys translation, 46, 47 Owen, W. J. B., 55, 96-7, 99, 111-13, 116, 122, 128-9, 131, 135, 146, 163, 167-8, 172, 174-6, 175-6, 177, 1 8 7 n l , 1 9 3 n l 0 , 1 9 4 n l 7 , 195n21, 197n4, 1 9 8 n l 3 Parrish, Steven Maxfield, 93, 95-6, 100 patristic commentary, 21 Peake, Rev. James, 25, 28-32, 48 Penrith, 5 personal (personalism), xix philological poetics, 71 pietas literata, 17 Plato, 23, 191n42 poet, xiii poetic epistemology, 72 poetry, xvi contemporary to Wordsworth, xiv lyric, xix narrative, xix Pope, Alexander, 186 Powell, Dr William, 32 Proffitt, Edward, 188n2 prophet (prophetic), xvii, xviii, xix, xxi, xxiii Prudentius, 15, 16 Psalter, 15 Puritans, 17, 18 Purnell, William, 30, 3 1 , 1 8 8 n l 2 , nl3, nl5 Reed, Mark L., xi, 1 9 8 n l l Reformation, xxiii, 16 Renaissance, xxii, 12, 13 Renaissance classical school, 11 Reynolds, 181 rhetoric, xvi, xx classical, xx rhetorical education, xvi

rhetorical poet, xviii Romanticism, xviii, 18 Romantic prose, 88 Rome, rhetorical schools, 12 Rose, Rev. H.J., 11 Rosenthal, Paul I., 180 Rudd, Niall 71, 73, 76, 79-81, 85 Rugby School, 23 St Augustine of Canterbury, 12 St Bees School (statutes), 14, 187n4 curriculum in 18th century, 38 St John's College, Cambridge, xiv, xv, xvi, 28, 29, 31 college examinations 32, 54 College Examination Book, 54 Order Book, 191n39 St Paul's School, London, 16, 17, 39 curriculum 16th century, 39 curriculum 17th century, 39, 40; compared with Shrewsbury 19th-century curriculum, 4 2 - 3 St Peter's School, York, 12 Sandys, Arch. Edmund, 28 Schell, J o h n F., 1 9 4 n l 5 Schell, Richard, 1 9 8 n l 2 Schneider, Ben Ross, xii, xiv, xvii, 27-9, 32-4, 37, 43-5, 53, 113 Scoggins, James, 107, 113, 194n20 Scriptures, see Bible Shakespeare, William, 4 Love's Labor's Lost, 16 Sharp, Michelle Turner, 196n24 Sharrock, Roger, 118 Shaw, Joseph, usher at Hawkshead Grammar School, 45, 48 Sheats, Paul D., 35 Short, Brian C , 181 Shrewsbury School, 23 compared with St Paul's 17thcentury curriculum, 43 curriculum in early 19th century, 40-3 Smyser [Worthington], Jane, 60, 96, 1 9 3 n l 4 , 197n4 Spenser, Edmund, 4 Springer, Carolyn, 154-6 Stein, Edwin, 1 8 9 n l 8



212

structure, xii, xvi Stubbings, Dr Frank, 36 style, classical, 12, 16, 18 romantic theory of, 59, 60 subjectivity, xvi, xix Taylor, William, 28-99, 3 2 - 5 , 37, 51 will, 36, 189n20 Terence, 15 Thayer, Mary Rebecca, 69 Thompson, T. W., xii, 28, 32, 33-7, 44-5, 5 0 - 1 , 1 8 8 n l l , 190n30 Thomas, Gordon Kent, 60, 89, 191-2n44 Tompson, Richard S., 19-20, 2 1 , 188n7, n 8 translating, 24 translations, see also Wordsworth, William, translator of classical authors classical, xiv Juvenal, Horace, 50 'ponies', 45-7, 49 Smart translation of Horace, 50, 191n40 Trinity College, Cambridge, 34 trivium, see liberal arts, seven Tyson, Ann, Account Book, 44 undersong, see classical undersong University of London, 11 vatic, xviii, 75 Virgil, xvii, 15, 17 translation used by Wordsworth, 190n36 vocation, xvi-xvii, xxi voice, xiii, xvi lyrical, xxiii rhetorical, xx, xxiii Watson, Foster, 12-13, 13-14, 16-19, 39, 47-8, 55, 189n24, 191n40 Wellek, Rene, 152-3 Westbrook, Sue Weaver, 100 Williams, Gordon, 78-9, 192n3 Williams, John, 33

213

Wimsatt, William K., 84, 86, 176 Winchester College, 14, 22 Woof, Robert, 28, 32, 35-7, 44-5, 1 8 8 n l l , 1 8 9 n l 9 , 190n30, n34 Wordsworth, Ann (mother), 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 188nl Wordsworth, Christopher, Jr, 54, 62 Memoirs of William Wordsworth, 5, 6, 62, 105 Wordsworth, Dorothy, 6 Wordsworth, J o h n (father), 3, 5 Wordsworth, Jonathan, 6 Wordsworth, Richard, of Whitehaven, uncle, 44 Wordsworth, William, as Latinist, 54-5, 60 as lyrical and rhetorical poet, 191n43 as teacher, 191-9n44 attachment to Horace, 105 attitude toward Latin verse composition, 55; does not do verse composition, 56 call to his readers to share his vocation, 90 early years, orphaned, 3 ethical proof, use of, 60-2, 90 classical studies, 43; Greek authors studied, 44-5; Latin authors studied, 44-5; Phaedrus 49, 190n35; Latin grammar, 47-8; classical undersong, 60, 64, 164 classics thoroughly a part of his work, 1 9 8 n l 4 critical doctrine, 9, 22 educational theory, 11, 62 Horace, relationship to, 69, 77 love of the Classics for themselves, 53-4, 61-3 'knowledge . . . s o u g h t . . . / For its own sake', 52-63 Latin authors studied, 44, 45 lyricist and rhetorician simultaneously, 6 0 - 1 , 136 ' m i n d of man', 89, 134, 137, 164 nature, 89 perduring power of his poetry, 87 performance in college examinations, 53, 54



Index

poet as teacher, 60, 90 prophetic vision, 188n2 prophets, 89 style, theory of, 18, 61-2,105 thought and expression, 119-20, see also Essays upon Epitaphs translations, classical, use of, 45, 55, 56, 191n41; use of Smart Horace, 50 translator of classical authors, 55; Horace translation, 56, 58; Virgil, Aeneid translation, 58, 59, 60, 61 voice, 90 Works: Autobiographical Memoranda, 3, 4, 52; 'Essay on Morals', 161-2; Essays upon Epitaphs, 58, 120-4; and linguistic theory, 195n23; commentaries on, 195-6n23, 196n24; Cicero, 122; ethical proof in, 122-4; Home at Grasmere, xviii; 'The Sparrow's Nest', 6; Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 88, 90; aesthetic values in, 109; and Ben Jonson, 195n21; Aristotle reference, 110, 112; Coleridge source of, 112; as 'apologia', 91; audience concern, 94, 95, 108; classical elements, 95-9, 101, 104-5, 109, see also Aristotle; Cicero, 119; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 114, 117; Davy, Sir Humphrey, 118; definition of poetry, 95, 99; enthymeme, presence in, 98; epideictic rhetoric in, 91; ethical proof in, 99, 103, 106, 107, 108, 111, 114; exordium in, 91; feeling, 95; first-person confession, 93, 96, 99; Hartley, influence, 99, 100; Heffernan, James A. W., 'creative sensibility', 100-1; honesty in, 93; Horace, echoes in, 101-5; Jonson, Ben, 114-15; mimesis, 111; Nabholtz, John R.; 'credible reasoning style', 98;

'prose reader as poet', 103; pleasure principle, 107, 116; poetic truth (literary epistemology), 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, relative to science, 117-19; 'principal object' of, 96-7; relation to enthymematic argument, 194nl6, nl8; rhetorical analysis of, 194nl5; rustic life, 98; Sidney, Sir Philip, 115; theory of diction, 95, 106, 107, 110; theory of pleasure, 194n20; third-person insistent declamation, 96; thought-feeling relationship, 99, 100-4; truth, 104; voice, candor, 92; The Prelude, xviii, xx, xxi, xxii, 127-79, 186; Abrams, Meyer, 196-7nl; Altieri, Charles, 128; and Preface to The Excursion, 131-3 and Prospectus to The Recluse, 131-2; and The Recluse, 127, 130; and Essays upon Epitaphs, 128; as argumentative quest, 128; as Bildungsgeschichte, 133; as conduct book, 178; as exemplum, 133; as a 'work that shall endure', 179; autobiography as argument, 129; burden of truth, 127; classical undersong, 127; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 134; creation of self by voice, 151; ethical proof in, 129-33; 'Glad Preamble', 134; Godwin, 151; literary epistemology, 128; lyric elements in, 188n2; lyrical-rhetorical character, 127; Milton, John, 129-30; narrative-lyrical byplay, 137; Owen, W. J. B., 129; pattern in, 134-5, 197-8n6; principle of selection, 128; stages of development in, 150; voices in, 188n2; Bk 1, xii, 8, 25, 137-44; boat-stealing, 140-4; 'seed-time', 137-8; Bk 2, xiii



214 Index

('infant babe'), 6, 7; Bk 3, 10, 52, 53; Bk 4, 144: ethical proof, 149; discharged soldier, 146-9; spots of time, 198n9; vows section, 145-6; Bk 5, xii, xiii, 4, 5; Bk 10, xiii, xx; death of Robespierre, 154-5; Dorothy and Wordsworth's vocation, 153-4, 158-60; epistemology, 153; French Revolution, 154-61; Taylor's grave, 156-8; Bk 14, xviii, 9, 89, 133, 164-79; ethical proof in, 152, 175; Horatian irony, 176-8;

imagination, 164-72; literary epistemology, 176-8; Prelude as conduct book, 178; 'Prophets of Nature', 178-9; quaternion, 175; Snowdon, 164-76, 198n7, n8,nll, nl2, nl3; Prospectus to The Recluse, 131-2; Recluse, xviii Worthington [Smyser], Jane, 60, 96, 193, 197 Wu, Duncan, xii, 5, 35, 44-5, 50, 53-4, 68, 189nl9, 190n29, n34, n36, 191n41



Index 215

Wordsworth's Classical Undersong: Education, Rhetoric and Poetic Truth

Readings from Classical Rhetoric

Rhetoric in Classical Historiography

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Zami Sister Outside Undersong

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (Martin Classical Lectures, New Series)

Drugs: Rhetoric of Fantasy, Addiction to Truth

A New History of Classical Rhetoric

A New History of Classical Rhetoric

Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation

Poetic Justice

Reality By Design: The Rhetoric and Technology of Authenticity in Education (Rhetoric, Knowledge and Society Series)

Poetic Justice

Poetic Justice

Poetic Justice

Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory (Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World)

Rhetoric

Poetic Form and British Romanticism

Rhetoric

Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation

Heidegger and rhetoric

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire

Shakespeare, Rhetoric and Cognition

The Poetic Principle

Education, Knowledge and Truth: Beyond the Postmodern Impasse

Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Survey (Routledge Classical Studies)

Yeats's Poetic Codes

Wordsworth's Classical Undersong: Education, Rhetoric and Poetic Truth

Readings from Classical Rhetoric

Rhetoric in Classical Historiography

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Zami Sister Outside Undersong

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace (Martin Classical Lectures, New Series)

Drugs: Rhetoric of Fantasy, Addiction to Truth

A New History of Classical Rhetoric

A New History of Classical Rhetoric

Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation

Poetic Justice

Reality By Design: The Rhetoric and Technology of Authenticity in Education (Rhetoric, Knowledge and Society Series)

Poetic Justice

Poetic Justice

Poetic Justice

Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory (Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World)

Rhetoric

Poetic Form and British Romanticism

Rhetoric

Rhetoric and Biblical Interpretation

Heidegger and rhetoric

Cicero, Rhetoric, and Empire

Shakespeare, Rhetoric and Cognition

The Poetic Principle

Education, Knowledge and Truth: Beyond the Postmodern Impasse

Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Survey (Routledge Classical Studies)

Yeats's Poetic Codes

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