On Lyrical Ballads, from Virginia

In reading the Preface to the 1800 Edition of Lyrical Ballads, I got stuck on one reason he gives

for why these poems differ from contemporary popular poetry: “that the feeling therein

developed gives importance to the action and situation and not the action and situation to the

feeling” (176). This makes sense to me in light of Wordsworth’s explanation of his project, in

that it offers a universality of human reactions to differing experiences. If what matters is the

feeling evoked, a feeling that could translate to a more particular or personal situation of the

reader, then the reading of the poem could create a more universal empathy. I also found it

interesting that he points the reader to very specific evidence: the poem Poor Susan and even

more specifically, the final stanza of The Childless Father:

“Perhaps to himself at that moment he said,

‘The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead’

But of this in my ears not a word did he speak,

And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.”

How does this stanza prove his point that the feeling developed creates the importance of the

action and situation? It seems to me that the action and situation of losing a child, especially in

juxtaposition with the merry spectacle taking place outside, gives importance to the feeling of

silent, private grief that closes the poem. Perhaps it’s that we aren’t privy to any expression of

grief until the final line? The situation of Timothy’s loss is laid out rather matter-of- factly, and in

the stanza preceding we’re told that Old Timothy shuts up the house with a “leisurely motion.”

It is not until the narrator supposes (or imposes) any reflection on the part of Timothy that we see

an expression of grief. I can see how that then colors all that preceded in the poem, and perhaps

that’s the point. I’d be interested to hear others’ reactions to this poem as evidence of

Wordsworth’s supposition quoted above.

Wordsworth’s Language of Purpose

Like Sebastian, I was intrigued by Wordsworth’s apparent need to justify the aim of his work in the Preface to the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads. He pushes against the contemporary trend – from his perspective – of  “triviality and meanness both of thought and language” in poetry (175). He adamantly asserts that “purpose” (his italics) sets apart his own poetry, and the implication of this goal extends to his avoidance of using “poetic diction” in order to “bring [his] language near to the language of men,” and he goes to say, “I hope it will be found that there is in these Poems little falsehood of description, and that my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance” (178). Here, Wordsworth seems to imply a parallel between the “triviality” of poetic trends of his day and the “poetic diction” or “language.” It seems as though he seeks to create a poetic experience for the reader that employs more common or open access – if you will – language suggested by the phrase “language of men,” a dialect readily accessible to the breadth of mankind, a kind of democratic approach that cuts across ethnicity, class, education, and experience. In this way, he elevates the poetic effort of capturing human experience while equating the expression of that experience with accessible language or, in other words, diction common to everyday discourse. In fact, he even implies that, were he to elevate his language, this kind of hyped style would actually constitute a “falsehood of description.”

Though I do not have the greater context of poetry at the time in which Wordsworth is situating the 1800 Lyrical Ballads nor have I studied Wordsworth to any extent, it seems his parallel of common language and universal, transcendent human experience accessed through the very distinct circumstances of each character he explores – “Idiot Boy,” “Mad Mother,” “Forsaken Indian” – represents, not only an approach that expressly pushes back against Wordsworth’s contemporary literati, but attempts to realign cultural value of and judgment against individuals and societal divisions based on ethnicity, class, education, and experience. So, my question is, do we – the modern reader with more than two centuries of radical social change between us and Wordsworth – agree with and support this, or could this be seen as a dumbing down, another version of Ivory Tower condescension stemming from a kind of ignorant compassion on the part of Wordsworth? In other words, is this just another form – and we touched on this briefly in our last class discussion – of cultural appropriation through a kind of lingual projection in which he takes common diction and assigns it with this idea of authentic expression of human experience? In short, does his philosophy, his “purpose,” stand the test of time? And should it?

Wordsworth's Preface

In the his Preface to Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth begins by explaining why he is compelled to write a preface to the new edition of his book by his “Friend.” The reasoning being that because himself and Coleridge have come together and received unexpected notice from the public, he must now situate himself and his philosophy for poetry. When I read this, I found myself wondering about Wordsworth’s might also have been self-conscious about his “experiment” that he produced and felt compelled to articulate his experiment further after his initial notice. Later when I read that he also argued that poetry must situate itself as poetry that speaks to the common language and experience of the current world. He writes that poetry must “endeavor to produce or enlarge this capability” to include the “accumulation of men in cities” and avoid the elevated parts of his predecessors. This revision of poetry at large also seems to advocate for listening and observing humanity’s need to “follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature” (176). This, to me, seems to also explain why in this edition, he needs to follow his preface with the poems we discussed last time, “Expostulation and Reply,” “The Tables Turned…,” “Animal Tranquillity & Decay, a Sketch,” and “The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman.” Following his preface, and based on our discussion from last time, these poems seem to support his argument that poetry should not only be about observing, but also about expanding to include real human concerns. The previous poems that ask us to listen and imagine, are also asking us to imagine the “Indian Woman.” Of course, he allows us to also consider imagination and nature, but to expand on nature. Nature is not limited to “nature;” it also includes the nature of people and it’s other environs. These, he ends, are the object of his experiment--to imagine a larger scope of what poetry is capable of doing in evoking a sense of the complexity of the natural world. His use of the word object seems to signify “goal,” but also seems to suggest the container in which the poem exists. The final thought I’m left with, of course, is whether or not he succeeds and whether the poem can ever fully encapsulate experience? In some sense, I already feel he’s succeeded at pushing the envelope, but I’m curious to know if the same is true for the book when thought not only as a collection of poems, but as a book.

Mohammed Alhamili

Dr. Porter

ENGL 6410

April 18, 2016

Lyrical Ballads

 Composition, Publication and Reception History

Composition:

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were in their twenties when they met for the first time in the summer of 1795. In the beginning they were not acquainted enough with each other to suggest working on grand work such as Lyrical Ballads.  However, two years later Coleridge “leapt over a gate and bound down the pathless field” on a journey from Nether Stowey to Racedown cottage in Dorset to visit Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy(Butler 3). On June 28, Coleridge with his wife Sarah came back to take Wordsworth and his sister to visit Nether Stowey, which eventually becomes their permanent home  when they “found a house for rent just  four miles from Stowey, Alfoxden House” (Butler 3). The composition of Lyrical Ballads was initiated throughout the tours that Wordsworth and Coleridge took together. In a note appended to The Ancient mariner Coleridge asserts that  the “delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with Wordsworth and his sister, in Autumn of 1797,” when “this poem was planned, and in part composed”” (Butler 5). During that time “for more than a year Coleridge was with Wordsworth almost daily and frequently for weeks to gather,” which made their friendship grow to an extent that Coleridge regarded Wordsworth as “the greatest man he ever known and compared his work, favorably, to that of Schiller and Shakespeare,” and then later on Wordsworth described himself and Coleridge as “predestin’d, if two beings ever were, to speak the same delight” (Butler 3). Their original plans were to produce something worth of five pounds, but their plans shifted to something better a volume of poems. Coleridge was enthusiastic about their work that he even before finishing the project told the “world of poems chiefly on supernatural subjects taken from common life but looked at, as much as might be, through imaginative medium” (Butler 4). The design of the volume was not a thing that they thought through, but it came as they were progressing in their poem writing, “the volume was explicit in the memories of both aging authors than in the realities of the youthful composition” (Butler 5). Coleridge, in the Biographia Literaria, retrieve how they divided “their labor between supernatural and the everyday” which become later on the “influential concept in the literary history” (intro5). He explains “it was agreed, that my endeavors should be directed to person and characters supernatural or at least romantic… Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm novelty to things of everyday” (Butler 5).

Publication:

Lyrical Ballads was first published on 4 October, 1798 as a single volume (Porter40). It was published anonymously, since it was “considered as experiments” as it was explained in the advertisement to the first edition 1798:

IT is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind. The evidence of this fact is to be sought, not in the writings of Critics, but in those of Poets themselves. The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure. Readers accustomed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to its conclusion, will perhaps frequently have to struggle with feelings of strangeness and awkwardness.

After the failure of the first edition and the massive criticism of the poems as Cottle puts it “the poems had not sold ill,” Wordsworth decided to abide by the general test of the readers to be able to sell his poems (Porter 27). Therefore, Wordsworth, on October 1799, took the copyrights from Cottle to modify Lyrical Ballads and advertise for it in more appealing method that will bring some positive reviews from critics and general readers. In the first year of the nineteenth century, the first edition of Lyrical Ballads was sold out. Furthermore, Wordsworth and Coleridge received an offer of 80 pounds from Longman to publish a second edition. The second edition, which was published 1801, had major change in the order and the poems:

            Part of this change is confirmed by Wordsworth own generic demarcation for these           poems: five are dubbed “pastorals” (“The Brother,” “The Oak and Broom,” “The pet          Lamb,” “The idle Shepherded Boys” and “Michael”); five are collected under the         heading Poems on the Naming of Place  and the remaining seven could sit easily under either rubric. (Porter 28).

Reception:

During his journey to Germany, Wordsworth was awaiting the news of Lyrical Ballads reception. He received letters from Mrs. Coleridge telling him about the reception: “The Lyrical Ballads are not esteemed well here, but the Nightingale and the River Y” (Butler 21). Wordsworth’s reaction to the news denotes his high expectation from such a work, “I am afraid there has been some sad mismanagement in the case” (Butler 21). Therefore, Wordsworth asked Cottle to “transfer all copies and rights to Johnson” which he did not do. After a while of delay, Cottle responded to Wordsworth inquiries about the sale of Lyrical Ballads as the poems “have not sold ill” (Butler 22).

            After this conduct Wordsworth decide to change his role as a writer to become an editor and a publisher at the same time. He went back and looked at the essential problems that led to the poor and critical reception of the book. He “ascribed the problem to two causes; first the Ancient mariner… and secondly the unfavorable notice of most of the reviews”:

            From what I can gather it seems that the Ancyent Mariner has upon all been an injury to    the volume, I mean the old words and the strangeness of it have deterred readers from going on. If the volume should come to a second Edition I would put in its place some             little things which would be more likely to suit the common taste (Porter 17).

Almost all the reviews in the first publication were tearing down the Ancyent Mariner:

            Reviews described Coleridge’s work as “the strangest story of a cock and a bull we ever saw in paper. (Charles Burney in The Monthly Review), as “absurd, or unintelligible,” “a Dutch attempt at German sublimity” “of a little merit” and so on… (Butler 23).

“Even Charles Burney’s extended notice in the long lived and liberal Monthly Review, while praising the “Nightingale,” still voice doubts over the ballads can be called poetry”  (Porter 24).

However, the work is “declared by a twentieth century editor to be ‘the most important poetic publication in the English language since the appearance of Paradise Lost’” (Butler 3).Finally, Lyrical Ballads “status reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970”(Porter 34).

Work Cited

Wordsworth, William, James Butler, and Karen Green. Lyrical Ballads, and Other Poems,           1797-1800. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Print.

Wordsworth, William, Samuel T. Coleridge, Dahlia Porter, and Michael Gamer. Lyrical     Ballads 1798 and 1800. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2008. Print.

Bewell's Introduction: The Recluse as a Beginning Intention

Near the beginning of the introduction to his 1989 book Wordsworth and the Enlightenment, Alan Bewell states that The Recluse (the poet's unfinished piece on "Man, Nature and Human Life" within The Prelude) "constituted a poetic paradigm by introducing the principle of inclusion, a set of problems, and a mode of writing appropriate to solving them" (3). The observation is well-suited to Bewell's thesis that Wordsworth's poetry actively participated in Enlightenment discourse, further expanding on the analysis of anthropological ideas and delving into experimental subjects such as the socially ostracized and physically disabled individuals who are alienated from society. For within Bewell's introduction, we are given not only a sizable assessment of The Prelude's (and the theoretical 'Recluse') verses and its correlation to rationalist ideals of Enlightenment philosophers, but a manifestation of the author's ideas on Wordsworth's transformative poetry. More specifically, this involves a focus on Wordsworth's poetry as a distinct form of knowledge that articulates the dynamics of human agency in its emergence through societal institutions, social networks, and the natural world.

Initially, as Bewell eagerly pursues his ideas about Wordsworth's application of moral philosophy onto society, we get the sense that the author is merely expressing his fondness of a poet who wished to connect his lyrical subjects to enlightenment ideals. However, the later transition of Bewell's rhetoric confirms what we all know to be true--most pointedly, that Wordsworth sought to generate and procure the Romanticist zeitgeist within his 'Recluse' saga. "His is a domestic anthropology, which seeks to give a 'substance and life' to a specific way of life that he knew was disappearing" (31). And there are many such well-recognized endearments of "primitivism" in the Lyrical Ballads, verses such as "And should he live a thousand years, / He never will be out of humour" (Lyrical Ballads, 242) from "The Idiot Boy" or  "I lived on the mercy of the fields" (LB, 226) within "The Female Vagrant." Of the former example, Bewell is quick to inform us of Wordsworth's overarching intent in characterizing such figures, even reminding us of the timeliness of his poetry in conjunction with such real life examples as certain well-known "wild children" investigated by the scientific community. "Because textual concerns supervene upon life in a direct, though subtle and concealed, way in empirical discourse, we should be careful not to confuse the lives of these individuals led in texts with the lives they led in the world" (27). Very little is actually known--philosophically speaking or otherwise--of the actual cases of persons such as Kaspar Hauser and Bewell is sure to reemphasize the abstract and often flawed nature of textual discourse.


The most provocative position Bewell's introduction takes on is his characterization of Wordsworth's "special sense" which he states "justified what was to become his [Wordsworth's] central concern as a poet: the task of writing a history of the imagination. Indeed, the ultimate objective of the poet's 'Recluse' was to demonstrate how the imagination influences, or "nourishes" all of the other intellectual and emotive faculties to the definitive end of elucidating how "passion shapes us into social beings" (43-44). Such a nuanced approach to exploring Wordsworth's poetry--examining the Lyrical Ballads for their value as anthropologically historical--is indeed well carried out and worthy of further exploration.

Bill Brown's "The Refabrication of Things"

In Bill Brown’s article, “Objects, Others, and Us (The Refabrication of Things)” he discusses how one contemporary artist, Brian Jungen, recycles certain objects central to a global consumer culture into art objects which resemble those of a “primitive” other culture.  His intent is to show how the confrontation between modern and primitive cultures expands the spectator’s sense of time and understanding of cultural systems and cultural space.  Also, Brown is interested in how Jungen’s work goes beyond the analytical systems used to understand the dynamics of collection, institutionalization, and display.  He also briefly discusses museum studies and anthropological history and theory.  Brown’s article is broken into 3 parts: “Time and the Object,” “Misuse Value and Unhuman History,” and “The Re-creation of Things.”

The first part and the introductory materials provides a brief introduction into the critical theory of anthropology and the term “object culture” or culture defined by its material forms. In this section he cites many different theorists in order to contextualize his article.  He introduces the term “metaobject -the work of art, say, that isn’t satisfied with just being an object and seems to insist instead on taking other objects or object culture as its object of address.”  His main point in this section is the idea that the ways in which we arrange objects in a museum allows those objects to transcend time by allowing the viewer to view them outside of their original context. 

The second section of Brown’s article, “Misuse Value and Unhuman History,” Brown introduces the work of Brian Jungen.  Jungen takes seemingly ordinary materials (such as plastic chairs or a sofa) and transforms them into a work of art resembling something out of a native “other” culture (such as a tepee).  Brown also discusses the value created by taking a seemingly ubiquitous object and transforming it into something with an exchange value.

The final section, "The Re-creation of Things,” centers around Jungen’s “Prototypes for New Understanding.”  Jungen breaks down Nike Air Jordans and uses them to create a kind of replica of Haida (a culture native to the northwest coast) masks.  There are 3 object cultures that the masks (which Brown describes as metaobjects) combine: traditional Haida art, pristine display of art in a museum, and the global consumer culture which helped create the Nike Air Jordan.

Overall, this article relates to our class in terms of Brown’s subtle points: the transformation of objects from an ordinary object into an art object with value and the collecting and display of objects and how this display enables the viewer to transcend time.  

I believe the structure of this work allowed me to better understand Brown’s argument, by breaking it up into three main sections which all had a central purpose.  Although, I felt that in the beginning of the article he takes a little too much time getting to his main points, and at times I was lost in the different and unfamiliar names of anthropologists, theorists, and artists. 

A Complaint Against "The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman"

If Wordsworth actually set out to subvert or work against the kind of anthropology resulting from the moral philosophy of the Enlightenment period as Alan Bewell outlines in Wordsworth and Enlightenment, then what can be made of the poem, “The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman,” found in the Lyrical Ballads, which seems to challenge this notion? Bewell writes that “Wordsworth’s emphasis on an interactive, participatory mode of observation also represents a qualitatively different notion of what anthropology is” (Bewell, 34) and that “Instead of an outward movement, into the sphere of the exotic or into romance, Wordsworth returns these wanders homeward and binds them to an English place” (32). This all results in the ‘double’ self for the poet/speaker that Bewell also mentions, where “the outward glance was simultaneously a way of looking inward” (35).

And yet, with “The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman,” we potentially have a “marginalized” individual as “anthropological artifact” or “figure invested with clearly articulated speculative concerns and interpretations” (28) in the traditional sense of moral philosophy that Wordsworth is said to challenge. Bewell does admit that “Wordsworth occasionally succumbed to the temptation of writing moral philosophy through empirical figures” (41). He more specifically addresses the poem in question, writing, “Only one poem in Lyrical Ballads, ‘The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman,’ depicts a figure who has not undergone transformation, its sources in Samuel Hearne’s Journey from Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean (1795) being all too explicit” (32). Before giving us the actual poem, Wordsworth adds an element of immediate certainty with an almost encyclopedia-like entry, telling the reader about a particular custom of the “Northern Indian,” upon which the poem will draw. Nowhere else in the Lyrical Ballads do we have this kind of anthropological factoid so brazenly foregrounding our read. This initial explanatory paragraph definitely gives us the sense that some kind of “empirical figure” will follow, and yet the poem itself attempts to take up (perhaps appropriate) the voice of the North Indian Woman (it is the woman that is speaking, rather than a speaker speaking about her). This move can maybe be read in two ways: perhaps it grants the woman subjectivity in such a way as to resist or challenge her status as “anthropological artifact,” or perhaps it erases, bastardizes, or colonize whatever the woman’s genuine experience might be, since Wordsworth can be said to have no access (or right) into it.

I do find it curious that Wordsworth attempts a first-person view in the voice of the woman here. It’s done in other poems (The Female Vagrant), but far more common are the poems where the speaker engages or mediates the title character for the reader. Having a speaker interact with or present another character might seem to lend itself more readily to “anthropological artification,” but here we actually have that “participatory mode of observation” that Bewell speaks of. Is it because the Northern Indian Woman is so other that Wordsworth cannot place himself in a position of “participation” with her? Many of the other characters in The Lyrical Ballads are other or marginalized, but they are all returned to England in some way or share some common sense of experience with Wordsworth. With no genuine way into a kind of communion with the woman, maybe Wordsworth simply opts to take her over as a way around some kind of real engagement. The poem itself does not contain anything overly offensive or stereotypical, in fact, it seems somehow exceedingly sparse, as if who the speaker is isn’t as nearly important to the poem as many of the other characters are to all the other pieces found in the collection. Ultimately, I feel like the woman remains to be fully realized in this poem and that the whole vision here was a bit of a false start for Wordsworth.

It’s also interesting to note that Wordsworth moved this poem very close to the front of the 1800 edition, but then moved it to volume 2 of the 1802 edition. Maybe we can talk more about this in class.  

The New "Grecian Urn"

Dear friends,

I found this entertaining. I hope you do, too!

Stunning Video Game Is Like An Ancient Greek Urn Come To Life

Conference Information

Dear class,

You should be able to access our conference brochure here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ahqs8lx9pen31wr/Conference%20Program%209.pdf?dl=0

Let me know if there are any problems.

KW

Relic-ed guitars

On the Fender shop and the History of Relic Guitars
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/columns/the_history_of/the_history_of_relic_guitars.html?no_takeover

Bill Nash Fender extreme relic
https://reverb.com/item/1934165-new-2016-bill-nash-s-63-turquoise-over-3-t-matching-headstock-lollars

Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

Scott begins his observations on the 'Minstrelsy' of the border regions in Scotland with the quip that "there has hardly been found to exist a nation so brutishly rude, as not to listen with enthusiasm to the songs of the bards." And the author is certain, from this point hence, to truly tie in the cultural legacy of the Scottish lowlands in with the very verse and lyrical heritage of the people inhabiting the region. Really, at the time of publication--the beginning of the nineteenth century--the narrative "ballad" was a genre seen purely as the production of common people who relied on rural backgrounds and oral tradition to tell their stories. However, as Scott and others began to publish their collections, the "ballad" itself came to be "repackaged" or middle class, urban audiences. And, throughout the piece, the author is sure to reinforce the idea that a ballad is a fluid medium, one which is in constant transition of form and significance.

In his introduction, Scott often rehashes the notorious nature of the objects of various border ballads, seeming to intimate that heroism is synonymous nefarious behavior and other "ribaldry." Yet such songs were also of a "military nature," celebrating the "valour and success of their predatory expeditions." With a narrative that celebrates such common themes as the exploits of heroes, Scott then delves into the lyrics themselves and the collectors of various manuscripts containing them, subsequently creating three distinct divisions for his descriptions: Historical Ballads, Romantic Ballads, and Imitations of These Compositions by Modern Authors. Likening historical ballads to more realistic stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, he mentions several examples such as the "Hero of Otterbourne" and "Dick o' the Cow." "Border-raid ballads" are also, to an extent, a chief pastime being exhibited. Romantic Ballads, he states, relate to "fictitious and marvellous adventures" of the kind that Spenser spoke about. Modern Imitations correspond to literal imitations of current bards who reconceive ancient legends ballads. "This kind of poetry has been supposed capable of uniting the vigorous numbers and wild fiction" in the form of the "ancient ballad," states Scott.

The most detailed and scrutinized piece of the 'Minstrelsy' piece is Scott's introduction and recitation of the ballad of "Auld Maitland." Originally composed perhaps as early as the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the poem itself--a heroic tale of a Sir Richard Maitland of Lauder and of the succession of his three sons--is sourced within a renaissance-era manuscript which Scott himself retrieved. In collaboration with a Mr. James Hogg and his mother, Scott pieced together the entirety of the ballad and presents it within 'Minstrelsy' text. While the actual historic context of the tale of Sir Richard is rather ambiguous, as is evident within the fact gathering that Scott and his fellow chroniclers embarked upon, the ballad itself survives as a testament to the authority and resilience of the medium.

Mathew Lewis – Tales of Wonder 

Reading Response by Jessica Lyle

What interested me most about Lewis’s collection of Gothic ballads is the fine line between the traditional Gothic horror and the farcical and parodic moments in some of Lewis’s ballads.  Several of the included ballads are outright parodies (i.e. “Giles Jollop the Grave, and Brown Sally Green,” and “The Cinder King”), while several of the more traditional ballads have small humorous moments throughout (or authorial endnotes) which lighten the tone of the ballad.  My favorite example of this is Lewis’s endnote to “The Cloud King,” a seemingly horrific tale of a kidnapped young woman about to be devoured by elemental kings.  However, Lewis’s endnote states: “Lest my readers should mistake the drift of the foregoing tale… I think it necessary to explain, that my object in writing this story, was to shew young ladies that it might possibly, now and then, be of use to understand a little grammar…” (104).  I became interested in this after reading the introduction, which provides a very clear theory as to why Lewis wrote humor into his more serious ballads.  Lewis sought to use this parodic tone in order to circumvent the harsh contemporary critics of Gothic literature.  Basically pointing out that, since Lewis himself does not take Gothic literature entirely serious, why should the reviewers?  Also, using veiled humor allowed Lewis to criticize his critics – only the most intelligent would understand the humor in his writing.  This leads to questions about authorial intent.  Was the light-hearted side of some of Lewis’s ballads present only to protect Lewis from the harshness of critics, or did Lewis feel that Gothic literature was indeed too reliant upon the sensational, as the contemporary critics of the genre believed, and did his best to avoid that reliance and to alleviate the negative stigma of Gothic literature.

Tales of Wonder by Matthew Gregory Lewis

Reading Response to Tales of Wonder by Matthew Gregory Lewis

It’s hard to respond to such a varied collection of works as the Tales of Wonder. Because I started with this reading before looking at Stewart (and I must admit that I skipped the front-matter in interest of time), I was at first startled to find that our tales were really a collection of pre-existing stories and poems that were stolen/adapted/recorded by Lewis (particularly at the beginning before we see the others’ works). Then I remembered this is a collecting class and caught on.

I must admit that the poetry is probably some of the easiest we’ve read this semester. It’s very sing-songy (that’s the most technical poetry term I know--sorry, poets). It’s generally familiar and predictable, as though we have read them all before in different versions since childhood (which we probably have for some of them). You can see what is going to happen.

In terms of collections, I find this trend of collecting the pre-existing texts and putting your name on them interesting. I think the connections with the Stewart reading are obvious. Looking at Virginia’s summary of Stewart for guidance, I think that the perspective we can gain from Stewart is helpful in talking about the separation from the original and the manipulation that these texts undergo. At times, I did feel as though Lewis and the others may have fallen into something akin to parody of the original, but without an original I can’t really say.

There are great lines in this set of poems. I’m just going to point out a couple of the tales that I enjoyed (because there are so many!).

I particularly enjoyed the story of Alonzo the Brave that begins on page 62. Who, when reading about her (idiotic) vow, did not already know what was going to happen? Has she never heard an adventure story before? She should certainly have known better. Also, the line “He dazzled her eyes, he bewildered her brain” (29)—much enjoyed.

Perhaps my favorite was Robert Southey’s “The Painter of Florence,” which began on page 177. I have to admit that I expected a more dire end than giving the devil his due. (On a related note—is it just me or are there a lot of Shakespearian lines smattered throughout the collection?) But all in all, I enjoyed this tale—it’s sort of like an ancient “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” no?

I am interested in learning about

• What was your favorite poem/story/tale?
• What do the poets in our class have to say about this use of poetry? 
• Do we know any of the originals?
• Applications of Stewart

Response to Susan Stewart's "Notes on Distressed Genres

In her essay, “Notes on Distressed Genres,” Susan Stewart explores the ironies and ambivalence inherent in attempts by authors during the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries to represent and reclaim an authentic past by reproducing historical literary forms.  She terms these forms “distressed genres.”  Ultimately, she claims that these imitations involve a process of separation (decontextualization) and manipulation (recontextulization)—exacerbated by evolving modes of literary production (“writing for strangers”)—that appropriates a valorized past and erases the very authenticity these authors are claiming to seek or preserve. These imitations, which are actually inventions, cannot give true voice to the past; they can only enforce their own sense of authority and reinforce a particular, modern ideology.

Stewart uses as her launching point an excerpt of a speech by Benjamin West to the Royal Academy that characterizes some of the cultural fears and desires that informed the practice of distressing genres. These concerns about perpetuity and loss anchor Stewart’s discussion of the epic, the fable, the parable, the fairy-tale, and the ballad. She also notes that even more modern instances of distressed genres (certain films and folk festivals, for example) tend to occur at times of cultural uncertainty or upheaval, as people are longing for a “better” past—a past that, Stewart claims, is a narrative created by that very longing and legitimated by re-inscribed artifacts.

To work through each of the distressed genres described in this article, she touches on their oral and literary history, then goes on to reveal how they are coerced into an ideological purpose in their revival. She observes more obvious didactic functions in the epic, fable, and proverb—whether nationalistic, moral, or authoritarian—and more complex ideological gestures in the fairy-tale and ballad, concomitant with the invention of concepts of childhood and the folk.

What I found most interesting about her argument was how she critiqued the flimsiness of the distressed genre’s claims to authenticity by pointing out its susceptibility to parody. She notes throughout the article how each genre endeavors to suppress laughter, and she cites Bakhtin’s theory that the “refusal of laughter is a refusal of the body and its capacity for regeneration, novelty, and the juxtaposition of double-voicedness” (13). If the distressed genre’s aim is to evoke a sense of the face-to-face, communal experience of an oral tradition, then refusing sensuality, fluctuation, and poly-voicedness immediately eviscerates that supposed intention.  In a distressed genre, the only sense of community that can be evoked is both invented and forced.

            I had a little trouble in the conclusion when she discusses the “movement of time into space” (23). She states that “such a movement characterized the transformation of the temporality of speech into the spatiality of writing” (23). By not understanding this concept, I also miss her following point about personal and national property.  I wonder if this “spatiality of writing” refers to her ideas of enclosure and encapsulation (which also lost me a little). I think the act of enclosure (of meaning? of history?) relates to how these literary forms become artifacts or commodities; that is, how they become what she calls “objects in space” that supplant the history of lived experience, but I would certainly appreciate a further discussion of these issues.

Southey on his library

              Southey writing to Mary Barker, 28 April 1808, as his library arrives at his new  

              house, Greta Hall

"Here are all my books arrived, and, in Tom's phrase, kicking to windward;

floor, tables, and chairs covered with them; some on the landing-place, some on the stairs, just as they were last year. Harry Pooley is making shelves, to cover the wall of the passage which communicates between the two houses. It will hold about 1200 volumes, and the dark end is to be Duck Corner. The parchmentarians have all been rubbed & scrubbed, & a good number of them have taken their seats on the brackets. One set of six folios is lettered in gold upon bister as thus

Obras

del

Venerable

Padre

Maestro

Fr Luis Granada 

& the volumes connected with chain work, but the gold-leaf is exhausted & two links are yet wanting to the chain. You will be very much pleased with their appearance. I have two things to beg, intreat & desire, – first that you would be pleased to send me in a frank as much gold leaf as a frank will carry, – & secondly that you will be pleased to come after it yourself as soon as may be, to Juniperize within doors, [&] to maroon without…" 

"I am much indebted to Sir Edward about Plott's "Staffordshire." In any shape the book would have been acceptable to me; the more so as coming from him. The "Sylvester " also is a treasure, for the copy which I formerly possessed is one of the many volumes which have been stolen, while my poor library and I were so many years kept asunder. At last, God be praised, we are gathered together, and earnestly is it my wish that neither they nor I may be removed from our present resting-place, till I take up my last lodgings in Crosthwaite churchyard."  (Letter 1450)

Southey to Mary Barker, June 22, 1808

"More books. Neville White has sent me Sir Wm Jones’s works in some of the best binding I have ever seen. They are the handsomest volumes in my whole library, & thirteen of them. I have told him that if he were rich enough to give me books by the cart load I should gladly accept them, – but that it gives some little pain, as well as pleasure, – to receive so costly a present from one who can have so little to spare. So it is that there always seems the greatest disposition to be generous when there are the least means: it is an old observation that street beggars receive more alms from servant-maids than from any other class. You will admire these books very much, – they are in excellent taste; – & it is not Neville’s fault that the inside is not as perfect as the out. He followed public opinion in supposing Sir Wm Jones a very great man: – I look upon him as one of the show[MS obscured] of fashion. However, there is something there which I wanted & the magnifico bookcase is greatly increased in ricosity." (Letter 1471).

The Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part III, ed. Tim Fulford and Carol Bolton, Romantic Circles https://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/southey_letters