The Lyric Impulse of Poems, in Two Volumes

Leadbetter, Gregory (2015) The Lyric Impulse of Poems, in Two Volumes. In: The Oxford Handbook of William Wordsworth. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 221-236. ISBN 9780199662128

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Abstract

This chapter explores the lyricism of Wordsworth’s 1807 collection, and considers how the lyric principle might ‘console the afflicted’, and ‘add sunshine to daylight’. Poems in Two Volumes extends Wordsworth’s sense of the poet as ‘Teacher’, presenting ‘new compositions of feeling’ and ‘widening the sphere of human sensibility’. Coleridge had already expressed concern that Wordsworth was squandering his greater calling on ‘minor’ pieces. But by analogy with the agricultural principle of rotation, those shorter poems provided the necessary variation to prevent the soil in which the great work might grow from becoming exhausted. At the same time his shorter pieces were nourished by a shared apparatus of purpose. What is at stake is the embodiment of the ‘principle of joy’ at the root of human hope itself, constituting a faith not dependent on religious doctrine, but summoned by perpetually renewed acts of seeing, thinking, and feeling.

Item Type: Book Section
Identification Number: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199662128.013.0015
Dates:
Date
Event
1 November 2015
Published Online
Uncontrolled Keywords: Wordsworth, poetry, lyric, play, grace, feeling, Coleridge
Subjects: CAH19 - language and area studies > CAH19-01 - English studies > CAH19-01-01 - English studies (non-specific)
Divisions: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > College of English and Media
Depositing User: Selina Schmidt
Date Deposited: 01 Oct 2020 15:19
Last Modified: 11 Jun 2024 12:08
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/9977

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