Volume 3, Number 12 · January 28, 1965
The Greatness of Wordsworth
By Christopher Ricks
Wordsworth's Poetry, 1787-1814
by Geoffrey H. Hartman
Yale, 418 pp., $8.50
Among the things which Coleridge 'lamented' about Wordsworth's poetry was that 'his genius was not a spirit that descended to him through the air; it sprang out of the ground like a flower.' Geoffrey Hartman might have taken this remark as an epigraph for his fine book. His argument is that it is just exactly here that Wordsworth's true genius lay: in his ability to respect the earth and the air, to hold nature and imagination in balance, indeed in magnanimous reciprocity. If Wordsworth's poetry reaches great heights, it is as an arch does, by stresses that meet and support each other in loving opposition. Coleridge was wrong to deplore in Wordsworth 'a something corporeal, a matter-of-fact-ness, a clinging to the palpable.' Not that such matter-of-fact-ness is in itself enough. It may, as Wordsworth said, make the mind 'a mere pensioner on outward forms.' The travelers who see Mont Blanc grieve:
Review, 1763 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |