William Wordsworth

dates

1770-1850

Amy Gates 2013 phd translating dead - memory and poetry in WW

“the memorial project and the poetic project are intricately aligned in Wordsworth’s way of thinking”

Lyrical Ballads dates - also while collab between STC and WW, in first edition all but 4 poems by WW

1798 (We are Seven and The Thorn both in here)

1800 - additional poems and preface

1802 - appendix ‘Poetic Diction’, expanded ideas set forth in preface.

1805 - 4th edition

5th stanza - comapre to grave, this idea iis repeated in next stanza and in stanza 9

“is like an infant’s grave in size/ as like as like can be:”

What is Martha Ray’s refrain - WW repeats this at end - last word given to Martha’s misery.

“Oh misery! Oh misery!/ Oh woe is me! oh misery!”

Speaker not knowing much

“More know I not, I wish I did … For what became of this poor child/ No mortal ever knew;”

where are the traces of the baby in the natural world

moss - “spotted red/ With drops of that poor infant’s blood”

pond - “The shadow of a babe you trace/ A baby and a baby’s face”

How does The Thorn contrast typical graveyard poetry

the speaker of the poem is not Wordsworth - narrated by a figure wOrdsworth calls in his advertisment to the 1798 Lyrical Ballads a “loquacious narrator” or ‘a captain of a small trading vessel … prone to superstition’ (addendum in 1800 note to poem)

not a dialogue but a dramatic monologue in sight of what might be a grave. The actual grieving figure the mother - left unvoiced.

How does Scott Hess 2012 read The Thorn

a failure of epitaphic reading bc epitaphic site illegible and cannot generate sustained sympathetic or imaginative activity

Mark Sandy 2013 - narrative inviting reader to revisit the mound or thorn for themselves

“has the effect of erasing any definite sense of a site or monument for grief.”

What is the opening question of We Are Seven - actually asking readers to negotiate between diff positions about how to conceptualise the dead.

“sisters and brothers, little maid,/ How many can you be?”

What is the girls answer to this question - sense of liminality to churchyard cottage

“Two of us in the churchyard lie, … And in the churchyard cottage I,/ dwell near them with my mother”

How does Wordsworth distinguish the buried siblings from those who are away or traveling

names them - Jane and John

faintly drawn geographically distant siblings not even gendered - “and two of us at Conway dwell,/ And two are gone to sea”

What does the man insist in response to the girls sentimental recall of Jane and John - Jane moaning in pain as she dies, John playing round Janes grave w her

That they are 5 not 7 - sees death as disappearance, absence

“But they are dead; those two are dead!/ Their spirits are in heaven!”

How does the girl demonstrate that she feels like she still lives with her dead siblings

“I sit and sing to them.”

What does Gates 2013 say is a criticism of the intimacy of the girl’s memories of her siblings

“they do not allow for memorialisation”

WHat is the significance of the metre of We Are Seven

Ballad metre accentuates dominance of 7 – alternating 4 and 3 beat lines = 7 beat paired lines.
Girl gets last word – ‘Nay, we are seven!’ = formal shifts of exclamations and extra last line suggest and enact provisional alternative to breakdown of understanding. Girls will causes expansion of poem. Begins with 5 foot line pair and ends with 5 line stanza – destabilises pattern of ballad metre. Seven subject to erosion – encroachment of 5 = inevitable failure of girl’s poetic perspective.

Essay upon epitaphs date

1810

What are key points established in WOrdsworth’s Essay Upon Epitaphs

describing how dead might be a utility to the living - emphasises memorials as ‘translatable imaginative recreations of the dead’ (Gates 2013), warns against power of language as “counter-spirit” , suggests monument should be born from solemnity and reflection, not passion

How does Wordsworth describe the Grave in The Excursion - grave as inducing resignation

“a grave is a tranquilising object’