Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-10T06:22:42.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Double Economics: Ambivalence in Wordsworth's Pastoral

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Mark Jones
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Literary historians have celebrated Wordsworth's pastoral poems for their realism; more recently, new-historicist critics have criticized them for idealization. Reading the poems as ironic, even as parodie in Bakhtin's sense, explains what makes such opposite assessments both plausible and insufficient. My chief example is “Michael.” Formal symmetries in “Michael” suggest a mythic dimension, but they are subtly breached so that the poem cannot be read definitively as idealization. Conversely, while the poem's emphasis on labor suggests reality, its subtle exaggerations also discredit the use of labor as a mere device of realism. Wordsworth invites readers to consider pastoral's primary symbols, sheep, in two symbologies simultaneously: spiritual and material. Such cross-valuation, which recovers an ambivalence crucial to both biblical and classical pastoral, neither mimics nor distorts reality but rather foregrounds the way reality is constructed from symbols. Considering Wordsworth's pastoral as a version of Bakhtinian parody further illuminates the anti-interpretive functions of both modes.

Type
Cluster on the Poetic: From Euripides to Rich
Information
PMLA , Volume 108 , Issue 5 , October 1993 , pp. 1098 - 1113
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th ed. New York: Harcourt, 1993.Google Scholar
Alpers, Paul. “What Is Pastoral?” Critical Inquiry 8 (1982): 437–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aquinas, Thomas. “The Nature and Domain of Sacred Doctrine.” Summa Theologica. Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas. Ed. Pegis, Anton C. New York: Modern Library, 1948. 3–19.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Holquist, Michael. Trans. Emerson, Caryl and Holquist, . Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. Ed. and trans. Emerson, Caryl. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barthes, Roland. “The Reality Effect.” 1968. The Rustle of Language. Trans. Howard, Richard. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989. 141–14.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. Writing Degree Zero and Elements of Semiology. Trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. London: Cape, 1967.Google Scholar
Bercovitch, Sacvan. “Lucy and Light: An Interpretation of Wordsworth's Lucy Poems.” English 16 (1966): 11–12.Google Scholar
Bewell, Alan. Wordsworth and the Enlightenment: Nature, Man, and Society in the Experimental Poetry. New Haven: Yale UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Bialostosky, Don H. Making Tales: The Poetics of Wordsworth's Narrative Experiments. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984.Google Scholar
Bialostosky, Don H. Wordsworth, Dialogics, and the Practice of Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Blair, Hugh. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. 2nd ed. 3 vols. London, 1785. New York: Garland, 1970.Google Scholar
Blake, William. “The Tyger.” The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. Erdman, David V. Rev. ed. New York: Anchor, 1988. 24–25.Google Scholar
Bové, Paul. Intellectuals in Power: A Genealogy of Critical Humanism. New York: Columbia UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Bromwich, David. A Choice of Inheritance: Self and Community from Edmund Burke to Robert Frost. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. 1847. Ed. Margaret Smith. New York: Oxford UP, 1975.Google Scholar
Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1790. Ed. Conor Cruise O'Brien. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1969.Google Scholar
Bushnell, John P. “‘Where Is the Lamb for a Burnt Offering?‘: Michael's Covenant and Sacrifice.” Wordsworth Circle 12 (1981): 246–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandler, James K. Wordsworth's Second Nature: A Study of the Poetry and Politics. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria; or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions. 1817. Ed. James Engell and W. Jackson Bate. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Congleton, J. E. “Pastoral.” The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Enl. ed. Ed. Alex Preminger et al. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1974. 603–60.Google Scholar
Curran, Stuart. “The Pastoral.” Poetic Form and British Romanticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1986. 85–127.Google Scholar
Douglas, Wallace. “Wordsworth as Business Man.” PMLA 63 (1948): 625–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Empson, William. Some Versions of Pastoral. 1935. New York: New Directions, 1960.Google Scholar
Ferry, David. The Limits of Mortality: An Essay on Wordsworth's Major Poems. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1959.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael H. The Making of a Tory Humanist: William Wordsworth and the Idea of Community. New York: Columbia UP, 1979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galperin, William H. Revision and Authority in Wordsworth: The Interpretation of a Career. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, Alan. The Theory of Proper Names: A Controversial Essay. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1954.Google Scholar
Glen, Heather. Vision and Disenchantment: Blake's Songs and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads. London: Cambridge UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Godwin, William. Enquiry concerning Political Justice. 1793. Ed. K. Codell Carter. Oxford: Clarendon–Oxford UP, 1971.Google Scholar
Graver, Bruce E. “Wordsworth's Geòrgie Beginnings.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 33 (1991): 137–13.Google Scholar
Gravil, Richard. “Lyrical Ballads (1798): Wordsworth as Ironist.” Critical Quarterly 24.4 (1982): 39–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosart, Alexander, ed. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. 3 vols. London: Moxon, 1876.Google Scholar
Hartman, Geoffrey. Beyond Formalism: Literary Essays, 1958–1970. New Haven: Yale UP, 1970.Google Scholar
Hartman, Geoffrey. Wordsworth's Poetry, 1787–1814. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale UP, 1971.Google Scholar
Heinzelman, Kurt. The Economics of the Imagination. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1980.Google Scholar
Heinzelman, Kurt. “Roman Georgie in the Georgian Age: A Theory of Romantic Genre.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 33 (1991): 182–214.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. “On Realism in Art.” 1921. Language in Literature. By Jakobson. Ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy. Cambridge: Belknap–Harvard UP, 1987. 19–27.Google Scholar
Johnson, Barbara. A World of Difference. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. Lives of the Poets. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1978.Google Scholar
Jones, Mark. “Interpretation in Wordsworth and the Provocation Theory of Romantic Literature.” Studies in Romanticism 30 (1991): 565–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kermode, Frank, ed. English Pastoral Poetry from the Beginnings to Marvell. London: Harrap, 1952.Google Scholar
Kroeber, Karl. “Constable: Millais/Wordsworth: Tennyson.” Articulate Images: The Sister Arts from Hogarth to Tennyson. Ed. Wendorf, Richard. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983. 216–21.Google Scholar
Levinson, Marjorie. “Spiritual Economics: A Reading of ‘Michael.‘” Wordsworth's Great Period Poems: Four Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. 58–79.Google Scholar
Lyne, R. O. A. M. “Introduction.” Virgil: The Eclogues, The Georgics. Trans. C. Day Lewis. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983. xiii–xxxii.Google Scholar
Manning, Peter J. “‘Michael,‘ Luke, and Wordsworth.” 1977. Reading Romantics: Texts and Contexts. New York: Oxford UP, 1990. 35–52.Google Scholar
Marinelli, Peter. Pastoral. London: Methuen, 1971.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Frederick. The Communist Manifesto. 1848. Trans. Samuel Moore, 1888. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1967.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Frederick. The German Ideology, Part One, with Selections from Parts Two and Three, Together with Marx's 'Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy. “ Ed. Arthur, C. J. New York: Intl., 1970.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. The Romantic Ideology. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.Google Scholar
Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth, a Biography. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1957–65.Google Scholar
Morson, Gary Saul. “Parody, History, and Metaparody.” Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges. Ed. Morson and Emerson, Caryl. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1989. 63–86.Google Scholar
Paine, Thomas. Rights of Man. 1791–92. Ed. Henry Collins. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1971.Google Scholar
Parker, Reeve. “Finishing Off ‘Michael’: Poetic and Critical Enclosures.” Diacritics 17.4 (1987): 53–64.Google Scholar
Parrish, Stephen. “‘Michael’ and the Pastoral Ballad.” Bicentenary Wordsworth Studies in Memory of John Alban Finch. Ed. Wordsworth, Jonathan and Darlington, Beth. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1970. 50–75.Google Scholar
Patterson, Annabel. Pastoral and Ideology: Virgil to Valéry. Berkeley: U of California P, 1987.Google Scholar
Pepper, W. Thomas. “The Ideology of Wordsworth's ‘Michael: A Pastoral Poem.‘” Criticism 31 (1989): 367–36.Google Scholar
Pope, Alexander. “A Discourse on Pastoral Poetry.” 1709. The Poems of Alexander Pope. Ed. Butt, John. New Haven: Yale UP, 1963. 119–11.Google Scholar
Rajan, Tilottama. Dark Interpreter: The Discourse of Romanticism. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980.Google Scholar
Rajan, Tilottama. The Supplement of Reading: Figures of Understanding in Romantic Theory and Practice. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Mark. Wordsworth: The Chronology of the Early Years, 1770–1799. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Mark. Wordsworth: The Chronology of the Middle Years, 1800–1815. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruoff, Gene W. “1800 and the Future of the Novel: William Wordsworth, Maria Edgeworth, and the Vagaries of Literary History.” The Age of William Wordsworth: Critical Essays on the Romantic Tradition. Ed. Johnston, Kenneth R. and Ruoff, . New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1987. 291–314.Google Scholar
Simpson, David. Irony and Authority in Romantic Poetry. London: Macmillan, 1979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, David. Wordsworth and the Figurings of the Real. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Speirs, John. Poetry towards Novel. London: Faber, 1971.Google Scholar
Squires, Michael. The Pastoral Novel: Studies in George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and D. H. Lawrence. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1976.Google Scholar
Thomas, Keith. Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800. 1983. New York: Viking-Penguin, 1984.Google Scholar
Vološinov, V. N. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. 1929. Trans. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Watt, Ian. The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. Berkeley: U of California P, 1957.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Men. 1790. Delmar: Scholars' Facsimiles, 1960.Google Scholar
Woodring, Carl. Nature into Art: Cultural Transformations in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodring, Carl. Wordsworth. Boston: Houghton, 1965.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, Jonathan. “A Note on the Ballad Version of ‘Michael.‘” Ariel 2.2 (1971): 66–71.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. Rev. ed. Ed. Ernest de Selincourt and Helen Darbishire. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1952–59.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850. Ed. Wordsworth, Jonathan, Abrams, M. H., and Gill, Stephen. New York: Norton, 1979.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Ed. Owen, W. J. B. and Smyser, Jane Worthington. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1974.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William, and Wordsworth, Dorothy. The Early Years, 1787–1805. Ed. de Selincourt, Ernest. Rev. Shaver, Chester L. Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford UP, 1967. Vol. 1 of The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth.Google Scholar